why did they do paternity tests on his children lmaooo

Lol..hes got his noodle wet twice then.

Just kidding Ben Shapiro is actually a smart dude. I know that's not the popular opinion here but ..dont care

autumn studying moodboard 

Talk to your house

Your house is a sentient being with it’s own spirit and soul. Some people identify this spirit as their household deities or friendly house spirits. But some people have altogether forgotten how important the spirit of their house is. Talk to your house. Houses that have been ignored tend to be dull, tired and susceptible to hauntings and negative energies.  So talk to your house, listen to its aches and pains, say hello. Tell it that you come in peace, tell it that you are there to listen to it speak. Be grateful to your house. And watch the energies of your home transform themselves into joy. 

no one:

witches:

When NOT to Trust Your Intuition

“Trust your intuition” is a phrase we commonly see thrown around in witchy spaces, and in many cases it’s good advice. Part of practicing witchcraft (especially if your craft has a focus on divination or psychic abilities) is learning to trust in your intuitive promptings. In a lot of cases, going with your gut feeling is the right call. But not always.

Our intuition can be wrong, or can give us an incomplete picture of a situation. It can also sometimes be difficult to tell the difference between intuition and subconscious programming. The human brain is designed to find patterns. Because of this, it can sometimes be hard to tell if we are genuinely receiving a psychic prompting or just connecting dots that are actually unrelated.

There are a few common thought patterns that often get mistaken for intuitive messages by new and experienced witches alike. It’s a good idea to read up on these and to keep them in mind when determining the validity of intuitive messages.

Cognitive Distortions

According to Rebecca Joy Stanborough, MFA, writing for Healthline, cognitive distortions are “thought patterns that cause people to view reality in inaccurate — usually negative — ways. In short, they’re habitual errors in thinking.”

Like a computer error, cognitive distortions cause us to misinterpret information and draw incorrect conclusions. Cognitive distortions are common symptoms of mental illnesses [see below], but all of us experience them at some point, even if we’re 100% neurotypical. Research suggests that cognitive distortions may have evolved as a survival mechanism, and that they’re usually tied to trauma or negative experiences.

This is way too big of a topic to cover in a single post, but here are a few common cognitive distortions to look out for:

I strongly encourage all witches to do research into cognitive distortions and learn to recognize them, especially if the nature of your magical practice has you leaning heavily on your intuition. A cognitive distortion is not an intuitive message — your intuition should be logical, and can often be fact-checked.

Prejudice

The prejudice I’m talking about here isn’t just the obvious kind, like blatant racism or homophobia. We all have prejudices, whether we realize it or not. Merriam-Webster defines prejudice as a “preconceived judgment or opinion” or “an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge.” Prejudice simply means thinking we know what to expect from something, even if we’ve never experienced it before.

You may have an image in your head of what “real” witchcraft looks like. You might feel like emoji spells, for example, aren’t “real magic” because they seem silly, they don’t take a lot of time and effort, there’s no historical precedent for them, etc. etc. In short, you feel like they aren’t “real magic” because they don’t fit your idea of what magic looks like. This is an example of prejudice, and buying into that prejudice prevents you from having access to an easy, fun form of techno magic.

If you find yourself receiving an “intuitive message” that someone else is faking it, is lying about their spiritual experiences, or is only imagining those experiences, take a step back and seriously examine that thought and where it might be coming from. It’s possible that the thought came not from your intuition, but instead from your own prejudices. It doesn’t matter if the way someone practices magic or experiences spirituality is different from your path — it’s the right way for them, and that’s what matters.

When you bring your prejudice into a tarot reading or other form of divination, you bring a set expectation for what the cards are going to tell you. The cards are going to pick up on that, and they may very well tell you what you want to hear — or you may twist the meaning of the cards to fit your expectations. This prevents you from getting clear, accurate readings.

I know it’s hard, but witchcraft requires us to leave our prejudice at the door. There is no “right way” to be a witch or to practice magic. There is no “right way” to communicate with the gods or the universe. Prejudice, biases, and expectations will only keep you from fully exploring your spirituality. Work on letting them go and opening up to the full spectrum of possibilities.

Stereotyping

This one goes hand-in-hand with prejudice and is closely related to overgeneralization (a cognitive distortion). Stereotyping is a necessary coping mechanism that we use to simplify our social interactions — but it is also the root of serious social issues like racism and misogyny. We all use stereotypes without consciously thinking about it.

