I don't have an answer, but I have another stupid question... A lot of people around here have mentioned recently that they are practicing geomancy, and I don't know exactly what that entails. As far as I know, "geomancy" is a form of divination practiced by scattering stones or earth, but I have the feeling there's more to the term as it's being used here - quite possibly varying for different practitioners - but I'd like to know more.

Xstacy - the elemental attributions to the pentagram as are commonly used are descended (like so many other things) from the Golden Dawn. Prior to the GD it gets called various things to do with the four winds or the classical elements as dominated by the power of the magician (most notably by Eliphas Levi, which is where they probably got the idea) but the association of particular arms with particular elements is original to the GD's papers. You're on target with the rationale behind it, which is that as you trace the lines of the pentagram clockwise from the spirit point, the elements appear from subtlest to most terrestrial. Hence: Spirit -> Fire -> Air -> Water -> Earth

There's a connection, also, between this ordering and alchemy. One of the papers given to the newly initiated Adeptus Minor narrates an allegorical vision by the husband-wife team in charge of the order (Mina and Macgregor Mathers) - it's called 'The Vision of the Universal Mercury' and it connects them in a frenzy of symbolic association that can become quite dizzying. I don't think it says anything of great importance, other than making a connection between 'spirit' and 'mercury' (of the alchemical trine sulphur - salt - mercury), but it glosses the word 'ERIT', meaning 'it shall be' in Latin, as 'Ether Ruens In Terra', or 'Ether rushes into the earth.' In Some Golden Dawn groups, this paper is taken to mean that the exterior technology of ritual magic and the interior action of spiritual alchemy are implicitly connected; personally, I'm unsure why this Victorian frippery is needed to come to that realisation, but that's the GD for you. The pentagram, in other words, is a figure of spirit urgently rushing towards the earth.

The original ordering of the pentagram in this way doesn't have anything to do with the Enochian Tablets per se, though the GD did syncretise the two systems, doing a hatchet job on Dee's original in the process. At this point, it's probably helpful of trying to think outside the vast morass of correspondences that the GD made to see where and how they made them. I think it's useful to think of the GD as operating from a framework that sees the world as transparent, and only having four forces operating through it, which combine in various ways and sometimes reveal a more fundamental, originating force behind them. You can call the four forces the elements, or you can call them the four letters of the Tetragrammaton (Y-H-V-H), and their permutations, combinations and separations are the lenses through which the GD sees the magical universe as operating. Hence the initiatory pathway is seen as a gradual movement through those forces to uncover the fifth, hence planetary and astrological magic are put in focus through elemental association or permutation of the name, hence tarot is taught that way and so on and so on. (It's also why the planetary magic of the GD is reserved for after the end of that initiatory process, and indeed, why the planetary work is generally pretty awkward and stunted.)

So, when they were assimilating Dee's material, they naturally looked at it in this light - four tablets? Right, well, then they must clearly be the four elements. 12 divine names on the banners? Well, 12 divides by four, so we get three-part Enochian names for each elements (OIP TEAA PDOKE, ORO IBAH AOZPI, MPH ARSL GAIOL, MOR DIAL HKTGA), and each of the tablets ends up divided into an interplay of four forces, and you can see this method applied to the Tablet of Union here. Now, there's no denying that this latches on to a small part of Dee's system and takes it to extremes (assigning the egyptian gods to the tablets, and then playing chess with them) but it's maybe the clearest example of the GD being unable to see outside of their particular fourfold schema.



As far as geomancy is concerned, I'm not certain how other people use it, but I was taught geomancy as a system of divination connected to astrology and not dissimilar to the I Ching, with its broken/whole lines. Personally, I found it the most abominably useless thing in the world, but it's a venerable part of western magic, and can be found in Agrippa's Fourth Book. That Princeton site has a very good guide on how it works.

(Sorry for length, sometimes this stuff makes me want to eat my own face off with boredom and befuddlement at the absurdity of it all, OTOH, I got drilled in it a lot and I think it's nice to see where some of our current practices come from.)

Gracias, XK, that's much clearer now, and a great resource... turns out I was already interested in geomancy, I just didn't know what it was called. That sort of thing happens to me a lot.

Very interesting notes on the pentagram, too. Hooray for surgery!

