The Modern Guide to Witchcraft (18 page)

Caution:
Never
drill holes into your crystals—you’ll kill them. If you decide to wear a quartz crystal as jewelry, make sure the stone is surrounded by wire, a band, or some other type of fastener, not pierced.

A favorite of many witches, rose quartz looks like a frozen strawberry daiquiri. It ranges in color from palest pink to deep rose, and a single crystal may contain a variety of shades, striations, and cloudy wisps. Both its color and its milky quality connect it with the emotions, and indeed, rose quartz is one of the best stones to use when doing magick for emotional issues. For witches, this crystal is synonymous with love. Use it in spells to attract romance, affection, and friendship.

But rose quartz can do more than bring romantic love. Its gentle, soothing energy also encourages emotional healing and balance. A stone of peace, it can help family members or coworkers get along together harmoniously. After a disagreement, rose quartz can smooth troubled waters and restore calm. It also can help you learn to love yourself better by increasing your self-esteem and self-acceptance. People who have suffered loss and grief can benefit from wearing rose quartz too.

Smoky quartz ranges in color from palest gray to brownish gold to almost black. Its earthy tone connects it to security, permanence, and patience; it also increases strength and determination. Witches often use this crystal for grounding and stability. If you’re dealing with a chaotic situation or upsetting changes, if everything around you seems to be spinning out of control, smoky quartz can help bring matters into balance. Its energy is slower than that of clear quartz, so it can help you reach long-term goals. Because it’s associated with materialization, you can use it to bring ideas down to earth and make dreams come true.

If you’re facing obstacles or blockages of some kind, smoky quartz can help you to slowly overcome them. It bolsters courage and strength, without bravado. If you need endurance to accomplish a task, smoky quartz is your friend. If you have a problem that you just can’t deal with right now, you can give it to a smoky quartz crystal to hold for you until you feel ready to work through it.

Some quartz crystals contain bits of greenish material, which magicians relate to prosperity and growth. These green inclusions may appear as specks of color scattered throughout the crystal or as slabs of green within the otherwise clear crystal. In some cases, it looks as if a smaller green crystal is actually growing inside the larger whitish one. Because we often associate green with money, healthy live plants, and growth, you can use these crystals to improve your finances or attract abundance of any kind.

By nature, crystals and gemstones hold on to thoughts, emotions, and information programmed into them for a long time, even for centuries. You’ve probably heard of the Hope Diamond, a forty-five carat blue diamond that for more than a century supposedly bore a curse that brought death and misfortune to the people who owned it. Although you probably have nothing to fear from the stones you acquire, nonetheless it’s a good idea to cleanse and purify them before you use them for magickal work.

Wash them in running water, with mild soap if you like, while you envision the crystals cleansed by pure white light. This removes any unwanted vibrations as well as dust. You can also purify crystals energetically by gently rubbing them with a piece of citrine. It’s a good idea to clean your crystals before using them in a magick spell or ritual. You also should wash them if they’ve been exposed to any strong emotions or unsettling events.

If you prefer, try one of these methods for cleaning a crystal:

• Leave it in sunlight or moonlight for a specific period of time, say twenty-four hours or a week—it’s your call. Do what you feel is necessary.
  
• Bury it in a small dish of dirt for a time.
  
• Hold the stone in the smoke of burning sage or purifying incense.
  
• Immerse the stone in water for a time. Holding it in a running stream or the ocean’s waves will purify it faster, but leaving the stone in a small bowl of water will work too. Don’t worry; you cannot remove the innate energy of a stone, so it’s impossible to over-purify.
  

Each time you use a stone for a magickal purpose, it is important to purify it. You’ll also want to purify your stones if someone else handles them, so that person’s energy doesn’t interfere with your own in spellworking.

Some people like to display their crystals and stones on their altars or elsewhere in their homes—especially the really big, beautiful, and powerful ones. Others prefer to wrap them in silk or velvet and store them in a safe place. It’s really up to you. Clear quartz crystals, in particular, love to sit in the sun, but amethysts can fade if exposed to bright sunlight. You may choose to designate certain stones for certain purposes. Witches often place stones in various places around their homes and workplaces—rose quartz or carnelian on your bedside table to attract love, aventurine or abundance crystal in your store’s cash register to increase sales, and so on.

The relationship you establish with your stones and crystals will be unique. Treat your crystals and gemstones as valued partners. In time, they’ll become your good friends.
Never
abuse your stones! Show them respect and they’ll gladly work with you for a lifetime.

Myths, legends, and literature from cultures around the world mention talismans and amulets, tokens and totems. Our ancestors designed them to attract love, ward off evil, and bring health, wealth, and happiness. Museums display collections of artifacts believed to have served as power objects for Stone Age people. The early Egyptians placed charms in the tombs of royalty to ensure safe passage into the world beyond. Ancient Greek soldiers carried amulets into battle to protect them. Aztec priests used gemstones to invoke deities and for prophesying.

