Archive for the ‘Getting Started’ Category

This question has come to me either through email, PM, Facebook or on the forum so I thought it was time for a quick post.

How do I train in Hedgewitchery? How does one learn Hedgewitchery?

As Hedgewitchery is such a personal Path it is hard to tell someone how to find formal training. After all everyone is going to practice somewhat differently.

First, you might be lucky enough to find a teacher or another Hedgewitch to train and/or practice with. Of course we are all, always, students. For example I can only teach what I know, share what I have experienced and explain the mistakes I have made. My personal tailoring of Hedgewitchery may not be exactly what you are looking for either, just as if I met another Hedgewitch who has more experienced than I, there might be much of her Path that does not resonate with me. Some Hedgewitches are more interested in herbalism and botany, while I am more interested in animal healing and animal husbandry than others. Quite the conundrum eh?

This is one reason why I set up the website and forum, so folks can share what they have learned, what they are experimenting with, as well as what they are hoping to learn. So we can all help each other along the way. You can join the forum (The Wild Geek Hang) at my website and there are a few yahoo groups and such kicking around as well.

Well of course if you are lucky enough to meet another Hedgewitch or someone who follows a similar Path then you can learn a great deal from each other.

There are books than you can read. Some are better than others of course. Some may be more or less along the lines of what you are looking for. There are some great recommended reading lists on the Hedge that myself and others have posted, go to the “A Witch’s Studies” section and then into the “Reading Lists and Recommendations” category.

You don’t have to go to another Hedgewitch to study hedgewitchery. This may sound a little odd but hear me out. Hedgewitchery is a jack-of-many-trades Path, the main ones being: Some type of shamanism or seership, some form of healing, working with Nature in some way and folk magick. So decide which types of these subjects interest you and study them. For example you could take shamanism workshops or study under a seer or sied worker. You could take a course on herbalism or reiki; I am going back to school to study to be a Vet Tech (not only as a career path but also as part of my hedgewitchery).

It also doesn’t hurt to study other forms of Witchcraft and Paganism. You can learn a lot from a Wicca 101 course, or taking a course through a Druid organization. Many Hedgewitches study the Feri Tradition, Faery Seership or heathen traditions such as Asatru.

Don’t forget to read/study up on wise woman, cunning folk, conjure practitioners and folk healers throughout history. Also mythology and any other subjects that interest you and you wish to incorporate into your Path.

How else it this Path learned? From your spirits of course. One place all Walkers Between Worlds gain knowledge from are the gods, ancestors and other spiritual helpers and guides they meet along the way and build a relationship with.

I am working on getting the workshop I did on at the Fest called Building a Personal Divination System up on the website and here on the blog. But I have discovered I need photographs to make it make sense. Must have visual aids! I also work weekends! So in the meantime, here are inks to some of the articles I have written on the subject so far and some other links of interest.

Dem Bones and Bits and Sticks and Stones

Collection Casting: Birthday

Collection Casting June 8

Throwing the Bones and Reading Other Natural Curios

Crystals and Tarot cards

STONE DIVINATION

Divination system update

Follow-up Friday

Solstice Thoughts on the Beach

“The shaman knows that the soul’s urge toward beauty is not about perfect symmetry and mainstream approval. It is not about opening doors in business, or snagging the right mate, or fitting in at the A-list parties. The shaman knows that beauty is about opening doors to joy, snagging the moment, and fitting into your own life. She knows beauty is not something to buy. It is a path, a way of living and being in the world. The only path and the only way, if you want to keep dancing and singing.” ~ Robin Rice

It is perfectly normal to have difficulty learning to enter into trance states and to cross the Hedge. Thanks to certain authors, self help gurus and the like there is a belief that everything should be relatively easy or at least achievable after a couple of tries. The fact of the mater is that training one self to enter into trance states, or altered states of consciousness is not easy for most people. Hedge crossing (being the step you achieve after learning to enter trance states) is even more difficult. It’s supposed to be strenuous. There are reasons why shamanic practitioners are, and always have been, few and far between and are well respected (and a little bit feared) members of their communities.

It takes a minimum of twelve, but better twenty four, repetitions to create a new habit. So if you were to practice entering a trance state via drumming every full moon it could take you at least a year, and maybe two, to just begin to train your mind, body and spirit slip through the Hedge at the sound of your drum. This is just to start the new habit; you then have to follow through in order to maintain it.

