Romanian charm for snake bite

I already talked about hags who used to be called on in various cases to provide paranormal aid. The following article by At. M. Marienescu is from an old Romanian newspaper, Family, dated 1870. 

"The hag lights frankincense and fumigates the wound. Then, holding a brass knife backwards in her right hand, she mimics stabbing something behind her while speaking the charm.

Many charms are used in conjunction with various 'medicines,' that are hardly shared with others, otherwise the hag risks losing her profession, thus her income. Elena Andreiu from Roman Oravița, who dictated the following to me, cures in this manner:

Lucky and unlucky days and hours

Ancient Egyptian division of a month into days and of days into three periods. The periods were then labeled either good or bad, with the symbol resembling an arrow pointing upwards making good periods and that resembling a flaming torch making the bad ones.

Amulets and Superstitious by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge is an interesting theoretical source detailing ancient talismans from different cultures. Unfortunately, no magical application for this data is shared with respect to ancient magical trinkets, it being solely detailed for academic purposes. 

Even so, the following information may be used in tandem with that on days and hours from Asteria, even for experimental purposes. It consists of days and hours considered lucky or unlucky in the past. They can be taken into account when planning a ritual, based on the intent.

Too dumb to woowoo

"The fool is not fool enough until he's also priggish" is an old Romanian saying.

Idk why dafuq I'm even bothering writing articles now that one of the pillars holding up the WMT has transcended beyond. But since my struggle in this lifetime is to make sense of mundane experiences from a certain point of view and master them, I'll move on (even reluctantly, and do my best to be my usual self).

Now that the whole US election thing is behind us, it seems like a good idea to bring to the forefront the most stupidest magical feat I've ever come across during my ten years of occult practice. I've seen a lot of dumb shit over time, but this must be the stupidest since it was the the sensational feat of one who expects to be considered an expert in more than one occult field. The individual in question has been involved in the occult for many more years than myself, which makes this even more laughable.

The day following the election a screenshot of a certain fb post was brought to my attention. Said post contained an individual's hopes for the upcoming election results. Since Nov 5 was on a Tuesday, and probably keeping in line with his own age old tradition of making offerings under Christmas lights to the appropriate planetary force of the day, the man also implied he'd rub a candle out to Mars for victory for his favorite candidate. I also think this falls in line with his usual virtue signaling and attention begging.

Be truthful to your woowoo person!

This past weekend I met a local woowooist for the second time in person. I had met Frater Iustin for the first time the previous weekend. Both times we've alcoholized ourselves a bit and talked a lot about woowoo, something I enjoyed a great deal since it's practically the first time I've been able to talk face to face with another practitioner. He's a great guy and I think you'll find his Resurse Hermetice blog very insightful when it comes to various occult themes, but you'd have to run a translation. You'll also find the link to the right of the page.

Among the many occult related topics we discussed, we found a lot to chat about in regards to magical services and anything related to them. We whole-heartedly agreed upon a mandatory condition customers must accept and comply to, namely telling the truth.

The power of a name

(I apologize for Blogger's messing up with the script throughout the article...)

I initially wanted to include this in Words, but I would have digressed even more. Suffices the first two chapters are already somewhat of a rollercoaster ride. Adding yet another "side story" would have probably confused readers. I did have an excellent opportunity to do so at the beginning, after I added the scripture verses.

The verses themselves talk about Man being co-creator with God, naming things into Creation. Thus each thing became its own thing having received that identity from its Creator(s). A similar thing happens to newborns when they receive their name or names from their parents. They already have a family name, marking their membership in a larger group, but their given names makes them stand apart from every other individual in that family group.

ASTERIA 2

Asteria Unveiled: Celestial mysteries revealed 

Has finally published by Lord Manticore. FINALLY!!!

This is the followup volume to Asteria, a work that branches out from its predecessor and expands on various applications of astrology in magick. Even though some concepts presented inside come with short explanations, the material requires people to be readily aware of it since it was explained in detail in Asteria. So if you are not familiar with those concepts you could read Asteria first or look up whatever information you require using various other sources when you come across it in the second book. 

Asteria Unveiled addresses both older concepts which it masterfully discusses in new ways, and newer ones which it thoroughly details, offering more than enough information for people to enrich their magical practices. There were cases where it was necessary to skip over most of the explanations and not because we're jerks or anything, but because they would require entire volumes and, truth be told, it would make a pretty much boring read anyway. As a result, we injected the text with highly concentrated small doses of explanations just so readers would understand the concepts presented. So although this book has less number of pages than Asteria, the highly concentrated doses of knowledge it contains would keep people busy for a long time.