Good luck charms are as popular today as they were in ancient times. Even people who don’t believe in magick often give special significance to certain objects, regardless of whether those objects have any monetary value. Is it just superstition, or do these items really work? Find out for yourself. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to create charms, amulets, and talismans for love, money, career success, healing—whatever you choose.

To understand how spells work, you need to understand the Law of Similars. According to this law, colors, shapes, and various characteristics of a plant, stone, or other object give clues to an item’s magickal function. For example, red stones might be used in magickal cures for blood problems; a heart-shaped leaf might be part of a love spell. Advertising certainly understands how symbolic images affect the subconscious in specific ways. It’s no accident that Coca-Cola formed its bottles like a woman’s figure, or that TV commercials show phallic-shaped champagne bottles spewing foam.

One of the ways witches apply the Law of Similars is with “poppets” or dolls made to represent people. You can fabricate a poppet from cloth, straw, wood, wax—whatever you prefer. You can even buy readymade poppets online. The magick happens when you do something to the doll that symbolizes your intention and the result you want to achieve.

I suspect you’re probably thinking of voodoo dolls now. Voodoo priests supposedly inflict pain on a doll and that pain is magickally transmitted to the person whom the doll represents. Creepy, but that’s not how you probably want to use this type of magick.

Instead, let’s say you want to send healing energy to a friend who’s broken her leg. First, you make a poppet to stand in for your friend. You might want to decorate the doll to look like your friend, dressing it in clothes your friend might wear or adding hair the color of your friend’s—even pasting on bits of her real hair if she’ll let you trim it. Then you bandage the doll’s leg and send loving, healing energy to your friend in the form of a chant, thought, or visualization. Imagine your friend’s leg is completely well. That’s it. No pins, no blood, no harm. In later chapters, you’ll find spells that rely on the Law of Similars to do their thing—even one using a doll.

Early charms were spoken spells. In a time when few people could read or write, witches used verbal spells. The word charm comes from a Latin term,
carmen
, that means “incantation” or “song.” A charm is like a poem, and many charms rhyme or have a distinct rhythm, making it easier for the witch to commit them to memory—no need to carry a huge grimoire around, no scrolls to get damaged in the rain en route to the market!

Uttering chants, affirmations, and incantations serves two purposes: to focus your mind during spells and rituals, and to send your objectives out into the universe. If you like, you can incorporate other actions and symbolism into a verbal charm. For example, a witch might wait until the first night of a full moon to speak her charm, then recite it three times each night thereafter. The full moon represents fullness, completion, and coming into manifestation. The number three represents the body-mind-spirit connection. Witches often use the number three because it brings magickal thoughts into three-dimensional reality.

Here’s an example of a simple verbal charm:

Leaf of ash,

I do thee pluck

To bring to me

A day of luck.

Okay, it’s not a literary masterpiece, and your charms don’t have to be either. The important thing is that a charm expresses your wish or goal, and that it’s easy to remember. Repeat it often to give it more energy and to make the magick work faster. If you wish, you can add a physical action to the spoken charm. As you speak the word “pluck,” take a leaf from a tree whose properties match your intention (see
Chapter 11
), and then carry it with you all day to attract good luck.

Affirmations are positive statements that you create to produce a result. Witches use them in all sorts of spells, both spoken and written. The important things to remember when designing an affirmation are:

• Keep it short.
  
• Be clear and precise.
  
• Only include images and situations that you desire.
  
• Always use the present tense, as if the condition you seek already exists.
  

Here are some examples of the right and wrong ways to create affirmations:

Right:
I am healthy in body, mind, and spirit.
Wrong:
I don’t have any illnesses or injuries.
Right:
I now have a job that’s perfect for me.
Wrong:
I want to get a better job.

See the difference? If you aren’t exactly sure of all the details, it’s okay to leave some things up to the universe to work out. The previous example, “I now have a job that’s perfect for me,” covers the bases without being specific.

Incantations differ from affirmations in that they are usually written as rhymes. The catchy phrasing makes it easy to remember. You don’t have to be a Wordsworth or Dickinson to create an effective incantation. Just follow the same rules for designing an incantation as you did for an affirmation.

Here’s an example of a simple love incantation:

As the day fades into night

I draw a love that’s good and right.

As the night turns into day

We are blessed in every way.

The uses for affirmations and incantations are limited only by your imagination. Write one on a slip of paper and insert it into a talisman or amulet. Put it under your pillow at night. Repeat it regularly throughout the day, such as while you’re in the shower or driving to work, and especially just before you go to sleep. Write it on a sheet of colored paper, decorate it with images that resonate with you, and post it in a place where you’ll see it often. Be creative!

Colors contain lots of symbolic associations. Blue, for instance, reminds you of the sky; green suggests foliage, grass, and healthy crops; orange is the color of fire and the sun. So deeply rooted are these connections that witches can use color to influence the mind and produce magickal results. When you’re doing spells, remember these color correspondences and let them increase the power of your magick.