Natural Magick Co-op: 2013

Monday, November 25, 2013

Thank You! For Seven Years of Natural Magick Shop!

Dear Natural Magicians,

Thanksgiving Day, 2013 marks the 7th birthday of Natural Magick Shop! I am so grateful to all of you for keeping alive this business, and the dream and magick that animate it!

To celebrate, I want to offer a $7 discount on my soon-to-be off-the-presses Natural Magick Shop Tshirt! My dear friend and genius artist William Jones of Teed Shirts did a logo reboot for Natural Magick Shop, and it looks great! The Tshirt is a black T with this logo in a white oval.

Here is how to get the discount (and the Tshirt!): go to my website and click the Special Order link. Enter "Thanksgiving!" and then your Tshirt size in the "name of special item field" and then $13 for a standard men's T in sizes small, medium, large and XL and $18 for XXL. Regular prices will be $20 for S,M,L,and XL, and $25 for XXL (and XXXL, which I don't have yet for the initial print run). This sale runs for 7 days, until the night of Tuesday Dec. 2nd. One per customer please!

In other news, I will be vending at the Harvest Arts Festival in Bastrop TX on Friday and Saturday Nov. 29th and 30th. You can get the Tshirt discount here in person! Just whisper "Seven Years of Good Luck" into my ear!

New from Natural Magick Shop: Magick Candles! There will soon be a candles section on the website, IF I can keep them in stock. They have been a hit at fairs n festivals, so best to find them in stock at events.

There will be more in the way of holiday arts shows, but until then, all I can say is Thank You!

Friday, October 25, 2013

Magick Candles from Natural Magick Shop

For years I had casted about on how to bring candles to the lines of Natural Magick Shop, using my magick oils. I wanted it to be natural, hand made, and ecologically sound. No paraffin wax, which is a non-renewable petroleum product. As I investigated ALL soy was is genetically modified! All of the non-GMO soy goes to organic and natural food products, none left over for non-human consumption, much less candle wax. (And, ewwg, most GMO soy going to feed beef.) Palm wax was another contender. A few (and by a few I mean a sum of two suppliers I could find out of a global industry) operations are doing sustainable production of palm oil and palm wax, but the huge lot of palm product is a rainforest devastation industry.

My investigations and process of elimination led me back to beeswax as the industry to support. The beeswax sheets are thrifty of the resource, since they incorporate a lot of air into the candle. They come in a great variety of color, which makes adding color to the magick easy. As I roll 'em up, each one gets dosed with a mil of NMS essential oil blend, and for sure, finished off with glitter which totally magnifies the magick! Oh, and 'cause they don't weigh out so much, no extra shipping charges, even for international customers.

There will be a whole Natural Magick Shop candles section soon, but for now I have the Samhain/Halloween candles stuck in with Miscellaneous Mojo. If you wanted to order other varieties, Astral Travel, Banishing, Divination, Dragon's Blood, Fresh Start, Good Job, Happiness, Healing, High John the Conqueror, Love, Lucky, Mental Power, Money, Passion, Peace, Prosperity, Protection, Purification, Success, or Van Van, you can use the Special Order link at the bottom of the site. They are all $13 for a pack of three.

Raven Greywolf is my Muse and inspiration for this product line. She used to make candles, or as she prefers to spell it, candels, similar to these for my old brick-and-mortar store. Now she is relocated to the more benevolent climes of the Pacific Northwest, where she continues to serve as an outstanding Tarot psychic, counselor and consultant.

Natural Magick Shop candles are ritually crafted of beeswax sheets, for a renewable-resource nature-friendly burn. They are infused with 100% natural essential oils and absolutes appropriate to the intention.

All candles are made on the correct day of the week for Planetary influences and phase of the Moon for Lunar powers. Feel free to burn just one and save the rest, or burn one each night for a three day spell, or burn all of them all at once or one after another for a prolonged working, or share with friends according to your Will.

These magick candles come three to a package, are four inches tall, and fit most standard taper holders for 3/4 - 7/8 diameter taper or household candles. But they do tend to drip (unless you fridge or freeze them, which I don't usually have the time for) so I like to burn them and all my candles on the dishes I use for candle magick, little sushi dishes work great. I also have a large black granite tile, and a beveled mirror for candle magick, where I can let these or any candles drip and puddle as they will. The glitter does very cool magickal stuff in the molten wax, it tumbles and sparkles, very transfixing/trance-inducible!

