On the Importance of Spiritually Cleansing Your Home, Especially After Entertaining Visitors

Protect your home from evil spirits and unwholesome energies.

When you set up your house protection – see “Magical Spell to Protect Yourself and Your Home from Unwanted Visitors Either Incarnate or Discarnate” – which you should do whenever you move into or acquire a new dwelling, you may find that things go along pretty well until you entertain guests or even allow anyone to cross your threshold. After you have entertained a guest in your home, even briefly, you may find that you need to reassert your will for protection over the energy in and around your home.

This happens because other people may carry energy attachments with them and the energy or intelligences they carry may remain in your home after they depart. This is not because the person who is visiting you is bad, but it may happen simply because he or she is energetically contaminated or possibly even ill.

Therefore, you must reinforce your home protection spells after any visits.  If your home has become spiritually contaminated after a visit from a friend, relative or stranger, you  may very soon notice things going wrong around your house.  The following story illustrates what happens when a home is spiritually contaminated:

Protect your home.

Serena, who is a traditional witch, had set up an entire system of protection for her home inside and out.  Not only did she have charms placed around her doors and windows, but she had powerful spirits guarding both the inside and outside of her home.  But, she had a visit from family that lasted a few days. After they left, a series of bizarre incidents occurred. She injured her foot when she stepped on a piece of broken glass in the kitchen, which seemed to come from nowhere. No one had broken a glass to her knowledge.  She shook what looked like a spider off her arm right before going to bed.  The next day, she had difficulties with electronic devices in her house, which seemed to be working improperly. Then, she turned on a lamp and the light bulb popped and went out.

Before Serena cleansed her house and set up her system of protection, she had experienced a lot of freak accidents and problems at the house. Afterward, they stopped completely.  Only after she entertained guests in her home did she have strange occurrences of this kind, again.

So, Serena went to her altar, which she had neglected a little since her visitors had arrived. She lit a candle, made an appropriate sacrifice  and asked the spirits associated with her altar to step up their protection of the house. Then, she went into a trance and dispatched her army of protection (familiar spirits)  to do their duties, which they had apparently been neglecting. She fed them with her own energy and sent them out, promising them a reward when they returned.

After these sacrifices and communications where made, the strange occurrences inside her home quickly came to an end.

Learn more about strong protection for your home with the following books:

Practical Black Magic: How to Hex and Curse Your Enemies

Grimoire of Santa Muerte:  Spells and Rituals of Most Holy Death, the Unofficial Saint of Mexico

How to Study Traditional Witchcraft and Occultism: Witchcraft Versus Witchcraft Theater

by Sophia diGregorio

This article is a continuation of the previous post, entitled “The Dangers of Wiccan Covens and Other Neo-Pagan Groups to Women and Children.”

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Much of what you will find in Wicca and neo-paganism is a kind of theatrical performance. Wicca may be accurately described as a celebration of witchcraft, but most of it bears no resemblance to actual witchcraft (or what we now call “traditional witchcraft” since the overwhelming growth in popularity of neo-paganism). The same can be said of other re-creationist forms of paganism in which participants dress a certain way, get in a circle and perform some sort of celebration.

The Wiccans celebrate the seasons and the sabbats. They celebrate the phases of the moon and they honor the old gods and goddesses. They celebrate to worship nature – literal nature, such as the trees and the planet. Sometimes they do it in fancy robes and sometimes they do it in the buff. But, it is all a theater of ritual. They do it to have a sense of belonging, for fellowship and sometimes to hold onto some vestige of religion after abandoning some form of Christianity, since Wicca and many other forms of neo-paganism are, in fact, religions.

Sometimes, they actually use witchcraft, but the same could be said of the Catholics, the Pentecostals and the Evangelicals, who use some very powerful magic at their services. This doesn’t make them witches, as such. And, the same is true of most Wiccans and neo-pagans. They are witches in name only. And, some neo-pagans never use this term, at all–they are Wiccans (or Asatrur or whatever) and they do not consider themselves witches.

Of course, there’s nothing really wrong with this as long as the new-comer to witchcraft and the occult realizes what he or she is involved in. The problem comes with the misinformation given by the leadership, some of whom are corrupt while others are simply deluded.

