Spell Casting
Empowering the Spell
To Charge an Herbal Charm
| Source | The Spiral Dance |
| Author | Starhawk |
| Assemble all your materials on your altar.
Cast a circle. In MORTAR and PESTLE, grind together all the herbs for your charm. Visualize the image or emotion you desire, and project it into the herbs as you grind them together. Draw or create any other symbols you may wish. Gather together the herbs and other objects into the cloth. Twist the top around them and tie it once with thread. Breathe on the charm and charge it with air. Hold it in your hands, breathe on it, and charge it fully with all the energy you can raise, concentrating on your visualization. Drop to the ground, relax and earth the power.
|
|
Binding a Spell
| Source | The Spiral Dance |
| Author | Starhawk |
| When you have finished casting a spell,
visualize yourself tying a knot in a cord wrapped around the symbol or
image on which you have focused. Tell yourself you are setting the
form of the spell, as a clay pot is set when it is fired. SAY:
By all the power NOTE: Spells that influence another person depend on a psychic link. Power pours through you toward another -- but in order for the connection to be made you must be at least partly identified with that other person. You become the other, as well as becoming the energy you send. For this reason "What you send returns on you, three times over." The energy you project to another affects you even more strongly than the other person -- because you have generated it, you have become it, and you have become its object. If you send out healing energy, you are healed in turn. If you hex or curse, you yourself are cursed. |
|
Elements of Ritual
The Charge of the Goddess
| Source | The Rebirth of Witchcraft |
| Author | Doreen Valiente |
| Doreen Valiente wrote this for use in Gardnarian Rituals. It has become well loved throughout the Pagan community and is reproduced here from her book page 61-62. | |
|
|
Grounding and Centering
| Source | Ike West |
| Sit comfortably. Close your eyes.
Imagine your consciousness is centered in the middle of your head, just
behind your third eye. Focus on your breathing.
Keeping your consciousness in the center of your head, imagine the core of the Earth in the Native American way, as a large cluster of crystals. If your mind starts to wander, gently bring it back to the center of your head and focus on your breathing. Imagine there is a great beam of light emanating from the crystalline center of the earth, going up through all the layers of rock and earth until it bursts forth and surrounds you with its white light. Keeping your consciousness in the center of your head, imagine a star at the other end of the Universe, sending a beam of light, which joins with the beam of light coming up your grounding cord from the center of the Earth. This star's light is make up of millions of dancing particles of silver and gold light. Now keeping your consciousness in the center of your head, imagine a gold ball just above your head, let it slowly sink through your body, taking with it any thing you are ready to be rid of. It gently slips into the grounding cord connecting you to the center of the earth, and slips all the way down to that crystal core, where it is cleansed and purified. Visualize this golden ball passing through your body another two times (three in all). You are now grounded and centered, and ready to proceed with either spell work or divinatory work. |
|
The Cone of Power
| Source | The Spiral Dance |
| Author | Starhawk |
| All (involved) ground and center. Standing or
sitting in a circle, take hands. Begin with a Group Breath, and gradually
build a wordless Power Chant.
As the energy builds, visualize it swirling clockwise around the circle. See it as a blue-white light. It spirals up into a cone form -- an upright shell, a cornucopia. Hold the visualization until it glows. The energy forms we build have a reality of their own. As the power rises, people will intuitively sense the form that takes shape. As the peak is reached the chant becomes a focused tone. If you have an image that represents your intent for the working, focus on it. sometimes words or phrases come through. Let the power move until it falls, suddenly or gradually. Let the energy go, fall to the ground, and relax completely, allowing the cone to fly off to its objective. Breathe deeply, and let the residue of power return to the earth, for her healing. |
|
Casting the Circle
| Source | Wild Witches Don't Get the Blues |
| Author | Ffiona Morgan |
| This is done in a variety of ways. In
traditional Wicce, the High Priestess casts the circle with a sword,
admitting the members one by one. On the altar is a bowl of salt, of
water, and three candles. There are also candles in each of the four
corners. She then names three wimmin. Once carries a bowl of
saltwater, (which has been ritually combined), around the circle
parameters to the left (doesil) sprinkling saltwater as she goes.
The next womoon carries the smoking incense censer in the same way.
The last woman carries an altar candle, placing it back on the altar when
she is done. The directions are then addressed. (East, South,
West, North) Note: you are requesting the presence of the elementals
and spirits that are associated with each of the cardinal directions (as
well as above, below and center). You can use poetic invocations, or
plain speech for this.
In feminist Dianic Wicce the circle is cast in a variety of ways, as is fitting the eclectic nature of women's spirituality. It can be done with salt water, incense, candles (as described above), a ritual wand, flowers, or an athame (witch's knife) and is done to the left for invoking. The Priestess declares the circle is opened, that we are now "between the worlds". This means that whatever happens in this sacred space is done in a spirit that reflects out-of-ordinary-reality. |
|
Banishing the Circle
| Source | Wild Witches Don't Get the Blues |
| Author | Ffiona Morgan |
| To banish the circle, the energy is grounded,
the directions are thanked and appreciated, in reverse order; Center,
North, West, south, East. The Priestess chants:
"The circle is open, but never broken". Then she leads the group in the song "Merry meet and merry part, and merry meet again", repeated three times. "May the circle be open, but never broken |
|