Cedar Stevens

October 2013

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Curses! Are You Cursed? Or: Step Away from the Candle

Dear Cedar,

All my life I have felt like I have been living under a curse. A psychic told me that a powerful witch doctor put a spell on my Grandma, and all her children and grandchildren carry this curse. For $2,000, she said she could remove this curse. Do you have anything a bit more affordable?
Please help,
Missionary's Grandchild

Or:

Dear Natural Magick,
My boyfriend's ex-girlfriend put a hex on me. She hates me and doesn't want me to succeed in my relationship. My life has been a living hell for the past three years. Everything goes wrong, nothing works!
What can I do to send this bitch a dose of her own medicine?
Sincerely,
Ex's Psycho's Hexes

Anybody who has worked with me in person knows that I am compassionate to a fault, and I have been accused of doing backbends to make excuses for people. Others know that I am a strong proponent for mental health and a scientific, logic based approach to any personal problem. Step Away from the Candle!

I believe that there are very few real cases of cursing, and I am always skeptical to turn to these sorts of explanations. As you might imagine, over the course of my 20+ years in the magick potions biz I get these sorts of appeals on a regular basis. I can honestly say that in my opinion less than 2% of these cases are possibly related to a curse.

To a fault, humans tend to look for patterns. Some folks have the predisposition to notice bad things more than good things. Put those two together and you have got yourself the makings of a curse!

Lets look at the case of the missionary's grand daughter. It is true that her grandpa took her grandma and her mother (then a small child) into Africa to "baptize the heathen African primitives" into the Christian faith. No doubt, this would have put the missionary family in conflict with the local religious leaders, who already had a rich, ancient, satisfying and powerful faith of their own, thank you very much.

I have no problem believing that the local "witch doctor" put a curse on the missionary and his family. But was it truly successful? Maybe, maybe not. The most important thing is that the missionary family BELIEVED that it was. It is amazing what suppressed guilt feelings will cause one to believe in the name of denial.

Probing deeper into the family history (this story is actually a composite of three similar tales told to me by descendants of missionaries) we hear uglier stuff. Child and spouse abuse, incest and infidelity (e.g. raping the locals or openly taking an African mistress as a means of introducing the Love of God on a more intimate level, uggh!) and quite possibly undiagnosed mental illness. It is easy to see how a narcissistic God complex or delusional schizophrenia might be the cause of or result of a missionary career. And the lifestyle of the missionary, seldom setting down roots, often being in conflict with the target population, no cultural reference or context, harsh frontier lifestyle, are a mental health minefield to the sanest of individuals, and it could bring out the worst in anyone, causing family dysfunction and psychologically unhealthy relationships.

Is the missionary's granddaughter suffering from a multi-generational curse? Perhaps. Did she inherit her grandpa's schizophrenia? Another good guess. I believe that the emotional injuries caused by PTSD are also often passed down the generations culturally, one wounded generation raising the next wounded generation and so forth.

One of my missionary's granddaughters told me this: her mom came back to America, got married and had 5 kids, 2 boys and 3 girls. Both boys died before reaching adulthood of ailments which defied diagnosis. The three girls were all adults now, but each of them suffered from lifelong illnesses which had at best sketchy diagnoses. And all of the diseases involved were of very different natures. IF she was telling me the truth, yeah, even my Capricorn skepticism thinks, "Yeah, that probably is a real curse." (On the other hand, it could be 100% coincidence, or the result of psychosomatic illnesses generated by the emotional scars of the upbringing.) I sent her to a meeting with the Lords of Karma (see below).

Now lets turn to the Curse of the Psycho Ex.

For sure, the Ex hates the new girlfriend, or at least resents her deeply for "stealing her man." She has obviously not let go, and she might be desperate enough to hex the new girlfriend or hire someone to lay the trick. Again the operative function is that the recipient of the curse BELIEVES that they were cursed.

Digging deeper we find that the nature of the curse affects New Girl's boyfriend too, causing him to be emotionally abusive towards her. The boyfriend has also not let go of his ex, and is using their children to maintain unnecessary contact with the Psycho Ex.