Neo-pagan covens, orders and groups all too often quickly come to resemble their Christian counterparts. Sometimes they become a playground for sociopaths in one way or another. If the leader is not luring women for nefarious purposes, they may be draining the member’s time or wallet. The leader and the members of the innermost circle – and there is usually one or more that other members don’t know about and don’t suspect exists – stroke each other’s egos with the idea of having some power over others.

At the very least, these groups are social clubs with their pot luck dinners, pagan night out (often a drunken affair, in my observation) and opportunities to play dress-up. In groups where children are permitted–something that should be undertaken with caution or not at all, especially, if the group practices nudity–there is the opportunity for people with children to find like-minded people with children.

But, this is all witchcraft theater and there is very little occultism, occult studies or witchcraft going on. If you want to study witchcraft, this is not the way to go about it. On the other hand, if you are done with Christianity, but still want to have a religion and be around religious people with their social constructs, then this is an option.

Wicca and neo-paganism are not subjects serious students of witchcraft or the occult linger on for long, even when they are met by them on their first introduction to the occult, which is very common these days, since it is their books that dominate the shelves of mainstream bookstores and they are the most socially acceptable types of witches, being members of a recognized religion.

The fact is that genuine witchcraft is not a religion any more than it is a theatrical production.

How to Study Witchcraft and the Occult

We’ve seen how not to learn about witchcraft and the occult, so here are some ideas for going about it the right way.

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First of all, not all organizations are bad, but many of them are and at the very least most of them are a waste of time. Therefore, when approaching any organization, take a look at the members and their actual purpose. Are they achieving their stated goals? Are their goals your goals? Is the membership comprised of people whose knowledge and expertise you could benefit from? What exactly will they require from you? Never join any organization until you’ve investigated them for a long time and do not reject criticism of the organization without examining its veracity. Always take caution because it is often easier to get into a cult than it is to get out of a cult. Take even greater caution if the group claims to be a coven that is recruiting. Genuine covens do not often recruit, especially from the general public or casual inquiries.

If you must be part of an organization, a better idea is to start your own study group – not a coven or order – with two or three close friends who have similar interests to yours. Let each member research particular aspects of occultism and traditional witchcraft and teach it to the others..

In the very beginning, the best choice is probably not to be part of any organization, but to undertake the study of traditional witchcraft and occultism on your own.

Begin by making your own inquiry into the so-called paranormal. This may be especially important to people who are spiritually out of touch or do not have highly developed psychic abilities. You must verify for yourself the reality of spiritual phenomena.

One of the most important aspects of witchcraft to study is the art and science of healing because it is here that the applied esoteric science of witchcraft can most readily be demonstrated to yourself and others. The skills you will learn as a healer can be applied to other areas of witchcraft and the occult.

Other important areas of study include the history and practice of witchcraft (not Wicca or neo-pagan religions) around the world.

Hermeticism and Theosophical Luciferianism, such as Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine, and the works of the second wave Theosophists, Besant, Leadbeter and Powell) are, also, important areas of study.

Master some aspects of astrology and Hermeticism by learning to read the tarot, which is a powerful initiation into the occult mysteries and a tool for developing phenomenal psychic abilities, as discussed in the book, “How to Read the Tarot for Fun, Profit and Psychic Development for Beginners and Advanced Readers,” by Angela Kaelin. Complete mastery of the tarot leads to a true initiation into the esteric science of witchcraft. This is not something some one can bestow upon you in an initiatory ritual, which is only symbolism and theatricialism, but an genuine initiation.

This may not be as much fun as joining a group and attending meetings and pot luck dinners in your ritual cloak, but it is a true initiation in the esoteric mysteries of traditional witchcraft and the occult.

What’s Next After Wicca? Non-Wiccan Occult Practices and Traditional Witchcraft

Wicca is the most accessible and acceptable form of witchcraft in existence in English-speaking countries today. It can be a doorway to the the riches of the occult or a trap for the mind and spirit, depending on how it is approached and the knowledge with which this is done.

