Thistle

Hi. I don't know much about basque witchcraft but I thought I could tell you about a book claimed to be about basque witchcraft or similar. The book is Sorgitzak, Old Forest Craft by Veronica Cummer. It's published by Pendraig Publishing that normally publish trad craft books, but it does seem to have wiccan influences. The author of the book claims that she has gotten the information in the book handed down to her from the gods. Now, I have an alarmklock ringing in my head right there, but i do have the book. I haven't read it all yet and I don't really think it's my style, but nevertheless it might contain some useful information. I don't know if somone has posted about this book before.

I like the idea! I think it should be "Luciferianism" instead of "Lucefarianism" ;).

Hm, as I said before, the things hiding in the dark are scarier than the dark itself. I have a vivid imagination, so I just need to look at a shadow or hear a sound to see an axe murderer or something. Yes, that is paranoia. Lately I have also been able to experience an amazing sense of peace and calm in the dark. It's a bit contradictory. The death thing is like others stated, the fear of not being able to take care of myself or getting really sick and beeing in pain. Oh, and I'm afraid of spiders aswell.

I have tried this with a roasted chicken, unfortunately I had cooked the chicken for a while before for chicken stock. The bones got frail from cooking and broke pretty easily. It also felt a bit off, I can't really explain why. I was sitting there wondering what to do with the bones and in the end I threw them away.

I'm afraid of the dark. In my home I search rooms and closets to make sure there's no one there, people seem to be more dangerous than the actual dark but this seams to go hand in hand. If I'm alone in the forest I'm more afraid of someone attacking me than the darkness in itself. I'm also afraid of death. I work with deities and one of the deities that came to me a couple of years ago is Hel of the norse pantheon. I don't really know when I started to be afraid of death. My best friend died of cancer about nine months ago and since she got sick I have been afraid of most diseases, I think Hel came to me for one of those reasons, to actually see what I'm afraid of and work through it, and believe me death is around pretty much all the time. Or so it feels. I try to work with both of my fears, and there are more but right now I think I just can deal with two at a time. What are you afraid of? Do you actively work through your fears, and if you do, how?

Tuna, mayonnaise and some kind of yoghurt or cream, and onions on a grilled sandwich. Now remember I live in Sweden so it's a bit difficult to know all the ingredients you have in your countries. This is supposed to be almost lieke a paste to have on a tea sandwich or grilled sanwich. Tuna, tomatoes, nice seasoning, some cream and pasta. Easy but ohh so good.

So. I got this book a while ago and I have flipped through it a few times but haven't had time to sit down and read it yet. It looks good so far. It's about curses, how to detect them and find out if you have been cursed and how to protect yourself and eventually return the curse. It contains charms, herbs, the dead, angels, making poppets, setting wards and others things. It's a thin book but it has a lot of information in it.

I know I could just burn the herbs with charcoal, but I have cats around and I have started to be more careful and not burn charcoals since I'm afraid of the sparks getting to them or them just tipping the container over. And my cats tend to get crazy and run around playing at times. Another thing is that the smoke gets pretty heavy. Actually I was just thinking of heating the herbs and oil in the burner bowl with the heat that comes from the candle underneath. I hope that that will make the smell come out of the herbs, don't know if it will work though.

If I would make a blend of some died herbs and add essential oil to that, could I put this in an oil burner to get the smell out? Or would the oil burner get to hot and crack, has anyone tried this? If I posted this in the wrong part of the forums, mods please feel free to move it. Thistle

It's interresting to see that many people have opinions on this. I went to my cats grave the other day. When we buried her it was winter and my boyfriend used his hands and a rock to bury her. Now we had to move her to a better place and put her deeper in the ground. What was left of her was more than just a skeleton and I'm thinking I should wait a while if I'm actually going to use her bones. I'm still not sure about what to do though. Does anyone know how long it will take for the body to decompose when it's in the ground? How do you clean bones you find outside? Thistle

I have a memory of this or similar questions coming up before. But this article and video clip made me think: http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A394869 Would you use the bones of your dead pet for magic or crafting? I was thiking about it since my cat died about a year ago. Allthough the idea seems ok I'm not sure I could actually do it and even if I would be at peace with having my cats bones around the house, my boyfriend got upset when I told him about it. Seeing this video clip made me think having the bones of my cat in the house would be a bit odd. Another thing, do you use bones of roadkill in your craft, and if you do how do you make sure it's safe? Thistle

Hi. I haven't been around for a while, but this moon paste thing certainly got my interrest. There's nothing like a good mystery right? So I have been googeling this and finding next to nothing. I found another reference to the moon paste in a book that was mentioned before, A Highland Chapbook by Isabel Cameron (page 61). This isn't much but might just be some help on the way: The word images in this part of the text makes me think that the paste was used for making images of some kind like dolls maybe, but that's just my theory. Thistle

I did som reading about stregheria and even bought som books by Raven Grimassi a couple of years ago. There is a lot in his type of "the craft" that has similarities to wicca and I would call it wicca with an italian flavour. And from what I know Raven Grimassi is wiccan so that might be the explanation for that. On the other hand there is still some usful information in his books on stregheria. I belive that the italian word for witchcraft is stregoneria and when I started looking in to it there seemed to be an ongoing debate between the italians that practice this and who didn't really want to call themselves witches and the followers of Raven Grimassi. They seem to want to make it that som kind of witch cult existed in italy. I agree with you Michele, that there is a wicca flavoured italian witchcraft and an autentic one. And as you said since Italy is a catholic country I think it might have been a good reason not to advertise if you were a witch. But than again I think that the folk practices were so mixed up in the religion that it might have been difficult to separate them.