Is a curse involved? Or is there a non-magickal explanation? The correct word for this sort of situation is not "curse" it's DRAMA! Are any of the people involved seeking mental health counseling to help them out of their co dependencies and addiction to drama? NO! Because they prefer the denial that allows them to each be victims in their own way, and engage in a three-way emotional pie fight of blame. Are the kids being raised in this environment of unhealthy relationship, and learning everything about it? So sad, so sad.

Another sort of "curse" is what I call Opt-In Victimhood. Many times this is just a case of coincidence, what we call bad luck. I truly believe that coincidences happen (as opposed to the magickal mantra, "There Are No Coincidences") and that bad things do happen to good people, and that there ARE true Innocent Victims (contrasting with a New Age belief that we all somehow "choose our fate," in which case we would even blame the rape victim for her rape or target of racial hatred for getting beaten up by NeoNazis!)

The unfortunate victim of a string of bad luck, or worse, crimes of violence has suffered an emotional injury, or series of them, which weakens their mental health profile. They then turn to a magickal explanation and starts thinking "why me" and one of the easiest so-called "explanations" is, you guessed it! "I'm Cursed!" Presto, an adept transition from Innocent Victim to Victim by Choice. Without treatment or intervention, this can become a lifelong pattern.

Another form of Opt-In Victimhood is the result of one's own series of bad life choices. The self-appointed victim chooses to believe that their misfortunes are a curse, which allows them to be a helpless victim in their own life, and cast blame on someone or something so that they don't have to do any hard work on themselves, to change their behavior and attitudes to be more in line with reality. They refuse to see that their bad luck is of their own doing. Most of these types of Victims by Choice began as Innocent Victims of poor parenting, or being raised in an emotionally unhealthy cultures such as crime and poverty or mentally abusive religious orders. Sometimes they just did not successfully recover from the death of a parent, a nasty divorce, or a traumatic move that took place at a tender age.

Both of these sorts of Opt-In Victimhood play very well into a universal human frailty. It gives us the nearly irresistible opportunity to believe that Everything Is About Me. In this twisted reasoning, being targeted by someone who has cursed you means that at least SOMEone is thinking about you and thinks you are strong and important enough to be worthy of their bad-magick efforts! It also gives the Victim a hall pass on having to do any hard work on their own behalf to heal the emotional wounds the old-fashioned way, with self-help and Muggle counseling.

The last sort of "cursing" I would like to discuss may be a sensitive issue. A lot of people have mild to moderate personality disorders, which range in cause from inherited mental illnesses, neuroses, Asperger's/Autism, depression, congenital deformity, and the like. Even untreated halitosis or homely looks! Truly Innocent Victims, but because of the way the dominant society has treated them, shunned them and chosen to neglect their socialization and social education, these folks are marginalized, lonely, and perhaps cursed in the most heartbreaking interpretation of the term. Many of them think of their curses as being of the more literal variety however. It is the responsibility of the larger dominant society to provide a network of assistance, medical treatment, remedial training and mentoring, in other words the LOVE to exorcise these curses.

NOW! You have read over these types of non-curses. If I have done my work as a Witch, my Magick as a healer, and Fountain of Joy, some part of you has felt like it looked into a mirror and saw yourself for the first time.

Part of you may be hating me because "Cedar just told me I'm crazy!" You may be having a brainsplosion. This information is partly euphoria-inducing, because YAY! you are not cursed. And partly it it is Daunting, because it means that you have to admit some things to yourself that you had deeply hidden, and you might now be challenged do some work and take some action to remedy your situation, or worse yet! have to ask someone for help, and then even worse! listen to them and take some advice!

If this is too difficult, if this magick is too strong for you, and you find yourself grabbing for the Woobie Blankie of Denial, it's okay. You will not be able to put the Apple of the Tree of Knowledge back onto the Tree. And even if you take a bite and find it too healthy for your tastes right now, don't worry, it is a Magick Apple and it won't rot. It will still be there even if you hide it in your closet, waiting for you when you are ready. Just knowing it is there will begin to heal your heart and mind.

