How To Be A Witch

Creating Spells

If you read around about spells, almost every witch will tell you that it's best to use your own spells. This way, it'll be much more effective.

You'll probably find a gazillion spellbooks, and those are good. You can get them.

But only for reference.

When you're in a pinch, it's okay to use a spell straight from the book, but you don't have to follow it word by word, with the exact materials if you don't have all of them. In fact, it's better if you don't.

Spell books are great for seeing different kinds of spells, different formats, and different ways you can use different things. They can be as elaborate or as simple as you'd like.

So yes, I do recommend getting a few spellbooks. But once again, only for reference and ideas.

If we aren't taking spells straight from the spellbook, how do we get spells? It might seem that spells are so sacred and old and ritualistic that they are like sacred texts. You can interpret them, but you can't change them. Kinda like the Bible. Once it's written, you don't change it.

That's not what spells are.

Most of the spells around are made by people. It's more powerful to do a spell that you created, anyway. So how exactly do we make them?

Choose your intent.
This is, by far, the most important part of a spell. You can have a spell without any tools, any materials, but you can't have a spell without an intent. Some examples could be weight loss, health, love, self love, good luck, or bad luck for someone, protection (general or from something specifically), better sleep, and so on. The possibilities are endless. But before you can tap into all that vastness of possibilities, you must decide on your intention. There's one important thing I need to add, though. Keep it real. Don't make your intention too big. Keep it in the realm of reality.

Timing
A next big important part of formulating a spell is the timing in which you will actually perform the spell. This isn't necessary, but if you want to give your spell a boost, figure out what time works best for your intentions. I'll go over the correspondences for different times in the next chapter.

Spirits and Entities

Next, you choose who or what you want to work with. You could just work with the Universe or the spirit of the Earth if you want, but you could also choose something else to help aid your spell. You can work with elementals, deities, angels, demons, ancestors, fae, mermaids, dragons (and other invisible "mythical" creatures), and also celestial bodies.

Action
Next, you get to the actual doing of the spell. This is where you can get creative. Here, you decide how to perform your spell. You can make a charm, amulet, or talisman, create a ward (for protection), make a poppet (not to be confused with voodoo dolls, but can be used that way), make a spell bag or spell jar, write your intentions on a piece of paper and burn it, make a sigil, make crafts, light candles, burn incenses, use oils, herbs, and crystals, and so on. The possibilities are endless. You could also make food, for those of you who are interested in kitchen witchery.

Tools and Materials
Once you've decided what you'll do, you have to decide what tools and materials you'll need to do it. For example, if you are making a spell bag, you might get a certain color pouch to put certain herbs in it. You can also put a crystal, charm, or sigil in it if you so choose. For a poppet, you'll have to gather the materials in order to make the poppet as well as the materials you'll need to enchant it.

Incantation
Incantations, along with the action itself, is what makes spells so fun. Words are a super easy way to empower a spell and set it in motion. This allows you to not only think of the intention, but also say it, and that is very powerful. Along with the correspondences (of the timing and materials), your thoughts, spirits invoked, and energies, speaking allows you to amplify the spell and to seal the deal. You can make incantations elaborate, with rhymes, different languages, and whole pages of fancy words, or you can make it simple, as little as a single line. It's entirely up to you, as long as you feel it does the job.

Recording and Observation
It's my mistake that I didn't tell you all this sooner, but recording everything is absolutely crucial to the Craft. It'll make things a lot easier, safer, and just better in general. Always record your spells in your Book of Shadows or grimoire (more on that later). You also should pay attention to small changes in your life. Spells don't always manifest in the world with trumpets and confetti and flashing lights. And record what you find. Record what happened. What didn't happen. What you could change for the better, what you can keep the same. Always. Record. Everything.

So that's the guide to making your own spell. I know, it's a lot. But it does help a lot with manifestation, which is what spells are. Manifestation. It's important to also incorporate visualization into the spell. Meditation can also be helpful, but visualization is a huge part of it. I suggest learning to visualize before spellcasting.

Now that that's out of the way, I'll go on to times, journals (grimoires and BoS), and then visualization. After those, we'll go from there.

See you later!

~Rae