Hedge crossing often, if not always, requires pushing past boundaries. Not just the boundaries of your own mind or the boundaries of this world, but the boundaries of what you think you can do. How long can you sit and chant for? How long can you dance? Can you keep drumming even when your arm is sore and hurting from the drumming? Can you perform ritual after three days of fasting?

The other night I performed a night ritual with a friend, introducing her to working with flying ointments. To begin she ate little that day and mostly healthy foods such as avocado, crackers and apple juice. We began the ritual around 9pm, at sundown purifying each other in the river, going through invocations, creating a boundary around our ritual space, and making offerings. Then I performed a short crossing myself seeking any last minute suggestions from my spirits.

Finally as we neared midnight I allowed her to coat herself with the ointment I had prepared. I had her do yoga for about half an hour. Then breathing exercises and swaying combined with chanting. Then I got her to plough the furrow (or Compass Round), dragging her feet and clapping her hands (or slapping her thighs). She did this through a hawthorn grove, being pricked by thorns that lay on the ground. I had her plough the furrow for quite some time, dragging her feet harder and harder, pushing against the tides. When she began to get out of breath … I made her chant out loud. I asked if she was tired and she nodded, so I had her keep going a little longer. Then, when it began to look as though she might rebel against my abuse, I helped her wrap herself up in a blanket against a hawthorn tree and attempt to cross.

She stayed there for about three hours. Her experiences are her own.

(All you people who write me saying you’d love to learn from me still wanna be my apprentice after reading that?)

This is how you cross the Hedge. Hedge riding is hardcore witchcraft and by that I don’t mean “hardcore” as in “cool” I mean it as in “hard right down to the very core”.

Here is a Hedge crossing checklist (in an undetermined order):

* What is your goal? What is it you want to achieve? Why? What is your motivation for crossing and what do you want to gain from it? Until you know what you want to do and why, everything else will not fall into place. Be clear, do your research. Have intent.

* Do you know where you wish to go? Many people report that they want to cross but do not know where they wish to go. They do not know for sure if they want to astral travel within the Middle world, if they wish to journey to the Underworld etc etc

You need to know if you wish to cross within your body, going deep within to converse with spirits and gods and ancestors. Or do you wish to leave your body behind and take your spirit for a flight else where, even if only within the confines of your ritual space?

Until you have a clear idea of where you want your spirit to go, how can it go? This is like walking out your door without knowing where you want to go or how to get there.

“Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior’s indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.” ~ Carlos Castaneda

* Study and research. It’s a good idea if you are going to cross to the Underworld that you have some idea of what you might find there. It’s easy to get lost while wandering around on the otherside and to find things that are strange, even scary. Study up on ancient and modern cultures mythologies and understandings of what lies beyond the Hedge.

* Find your safe entrance. Creating or finding a safe place that acts as your entrance and exit for crossing can not only help you make that “jump” across but it can also help provide you with a way to get the heck out if things go wrong.

Basing your visualization on something meaningful to you, or something with cultural significance will work better than just trying something from a book as well. Take the time to really build up your visualization, give it character, make it yours long before you even attempt to go through that hobbit door.

Also don’t try a million different entrances. If a cave doesn’t work for you the first two times don’t try a hedge the next time, then a tree the time after that, and then mountain after that. Giving something a fair try means doing more than just three or four times. If something isn’t working try variations before you scrap it entirely.

* Practice, practice, practice. You need to train yourself to slip into altered states and then across the Hedge. Once you’ve been doing it for a while (possibly years) you will find it easier to make that transition and be able to cross, do your thing and come back all under an hour. But even someone who is experienced will struggle at times. If they are out of practice it may take time to get back to where it is less difficult. I don’t think it ever gets “easy” it simply gets less difficult and requires less effort over time.

* Know yourself. Become comfortable with yourself. Face your demons. Love yourself. You do not want to be in a drug induced Journey and then be forced to face an aspect of yourself or your life that you were unprepared for. When walking between the worlds you cannot wear masks, you cannot be in denial of who you are and the things you have done. Break down your inner barriers before you try to break through the barriers of the unseen. Going to therapy now to deal with your issues is better than going to therapy and a shaman later to deal with your issues and the trauma of having to face them in the Underworld.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi

* Check your ego at the door. Waltzing out of your body or into the realms of gods, spirits and ancestors full or pride and with your hand out like some spoiled child will get you slapped down. Pretending the gods, spirits and ancestors are not greater or more knowledgeable or are less powerful than you are will not keep your safe from them on the otherside. Folks often like to think the gods (etc) are not bigger and badder than they are because the thought that they might be makes them uncomfortable, prepare to be very uncomfortable. People who say that they are equal to the gods or ancestors obviously haven’t met them in their own territory.