There is another reason for Hope. Many of the magickal rituals of Uncrossing, Unhexing, Exorcisms, Banishment and the like also have great value for healing Opt-In Victimhood, and other varieties of self-curse, if you are doing it for yourself. Ritual can be powerfully transformative and can help break though deeply ingrained thinking errors. Many therapists are integrating ritual as a part of their practices. I make a number of high quality, high integrity products traditionally used for Banishing, Uncrossing or Exorcising. (Look at the "Short List" first. Instructions and ideas for traditional and innovative uses are given in the product descriptions (and please return to this article!.) Use these, if it suits your own program of transformation from a cursed or challenged situation, into a resolution of self-determination and achievement of your Higher Purpose.

Regardless of any Opt-In Victimhood situation or a rare actual successful cursing incident, in either case you will need to decide for sure that your True Will and self sovereignty will henceforth be the way your future is shaped. This is where blaming stops and healing begins. See my affirmation chant below...

If you have a friend or family member who believes that they have been cursed, I urge you to NEVER play along or agree with them. Do not validate any delusions. To agree with their self-diagnosis is to jump into the pool they are drowning in. There is no way you can help from that vantage point. Instead, offer them a line that they can climb out with, such as, "There may be more helpful ways of looking at your situation" "I don't believe in curses, I am sure there is a more logical explanation," and "I am with you as long as we can look for real life solutions," or"I hope you will go to a counselor who will help you recognize more realistic causes for your problems."

With that caveat stated, I will recommend either of two strategies, either doing an uncrossing/change your luck procedure such as in my previous blog entry here; cord cutting as ritual hygeine, OR going to the Lords of Karma and ask for them to resolve the situation, or guide you along the path of healing.

The Lords of Karma are visualized as very powerful beings, perhaps a sort of Angel, who are the keepers of our Karmic destiny. In a true curse, you are dealing with either karma that is not your own, or karma that you have not acknowledged. Time to have a hearing with the judges, you might say. There is a great book that deals with these sorts of workings: We Are the Angels: Healing Our Past, Present, and Future With the Lords of Karma by Diane Stein, go get you one now.

Whichever strategy you choose, I also highly recommend regular muggle mental health care and counseling as an adjunct working. A series of life tragedies and or bad luck will cause emotional damage to our psyche, and these wounds are best healed through normal mental health counseling. In other words, you could go to the Lords of Karma and get your sentence commuted, or successfully remove a cross or curse, but still not *feel* any better if your muggle emotional body is still bruised and bleeding from the wounding you have received.

I give to you this affirmation, which is great sung in the shower. I have a tune that I put to it, but feel free to make up your own, just so long as it is victorious sounding. Think Tom Petty anthem style major chords!

Now what comes is my True Will
Now what comes is Right
Guided!
And guarded!
Above and Below
By Earth, Moon, Sun, and Star Light.

Cedar Stevens
(c) 2013

Magick by Intention: Peace and Serenity Magick

Peace and Serenity Magick, ah, I feel so much more relaxed just thinking about it! As one could imagine this is a very easy sort of magick to do. The herbs and oils involved in magick for peace and calm are almost all very much used in aromatherapy applications for the same purposes, so it is even easy to acquire them, so no stress there!

The Element of Water, and a bit of Air , and the Planet of Moon and some of Venus will be included in many formulations to promote Peace and Serenity. Listen to the waves,,,

Short List: Peace oil, Serenity incense, Peace bath herbs, Peace mojo kit, Peace room spray, Peace candles, Good Night dream pillow, Peaceful Pipe Full smoke blend

Oils

Peace oil

Water oil

Incenses

Serenity incense
Water incense

Bath Magick

Mojo Kits

Peace mojo kit
Candles
Peace candles

Room Sprays

Peace room spray

Spell Kits

Spell to Get Along with Relatives

Pillows

Good Night dream pillow

Smokes

Peaceful Pipe Full smoke blend

Deity oils

Buddha oil

Guadalupe oil

Kuan Yin oil

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Magick by Type: Voudou and HooDoo

Voudou and hoodo Magick
are a rich and powerful set of traditions that have mingled with Western Occult traditions especially in the Southern US. Strictly speaking, Voudou, Louisiana Voodoo or Haitian Vodun are distinct from Hoodoo, which is also called Conjure or simply Rootwork. Hoodoo is more syncretized with Christian faiths, and is primarily a tradition of magick and spellwork. Voudou is an organized religious system in a family of African diaspora religions which are practiced primarily in Western African countries and the Western Hemisphere.