If it was me, I would opt for the mystic shapeless oversized nondescript grey hoodie of invisibility. It operates on a couple of levels, on the one hand it taps into the latent background Daily Mail witchcraft that makes otherwise rational people instinctively terrified of someone wearing a hooded top. On first glance, you will look like someone loitering with intent to cause bother or mug someone and you will signal predator rather than prey. The right garment will also disguise that you are female, which may be part of the problem with the car stopping. A woman standing at a crossroads by herself will tend to register potential prostitute rather than potential witch/nutter to certain minds, in a way that a man performing the same activities at a crossroads will not. If you make it very difficult for an observer to tell if you are male or female, it may circumvent some of that by presenting the predatory hoodie glamour instead.

There are various methods I could think of to enchant the garment, such as soaking it in an infusion of appropriate herbs overnight, and doing this every few months to keep it charmed. You could also sew various bits and pieces into the lining of the garment. Some potential for sewing bindrunes into it, but I'd keep all of that hidden on the inside as you want to look as nondescript as possible. I can't think of invisibility botanicals off the top of my head, but will consult the books over the weekend. Some modification of the "law stay away" formula would be a good starting point.

If this car is a persistent presence every week, I would strongly suggest giving it a break at that crossroads for a month or so, or doing your practice at a totally different time of day. The observer, if it is an observer, will get bored eventually when you are not there, and soon forget about it.

I'd also really recommend reading Geoff Thompson's book 'Dead or Alive', which is an excellent study of street predators, their strategies and cultivating awake awareness of potential trouble situations.

...Ah yes, the Having it outside the chippy with God bloke. Knew I recognised the name.

The hoodie sounds pretty kickass.

I have two techniques I've used successfully. The first not only helps me ward off the attention of regular curious folk but also unwanted magical attention, whether spirit based or practitioner or whatever. I wear my standard every day clothes inside out and use those that don't have hilariously noticeable seams. Usually it's been one of my working dresses, comfy black sun dress thing, but I'd use sweat pants and a t-shirt no problem. It's a old technique for warding off being led astray by the Faeries by making oneself invisible to them. I've found it works to turn one's outside self inwards. I suspect it would really while with the hoodie idea.

The other is one I've used when I won't be having the benefit of any seams. I'm not that comfortable with strangers seeing skin but sometimes it's needful. There's a near by mountain I do a fair amount of work on and the trails are heavily used with hikers and dogs and whatnot. I struggled for a while with the requirement even in off trail seclusion (dogs go every where and people after them). Now I make an aversion boundary a reasonable distance from where I'll be and it seems to work. I don't spend an enormous amount of time in that state but I like using the technique even if I'm fully clothed and just doing a focused working. It seems to be very useful with dogs in particular.

That article is badass.

I'm taking this here rather than getting into it in the Earthquake thread as it's more about me & my magic than it is about responses to that calamity.

My problem is very simple: I want to kill people.

At first my focus was 100% compassion: what can I do from my end, where do I send donations, is there any work I can get involved in that would help, what skills can I offer (eg data entry, simple translating work etc).

I also engaged spiritually & magically with the situation. I approaching those Powers in my pantheon who can open roads, offer healing & support healers, hold off disease & other positive roles.

But then after all that I was just kind of spent. Wrung out. Nothing left. When I try to tap into my magical self, the only well of energy I find left in me is a place of pure rage. Total fury, a kind of violent grief. What normally works at times like this is acknowledging the anger, sitting with it and then using it to fuel further compassionate work:

"Who are you?"
"I am Fury."
"Hello, Fury, it's good to meet you. What do you need from me?"
"I need harm for the wrongdoer."
"Where do you come from?"
"I come from Grief."
"Where does Grief come from?"
"From Awareness-of-Injustice."
"Where does Awareness-of-Injustice come from?"
"From Compassion."
"Then instead of further harm, will you help me right that injustice, assuage that grief?"
"That I can do."

Fury is satisfied by becoming a powerful source of energy for the work of Compassion. More energy for practical work, more cognitive resources to find useful information and put it about, more quitting-spoons for changing those habits and practices in my own life that contribute to that injustice.

Hasn't happened this time. I'm just eaten up with rage and outright hatred: hate for the individuals & systems that have contributed to the disaster, hate for those who seek to defame the Haitian people and blame them for this disaster. If I had Pat Robertson in front of me right now, I'd literally glass him in the face.