There’s a fantasy novel I adore wherein the main character who has had run ins with the gods before comes across a bunch of pilgrims. One of the pilgrims is going on and on about how she would love to meet the goddess face to face and all the things she would say. The main character thinks to herself “yeah right, if you found yourself in Her presence you’d be face first on the floor pissing yourself”

* If you want to start Hedge crossing on a regular basis I suggest you spend a little time studying things like Shamanic Death before they happen to you unexpectedly.

* Are you really, REALLY, called or do you just want to be a shaman? Do you know what the difference is? I am not saying you should not add shamanic practices to your spiritual path if you are not called to shamanize, but I am suggesting you be honest with yourself about whether you really have been called or not.

* Chant out loud, not just in your head. Repetition is only part of the purpose of chanting, using your voice and your breath is also necessary to make it worth your while. Vibration, breath, voice, repetition, intent, focus, energy and consciousness raising … these are what chanting is about.

* Ritual before a crossing matters, especially when you are first starting out. Think of it this way: First you enter into a ritual mindset, then into an altered state, and then you cross. X, Y, Z. There are good reasons why shamans around the world do certain things a certain way, wearing a specific costume, fasting, drumming, lighting candles, making offerings and so forth. Yes, part of the reason for these things may simply be for show (nothing like the placebo effect to help you along a bit right?) but the main purpose for these ritualistic actions is to prepare the mind, body and soul.

* Stick to it. It’s hard to stick to a single visualization or one chant or one drumming rhythm in a single ritual. But the idea here is to train your self like Pavlov’s dogs. Changing chants and such mid rite is like switching gears in your brain. Experienced practitioners have worked with one rhythm, one herb, one chant or one visualization until they know exactly how it affects them and what it does for them, and then they work with something else for a while, adding to their repertoire. Then they can “switch gears” according to their needs.

* It can take a while to learn what an altered state feels like for you, how to hold on to it and what to do from there. This is why the things listed above are so important.

* Flying ointments are like the usher in a posh theatre. Their purpose is to hold the door for you and help you find your seat. However you still have to buy the tickets, get to the theatre, walk through the door, watch the show and find your way back up the aisle afterwards. They can only do so much for you, they make your work easier but you still have to do the work.

Full on entheogens and hallucinogens, such as a good sized dose of datura, work a little differently than a flying ointment of mugwort or wormwood. These will grab you by the throat, drag you into the theatre, shove you into a seat and you don’t even get to choose what play you watch before being ejected face first out the door at its end.

* Expect it to be unpleasant. Many people give up once they start to feel seasick, dizzy, or uncomfortable. Altered states and Hedge crossing can be disorienting and feel very strange and be rather unpleasant. When working with tools such as ointments, tinctures, and smoke (to name a few) your body may be unhappy. Drumming, swaying, rattling and many meditative postures can give you sore muscles. You’re supposed to puke during a sweat lodge, a Sundance is really quite painful, and most entheogens make you sick and you can get lost wandering around on the otherside and fuck yourself up. Hedge crossing is for the stalwart souls willing to deal with a little discomfort and for those willing to risk going crazy as well.

* What is your goal? What is it you want to achieve? Why? What is your motivation for crossing and what do you want to gain from it? Until you know what you want to do and why, everything else will not fall into place. Be clear, do your research. Have intent. (Yes this is a repeat)

* If at first you don’t succeed try, try again.

* Yes, for some people this all comes naturally. Those folks are rare, don’t be sad if you aren’t one of them.

* Check out these articles and the books they suggest (if any) also read using your brain and critical thinking skills.

http://witchofforestgrove.com/2010/06/18/walking-between-worlds/

http://witchofforestgrove.com/2010/04/14/shapeshifting/

http://www.sacred-texts.com/sha/sis/index.htm

http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/boe/boe16.htm

http://www.sacred-texts.com/sha/anim/index.htm

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/index.htm

http://www.adf.org/articles/cosmology/otherworld.html

http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/wcwe/wcweapp5.htm

http://bitterwitchx.livejournal.com/3982.html

* Check out these books (click here)

“Observe the wonders as they occur around you.

Don’t claim them.