In the American South, and in New Orleans in particular, these religious traditions brought directly from West Africa and indirectly from Caribbean nations, especially Haiti, blended with Christian faiths and practices of French occultists and Native American spirituality into a rich gumbo of spirituality and magick. The African style of conjure magick must have seemed very logical and familiar to kitchen witch style spellworkers from or descended from ancestors from Western Europe, and subsequently many Hoodoo and Voodoo ingredients and formulas became next to indispensable in the Natural Magickian's herb closet.

Oils

Black Cat oil

High John the Conqueror oil

Van Van oil

Incenses

High John the Conqueror incense

Mojo Kits

Major Mojo mojo kit

(All the mojo kits)

Candles
Black Cat candles
High John the Conqueror candles
Van Van candles

Botanicals

Beth Root

Cinquefoil

Devil’s Claw

High John the Conqueror

Job’s Tears

Lucky Hand

Tonka Bean

Miscellaneous Mojo

Deity oils

Magick by Intentions: Success and Personal Power Magick

Success and Personal Power Magick are done as an expression of the right of each of us to achieve our Will in this World. It is the view of the Western Tradition that the individual has not just the right to self-actualization, but that society as a whole is served best by each of us striving to become our Higher selves. At the self-serving extremes this can lead to callous capitalism, but at its best it can create a universal respect for all people.

Success formulations will almost always employ the powers of Jupiter, Sun and Fire. They should smell rich and full and satisfying, and make you feel bold and confident.

Short List: Success oil, Power oil, High John the Conqueror oil, Power incense, Major Mojo mojo kit, Success candles, Success mojo kit

Oils

High John the Conqueror oil

Incenses

High John the Conqueror incense

Bath Magick

Witch Power bath herbs

Room Sprays

Aura Doctor room spray

Mojo Kits

Major Mojo mojo kit

Prosperity mojo kit

Success mojo kit

Candles
Dragon's Blood candles
High John the Conqueror candles
Success candles
Botanicals

High John the Conqueror

Mountain Laurel Beans

Deity oils

Chango oil
Zeus oil

Spirit Guide Oils

Lion oil
Wands

Friday, June 7, 2013

Magick by Type: Sabbat Magick

Sabbat Magick is devotional magick done for the eight NeoPagan holidays of the year: the Solstices, The Equinoxes, and the Cross-Quarter Days that are in between the Solstices and Equinoxes. While pre-Christian Pagans observed some but not all of these holidays depending on the region and tradition, modern Pagans have codified the Eight Sabbats into a cohesive system that honors and celebrates the beginnings and peaks of each of the four seasons. This roots the modern NeoPagan tradition into solidly Nature-based spirituality, no matter how fancy our altars and robes may be, or how climate-controlled and indoors our ceremonies are! For a full article on the meanings and traditions of each of the eight Sabbats, check out my article on Natural Magick Shop Sabbat oils here.

Short List: Sabbat oils set of eight, Sabbat incenses set of eight

Oils

Sabbat oils set of eight

Incenses

Sabbat incenses set ofeight

Brews and Teas

Aphrodite’s Beltane brew

Yule Mulling spice

Magick by Intention: Purification

Purification AND CLEANSING Magick is done as a matter of course, and also to prepare a person, place or thing for higher purpose magick to come. We have all come into contaminants, whether garden soil, industrial pollutants, disease or energetic "slime" which must be washed away for us to feel comfortable.

Purification magick will often take advantage of Water or Fire Element, and Sun, Mercury, and Moon Planetary energies.

Short List: Purification oil, Purification incense, Sunshine Fresh Housecleaning incense, Copal Blanco, Frankincense, Smudge stick, Ritual Purification bath herbs, Purification room spray

Oils

Incenses

Sunshine FreshHousecleaning incense

Bath Magick

Ritual Purification bath herbs

Room Sprays

Purification room spray

Miscellaneous Mojo

Florida Water

Deity oils

Saint Michael oil

Magick by Intention: Protection

Protection Magick, judging by the index of Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magickal Herbs (as I do on regular occasion), shows Protection to be THE biggest magickal concern by the sheer number of plants that have been wielded to defend Self, children, kin, home, property, beasts, crops, and the wide open landscape.