Lunar petitions for beginners

In light of the Full Moon in domicile today, Monday (night, depending on where you live), I think this article is very appropriate. I posted a very short version of the text on a couple of fb groups for beginners a few years ago and for the most part it went unnoticed. I posted it because I thought beginners would benefit from it, but I guess people in those groups were more interested in memes and ads, including the noobs.

Aside from the fact I think any occult group that allows memes is pretty much a dead end for any noob, I will expand more on the original text to elaborate on the method. Keep in mind this method is aimed at noobs so don't expect me to go into advanced techniques.

Romanian New Year kinks

For the last post of the year I will add an article about various Romanian traditions, charms and practices of a superstitious nature relating to the New Year, along with a few superstitions relating to this time. Although some of those practices can come across as simple superstitions, they stem from beliefs that span back into the midst of time. They are part of the popular, agrarian calendar that in many cases overlaps with the religious one. This increases the diversity of the customs and their symbolism.

Some of those beliefs were identical to or at least similar to some degree to those of other cultures regardless of geographical location. Others still, are unique to these lands and in many cases they are unique not only between different historical provinces, but also between various regions that compose each province. Therefore, I can only write down but a few of them. You'll have to excuse me for switching between tenses and all the grammar quirks, since it's been cumbersome to flip through several exhaustive sources over a very short period and to translate from them at the same time.

Spiritual authority

One of the major underlying themes in my Magic Words addresses spiritual authority, or the magician's ability to command spirits. The book also discusses offerings by providing more science-like details with respect to how they work, among other things. 

For some time now I've been paying more attention to Romanian folklore and I began to recall the old stories my grandma used to tell me. This made me broaden my search and I started to look up various customs and habits, as well as mythological entities from this neck of the woods. It just so happens I've come across rather detailed references to the Mother of the Woods as she's widely known around here, although she is also known by other names depending on region. How does this fit with my book? Stick around and I will tell you.

Lunar call

And since there's a Full Moon today, I guess it's a good time to add the lunar call from The Anthology of Romanian Popular Charms I mentioned in the previous article. Again, Im not able to translate in rhymes...

Documented by S. F. Marian - Spells, from Mitrocul Dragomirnei - Suceava

"Moon, Moon / Vârgomoon! You are proud and fair / You are night's queen / Horse you have / Reins you lack / Here, take my waist* / And make reins [of it] / For your horse / So you may go after the one that's destined for me / Should he (or she) be here in the village / Should he (or she) be from the next village / Should he (or she) be from the third village / Or from the ninth village / Give them no respite / Nor comfort / May he (or she) not sleep / [May he (or she)] not rest / Until such time they come to me!"

Obviously, this call is for a love goal. The term "vârgomoon" is an associations of the words "virgin" and "moon" and alludes to the goddess Diana.

*The waist is a traditional belt-like clothing accessory worn by both men and women. In some regions it was made of leather.

Hate on, dum-dums!

The Great Gazoo

Solar calls

At the end of yesterday's article I mentioned a charm for love from The Anthology of Romanian Popular Charms, compiled and edited by Radu Răutu. Besides charms for specific goals, the book also contains a few prayer-like structures referred to as calls. Specifically, there are a few solar calls, one lunar call and quite a few stellar calls. 

Since Solstice is upon us, it came to me I should translate the solar calls and add them here. The calls themselves are a form of prayers that call on the magical aspects of the Sun - I usually write Sun and Moon with capital letters whenever I'm referring to the divine consciousness behind them, while I use lowercase letters whenever I'm referring to the physical cosmic objects; in this case I will refer to the Sun by writing it beginning with capital S, despite the text also referencing attributes of the physical sun. Unfortunately, I'm unable to translate them in rhyme as its their original structure. I would have to make certain modifications to the text to preserve the essence of its meaning though.

Old Romanian charms

Now that my Magic Words is out I figured I'd share some old charms from my neck of the woods. They are mostly spoken formulae although various tools and ingredients are also used depending on the goal they are used for. Talk about protocol, huh? 

Similar charms are found in various cultures around the world. During my time in the occult I came across somewhat similar ones in sources like the Egyptian Secrets, The Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet, or Ancient Christian Magic so it's not like these are their own trend or something. What makes them special to me is simply that they come from around here. 

Such magical workings were usually performed by old women known by a term that would be the equivalent of both old woman and hag in English. Whereas the stereotypical image of a witch in the western world is a woman with a pointy hat, the hags from around here usually looked like the old woman depicted in the above image. While some men also performed this role, women were predominant in this field. These people were often both feared and respected in their community and people took great care not to cross them. It was not uncommon for priests to send sickly people to the hags whenever their religious work could not provide relief from suffering.