Feel the artistry moving through, and be silent.” ~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi

(And yes I know a Sufi poet and a Shaman are two different things, but you can never have too much Rumi)

Related Post: Risk vs Reward

Emma H asked in a comment to another post:

Do you ever find when communing with land spirits, that the condition of the land around them affects the clarity of their answer?

There are some places here that I like to walk, that are a little abused (seriously, what’s the point of fly tipping?) and I figure if I tried to commune with the spirits there, they’d be more interested in trying to draw my attention to their own issues. Which, given the condition of their land, is fair enough!

Good question Emma!

Just as you find when visiting a friend who have endured some trauma or injury, when visiting a natural place that has been harmed it will have something of a “one track mind”

Which is, as you say, fair enough.

But also as with visiting a hurt friend, one you’ve visited a few times and listened attentively to their expression of pain, you will develop a closer relationship. Often once they realize how good of a friend you have been to listen to their hurts, they will happily open up their ears to you and reciprocate.

All relationships are a matter of give and take. Sometimes you have to give more than take at first. Especially when working with a damaged landscape.

When going into a place that has been harmed I expect anger, resentment, fear, hurt and the expression of such from the land. I cultivate a good bedside manner and I listen and validate just as I would for a dear friend laying in a hospital bed. Hopefully one day that landscape will be willing to hear me out as well, but if not, at least I have learned something and done a little good for the Land.

If I am seeking my own answers, to express my own thoughts, to do something like a casting or divination I will not go to a damaged landscape if I can avoid it. I will go to the local Nature Reserve or well tended park or a loved garden. Just as if I needed advice from a friend I would go to one who is stable, steady and not suffering from a lot of pain herself right now. A give and take relationship must still be built with even an unharmed landscape, but it often will be more balanced right off the bat.

Cheers!

I love Walking the Hedge’s Wild Geek Hang aka the forum (FYI: “wild geek hang” is an anagram for “walking the hedge” hehehehe)

Here’s the start of a great thread going right now called Seeking help with protective charms:

pa_hsia says:

“I want to make a couple of protective charms for my new house – goodness knows we need some if this last month is anything to go by – so I’ve been doing a bit of reading on the topic, focusing on English folk magic and East Anglian (Anglo-Saxon) charms as my particular area of interest.

I think I understand how they work – sympathetic magic, mostly, as well as warding sigils and protective spirits – and I can more-or-less extrapolate reasons for why the charms are made how they are, but the reasoning behind one eludes me.

According to the Times Online, at least one Witch’s Bottle contained a leather heart stuck through with an iron nail.
I know that this is a symbolic representation of a charm for the protection of livestock – a bullock’s heart pierced by pins or nails and placed in the chimney – but I cannot find out how the original charm is meant to work.
I’m sure I’m overlooking something, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?”

Juniper (that’s me) responds:

I know the bottle you speak of, as I studied it when researching for the Witch Bottle article I wrote a while back.
http://walkingthehedge.net/wildgeekhang … ;Itemid=68

I do not think this bottle was made to protect livestock at all, I think it is love related. Let me explain.

First of all this bottle was found in a home in Greenwich which is part of London, meaning this bottle and the person making it was in the city. The person who owned this home may have had a horse, but not livestock. Also there are a number of charms and such for livestock protection; they are always found in the pasture itself, in the barn, tied to the fencing etc … near the animals themselves and not in the home.

If someone wanted to signify a bullock’s heart, it was easy enough back then to simply go to the butcher and buy a heart, and add a slice or two of actual heart to the bottle.

Symbolic hearts <3 mean the heart in the sense of love, desire, romance. For the person making this bottle, it is less likely the leather piece cut into a symbolic heart shape meant a real organ heart; it meant love/desire/romance to their mind.

From Wikipedia:

“In European traditional art and folklore, the heart symbol is drawn in a stylized shape. This shape is typically coloured red, suggesting both blood and, in many cultures, passion and strong emotion. The hearts have constituted, since the 15th century, one of the red suits in most playing card decks. The shape is particularly associated with romantic love; it is often seen on St. Valentine’s Day cards, candy boxes, and similar popular culture artefacts as a symbol of romantic love.
What the traditional “heart shape” actually depicts is a matter of some controversy. It only vaguely resembles the human heart.
The seed of the silphium plant, used in ancient times as an herbal contraceptive, has been suggested as the source of the heart symbol.

… Inverted heart symbols have been used in heraldry as stylized testicles (coglioni in Italian) as in the canting arms of the Colleonis of Milan.”