In What’s Next After Wicca? the author answers the question she often heard from her metaphysical bookstore customers who had studied Wicca, but felt dissatisfied with it and wanted to learn more about the subject of witchcraft, in general: “What else is there?”

This book represents the opinion of the author after 25 years of experience in the occult and several years of owning a store that was, also, a networking center for neo-pagan groups. It is written in an informative, yet conversational style, just as she would speak to friends and customers who would ask for her opinions about witchcraft and the occult.

It includes a discussion on the origins and the present state of Wicca, other alternative religions and philosophies including Satanism, Luciferianism, Germanic Occultism, Gnosticism and traditional witchcraft. Throughout are recommendations for other courses of occult studies, including a categorized bibliography.

Note: This is not a spell book or a manual on how to do witchcraft.

Purchase “What’s Next After Wicca?” at Smashwords, Amazon.com and other fine book retailers.

 

The Dangers of Wiccan Covens and Other Neo-Pagan Groups to Women and Children

by Sophia diGregorio

Click the image above to go to our sister website: Psychic Powers and Magic Spells.

This article deals with the potential dangers of joining Wiccan and neo-pagan groups that I have written about elsewhere, but in less graphic terms than I plan to in this article. Whenever you discuss a topic like this, there is a risk of offending someone, but I think this is something that should be discussed so that people – especially women, who are most often the targets of such machinations – can be warned.

The fact is this: There are people who create religious societies, covens, orders or groups so they can use them to lure women, children and sometimes men into situations for their own depraved sexual pleasure.

Often, their targets are women who have just left Christianity and who are sometimes in a traumatized and highly suggestible state from their experiences at the hands of Christian abusers. They try to get to these women, lure them into their discussion groups and give their own version of what paganism means. Some men target women who are already pagans because they have the opinion that such women are morally “loose” and lack the societal protections that Christian women enjoy. They see them as easy targets because they may be persuaded that paganism or other aspects of the occult are really about cavorting around naked in the woods having sex.

When Joseph Smith founded the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), he essentially founded a witchcraft-based sex cult and put the wrapping of Christianity on it to lure girls as young as 14 and to persuade men to hand over their wives to him. The Mormon organization was not the first, but may be regarded as a standard prototype for how sexual perverts successfully lure victims by establishing religious cults. Smith was a black magician and a con man from an entire family of witches and witchcraft accusers going back to Salem, Massachussetts. Many other cult leaders like Jim Jones and David Koresh have used the same pattern. Although their lure was Christianity, the model is the same except that with modern Wiccan and neo-pagan groups the leaders promise women freedom from Christianity – something better and more liberating.

Gerald Gardner’s neo-pagan cult of Wicca is another example of this same model. He used the lure of paganism and the occult to get his hands on women, denigrate and ritualistically rape them. Despite the Wiccan’s “We’re not Satanists,” claim, the original Wiccan organizations looked very much like Satanic covens.

This brilliant model was copied by men who came after Gardner, such as Alex Sanders. There are some old videos him performing his pornographic rites still circulating. You’ll find them once in a while on YouTube before they’re pulled for violating the Terms of Service. The rite shown in the video at the following link, which is very disturbing, is similar to the Five Points of Fellowship washing and anointing rite performed by Mormons in the LDS temples as they were performed in the 1990s.

Women who have been sexually objectified and abused in Christian churches often have no idea what to expect from Wicca or paganism, which when compared to Christianity is more accepting of women. New mini-cult leaders have popped up everywhere. They advertise at sites like WitchVox and pretend to be spiritual leaders, they hold discussion groups, perform handfastings, etc. But, their real purpose is to have perverted sex or to watch as others have sex in a ritualistic setting. Or, simply to get their hands on women and children who make up the vast majority of people interested in paganism and the occult.

We see this same gender dynamic at work in Christianity, interestingly. It is usually women who are most interested in spiritual matters, but it is men who are most often the spiritual leaders. In Christianity, this can be explained by its inherent misogyny and prohibition of women in leadership roles – or even to speak in churches, in some cases. But, in neo-paganism, it’s a little harder to explain away. In both instances, the result is often the same – the men use their leadership positions and their authority to sexually abuse women and children.

