An Oathbound Secret about the Ancient Craft of the Wise

Goodness, that title should get me a lot of hits for this one! Today I'm letting out a secret of the craft because

1. It's not ancient

2. It's not oathbound

3. It's blindingly obvious to anyone with eyes to see

and

4. Anyone who tells you otherwise is deluded.

So here's the secret: the word witch is a word which has almost always had negative connotations and instilled fear, because the witch is an agent of what needs to happen in a particular time and place. Witches always are born from the real needs of their time and so this may mean a healing, an inspiration, a little slap from Fate, whatever is necessary to either bring back balance, correct something or move things on. This is why we're so horrifying - many people go through life trying to get away with stuff and we are the living witness that what you are avoiding will come back to you. People also don't like seeing themselves, and mirrors are associated with witches just as much as cats and cauldrons.

I have been reminded of this this week because I reported my last boss to our registration body for lying. I thought her frank incompetence would become apparent the instant she opened her mouth.

I am still waiting to hear what they will do but in the meantime I am delighted to announce that she is moving to a certain area of the city. I am sorry to hear that because being struck off would be mild in comparison to what she has inflicted on herself. Suffice to say it is an area that you move from not to, and getting to work will be an absolute bugger. 🤣 She was talking about extending the perfectly nice house she's lived in hitherto and I am guessing she has money problems. The reflection she's getting is not to overstretch herself - and I'm sure it's completely unwelcome!

Agony Hound: My health anxiety has convinced me I have lung cancer

This one is a Dear Deirdre that was just begging to have the Hound involved. The original query goes:

DEAR DEIDRE: I GOOGLED my symptoms and now I’m convinced I’ve got lung cancer.

I’m a 38-year-old man and worry constantly about my health – and my wife’s.

Recently, I’ve been having chest and back pain and a fuzzy feeling in my head.

I know this could just be anxiety or stress. But what if it’s more serious?

I don’t smoke, but non-smokers can get lung cancer, too.

When I’m busy at work, the symptoms go away.

As soon as things are quiet and I have time to think, they start up again.

It’s impossible to get an appointment at my doctor’s surgery. I feel sick with worry.

And Deirdre's answer is:

DEIDRE SAYS: Although it is tempting to use Dr Google, internet research can raise unfounded health concerns so is best avoided.

Do keep trying to get a doctor’s appointment, for your peace of mind.

In the meantime, my support packs on nervous stress and panic attacks should give you guidance.

You may also find it helpful to contact Anxiety UK (anxietyuk.org.uk, 03444 775774) who can offer support and advice.

My own answer is:
Anxiety is in my opinion the worst mental health condition and has a significant impact on people's quality of life. It doesn't help that because it is also the most common, health professionals tend not to see its effect. You have told me something very important in your question which is the all-important fact that you know you have health anxiety and you know it makes you worry unnecessarily. At the same time you are also naturally concerned that you may actually have a serious illness and don't want to neglect it if you have.
This means there are actually two sides to you getting on top of this: getting on top of the anxiety and making sure you don't have a major illness.
The main evidence-based therapy for anxiety is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and if you have not already had it most NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services take self referrals. You can search your local one to find out.
If you have already had CBT and it feels as if nothing has changed, please don't despair. Many people with anxiety can need several goes of treatment. In addition to the helpline there are many self-help resources to use as well. If you want a book, Self Help for your Nerves is a good one. I have known many people feel like it was hopeless until things just clicked. You may also find mindfulness and relaxation techniques useful.
You also said that it isn't such a problem when you're busy and some people find it's helpful to keep their mind occupied. I would also suggest being nice to yourself and giving yourself treats, because, well, just because!
To know when to worry about your physical health Deirdre is right that Dr Google isn't that useful but you may find the NHS website is helpful because it tells you when to ask for professional help. For example under lung cancer it says to seek help if you have: 