While it’s important to be aware of stereotyping in order to avoid contributing to social issues, it’s also important for witches to learn the difference between an intuitive hit and a stereotype. This is especially important for witches who use claircognizance, where information often comes in the form of “downloads” that can sometimes be difficult to tell apart from our own thoughts.

For example, you might “just know” or “have a gut feeling” that a man you know is gay. But if that man talks in a higher pitch, acts effeminately, and puts a lot of time and effort into his appearance, then your gut feeling may have less to do with intuition and more to do with applying stereotypes to your friend.

Mental Illness

Many common mental illnesses, like depression and anxiety, can cause you to feel like you know that something bad is about to happen. “Anticipating disaster” or feeling like something is going to go wrong, is one of the most common symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and other anxiety disorders. Hyperfixating on details and worrying over small things are also common symptoms of these and other mental disorders.

As a witch with two anxiety disorders, I’ve had to learn to tell the difference between my intuition and my anxiety. Here’s a very recent, real life example: Last week, the entire staff at my workplace was tested for COVID-19. The results were expected to come back on my day off, and I found myself constantly watching my phone. Now, I do have some claircognizance, and when my phone goes off I usually know who the message is from before I even look at it. But on this day, every time my phone dinged I was just sure that it was my boss texting me to let me know that I’d tested positive. After the first couple of “false alarms,” I realized that this was an anxiety thing, not an intuitive thing. I was anxious about the test results, so that was the first thing my mind went to every time. (For the record, when my results did come back, they were negative.)

If you have or suspect that you have a mental illness that affects your thoughts and emotions, I highly recommend seeking out a good therapist or counselor. A trained mental health professional can help you sort out your symptoms and learn to recognize them, so you can differentiate them from genuine psychic experiences. (I’ve personally had really good results with CBT and DBT.)

Journaling has also been really helpful for me, as it helps me keep things straight and allows me to go back and read over my experiences when I’m having a better mental health day. (In my experience, it’s much easier to tell the difference between anxiety and intuition when you’re not in the moment.)

Resources:

I love this! I definitely feel like everyone should read this and take note. I still have trouble at times deciphering my intuition from my paranoia and anxiety.

— Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Working with Spirits

In my last post, I talked about different types of spirits that witches may work with. Today, we’re going to discuss how to approach spirits and establish a working relationship.

Keep in mind that these are general guidelines, and every spirit is different. I encourage you to do your own research beyond this post, especially if you plan to work with powerful entities like deities, angels, or fairies.

Remember the Four R’s

It’s important to keep these things in mind when working with spirits:

Respect. The spirits are powerful, and you need to have a healthy respect for that power when working with them. It’s also important to respect them as individual, autonomous beings.

I’m not saying that every interaction you have with the spirits needs to be a full blown ritual with incense and chanting. (In fact, some spirits don’t care for those types of rituals.) But every interaction you have with them should be conducted with an air of respect and reverence.

What this mostly boils down to is good manners. Being polite will get you better results — and it will also keep you from being on the receiving end of spirit mischief. Proper etiquette depends on the type of spirit you’re working with, which is one reason it’s important to do your research. In general, it’s polite to make an offering, use respectful language, and thank the spirits before you leave (unless you’re dealing with fairies — some traditions say you should never thank the fae).

Respecting spirits also means respecting their desires — even if that means respecting their wish not to work with you. Not every spirit you reach out to will want to form a relationship with you, just like not every person you meet in your life will want to be your friend. When a spirit turns you down, respect their decision, politely bid them farewell, and move on.

Reciprocity. The goal of spirit work is to establish a mutually-beneficial partnership — not for one partner to serve the other. On one hand, this means that you can’t just command spirits to do your bidding without giving anything in return. On the other hand, it also means that you won’t be worshiping/honoring them without receiving some kind of boon.

This is why it’s important to make offerings to the spirits you work with. These offerings “feed” the spirits by giving them power, and a good offering will likely make a spirit more willing to work with you. Offerings are not payment for favors from spirits (it’s not quite that simple), but they are a sign that you intent to practice reciprocity in your relationship.

In general, it’s important to make an offering when you first introduce yourself to a spirit and again before you ask them for anything. But you shouldn’t only make offerings when you’re about to ask for something! How would you feel if you had a friend who only did nice things for you when they were about to ask for a favor? You’d probably start avoiding them, right? You might even get angry. To avoid this kind of dynamic in your spirit work, make regular offerings to the spirits you work with. If you’re especially close with a spirit, you may want to offer to them every day.

