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Underground > Temple >

Magic for the Flat Broke

08:59 / 17.01.02

I have a dollar. That's okay. But when I think, "Hey, here's an idea for a ritual!" I think of buying candles or props or offerings of rum, but I gotta hang onto this dollar. And I keep thinking that if I use the black candle with REDRUM on it I got for a present might put a weird vibe on things

Hm... I'm not sure I have a well-formulated question. I guess I'm just curious as to whether anyone has any fun anecdotes/suggestions on magic with household, not-especially-magical-or-even-unusual items. Butter knives as athames, summoning up C'thulu with one votive candle, an empty peanut butter jar, and the Cliff Notes for King Lear, that kind of thing.

08:59 / 17.01.02

In another place at the moment they're discussing Kitchen magick, is that the kind of thing you mean, i.e. decorating cakes with sigils, using pizza toppings as sigils

11:58 / 17.01.02

You need to burn that dollar... or play the lottery with it. Either way you're too attached. You need to spend money (on rituals) to have money magically fall into your lap.

And if you waste that dollar and don't get anymore in return you'd have learned a valuabe lesson: Money's just paper and it burns quickly... you should have bought a chocolate bar with it.

12:34 / 17.01.02

When I eat at home, I usually leave a little uneaten food for my spirit helper. But since I do this so often and I so rarely ask him to do anything for me that I'm afraid he's starting to get a bit chubby from lack of exercise.

12:56 / 17.01.02

One of the fun exercises that both Freya Aswynn and Nigel Pennick suggested for getting in tune with the Norse Runes was to make biscuits or little cakes or cookies and to draw and 'cast' the runes onto them. Then to ritually eat the cookie which also brings the rune energy into yourself.

Very powerful way to get in touch with those energies. When I first did that I would ingest the cookies and then journey to the rune for insight, teaching, assimilation. The subsequent dreams were really wild also.

As for cheap supplies, my partner and I have put together little 'altars in a box' for trips where we had to either travel light or into areas that may not like some of our ritual stuff.

A simple metal tin (old Altoid boxes work great) with a tea candle (you can but a whole bag of like 30 for under five bucks at certain stores), some loose white sage (bought in bulk mail order for cost effectiveness), and some 'strike anywhere' matches. Then for shamanic journeying, insted of drums or big rattles, one of those little 'egg' rattles.

We journeyed in the ruins of Copan, Honduras using one of those little egg rattles. people thought we were wacked.

A friend of mine who is under age has parents who although they are very open, driving him around to buy ritual supplies is a little much for them. He uses stuff around his house. He found an abalone shell on the beach and uses that for his incense brazier. He uses leaves from certain trees in the area to burn for incense and he made his own set of runestones from pebbles from a stream and some paint.

[ 17-01-2002: Message edited by: Lothar Tuppan ]

16:35 / 17.01.02

The only stuff I do is improvised from stuff around the house. Salt and sage (OK, i bought that one for this purpose) for purifications, foreign coins and lollipops for offerings....

I'm pretty sure this money-attracting ritual I did, making a doll out of a dollar bill and my hair along with some other stuff I can't remember, led me to this very job, which I was offered lo those four or five years ago.

16:38 / 17.01.02

Oh, trick from the Hindu festival of Diwali:
you can make votive lamps really easily by sticking a bit of paper towel/cotton ball into a small cup of olive oil and lighting the end.
Make sure the container won't crack when heated by the flame.
Better than candles, even.

17:12 / 17.01.02

Hey DT, one these people is not like the others, one of these people is not the same! Oh, damn, it's me: I'm the black sheep!

What I mean by that nonsense is that I am of the mindset that you don't necessarily need anything to do a ritual beyond your imagination and your will.

It is said that Greek orators remembered long speeches by writing each word of their speech on a column that existed in their mind's eye, then, when it came time to deliver the speech, they'd simply walk through a long corridor of columns reading off the words in the order that they appeared.

So, I have a temple that exists in my mind. It takes a little practice to get a good solid visualization going that is easy to access and consistent, but once you have your basic framework, then you've got access to anything you need: eye of newt, goat's breath, fiery ice, whatever you need! Of course, the cost to you is some of your time and will to make it happen.

Then again, there is something to be said for expression of ritual in the "material" world as well! My message to you is that material props are not always necessary, and the broke magician doesn't need to spend time fretting about not being able to purchase candles and the like: the imagination has the best warehouse of goods that you might ever need!

Berkeley's brain was an idea in his mind,
2 + 3 = 0 (mod 5)

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:55 / 17.01.02

A standard issue sigil working requires only something to write on, something to write with, and some means of persuading the concious mind to look the other way for a mo.