• a persistent cough

• coughing up blood

• persistent breathlessness

• unexplained tiredness and weight loss

• an ache or pain when breathing or coughing

Source
If you have those then I would strongly advise getting a GP appointment. There are other ways of knowing. You will know which of your family and friends give you objective and helpful feedback. If all else fails you can give 111 a ring.
You may also be aware of the physical symptoms of anxiety, some of which themselves cause concern about illnesses like heart disease. You can find them here and even though the usual rule in mental health is to sort out someone's physical health first, these symptoms mean sometimes the physical symptoms only go when the anxiety reduces. It will never completely go, and it is important to recognise that literally everyone experiences some level of anxiety, even if they don't show it.
Of you want something magical to do, there are a few good things.
There is the South American tradition of worry dolls - you give a worry to each of the dolls and make them do the worrying. 
It may be useful to do an inventory of what you are actually thinking about the anxiety. For example if you try the worry doll thing and realise that you are thinking 'this is never going to work' then that thought is the next thing to work on. Using CBT techniques ahem! If you find yourself realising you have some thought that you hadn't noticed before, congratulations, your inner world has already changed, the essence of real magic.
 To get rid of the anxiety I would suggest a candle spell. If you feel the candle and imagine your anxiety going into the candle, then in your mind imagine or see the anxiety reducing as you burn it. Don't be disappointed if it isn't solved after one candle - it sounds like you've had this for a long time.
I would hope that all of the things here help you to feel you have a handle on the anxiety rather than it running you, which is what it sounds like in your letter! Blessings from the Hound.

Tarot Tradition

My dear, you have the Hound!

There is a convention that the tarot represents all things. That's quite something, and is connected to the identification of the tarot with the kabbalistic tree of life, itself a magical map of everything. The idea would therefore be that if you are stranded on a desert island with only a tarot deck, it could teach you everything. I don't have a reference to hand for this idea but it isn't original to me.

I have been thinking about the full implications of that desert island image. I was sceptical about it because I thought you would have to have other resources to connect stuff in the tarot to. However as we know, in magic things are not always what they seem, and objects' existence on different planes would mean that they are different things in different levels of existence. Such as a deck of cards being a magical portal to everything.

I have been thinking about this because of the way, when you work with a tarot deck for any length of time, you get a relationship with it and it starts talking to you. It gives you ideas for readings, reveals connections and conflict between different cards, and generally becomes a magical entity.

Because of this I have also been thinking about the traditions connected with tarot.

I do like the tradition of being given your first deck (although I think it is mostly put about by the owners of magical supply stores). In reality this can mean connecting to somebody else's magical current. Absolutely nothing wrong with that - it's how we know you are never alone as a witch. 

The other tradition is that of sleeping with the deck under your pillow. I would actually extend that to handling it frequently, just playing with the cards and letting them talk to you. 

I think there is a reality that like all magical tools, they find the witch rather than the other way round. It may also be that they arrive when the witch is ready. I bought my first deck (the ancient tarot of Lombardy) purely because I felt drawn to it, but at the time I couldn't read with it. I can now, and suspect I wasn't ready for it then. This is the same as when people look forward to getting a particular deck but don't click with it in any way.

I don't really have any other traditions that I've been thinking about. Incidentally I love the thing where people have gone through the Harry Potter books replacing the word wand with the word willy with hilarious results. I always thought it was the willy that found the wizard, but am horrified that Ron's willy is broken and fascinated that Harry's willy is the twin of Voldemort's willy. 😳

Ooh - I haven't forgotten that it's masturbation month, so have a picture of the gorgeous Mercury twins as I don't feel like doing a whole post about it!

Pillars and gods and the Fool

To my knowledge there has never been a monastic movement in ancient paganism. The closest, which has sometimes been suggested as a source for the early Christian monastics who lived on top of pillars, is the once a year occasion when men would climb up inside 'pillars' to commune with the Goddess. This is not the actual inspiration, since the actual text of Lucan's De Dea Syria makes it plain they were climbing up inside great big penises (Source chapters 27ff).

That of course is the kind of old time religion we can all be enthusiastic about. Of course they didn't inspire these pillar saints, called stylites, since they were way too fleshly. St Simeon Stylites, who illustrates this post, has always been a favourite of mine, and in true pagan style, I have always wondered how they urinated and defecated, and can't decide whether they would have done it off the edge, or used a pot which would have been collected when their food was hauled up on a pulley.