Present-day Wiccan apologists justify these problematic aspects of Wicca’s origins by pointing out that Wicca (and many aspects of neo-paganism) was absorbed by the women’s movement by the 1970s. It is true that by the 1960s witchcraft, in general, was becoming very appealing to a lot of women who were awakening to the harsh realities of life in the conventionally accepted social structure. This is illustrated in the movie, “Season of the Witch,” also, entitled “Jack’s Wife” and “Hungry Wives ,” (Please, see the related article, entitled “Season of the Witch,” aka. “Hungry Wives” and “Jack’s Wife.” It is, also, true that a feminist named Z. Budapest took Wicca in hand and molded it into a women’s religion. Although her style of Wicca still has some very strong sexual overtones, hers was the first documented women-only coven.

Read the book, “What’s Next After Wicca? Non-Wiccan Occult Practices and Traditional Witchcraft” by Sophia diGregorio.

My Personal Experiences

I was very young when I escaped the Mormon cult. At that time, it was relatively rare for people to leave the organization and there was no formal procedure in place for doing so. Fortunately, this has now changed, but few people leave this organization without having to leave behind family members and other important aspects of their lives. I was both relieved to be out of the cult, but traumatized by my experience with them. A friend directed me toward a weekly meeting of elderly women who sat around a table and taught and discussed occult subjects. These ladies were witches, but they were a traditional variety and not Wicans and I remember that many of them were very skeptical about it when the subject of Wicca was first brought up to us.

This was the early 1980s, so Wicca had not come to be the popular cultural phenomenon it is today. In fact, it had only been fully introduced to the U.S. by Raymond Buckland about 10 or 15 years earlier. Wiccans were personae non gratae at this time. Possibly this was not true on the west coast, which is where Wicca seemed to take hold in the U.S., but I was not in in California. I was in one of the original Voodoo centers of the U.S (we call it Hoodoo now to distinguish from other practices), a hotbed of Satanic activity and Spiritualist and metaphysical studies in years past. I was a very young person among a group of this old stronghold of occultists from that time.

What’s Next After Wicca? Non-Wiccan Occult Practices and Traditional Witchcraft

I had been involved with this group for a year or two before the subject of Wicca was brought up by a new member, who had been studying this subject. She offered to demonstrate a ritual for us and a few of us participated in this sort of mock Wiccan ritual. I became friends with this lady for a short while until it occurred to me that she seemed to be questioning her sexuality and exploring a lot of new things after being newly sprung from a very aggressive anti-woman religion, which I won’t name lest anyone reading this might recognize the people involved. I think she was very traumatized at this time and was open to all kinds of new ideas that she might have rejected out of hand before her departure from this mind control religion. She was the one who suggested I read the book, Drawing Down the Moon, and suggested I stay far away from the work of Aleister Crowley. She said to avoid Crowley because he had perverted Wiccan rites and rituals. As it turns out, this is not true, rather Gardner’s rites and the foundation for Wicca seem to have come almost entirely from Crowley’s work, although, much seems to be derived from freemasonry (Gardner like Joseph Smith was a low level initiate who claimed to be a high level one).

Of course, I read them both. Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon tells the story of neo-paganism in the U.S since the early 1970s, a movement I was unaware of and with which I did not resonate. I found it very hippyish and bizarre, but my friend was originally from the southwest and closer to the age group that accepts the ideas of the hippy era, which my own generation very much rejected. (I’m part of the tail end of the “Me Generation” – Dress for Success, Just Say No to Drugs and all that.)

When I know nothing about a public figure, I like to start with their autobiographies and fortunately, Crowley wrote his own hagiography (biography of a saint), entitled The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, which is now, unfortunately, out of print last time I checked. Since then I’ve read numerous others–the man was brilliant, a talented writer and an accomplished occultist who has the ability to convey his own personal discoveries with regard to the Kabbalah, meditation and ritual in a very straightforward and instructional yet friendly way. I have different feelings about Crowley’s personal life, but unlike Gardner, Sanders, Cochrane and others who followed in his footsteps, Crowley was a genuine occultist–yes, admittedly a pervert–but, also, a serious student and teacher of the occult and students of witchcraft can learn a great deal from his writings and those of his associates.