And this is just not appropriate. Feels like co-opting the suffering of a nation. There are still a million useful, constructive things I ought to be doing, and all I can think of is long and violent curses against the Enemy. I know it's cheap, adolescent and self-absorbed--the time I spend putting together a rage-working is time I could be spending raising funds etc--but can't seem to pull out of the spin.

How do I get control of the system again?

But what if they are worth bothering about? What if there really is a problem that isn't going to go away? Why do people always think that there is no middle ground between a white candle and a death curse?

In principle I definately do not have a problem with magic that has a destructive or harmful effect on an appropriate target.

On the ground, it's almost always possible to think of a workaround that results in a win-win scenario, often with less effort and more satisfaction. (For example, one could hex that obnoxious git of a housemate into next week, but helping him aquire a better job would also get rid of him without harming anyone.)

That being said, there are rare instances where taking up arms is entirely the correct response. Sometimes it's a matter of life or death. Suppose you are faced with the case of a woman and child being threatend by her violent, psychopathic ex; vulnerable people in immediate risk of real harm from a clearly-identifiable aggressor. It is completely appropriate then for a witch to intervene magically and put the aggressor down as hard as possible. (In fact, I'd go so far as to say that such might be a matter of duty; if while you're calling upon the Snowdrop Fairy to open his heart chakra he beats his wife to death, you've failed in your community responsibilities.) Sometimes, this is what magic is for. Not revenge, revenge is a load of cobblers, but defence of life & limb.

In this instance though I don't really think a violent working is appropriate. For a start, who do you aim it at? Pat Robertson? He's just the mouthpiece for a bloated, toxic mindset. Do him in and another one'll pop up. Politicians? Same thing goes for them. The CIA? The USA? The French?

I strongly suspect that in the absence of a discernable target offering a direct and serious threat, what's going on in my headmeats is less about an authentic emotional response looking for a proper outlet, and more about an adolescent desire to Hollywoodize oneself out of one's real responsibilities. Here's the Great and Mighty Darque Magician, swooping in to take names and kick butt, setting the world to rights etc etc. It's a trap, an escapist narrative offering the illusion of seperation from "those people" who are responsible for the calamity. Those sheeple down there did it, not me, I'm special and magic... But I am a part of it. The very fabric of my life is part of it. I get to live in a nice house, eat well and sleep in a comfy bed because other people were & are robbed of the basic necessities of human existance. My life is built on their backs.

Obviously haven't stopped doing the good, useful mundane stuff, but the magical work I was doing has kind of stalled because of an inability to access the correct consciousness. Can't find the shape of the more sensible workings I was doing, if that makes any sense. Why does this matter, why not just switch tracks and put all spoons into mundane approaches? Coz there's a very real limit on my mundane powers. Just don't have a lot to offer, nonmagically.

Incidentally, for the purposes of this discussion, I'm proceeding from a basis where operative magic has a real world impact. I am aware that some contributors have a different perspective, and this debate is welcome, but it tends to disrupt the flow of the thread if any talk of operative magic is immediately pulled into the unsolvable conundrum of is it/isn't it real.

I personally think - based on considerable experimentation and experience with it - that operative magic is a more complex area than how it is generally framed, and exists in a space between the extremes of "push a button to get a result by magic" and "it's all in your head and nothing happens". I'd rather have that conversation in its own thread though, so conversations about the specifics of operative magic can proceed on their own terms without being instantly reduced to that same old chestnut.

"He's just the mouthpiece for a bloated, toxic mindset. Do him in and another one'll pop up.

Punch someone in the mouth and the split lip will heal- it doesn't undo the punch in the mouth. They might be less likely to say that odious thing again next time, or the next braggart to step up might remember what happened to the last one. What Gypsy said, basically.

In my mind I think of a giant monster made up of thousands of horrible people all clinging together, or a thousand pieces of litter on the street. Taking away one crisp packet or stopping one hateful comment may be a drop in the ocean and the horror may lumber on, but *that* person will tink twice next time, and that particular bit of rubbish is now in a bin. You can only do what you can, giving in to impotent rage lets them win, don't let the bastards grind you down etc. Take as inspiration any one of the survivors pulled from the rubble, and the people who pulled them out- although they only saved a few compared to the lost, what they did really mattered, and if you can metaphorically smack their detractors in the mouth somehow then you should definitely try.