The fact that the heart is made of leather may or may not be significant. After all, leather was a readily available material at the time, easier to come by than many textiles in fact. Using leather may have just been using what was at hand, much like one of us using a left over piece of broadcloth from the scrap box.

The fact that it was pierced makes me think of Cupid’s arrow, or a broken heart. The symbolism of a pierced heart was around back then, and means much of the same thing as it does today.

Other than the heart this bellamine bottle also

“contained 12 bent iron nails (one of which pierced a small leather heart), eight brass pins, 10 adult fingernail pairings (not from a manual worker, but a person “of some social standing”), a quantity of hair and urine with traces of nicotine, indicating it had come from a smoker. There were also traces of sulphur, then known as brimstone, and what is thought to be navel fluff.” ~ Fortean Times

A Witch bottle was made using ingredient from the person, place or thing it was meant to protect. Aside from the leather there is no pieces of livestock in the this bottle.

An Old Bailey court record from 1682 documents that a husband, believing his wife to be afflicted by witchcraft, was advised by a Spitalfields apothecary to

“take a quart of your Wive’s urine, the paring of her Nails, some of her Hair, and such like, and boyl them well in a Pipkin.”

We know the finger nails come from an upper class man. That the urine came form a smoker and that most women did not smoke back then. So we know the person mean to receive this spell breaking or the effects of the charm was probably male and reasonably well to do.

I think most likely this bottle was meant to cure someone of a particular curse … love. Perhaps the person making it was trying to be free of someone who was not taking no as answer, perhaps this person was trying to make someone fall in love with them.

I think the most likely case is this person felt they had a love spell cast on them and needed to break it. What kind of love spell? I don’t know, maybe an unlucky in love spell, maybe they thought someone had been enspelled to fall in love with them, or maybe they were having a hard time getting over someone and felt it was a curse.

Maybe, just maybe they were trying to make someone fall in love with them. There are twelve nails in the bottle, the last one piercing the leather. Perhaps someone was hoping for another to love them a little more or a little less, each month over the course of a year?

It is possible the person making the bottle was not the person who needed the magick. It was common to hire someone, such as Cunning Folk to do it for you; it was also common to do it for a family member, with or without their permission. Maybe a concerned parent, wanting to keep his or her child away from a lover or someone they had affection for created the bottle.

Certainly one of the more common spells requested today is to help someone move on from a relationship that has ended, that they want to end, or to stop obsessing over someone. People 300 years ago were not so different.

Well that’s the first two posts, there’s more and hopefully you’ll join in, either in that thread or another one … or start one!

A first(ish) draft of the introduction to the chapter on etheogens and hallucinogens in that book I’ll never finish writing.

“Blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, red as a beet, hot as hell, dry as a bone, the bowel and bladder lose their tone, and the heart runs alone.” ~ A teaching mnemonic device about the effects of Datura stramonium

Like many young and inexperienced Witches I had a craving for a deep, mystical and powerful spiritual experience, similar to the tales I had heard the Elders in my community share. I wanted something akin to the tall-tales the other young Witches and Pagans told each other when not within earshot of the Elders. I wanted something special, something that would make me special, some great nugget of lore or wisdom that would impress people. I was envious… and a little bored.

My first attempt at working with flying ointment had been something of a disappointment to me, yet also a temptation. Being careful and cautious as I was advised, I had made a very simple and weak blend. Then I rubbed it on a few pulse points before stretching out on a blanket in my living room and trying out a few different breathing exercises. I had a minor visionary experience but not the mind blowing, enlightening Journey across the Hedge that would allow me to “wink wink” with other practitioners who had. However, it was enough to give me a taste of what might be. I felt like a starving man being offered only a single slice of bread. I wanted more.

As a teenager, I had experimented a great deal with hallucinogens. LSD and mushrooms were easier to get my hands on than alcohol or cigarettes in high school. With that experience, I thought I knew what I was doing.

I made a new batch of flying ointment: stronger, better, faster. It was a combination of lard, a small amount of mugwort  and a large dose of datura. I had done a little cursory researching on the ingredients and the making of ointment. I impatiently waited for the next full Moon, took a few days off work, and prayed for good weather.

I fasted on the day of my planned rite and buzzed around the house and my four acre wooded property with nervous energy, full of anticipation. I choose a spot some twenty yards from my home in a clearing surrounded by birches and spruce. There I laid out my blanket and set up my altar. As the Sun went down I began my ritual, calling upon gods, ancestors and the spirit guides known to me at the time: Owl and Crow. I slathered myself with the stuff, rubbed a dollop upon my tongue, and spread out naked upon my blanket.

