Myrrh: A beauty! Remember what the Three Wise Men gave to baby Jesus? Perhaps he would have preferred a small stuffed bear or something, but maybe babies had different tastes back then. Myrrh works much the same as frankincense and the two burned together are very good to exorcise negativity.
Nettle: Best for use in reversing hexes. If someone sends you a poppet or effigy that’s meant to be you, cut it open, stuff it with nettle and send it back, or throw it into the sea, and it nullifies the spell. Also sprinkle nettle around the outside of your house, or over the doormat if you live in a flat, to prevent people you don’t like from entering.
Orris Root (powdered): Used in love spells. Sprinkle a little onto the sheets for passionate love-making, as opposed to sexual gymnastics!
Patchouli: Use in love and desire spells as well as money and prosperity spells.
Rosemary: Use for spells to do with mental ability (drink a light brew of rosemary tea during ritual). Also, its strong smell and voluminous smoke when burnt means that it’s great for cleansing and purifying areas. It’s also reputed to strengthen the memory and can be used in spells to keep a lover faithful, as well as enhancing commitment and loyalty in other endeavours. Sprigs under the pillow can prevent bad dreams and if you make a box from the wood of the plant and keep it where you sleep, it will preserve your youth!
Rose Petals: I dry these myself from roses given to me as gifts. I use them in any spell where I want to promote purity of intent and an unconditional appreciation of the outcome. They can obviously be used in love spells.
Rue: Can be used to exorcise negativity as well as enhancing mental powers and the ability to apply oneself to a task. Mix nine drops of morning dew into half a cup of cool, brewed rue tea and sprinkle it around the circumference when casting Circle for help in manifesting a protected and sacred space. Add it to salads as it enhances eyesight.
Sage: Used in money spells, as well as wisdom and longevity spells.
Sandalwood Chips and Powder: Protection, exorcism, healing – sprinkle the dust around a place to clear negative energy. This burns really well and is good to add to incense to encourage combustion.
St John’s Wort: Used for health, happiness, strength and protection. It’s now used medicinally to treat depression and even out mood swings.
Vervain: Use to promote peace, harmonious interactions, love and protection. If you have a pot of the plant where you earn money it will ensure prosperous endeavours. Placing some in a bowl of spring water will protect from unpleasant spirits when doing divination. It’s also considered a charm against snake bite. The Ancient Romans would place it on altars (especially when they were sacrificing young virgins!). Supposedly it was originally discovered on the Mount of Calvary and used to staunch the blood flow from Christ’s wounds.
Yarrow: Good for spells where you need courage, and also for love spells. It can be good to incorporate this into a charm for a newly-married couple as it will ensure seven years of happiness and fidelity!
Gosh! Having documented the contents of my magickal pantry makes me realize there’s quite a lot of stuff there! I have been practising Witchcraft for many years and certainly have acquired a selection of fairly exotic stuff. But don’t feel pressured to go out and get everything at once – a few basic staples are a good idea. Let your collection grow gradually.
Witch doctor
When I first started exploring Witchcraft, the main impression I got from all the books was that Witches were primarily benevolent healers, constantly thinking about the welfare of others and looking out for someone to heal. So I enrolled in a naturopathy college and for two years studied herbal medicine, nutrition and massage. I found all this enormously interesting and after classes during the day I would go home and pore over my Witchy books and be excited to find corresponding medicinal and metaphysical properties in the herbs and foods I used in ritual. At college we also studied anatomy, physiology, symptomatology, diagnosis and basic medical science, and I found what I learnt there augmented my rituals at home when I was making healing potions and charms for friends and myself. For example, knowing exactly where the liver was in the body and what the surrounding tissues and blood vessels looked like really enhanced my visualizations when I made a healing charm for a friend who had a long history of alcohol and drug abuse and had been diagnosed with Hepatitis B.
I work differently at healing now. For a start, since I left college nine years ago and did not keep up my study, a lot of what I learned has become a dim memory, but this hasn’t necessarily diminished my healing abilities. As I reinforce throughout this book, I’ve increasingly discovered that it is the intent and the passion of the subconcious, not the props of the logical mind and physical tools, that magick mostly works with. These days, if I feel I am getting sick or run down, I say a few firm words to myself and maybe a couple of affirmations and perform a brief visualization. Now on the rare occasions I do get ill it’s usually when I have a few days off and my body says, ‘Ahh … cool! Some time to rest and detoxify!’
The one part of my body that can be vulnerable is my throat. As soon as I sense a tickle, I imagine a ‘neck cuff’ of azure blue light that not only encircles my throat but penetrates right through to my red, sore, swollen vocal cords. I immediately sense a calming and defusing coolness and then I say a few words to myself like, ‘Get well, body, we don’t have time to be sick!’ These words might sound a bit harsh, but magick works best when you are completely honest and don’t try to pull the wool over your own or anyone else’s eyes.
When I suffer from period cramps, I visualize a cool, blue, fluffy light gently nursing my womb and a white diamond egg-like sphere of light surrounding my body to shield me from the draining, masculine energies to which women can be more susceptible when bleeding. Injuries don’t stop me either. Once, I sprained my ankle and was on crutches. Again I used cooling blue light, but this time I saw it as a weightless, inflated, ice-bubble that clung to my ankle like a child’s swimming float, supporting it and metaphysically taking the weight off it.
Visualizing a healing light only takes a split second. If you try to spend ten minutes doggedly seeing a blue light around your neck, often your mind will wander or you might even fight the image, get stressed, feel inadequate and then be much more likely to feel worse. Some Witches I know insist on very disciplined visualization and in the early days I would spend a lot of time training my ‘mind’s eye’ – but often I would get frustrated at not being able to hold an unwavering mental image for over ten seconds. It was a big breakthrough for me the day that I realized magick works between the worlds of the physical and supernatural and, as such, linear time means little when it comes to effective magickal workings. That’s not to say that certain times of the day, month and year aren’t more effective for certain magick, but when you need a quick fix you should let go of patriarchal notions of past, present and future.
The Goddess’s concept of time is that every potential of every reality that ever was, is and will be is all happening at once in a big stupendous sphere. All you have to do is see the reality that you want and be it – just know that you are well, and when you feel that deep shift of reality go ‘clunk’ in your gut, let go of it and get on with your day. Of course you can tap into the image of healing light for reassurance any time you need to after that, but don’t feel you have to be a vigilante against illness. A few seconds of calm, confident knowing