Witchcraft 101: The Moon

Aside

Now onto what I actually taught…

The Moon and Witchcraft

So there’s this huge assumed connection between witches and the moon. It’s there in folklore, in history, in reputation, in fiction with esbats and sabbats ending in wild orgies beneath the light of a full moon.
Where does this reputation come from? The moon has very obvious and visual effects on the earth; tides being the obvious one, animal reactions being another, people’s emotional states – slightly less visual but still tangibly obvious, you could go off on a slight tangent and debate womens monthly courses as being lunar cyclical but that one really is quite tangential. If something has such obvious effects then any witch worth his/her salt can use it. Especially if it has obvious practical applications because at it’s heart witchcraft is a practical based magic.

How to Use it

The simple answer would be use it to raise energy, I’m not talking about any sort of scientific definition of energy here, this is a magic course, we’re talking about the sort of thing that you can feel in tingles running up and down your body. Last week we did a cookie charm, it needed a certain amount of focus and concentration to get it going, with energy in that focus then we can push it into the magic and it works more effectively. (This is why you need a healthy body and mind to work really powerful magics)

When to Use it

Each Moon phase has a different sort of energy that it seems more in alignment with and thus you can do spells for different purposes then. As a good rule of thumb though for generic energy for anything use a Full Moon. Any website on this sort of subject will give you a basic outline so I won’t bother to reproduce my handout here!

What to do with this energy you’ve raised

Spells/rituals create energy with you, as you get good you can control how much energy you raise and learn which ways work best with you to raise the energy. If you raise too much then you direct the energy at your goal, then earth it either by cleansing yourself or directing the energy via the palms of your hands directly into the earth.
At the end of the practical energy raising don’t worry if you don’t have anything to earth that’s just for if you manage to raise too much!

Simple Moon Energy Raising (and Cleansing and Earthing)

1 cup
water

First decide what it is you want, make it something simple or at least something that you can visualise easily ie. not necessarily something tangible but a concrete aim, rather than ‘success’ or ‘happiness’ think about a specific job or event.
Place water in your cup (don’t fill it!), go out and stand beneath the full(ish) Moon. Look at the Moon, really see it, see all the light energy flowing from it, feel the energy from it. Angle the cup until you can see the reflection of the Moon in the cup – this may take some time! Look back at the moon and really see the light flowing from it into the cup, see it until you can practically feel the energy filling your cup of water. Once you can really feel the cup starting to make your hand tingle drink down the water and feel the white moon energy fill you up as the water enters your body.
Now take your aim and visualise it as an image in your palm and breathe the white moon energy into the scene, enlivening it and filling it full of magic, making it come closer to you and making it more and more real.

If you have energy left over after you have enlivened the image then perform cleansing breaths:
Breathe in deeply feeling the energy within you raise up through your centre.
Breathe out deeply feeling the energy circle around the edges of your being, washing out all the debris of everyday life, all the mess, until you become clean and simply filled with energy.
Continue breatheing slowly and deeply until you feel relaxed and less tingly.

If you still have tingly energy running around you even though you’re relaxed then earth:
Press your palms to the floor and feel the last of the white energy moving from you out of your palms into the earth.

Since I’ve posted this up here I’ll happily take questions and comments!