Relationship. The spirits are not vending machines where you put offerings in and blessings fall out. They are living, sentient beings with feelings, and deserve to be treated as such. Your relationship with the spirits you choose to work with is just that: a relationship. And like any relationship, it requires time, energy, and emotional labor.

If that sounds like more effort than you want to make, there are plenty of ways to do magic without ever working with spirits. You don’t need to do spirit work to be a witch. It may not be your thing, and that’s okay!

But if you choose to work with spirits, it’s important to remember that you are working with them as an equal partner — you’re not their boss, and they are not obligated to like you, help you, or even tolerate you. Relationships with spirits are built over time, through mutual respect and trust.

You wouldn’t drive up to your friend’s house, throw a fast-food burger at them, and then demand a special favor. Likewise, you shouldn’t just dump an offering on your altar and demand something of the spirits. Take the time to sit down with them. Talk to them. Get to know them. Put some thought into your offerings, instead of just offering the same thing every time. Spirit work is, at its core, about building an authentic relationship with the spirits we choose to include in our practice. Enjoy it.

Research. When it comes to spirits, it’s important to know exactly who (and what) you’re dealing with. As previously mentioned, the etiquette for dealing with fairies is very different from other land spirits. Different deities have different standards for their worshipers, which vary from one pantheon to the next. The way you interact with your ancestors will probably be shaped by their personalities, cultures, and values. All this is to say it’s important to know who you’re reaching out to, preferably before you reach out to them.

With deities, this is easy. Most witches who choose to work with deities will feel drawn to a certain pantheon, or even a specific god or goddess. There’s a lot of information out there about most historical pantheons, so researching them is easy. The same goes for angels, saints, demons, and even fairies.

It can be a little more difficult to do your research when you’re dealing with land spirits, spirits of place, or other less well-known figures. In these cases, it’s best to take three steps: 1.) figure out what type of spirit you’re dealing with (land spirit, animal spirit, ancestor, etc.), 2.) find out what this type of spirit is like generally, and 3.) find out how that applies to your specific spirit.

For example: you want to connect with your local land spirits. You do some research to find out how land spirits have been treated in various cultures — you find out that they’re typically benevolent, are closely tied to the natural landscape, and were often given food offerings. Then, you do some research into your local plants and animals — what form might a nature spirit take in your local environment? Would it be a huge moose with snow-covered antlers, or a magnolia tree in full bloom? Is there any local folklore in your area that could be describing a land spirit? Once you have answers to these questions, you’ll have a much better idea of how to approach the spirits and start up a relationship.

Initiating a Relationship with a Spirit

Begin by identifying who this spirit is. For example, let’s say you choose to reach out to a specific ancestor spirit — maybe a deceased grandparent. Make sure you’re familiar with the etiquette for interacting with this type of spirit so you don’t accidentally do something disrespectful. (If your Grandma hated cussing, try not to drop any f-bombs while communing with her.)

Create a special space to communicate with the spirit. This can be as simple as lighting a candle or as elaborate as setting up a special altar. If you’re reaching out to a grandparent, you might set up a small ritual space with a photo of them, any of their belongings that you have access to, and some things that they enjoyed while they were alive. These items may make the connection easier, but you don’t need them to communicate. What matters is that you’ve taken the time to create a special space for this moment. (Like all ritual spaces, it should be clean and tidy, and it’s a good idea to do an energetic cleanse beforehand.)

Make an offering. Make sure your offering is appropriate for the spirit you’re connecting to. Offerings should be made with an air of reverence — don’t just toss a bag of Doritos on your altar and expect it to be well-received.

Introduce yourself. Speak out loud. State your intention and who you are hoping to connect with.

Wait and listen. You may feel a presence or receive some kind of sign — or you may not. Just because you didn’t get a sign doesn’t mean that your offering wasn’t noticed or that you’re being ignored. You may also receive a sign several hours, days, or weeks after you first reach out. Be patient.

Say your farewells. Express your gratitude for the spirit’s presence, and let them know that you are ending your little ritual. It’s up to you whether to invite them to stick around or politely tell them to leave, but if you’re going to give a spirit permission to linger in your home you better be 1000% sure you know who they are and what their intentions with you are.

Moving Forward

As you work with this spirit, it is important to establish clear boundaries for the relationship. Be clear about what you want to accomplish by working with them, and make sure you understand what they expect from you in return.

You might want to establish a time limit: for example, maybe you’re choosing to work closely with the goddess Brigid from Imbolc to Samhain, at which point you can choose to continue the relationship or to take a step back. Or, you may choose to work with a spirit on a specific task — for example, working with the goddess Aphrodite to get back on your feet and rebuild your self esteem after a breakup. Once this task is accomplished, you may choose to form a more long-term relationship or to take a step back.

Forming a permanent or long-term working relationship with a spirit is a very big, very serious commitment, and should not be taken lightly. This goes double for anything involving a ritual commitment, such as dedication to a deity. When you make these commitments, you are choosing to make a spirit and their energy a permanent part of your life. This decision requires some very serious introspection and consideration, and should not be made impulsively.

Resources:

Happy black cat appreciation day 🖤 Op: @witchwandering

i keep saying “it is what it is” but like what is it

— Sylvia Plath, The Collected Poems

Sometimes I want to have long discussions about ethics with witchblr.

I find witchblr's total rejection of casting spells without someone's permission combined with their pro-curse/curse-positive attitude to be fascinating.

If one wants to claim that casting spells without someone's permission is always wrong, then it is wrong even if that spell is a curse against someone evil.

And if it's ethical to curse someone who is evil/abusive, are there then other exceptions to the rule about spellcasting without permission? What are those exceptions? Is it only wrong if the spell targets one person? What about community workings?

I dont know. As someone who doesn't curse because I find it immoral, I find the potential "conflicts" or troublespots in this ethical conundrum to be interesting!

If anyone wants to share their views, I'd love to hear it!

Ok so I’m not against hexing but I am against throwing a hex at someone who, lets say...forgot to return a CD they borrowed from you. Even stealing...I’ve found that the universe takes care of that for the most part, but if they have stolen from you a few times or a lot then it’s different. A case by case situation. I’ve only needed to hex 3 or 4 times. The biggest and absolutely justified one was when I cursed my best friend, who’s really like my sister because we’re 30and32 and we’ve known each other and been friends since we were 5 &7, so 25 years. She’s more like my sister than any of my 3 actual blood sisters. Anyway, she walked into her daughters room who was 8 at the time to see him on the edge of her baby girls bed, jeans at his ankles. There’s more to it but I don’t wanna trigger anyone. She did EVERYTHING SHE COULDVE DONE. She called the cops; while waiting she tried to beat him to death with an aluminum baseball bat that’s also a flash light. The cops told the man that they would’ve done the same thing. I don’t know how the FUCK he didn’t get charged but they made her daughter go get questioned.. she said she didn’t remember anything because she was asleep. She either lied because she was scared or most likely repressed it because it was so traumatic. She began remembering things a year later...and when the school called my friend wanting her to put her NINE year old in a fuckin psych ward because she was having extreme anxiety and said something about killing herself (she didn’t actually mean it, unfortunately me and her mom have ALWAYS had a bad habit of saying things like “omg I am about to shoot myself” over something Particularly frustrating and we are just bein super extra when we say it. My friend said no. The school called CPS on her. So...this is what happened—this piece of shit CHILD MOLESTER IS WALKING FREE AND NOW MY BEST FRIEND HAS TO DEAL WITH CPS OVER HER NOT LETTING THE SCHOOL TAKE HER TO A PSYCH WARD AT 9?!! We truly thought she was asleep and I guess the memories had begun to resurface. So hell yeah I cursed his ass. I’ve never even met him but that doesn’t matter, I had his name and pic and my hatred that he traumatized my niece and was roaming free while they were trying to admit her in an adolescent psych ward. So yes, in extreme cases I believe hexing absolutely is justified but I also am a firm believer in exhausting all mundane methods first. And she did everything she could and she did not see that motherfucker get in any kind of trouble and zero repercussions. I asked her if she wanted me to, before I did it. I’ll never know if it worked, but my intuition says it DID indeed worked. Sorry for such a long rambling, but minor infractions aren’t worth the energy nor are they worth the toll hexing takes on my mental health. So only when it’s really warranted will I hex someone.

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End racism in spiritual and occult communities.

(created by Anna Edwards (dwardslife on Instagram))

astro basics // keywords for the astrological houses

these are only keywords and do not fully encompass the meaning of each house

What Native people say about the use of sage: you can use sage, but you cannot smudge as nothing you are doing (waving sage around) is actually smudging. Smudging is a ceremony and you are, we promise, not smudging. Please buy sage from either us, or someone who sources the sage from us. White sage may not be considered endangered by the US government but corperate sourcing is making it difficult for us to source sage for our own religious purposes. Let alone to sell it.

What white people hear: never use sage ever, don’t ever buy it, don’t own it, don’t even look at it.

Look, y’all. There’s a couple of facets to my talk today.

1) Yes! You can buy sage! You really, truly can! Buy it from either native sellers (go to a powwow! Eat our food, buy our stuff, watch some dancing!) Or buy it from a seller who sources the sage from native people. Pick one. And no, buying it from 5 Below doesn’t count.

2) you CANNOT smudge. This isn’t just you “shouldn’t”— this is a YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF SMUDGING. Waving a sage stick around your doorways IS NOT SMUDGING. It is smoke clensing. Smudging, depending on the tradition and tribe, could easily have dancing and drums involved. You, as a white person, do not have the cultural BACKGROUND to even know how it works. At all. Period.

3) please, for FUCKS SAKE, stop making posts here on tumblr where you tell other white people about cultural appropriation and what they can and cannot do. Please stop, your license has been revoked because none of you bother to get the facts right. We native people are FULLY CAPABLE OF DOING IT OURSELVES. Consider instead: a) reblogging our posts where we talk about it! We’re here! We have made posts!! b) Making a post that states what we said and then LINKS BACK TO US. Screenshot with a link if you must. Stop centering your own voices in these conversations. You are already centered in everything, stop centering yourselves in a native space.

I’m tired of this nonsense, y’all.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk ™

Witchcraft Links Master Post

Racism in Witchblr/Occultblr

This is a post that I’ve been debating on making for a few days now, but I feel that it’s important that I speak my truth regardless of what the backlash may be.

It has recently come to my attention that several popular bloggers within the community have banded together to dox me. I have screenshots proving that they have stalked my social media in order to find photos of me and my parents in order to find “proof” that I, a biracial, half-Black half-white person, is “racefaking” because I’m “too pale” to be biracial, and that my dad is “too pale” to be fully Black. The group who has done this are primarily white, and many of them have appropriated from closed practices such as hoodoo in the past. This group has also, openly, made ableist jokes on their occult blogs on several occasions and participate in harassing witches they personally dislike.

Since I called them out in the past on their appropriation, racism, and harassment of other members in the witchblr/occultblr communities, they responded by doxing me.

In the screenshots, these people have relied are racial stereotypes to try to decide just “how Black” I am; I’m surprised they didn’t break out the paper bag test with how they were discussing me and my father. I admit to being white-passing. I’m fully aware that I’m very pale, and I’m aware that it’s a huge privilege in a society where racism and colorism are so prevalent. But the fact that I’m pale doesn’t change the fact that I’m biracial, and doesn’t change the fact that I’m Black. Assuming that all Black people or all biracial people look the same or that you can classify certain features as “Black features” is literally racist and based in racial pseudoscience. It is also extremely dehumanizing to have a bunch of mostly white people examine not only your physical features, but your dad’s physical features, in order to classify them racially. Thankfully, some people in the discord chat where this occurred called out the problematic behavior, but others continued to participate and justify their behavior.

Below are the screenshots themselves, with the names edited out because I don’t want to give these popular occultblr/witchblr bloggers anymore attention than they already have. However, if you wish to see the unedited screenshots in order to see that they’re real, feel free to DM me here or on discord.

To reiterate, I am biracial. My dad is Black (not mixed; Black.) And my mom is white. I’m white-passing. My grandmother, who is Black, is also white-passing. If you assume all Black and mixed people look the same or that you can clearly identify someone’s race by looking at a couple pictures, you’re racist.

We really need to do something about the racism problem in these communities. This issue has gotten so severe that many people no longer post about hoodoo or their other cultural practices out of fear that someone will appropriate them rather than admire them at a distance. It’s gotten so bad that people have left tumblr to flee the harassment of these specific bloggers. We need to stand up when we see this kind of behavior.

As someone who is also biracial/white passing, as well as someone who was beside Prim the whole time this was happening, we as a community need to do something about this. We need to make these individuals feel out of place here.

There is no room for racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, elitism and/or xenophobia in this community and we NEED to show that. Don’t give these assholes a spotlight, don’t give them attention. Block them. Don’t give them a platform for speech. Let them scream into a void. Before you follow a blog, look at their personal posts. Even if they post good and reliable information, they also base their magic on prejudices.

Since this is sadly relevant again…

Fucking white people man. Makes me ashamed to be white, reading shit like this! I truly hope by the time by not quite 2 year old beautiful biracial half black half white ABSOLUTELY STUNNING baby girl won’t have to deal with shit like this. I’m sorry, OP, that people suck. They make the entire white race look bad but I promise we are not all like that.