I think there are however hints of a monastic tradition in modern paganism. I read recently on another blog about a woman who aimed to practice minimalism and was expecting it to give her a great sense of freedom (I won't link this because I really am playing very fast with this source). Unfortunately when she got down to the number of possessions she was aiming for all she felt was a sense of loss and emptiness. She rather got slapped by some minimalism guru who told her she obviously wasn't ready to do it. The person whose blog I was reading criticised the guru in turn and reflected that major changes require adjustment. She felt that the freedom given by minimalism means that a person is very difficult to categorise using the standards of consumer society so would feel a freedom from pressure.

Now I don't believe in minimalism because only the incredibly rich can afford to do it. But the freedom from labels and pressures did strike a chord and I think this is the connection with modern paganism. The fool in the taroT is identified with what there is before something even manifests as intention in the magician. Of course we know the oldest neo-Pagan tradition is stealing anything which isn't nailed down and we stole this from 18th century cartomancers, who stole it from the Jewish Kabbalah. As we  know much of the point of magic is the connection between all things and this includes the no-thing before some-thing.

However there is a connection with ancient paganism and it is to the genuinely ancient belief of holey stones representing divinity. Yes there are also situations where a whole stone represents divinity but in the ditsituat where the hole is the essential thing, it is the nothing which represents the god/dess.

Even without extraordinary feats like living on a pillar I think a pursuit of the no-thing which precedes things reflects the Christian and other pursuit of aloneness but with a genuinely pagan feel.

Urban Grimoire: Fordite

Some people will tell you that you can't use anything synthetic in magic. They are, of course, quite wrong, and if you want to assign an element to plastics, you may as well make it earth because of the plants and what have you which ended up being oil, which was made into plastic. Not a broad range obviously, not like the correspondence you can find for the various minerals used for magical purposes. However of course there are difficulties of mining and appropriation with natural ones, so today I was delighted to discover there is a synthetic mineral called Fordite or Detroit Agate. Since Birmingham has been described as the Detroit of Britain, I feel an instant bond with it. 

 The beautiful “rocks” are actually chunks of old, over sprayed automobile paint that were hardened over time by the large ovens formerly used to cure freshly painted cars.

Although Fordite been referred to anthropogenic mineral because it is originated by human activity, minerals by definition are naturally occurring. Whatever your scientific definition, these are still really cool.

Employees at the plants noticed the strange beauty of the paint and took to cutting and polishing it until it reached the magnificent sheen as pictured. Source which is also the source for the picture.

The function magically of Fordite is obvious - it helps movement and speed, can cause fascination and envy. If only it wasn't so expensive!

I do have a piece of Central Library, which is the source of all knowledge....and incidentally orgasms for architects!

Agony Hound: My Mother in Law Refuses to Speak to me and my Husband Won't Help

 For some time I have pondered doing posts based on letters written to agony aunts and this is the first. I will be giving witchy answers creating hatred and breaking up families using all the subtlety at my disposal. Stop laughing.

The first is a letter from a wife at her wit's end:

“Although I’ve been married for 15 years, my mother-in-law still hasn’t accepted me. I think I could cope better if she was rude or argumentative, but she simply ignores me completely. It’s literally like I’m not there and she can’t see me!

“I get no support from my husband, who doesn’t seem to see it and sticks up for her every time. I know she’s getting older and that I should have learnt to cope with it by now, but it’s getting me crosser and crosser.

“So much so that I feel like refusing to visit her, and refusing to let the children see her either. Am I being petty?”

The source for this question is here and the non-witchy answer from their counsellor Fiona is:

“I don’t think you’re being petty by considering refusing to see her yourself, but I think it would be a mistake to involve your children. Aside from the fact that they wouldn’t understand, and that it would cause even further resentment, they really shouldn’t be used as pawns in this game. The one person who I think you should be taking more of an issue with is your husband.

“The next time you visit, ask her open-ended questions, in front of him, to see if she responds – make it hard, if not impossible, for her to ignore you. He should be on your side, and so if he cannot or will not stand up to his mother, you have every justification at being angry with him too.