Where once we sought protection from beasts and the crueler aspects of Nature, we now more often seek protection from other humans, from the ravages of war and from the criminal element of our civilized lives. Ingredients of many protection potions will mostly draw from the Elemental power of Fire and Earth, and from the Sun and Mars Planetary power. Many will have a strong, pungent scent and tend to activate the mind and awareness of our surroundings.

Short List: Dragons Blood oil, Protection oil, Protection incense, Dragons Blood resin, Protection bath herbs, Protection mojo kit, Protection candles, Aura Doctor room spray, St. Michael oil, Archangel Michael oil, Bear oil, Wolf oil

Oils

Dragons Blood oil

High John the Conqueror oil

Incenses

High John the Conqueror incense

Red Sandalwood chips
Red Sandalwood powder

Bath Magick

Protection bath herbs

Mojo Kits

Major Mojo mojo kit

Protection mojo kit

Candles
Dragon's Blood candles
High John the Conqueror candles
Protection candles
Room Sprays

Aura Doctor room spray

Spell Kits

Spell to Protect Your Home

Spell to Protect Your Car

Kids’ Spell to Drive Monsters from a Closet

Pillows

Bogey Bye Bye dream pillow

Botanicals

Buckeyes

Cinquefoil

High John the Conqueror

Deity oils

Spirit Guide Oils

Photo yoinked from http://the-wolfs.webs.com/atruewolffamilypack.htm

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Magick by Type: Planetary Magick

Planetary Magick is a solar system sized body of magick which informs the largest part of the Western Tradition of Occult and Natural Magick. Like the Four (or Five) Elements, or the Phases of the Moon, or any other system, Planetary Magick is a way to divide, categorize and organize any power, ability or attribute. In this case a system was initiated by the ancient Sumerian people, who observing the sky day and night, were able to identify seven heavenly bodies that moved in rhythms different from the Stars, which rotate in unison.

These "Fixed Stars" or planets were correlated to seven gods and goddesses. These deities "ruled" the seven planets, now known to us as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Moon. The Sumerians called them by the names of their gods, the Phoenicians by theirs, the Greeks and Romans by yet another set of names, yet, the functions of these deities, and the powers assigned to the Planets has remained essentially the same. The presence of a Planetary tier of correspondence is what I propose to be signature to the Western Tradition of Occult and Natural Magick.

Most practically important to the modern practitioner is that the Seven Planets have contributed one of the most widespread conventions of civilized life: the seven day week. Every day of the week, governed by its ruling Planet, indicates the most favorable day for any goal the Magickian has in mind. Please refer to my article, Planetary Magick, Ancient Magick of Time and the Music of the Spheres, or any other well composed treatise to guide you in years or a lifetime of exploration of the Planets. The Planetary days of the week, along with the phases of the Moon govern the creation of all Natural Magick Shop potions and products, from the planting of seeds to the harvesting to the grinding of incense or the dropping of drops of essential oils.

Short List: Planetary Oil package of Seven, Planetary Incense package of Seven

Oils

Planetary oil package of 7½ oz bottles

Planetary oil package of 71/8 oz bottles

Incenses

Planetary incense package of 7 ½ oz vials

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Magick by Type: Occult Magick

Occult Magick is a type of magick that could be defined (I'm giving it a stab at least!) as the sorts of magick that arose from and were developed and explored by secret societies. The word "Occult" means "hidden," and the reason for the secrecy was (and sometimes and some places most certainly still is!) that the Practitioners were practicing their art in the context of cultures that considered all magick to be, by definition, Evil. The occult magickians of the Masons, Rosicrucians, Knights Templar, and their spiritual progeny, the Golden Dawn, and modern day O.T.O. at times despise these unfair prejudices, and at times enjoy their notoriety immensely!

Occult magick is firmly rooted in the Western Tradition (arguably it is the foundation of it) and it also accepts tributaries of Egyptian and Kabbalistic magickal traditions. As a member of the Western Tradition, it shares with Natural Magick the employment of the Elemental and Planetary tiers of correspondence. Aside from "natural magick," occult magick will include more magick of entirely human construct or seemingly so, or "revealed" systems like Enochian magick, and the systems of angels and demons such as in the Lesser Key of Solomon.