I didn’t hear much more about Wicca until I journeyed westward. I had read about the neo-paganism in Colorado in Drawing Down the Moon and as it turned out, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, Colorado Springs and Denver were still strongholds of Wicca and neo-paganism stemming from the 1970s. It was here that I learned more about what these people are all about.

Since I was an occultist, a professional psychic and a witch, when I met people who told me that they too were witches and were going to some meeting or other, I was interested in going along. Up to this point my experiences with other witches had actually revolved around the study of witchcraft, that’s what I expected to find – other students of the occult, other psychics, other witches, but this is not what I found.

My experiences among neo-pagans were varied, but weird, as follows:

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One one occasion I was invited to a Wiccan drumming circle. I was expecting an outdoor event, but instead it took place inside an older home in an older residential area, with a large open room (probably ordinarily the dining room). Once inside, there was little conversation unless it was down in the kitchen or some other room of the house. In the main room a good twenty or more people sat around on chairs patting various types of drums, despite their lack of rhythm. After a while, we left. I have no idea what the purpose of the drumming circle is. The people involved were the furthest thing from musicians I’ve ever seen, so it can’t be about music.

On another occasion, a man invited me to a pagan event that was taking place at someone’s farm house on the outskirts of town. When I arrived, I saw a bunch of guys leaping over a fire. They looked pretty drunk and, in fact, there was a keg or two of beer on the premises. After the fire was put out, I was informed by my host that the participants were now going inside to join a “puppy pile.” I had never heard this term before, so I had to have it explained to me. This is where the people lie around in a “pile” engaging in hugging, caressing and touching. I quickly jumped in my car and got the hell out of there.

Another time, I attended a pagan discussion group, which began with a few people sitting on the floor of a Unity church after hours discussing paganism This first meeting seemed fine. Some time passed and the man conducting this pagan group had begun to amass a few followers. The next time I attended one of his meetings he was standing up at the front of the church like a preacher, which offended some of the pagans in attendance, who left and did not return. But, a few others–all newbies without a clue–were intrigued by what this man had to say.

What was odd about this man was that as he got more power, he got more “familiarity” with women in attendance. The second and last time, I attended his meetings he said “good-bye” to me by pawing me up and down. Shortly after this he began hosting discussions on subjects like “Pagan Sexuality,” clearly trying to feel out (no pun intended) new prospects to see how susceptible they were to his sexual suggestions. As it turns out, he was conducting a swing club in the name of paganism, luring unsuspecting and often traumatized women while disguised as a knowledgeable pagan spiritual leader.

They went on to form a coven of sorts, in which they practiced the Great Rite in a very literal sense. They actually went into the woods, gathered around in a circle and watched as two people had ritualistic sex. Paganism and ritual was the backdrop for their particular sexual fetish. This is all fine and good, except that some of the people this man had lured were women who had recently been exposed to Christian spiritual abuse and were in a state of high suggestibility and completely ignorant about paganism, apart from the perversions being preached by this man.

My position on this matter is this: If you want to have a swing club or any other kind of sex club whose participants are informed and consenting adults, that’s your business, but represent it for what it is. Do not try to disguise it as a pagan group, call yourself a witch, a spiritualist, etc. and try to lure unsuspecting women so that they can be pawed and coerced into sexual activity.

Just as in every other instance, these pagan men and witches some of whom ran around in their robes and other garb carrying staves, were extremely unattractive men who devised this ruse in order to avail themselves of the bodies of innocent and often vulnerable women. It’s not much different from what Christian churches have been doing forever, but it is no less repugnant.

Furthermore, many people who have been abused by the churches and turn to some form of paganism, tend to harbor the same wide-eyed innocence as many church-goers. They have the idea that their spiritual leaders are knowledgeable and have good intentions, however, just as with Christians, this is all too often not the case.

This article is to be continued in the next article, entitled “How to Study Traditional Witchcraft and Occultism:Witchcraft Versus Witchcraft Theater.”

“What’s Next After Wicca? Non-Wiccan Occult Practices and Traditional Witchcraft” by Sophia diGregorio