A Chant For Wisdom

Je n'ai pas pu résister à une petite chicane pour un vendredi. I couldn't resist a little Friday shenanigan. Spells like this become little works of art.

There is a class of spells that requires little more than a mirror and your own gaze in it. Most of them are simple, and almost all of them have to do with the mind or the memory. This spell is one of that class. It will put the Witch in touch with helpful spirits who will advise her what to do in a situation that is troubling her.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

To Compel Someone To Confess a Lie

You've probably noticed: there's an exponential number of f*cking liars around these days. People who simply cannot accept reality, and so they cobble together some kind of delusive experience for themselves. This ranges from minor breaks with reality (thinking that you are visiting an island in the Metaverse) to major sociopathy that affects a lot of people (most politics, probably a lot of social media). Witches, of course, cannot afford this luxury. We are benders of reality and, to in order bend reality, we must name the boundaries of that reality properly. We cannot pretend a broken bone is a wart and then treat it as a wart, hoping to mend the bone. Bone-knitting requires a different kind of magic than wart-charming. An extreme and simplistic example, I grant you, but the same wind blows at lesser velocities everywhere.

I advise you to make as few concessions to falsehood as you can manage, because every single one of them will chip away at your power to work magic and to serve others. In the worst cases, you can follow the counsel of Baltasar Gracian: "speak with the many, but feel with the few." But even that is a half-concession that will weaken your will and your word.

Let people have their delusions if they do not affect you. If they bother you, you can make a choice to be amused by them. Or you can avoid such people entirely. But if someone speaks a falsehood that strikes at your life or livelihood or those of your children, set the Great Balance aright, and make that liar disgorge.

This is a kind of justice spell, you should know. And if you are going to use it, you must come to it with "clean hands," as we say. That is, you must not be guilty of lying, yourself. Or, if you are, you will have to confess your own lies before working the spell. In other words, do not cast this type of spell on another person unless you are also willing to cast it on yourself at the same time. My own High Priestess instructed me in this principle when I was a Witch of 19 years old. I listened. You should, too.

But, if you are an honest type and get attacked by someone's lie, this spell will make him sing soon enough.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester