Avoiding Rookie Witchling Mistakes!

Good Evening Witchlings!

As a new witchling or magickal practitioner steps upon the path, and starts working the craft, there are some mistakes commonly made which can make your beginning practice challenging.  When practicing magick in the beginning, it's understandable to be nervous and uncertain. But having a sincere heart is key, and do not spend time worrying about upsetting the Gods or Goddesses or the Watchtowers or Elementals or any such thing. You cannot upset or disrespect them unless you deliberately go out of your way to do so.

But some mistakes made can make your magickal experience less than wonderful and can in some cases be dangerous. So here are some of the mistakes that either I have made in my over 30 years of practice or coven members have made while in ritual.

• When casting a circle, many choose to burn powdered incense on charcoal briquettes. DO NOT use charcoal meant for your BBQ grill. Those charcoal briquettes are treated with petroleum solvents and are very toxic and can make you very sick if burned indoors. Always use charcoal tabs that come in a foil wrapped packet. These are sold to be burned indoors in hookas and for incense burning. This is what they look like: 

• I started attending rituals and then conducting coven rituals in the 80's. For those who remember the 80's, Big hair was a 'thing". And Witches and Wiccans had the biggest hair going. Big hair along with lots of hair care products and hair sprays can make for a dangerous combination with burning candles, hot charcoals, and flash paper petitions. Once during a coven ritual about a dozen of us were dancing around the altar, singing, chanting and doing what witches do I saw the hair of the girl in front of me starting to smoke and then a tiny flame appeared. Without missing a step I started to pat out the fire and it quickly went out and no one was injured. We had a good laugh about 'burning witches' and how passe' it was. Hahaha Since that incident I have cautioned women, especially, against using heavy, alcohol based hair care products when attending rituals. 

• The next mistake I see new witchlings make is wanting to ingest, drink or eat magickal potions. Actually the term for a magickal liquid that you drink is called a brew. Potions are never to be taken internally. If you want to drink something, stick with teas sold as edible teas from the market or health food store.  I had a student, in the very early days that told me she was burning magckal herbs as incense,every night next to her bed before she went to sleep. I questioned her and she was going from A-Z. Thankfully, I found this out before she got to Mandrake or other very poisonous herbs.  Be aware of the basic properties of any herb or natural ingredient you use. Look up to see if it is poisonous, toxic or if it could cause allergies or other sensitivities. And do not burn every thing just because you can. Some herbs work better by burning, others by carrying them on your person, some by boiling in water and allowing them to diffuse in the steam, whereas some work best by surrounding a candle with them and burning the candle. 

• Learn the specific associations and magickal properties for the ingredients, herbs, stones, crystals, flowers, colors, etc. that you are working with. A big mistake is trying to fit everything into the same boxes, so to speak. Learn the individual magicks of each thing you are working with and then see if they compare with anything else. For instance do not try to find an astrological connection to every spell you cast. Do not try to force an elemental correlation with every magickal thing you study. Some will mesh nicely and some will not fit at all. This does not invalidate any of the magickal potential of what you are working with. It will only make it  more difficult for you if you can't be open minded enough to accept the magick as it is in each thing. 

• And probably the biggest mistake I have known new magickal practitioners to make, and the most damaging, is when they read one magickal master, like what they read and they then compare and discount everyone else that does things a bit differently. Truthfully, in over 30 years of practicing magick I have never seen two witches or magickal practitioners do things the same way. And after having practiced for this long, I have developed my own magickal ways of doing things. And after a year of study my students will in turn begin doing things in their fashion. That is the very nature of magick, it can't be stamped out cookie cutter like, but it melds, flows and bends. Becoming unique and special, like the person wielding the magick. 

• In conclusion, when practicing magick, don't be shy when it comes to asking questions. I had a student once that lit an incense stick and didn't blow it out and it burnt down very quickly and didn't smell. She said she didn't really see what was so special about incense, until I explained the proper way of burning incense. If you are working for the first time with a tool, supply or ingredient, ask someone on how to use the item. Realizing you don't know it all and having a willingness to learn will make your first few years of practice much more satisfying and magickal. 

• Practice, practice, practice!!! 

Peace and Happiness! 

© 2010-2016 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited. 

 If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

Witches and Healing . . . One Witch's Opinion

Good Afternoon my favorite Witchlings,

Now, to start off, some of you might enjoy this discussion and some might absolutely not. That's O.K. But the following is my personal opinion and views on witches and healing, that I have developed over the last 30 years.

Nowadays, it seems like the very second someone steps onto the witches path they want to heal others, or cast spells for others. Well, right off, that is the wrong attitude to have. Being a witch is a personal path and should only be embarked upon only because you wish to bring the magick into your life. That you desire the changes that walking a magickal path can bring to you and the desire to make those changes, thus changing your life for the better for you. It is a singularly, personal, private undertaking that should have YOU first and foremost the focus of all your work.

It is perfectly wonderful to want to celebrate the Sabbats or Esbats with other like minded, witchy ones, with each adding to the celebration and enjoying fellowship with each other. But one must be careful of the path they tread. For instance, this past weekend I conducted a lecture on crystal grids and how to construct and the use of them.  Thee were many questions and one woman was pretty determined to find out how to construct a crystal grid to heal others. She even said "Yes, but I have the best intentions. I know they need healing." Well, .  .  she didn't like my answers, but I was honest with her.

First I told her, if you are of the mind to do a healing spell for someone else you MUST have their permission and they must know you are doing spell-work for them. SPELL-WORK. A big, magickal and for some scary word. She didn't like that answer. I could tell she wanted to do healing for those she felt needed it, without their involvement. I told her that was considered Black magick. Period. If you do conduct healing for another with their permission, please stick to the magickal healing i.e. burning candles, charging crystals and perhaps burning incense.

Now, take this into consideration for a moment. Take the concept of getting sick and dying. Many who follow this path understand that we are of three 'bodies' if you will. Body, Mind and Soul. Many times, when the body gets sick, the mind absolutely wants to heal. Few people enjoy being sick. But, the Soul is really driving the bus. And at times, we get sick with something, that will be the catalyst for our transitioning out of this physical life into the next realm. That's a fancy way of saying many times we get sick and die. The great truth is .  .  .  we all HAVE to die, and shed this physical shell we call a body. If you think about it, there's an awful lot of 'stuff' going on, surrounding this transition. It is a 'sacred agreement' between our body, our mind our soul and the great divinity or God/Goddess.  Now imagine that someone else decides to get involved, without your permission! Even doctors and surgeons need your permission to try to heal you and sometimes it works and sometimes other powers, energies have a greater mission in store for you.

Now, let's say we're not so terminal that we are dying, but just don't feel good. Again, without that persons permission, you should not do anything magickally for them. Take a love spell for example. Say someone at the office you work with, but you wouldn't dream of dating them or even going to lunch with them, decided to do a love spell with you as their focus. How violated and inappropriate would that feel to you? I bet a lot. It's the same with healing or any magick really. Even the ancient witches knew that they needed to be approached by someone and back then be paid for their spell work. Today, because of the proliferation of charlatans and con men, witches do not do healing or spell work of any kind for others, for money. NOT if they are legitimate and honest. To charge and tell someone you can do a spell for them or heal them in any fashion, is being a charlatan. No one can guarantee a spell will work, not myself nor even the most advanced and practiced witches in the world.

The best way to ensure your spell will manifest is to do it yourself.  And continuing on as far as healing spells are concerned, most witches I know are not doctors. There are laws in the United States, at least, that prohibit people from doing healing without a proper medical license. I know many people are out there doing Reiki healings, and crystal healings and herbal healings etc. etc.  And in the over 30 years I have been practicing witch craft I have seen all of the above category of practitioner, either arrested or worse, sued for failing to actually heal anyone. Also I have seen 'schools' that have taught students, for a tuition, healing studies, get closed down in this state and in others. They might be around for a few years, but then the authorities come around and shut them down. For good reason. If you are NOT a doctor or a natural-path, or a holistic doctor with a degree or a pharmacist, then you run the very serious risk of being in trouble one day.

Here at Enchantments we do not teach any healing arts, only the magickal and we do not encourage any customers or clients to use any of the products we sell for healing purposes. My students actually sign a contract which states they will not engage in any of the above practices while they are students of Enchantments. In all of my years of being a practicing witch I have found, very rarely, that I ever needed to do a healing spell. I use competent doctors, acupuncture, natural-path and herbal remedies, but all come from state medically approved sources. And I do magick. I can do magick to help the medicine work better, to help my body heal faster (using candle magick) and I work closely with the Goddess to help me find the right practitioners to help me along my path.

Do I always get the healing I want? No. Not always. And then, when that is the case, I trust that there is something greater than myself at work and I try to respect that.

So, spend your time learning the magickal properties of plants, herbs, flowers and grasses. The magickal properties of resins, herbaceous and woody plants, and practice the magick. That should keep you deeply immersed and studying for several years. Then if you should still feel the need to heal others, and it's just not being on a power trip, so you can show off your magickal prowess, then I encourage you to enter a medical school where you can follow the path of the healer. Some might shy away at that, because it takes a lot of time and a lot of money. Of course it does, and it should. Taking a couple of Reiki classes or an herbal studies course and then thinking you can go out and heal the masses? I call it what it is, a Power Trip. If it's not, then you'll spend the time and money getting a real medical education.

In conclusion, there is one very real reason why one should get a medical degree before trying to heal others. Because over the years many, many people have been injured, and have died from so called alternative healing practices conducted by those who did not get the proper training nor have the proper experience to treat others. People die every day in this country, having gone to 'quacks' who promised to heal them and then a mistake was made or the wrong treatment given. For a simple example, did you know that by drinking red raspberry leaf tea a pregnant woman can miscarry? By giving a small child white willow bark tea for pain can cause Reyes Syndrome disease and they can die?

Natural does not mean safe, nor does it mean effective. Remember poison ivy is natural.  And if you eat the green plant of a tomato plant you will die a painful death. There is a lot to know on this topic, more than a simple witches training. So work on your magick and leave the healing to the experts.




Peace and Happiness






© 2010-2016 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited. 

 If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

Let Us Burn A Candle Today

Good Afternoon my Witchy Readers,

Oh my wands and cauldrons! There is so much non-magickal "stuff" happening in the world today! From natural disasters, to human caused disasters (The water problems in Flint Michigan and the man created wild fires in Canada for example), to political gunk, to animal abuse, child abuse, domestic abuse, it goes on and on. It can get quite overwhelming and even depressing. What is a witch to do?

Well, let me tell you. I do know people who have decided to simply "not watch the news, too depressing." Yes, that is one approach, but it won't have any affect on the goings on in the world. While limiting our exposure couldn't hurt, a witch besides being green, natural, earth wise and educated, is or should be, concerned with the news in the world. We are considered by many ancient scholars, to be the Stewards of the Earth. We are Her spokespeople. We represent Her and need to stand up for Her. We simply can't do that if we stick our head's in the sand and hope that the bad "stuff" doesn't come our way.

While the "patriarchs", the Governmental politicians are concerned with War and boundaries and economics and such. It is the witch that is concerned with the environment, the oceans, the forests and the fields. We care about the pollution of the Earth, the sustainability of the Earth, the animals that inhabit the Earth alongside us. Some of us do not call ourselves witch. Some like the term hippy, or environmentalist. Conservators or Naturalists. They are all good terms. And we all care about the same things. The Earth and it's people, our survival and our lives and the satisfaction living our lives brings us. Some of us raise families, some of us raise fur babies. Some of us hold fundraisers for good causes, some of us conduct social events like cleaning up litter alongside the highways or feed the hungry at local soup kitchens. We may collect non perishable foods, grow gardens and pick blueberries when in season to make a homemade pie. Just being out in nature gives us a feeling of happiness and peace.

But, sometimes, things get bigger than we can do anything about. Or do they? There is a secret, magickal tool I use often. That is candle magick. Candles have been used magickally for thousands and thousands of years.  Of course, initially the candle was used to bring light into the darkness, and that in and of itself was a magickal thing for ancient mankind.

Then the energy of the candle flame was felt and a belief grew that by lighting a candle, as an offering to the Gods and Goddesses that wishes and prayers would be granted. The ancient Greeks burned candles for the Goddess Artemis over 5,000 years ago and after making a wish, blew the candle out and ate a small crescent shaped cake. This was the origins of our birthday candle wish that so many still do today.

Well, you also can do candle magick. The simplest way is to take a candle, a small candle and hold it in your hands. Close your eyes and imagine it glowing with a bright white energy, as if lit from within. See the end result, the thing you wish to have happen when your spell manifests. Then after a few minutes, open your eyes, place your candle in a candle holder and light it. Allow it to burn until it goes out. If it is a large candle, when you need to leave or go to sleep, snuff the flame out with a spoon or candle snuffer. Do not blow it out. That only works for birthday candle wishes!

We can burn a candle for many, many things. When burning my candles I also ask the Goddess to help me with the situation at hand. Then I leave it up to Her to make things right.  Some of the candle colors you could burn for your magickal purpose or spell work are:

Brown candles for grounding, house cleansing, animal magick (whether an animal is sick or being abused) seeking balance, eliminate indecisiveness, and to find lost items.

Orange candles are strong and create sudden change. It is a brave and bold witch who dares to burn an orange candle. It is good to burn before important business meetings, before a wedding ceremony and to bring needed sudden change into your life and circumstances.

Purple candles are burned to help alleviate negative karma and negative karmic kickback. We all make mistakes and if it involves someone else then karma will be attached. Just making a mistake on our own, that doesn't affect another will have no karmic feedback. It must affect another living being. When that happens, asking forgiveness and burning a purple candle will help the situation. They will also give you spiritual protection, and help you reconcile a situation on the spiritual plane.

Black candles. Many think burning a black candle has to do with summoning evil forces. The witch knows this is pure Hollywood and it does not mean this at all. When burning a black candle, though, it is serious business. We burn black candles to give us protection from harm, both physical, emotional and spiritual. You can also burn the black candle to banish unwanted energies from your life and to help bring a complete and definite end to a situation.

For legal issues - I have seen yellow, orange and brown candles all burned for help in a legal situation. The best is a combination of all three. Burn all three colors, one candle for each color, together, touching each other if possible. they might well melt into one single burning candle and that is very good, when that happens. They can bring positive legal decisions and actions to you.

These are some of the lesser known candle colors and magickal purposes I have written about. There are many colors and many, many magickal purposes you can work with. Start off simply and easily. There is no need for complex, confusing candle magick. Start with the basics and take it from there.
Happy Spell Casting, Ms. Faith


Peace and Happiness




© 2010-2016 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited. 

 If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.