I lay scattered in the abyss

Surrounded by a bleak

And terrifying nothingness

The creatures I had trusted

Who naively I had followed

Have torn me apart

And left me in a mess

The shock and horror

Their betrayal

The pain of my dismemberment

Fills my being and all that I am

And then suddenly is forgotten

As I begin to contemplate the blackness

And the fact that though torn asunder

I am still capable of self and thought

I realize that in these pieces

I cannot be more than self and thought

The fear that I will never leave this place

Begins to fill the emptiness around me

I cry out and then I hear myself begging

For release, for a way out of here

A dark figure beyond the black looms

Large and twisting with antlers adorning

He offers me a deal…

A short while later I am slammed back into my body screaming like a newborn babe. I twist and writhe upon my blanket, clutching at it, face down at first but eventually I flounder my way upon my back. My blurred vision clears somewhat and I stare about in gasping horror. The white birches have become finger bones with strips of flesh clinging to them; the spruces loom darkly above menacingly. The Moon and stars in the sky above wheel and spin dizzyingly.

My dogs locked in their run have heard my screaming and now bark and whine, the sound echoing in my ears and my head, making me clutch my ears in pain and fear. They sound as if a pack of coyotes or hyenas are scrabbling at the fence, trying to get through to rend and tear at my flesh, just as my spirits had done to me in That Other Place. Amongst the chaos, noise, and terror, a single thought blooms in my mind and gives me focus: Get this stuff off of me!

Sobbing now I begin to frantically rub the blanket against my skin, trying desperately to remove the offending ointment. The nasty, greasy stuff does not come off easily. It seems to cling to my body, and I weep and whimper at the irrational fear that I would take my skin off with it.

I catch a glimpse of light, streaming from the kitchen window of my home. Somehow I stumble to my feet, but then the ground rushes up at me and slams into my face. Pain explodes through my consciousness. As adrenaline floods my body, I am awarded a moment of clarity and take it, picking myself up and moving as fast I dare towards my home. By the time I reach the front steps I am crawling again, unable to stop the world from shifting beneath me. It seems to take forever to climb the six steps up the front door and my hand passes through the doorknob three times before I can grasp it to open it.

Clinging to counter and walls I shoo my dogs away, which I see as in the house barking and lunging at me, though in fact they were still outside in their run. Somehow I make it into the bathroom and grab at the faucet like a drowning woman reaching for a life preserver. I am afraid to turn on the hot faucet, paranoid I might burn myself so I turn on the cold shower and climb in, coating myself with shampoo and soap as I try to remove the ointment from my body.

I walked with one foot in each world for three days. I did not return to work for nearly two weeks. My life has never been the same since.

Today you can find flying ointment recipes on websites and in forums, even in books written by authors whose works are aimed mostly at teenagers. People call themselves Hedgewitches with no concept of what the word really means. They mistake it for a solitary Wiccan or a domestic Witch messing about with herbs in her kitchen. They look for flying ointment recipes, and tips on how to smoke salvia divinorum, seeking that short cut to a special mystical experience which they think they deserve. In this culture of instant gratification, the masses no longer want to do the work. They do not feel the need to earn their stripes. They want what they want, and they want it now. Meditation and trance inducing techniques are boring and require patience, time and discipline. Would it not be easier to simply drink a tea, slather some ointment or smoke an herb instead?

Many of the folks seek these recipes and tips from complete strangers on the Internet. Paradoxically, many also ask for only “safe” recipes, and don’t want to risk something bad happening to them. Too many people think they can safely dabble with such tools and techniques, based on the advice of an anonymous “friend” on a forum and expect to receive the Mysteries this way.

You don’t take flying ointment, entheogens or hallucinogens hoping that you will have a grand experience and that nothing negative might happen. If you should choose to work with them, then you must be willing to risk a bad experience. There is always a risk of danger and trauma when you work with such substances, no matter how careful you are and how well you do your research you cannot fully eliminate that risk. If you are not willing to accept that risk, then you stand a very good chance of being traumatized, hospitalized, or forced to face something you may not truly be ready for.

If you are not prepared to accept the risk, then do not use these techniques and tools. If you are seeking a shortcut to enlightenment, insight or the Mysteries then you are a fool indeed.