“Make sure he sees just how upset you are and point out that he is putting his mother’s feelings before yours. I can see why he wouldn’t want to cause a family rift, but that doesn’t mean he can’t give you more support and speak up for you when his mother is being rude.

“He needs to know just how angry you are, and if he doesn’t want you to finally blow your top, he must find a way of getting his mother to accept that you are now part of the family.”

The Hound says:

You must be a saint to have been putting up with this nonsense for fifteen years of marriage and obviously your husband has found himself a real gem in you for staying with him despite this.

But why the hell are you putting up with this? Your husband is married to you and so his first duty must be to you and your children. I note that he has denied being able to see you being blanked which is I think a betrayal in itself.

If you really want to stay with him you can of course try the things suggested above, and Relate can offer counselling to try to open up this situation between you, and it would be with a neutral professional.

If you want to sweeten your mother in law, write her name on a piece of paper or get hold of a hair or nail clipping and put it in a jar of honey.

What bothers me, though, is that being sidelined and having your concerns not validated by your husband can have a longer term effect of eating away at your confidence and while you have put up with this and put him first, he is not putting you first.

My own opinion would be to get rid of this mummy's boy and take him for every penny hes got to teach him to pay attention to his wife.

If you want the Hound to sow confusion in your personal life you can contact me on the contact form below.

Putting Things in the Right Place

 

It is a commonplace among the fluffy bunnies and the white light crowd that you can't possibly engage in baneful magic because that disturbs the balance of the universe. I am probably caricaturing them rather but I understand this to be a misunderstanding of the idea of balance often found in martial arts. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido put it as

合気道は天地人和合の道と理なり。
“Aikido is the Way and Principle of harmonizing Heaven, Earth and Man.”

 Source where you can read more of these ideas.

We also know that in magic thoughts are things and that things impact on each other in rather unexpected ways. What if the reality is that much of the energetic stuff we come across on a daily basis is in fact because of an imbalance? For example, if a work colleague is jealous of you, even if they don't say anything that would significantly impact on you. 

My suggestion would be that diagnosing and correcting these imbalances would be a major part of the witch's role. We are also of course priests and priestesses and so we have a role in divine correction of the universe's imbalances.

I suspect the fear of baneful magic, apart from being a doomed public relations exercise, comes from a worry about getting things wrong. That's easily dealt with - if you send something back where it comes from you'll see the correct source. If we don't put things in what I am calling the 'right' place it means someone whose business it isn't, carrying this weight, which is itself an imbalance.

Of course usually sending these things back doesn't involve drama. The event which prompted this post was that I bought an item of clothing from EBay (I do wear clothes sometimes). It took forever to arrive and was not as described when it came and I left feedback accordingly. The next day I got this message from the seller:

Mate.... 

Honestly be a human. The hoodie was fine mate. If your not happy send me a message rather than negative feedback and I’ll refund you rather than you paying for a broken hoodie? 

Let us know pal

Do I strike you as someone who might be his pal?! The simple fact is if you do what he did you expect the feedback he got - I suspect when a seller gets negative feedback eBay sends them a message saying (in Gordon Ramsay's voice), 'What the fuck do you think you're doing, you've upset the Hound'. And hesh now trying to get out of the consequences of his actions, so I know the energetic thing has gone back where it belongs. Going to the post office and sending back for a refund just feels too much like having the piss taken out of me by someone who can't be arsed.

Now you may say he won't learn his lesson and will just set up a new vendor account to start with no bad reviews, and of course he may do that. But I would put money on the same thing happening again if he does...

Ueshiba again:

「合気というものは、初め円を描く。円を描くこと、つまり対象力。相手に指一本ふれないでも相手は跳んでしまう。この一つのものをつくりあげるにも十年ぐらいはかかる。これからは大飛躍をしよう。」

“In this thing called Aiki, first describe (draw) a circle. Drawing a circle is, in other words, opposing powers. Without touching with even one finger your opponent will be sent flying. Just to be able to do this one thing takes about 10 years. Let’s try to advance quickly.”