I'm not actually sure that italian witchcraft is a religion, and what Raven Grimassi writes about has heavy wiccan influences. Here's a really good page about italian folk practices. I'm not sure this link hasn't been posted before. There's also an interresting book about italian cunning folk, by Carlos Ginzburg: http://www.rueskitchen.com/ http://books.google.com/books?id=qPQ9AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=carlo+ginsburg&hl=sv#PPR7,M1 Hope this helps/Thistle

I guess my taste in music is pretty varied. I was looking through my mp3 player and some of the artists are: Zucchero, Johhny Cash, Vaya Con Dios, Amy Winehouse, C.C Adcock, Cher. Dixie Chicks, Manu Chao, Mano Negra, Gypsy Carvan, Shakira, The Corrs, Stevie Nicks and others. I really like rock music, like Metallica, Danzig, Dax Riggs, Panthera, Live, Days of the New, Garbage and also singer songwriters like Ane Brun, Katie Melua and Indigo Girls. I listen to soo much and I tend to have different periods when I stick to different types of music. Thistle

Congratulations Sandy! I agree with the others no one will hear anything from me, not that I actually know anything :).

I'm sorry for your loss! I lost my cat Shadow about a month ago and it took a while to stop thinking about it. The thing is that it's so difficult to think about the good memories when the bad ones are stuck in my brain. My boyfriend buried Shadow in a little "wooded" (?) area close to our appartement. He put a lot of stones on the grave to keep animals getting to her body. It's kind of weird though. I was kind of coping with Shadows death but when I visited her grave it got a lot worse. I don't know why, I mean I know she's not really there but It feels like I just left her there all alone. I'm sorry if this sounds stupid but I really don't understand the point with visiting somones grave. I hope you find a way to solve your problem, my thoughts are with you. Thistle

I read a rewiev of this book on "The esoteric book rewiev" and I thought it sounds really interresting:http://ritualmagick.co.uk/reviews/?tag=traditional-witchcraft And here it is on Amazon:http://www.amazon.com/Defences-Against-Witches-Craft-Canard/dp/1905297181/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232476120&sr=8-1 Has anyone read this book or heard anything about it? It seems to be all about curses, how to curse and how to protect yourself from curses and then there's lore on folk practices in England, related to curses of course :p. Thistle

Of course. I agree with you and I can't see that I said this wasn't true. I guess you mean that they didn't have anyone who taught them. I think the fact that so many women were considered witches is pure fear of something people didn't understand. Can you elaborate on what you mean with your post?

Peter Paddon talks about this in The Croocked Path Podcast episode 27. http://www.crookedpath.org/oldshows.html It seems to me that it's a question of lineage and if that makes you more genuine as a witch. I think having witches in your family is a god thing if they want to pass the knowledge on, you get to learn from people you trust. But even in "witchy" families there are people that choose not to follow the families path. I wonder if they just try to deny it or if they just don't have "it"? I think you can be a witch even if you don't grow up in a family of witches. So the way I understand it the red thread is a tradition and the lore and practices of that tradition passed on from person to person, not necessarily in the family. Thistle

After reading the thread about Gypsies I remembered this book I found at the library. The book is called We Borrow the Earth and written by Patrick Lee. I read it a long time ago and I have been planning to read it again and to buy it when I have the money for it. I really recommend this book. It's an interresting read about Gypsy shamanism. Of course I can't say how accurate it is but either way I think there is alot to learn from it for some and useful bits and pieces for others. http://www.amazon.com/We-Borrow-Earth-Intimate-Tradition/dp/0722539940

I belive the Gypsies originally came from India. I actually can't say where I got the information since I read alot around the on the net. What I can say is that there seems to be a connection between the goddes Kali and the Gypsy goddess Sara La Kali. I can put up a link to a few webpages about this if anyone is interrested, or just google "Sainte Sara La Kali".I found this on wikipedia: This is an interresting discussion, I have to agree with those that say the Gypsies keep there secrets in the family. I guess it's a way of protecting themselves.

A bit late on this one. Thanks guys, it's good to know your thoughts. I never heard of this either and I thought I had missed something. I just wonder where the massage guy got it from. I will try to look into this some more, just been very busy with school lately.

Thanks Michele. I found it and I'm currently reading through it. Pretty interresting stuff :D.

Of course. You are right and I was actually not thinking that far back. I'm not sure when Azoetia was written but I believe the Clan of Tubal Cain was made public sometimes in the sixties. I guess you can debate on where Cochrane got all his information from but that might be difficult to find out. Do you think witches were actually christian or do you think they were christian just for show? There had to be some thought outside the box and doubt about religion then aswell.