I have to admit I felt the same about the most recent Iraq war, this kind of paralysing rage that after the protests in 2003 against it they still went ahead and illegally invaded. I felt like the majority of people must be hateful idiots and anything I did was pointless and they should all die. After a few years getting over it I now think it's actually a few people at the top spewing evil and driving the machine, and that mass inaction allows their hatefulness to continue, and that actually one less demagogue would make a bigger difference than it might appear.

Mordant Carnival:I've had some success working with vervain when living in a hostile neighbourhood in the past, but somehow that doesn't seem to fit the bill here.

I meant to ask, what do you do with the vervain?
I checked my book on herbs and it said that magicians used to wear vervain head-dresses as a form of protection. Which is an interesting line to put in a herbal but it didn't say much else of use.

I do not want to be a doorway by which suffering comes into this world.

I respect your personal position on this, but I frame this area a bit differently. As I said up thread, not everything has to be a death curse or an act of emotional violence like the magical equivalent of lashing out at someone after a few drinks.

I don't believe in throwing around curses, as I have experienced the long-term fallout of such things first hand on many occasions. A significant area of my work involves clearing up this sort of mess from time-to-time when I encounter it. I know a fair bit about it. It's not very pleasant.

However, I do serve with both hands. The emphasis there being on the word *serve*. It has to be done in a spirit of service, not as an emotional lashing out. The work is not done to punish or get revenge, but to correct an imbalance. I can generally tell when I encounter a situation that is badly unbalanced, either through direct spirit consultation or just through the instinct that develops when you do a lot of sorcery. Imbalances come in many forms, and tend to be accompanied by a jarring sense that something is amiss, as if the chi of a situation is not flowing as fluidly as it should due to some blockage or problem.

Correcting that problem will sometimes involve serving with the right hand – such as sorcery to help someone lift themselves out of a bad situation they have become mired in. Or it could involve serving with the left hand - such as toppling the power structure that creates and perpetuates that bad situation that many others have become mired within.

There are certain deities who are all about that sort of work. I've come round to the perspective that if you don't take this sort of work to them, and let them step in and do what they do, in areas where it is needed, it's essentially a denial of an important part of their mysteries. It's like you are making a personal judgement call about an area of their remit, and treating the "upsetter" mysteries as somehow wrong or evil or cruel, rather than as systemic forces of nature that serve a purpose.

Generally, it is not really a case of "putting a curse on someone" anyway, so much as speeding up a situation to a conclusion that is already very inherent within the field of its future parameters. If it's genuinely an unbalanced scenario that demands this sort of approach, then it really just needs a bit of a push and the dominoes will start to fall of their own accord. All of the ingredients will already be there, and all you really have to do is supply the cooking pot and turn up the heat.

I don't approach such work as "an act of violence", but as a means of freeing up a stagnant or toxic situation to create healthy growth. Sometimes things need a helping hand to find their proper fruition, and that's what sorcery is for. It's like tending a garden, and that involves pulling up weeds as well as planting.

It can be easy to go through life encountering problematic individuals who abuse their power, cause harm, exploit those less able or fortunate as themselves on a habitual basis, etc, and leave them to it, in the belief that they will eventually get their comeuppance if they carry on like that. You say things to yourself like: "One of these days they will push it too far and it will all come back on them" and so on.

I think that – if you are a witchdoctor – there are occasionally instances where you have to accept the mantle of functioning as that otherwise hypothetical event that instigates change. What other opportunity do you expect the universe to produce in order to correct such an imbalance, if not the time that [insert problematic individual] decides to offload their cruelty on the person who, unbeknownst to them, is a witchdoctor.

But regardless of how much I'd like to see them get their comeuppance I haven't the whole story nor the wisdom to know how to make them fail without hurting others in the process.

It would be presumptive to think that you automatically had that wisdom and grasp of the bigger picture, right off the bat, but by directly engaging with various real world situations through sorcery, this is exactly the sort of understanding that you are trying to cultivate as you go along. Generally, work such as this will be done on the point of a spirit or deity, whose wisdom and grasp of the whole story is deeper than your own. But as you go on, you sort of develop more of an instinct for it yourself. Ultimately, all sorcery, whether served with right hand or left, involves as much internal work as it does external work; and all situations where you feel that sorcery may be required as a response, are best looked upon as opportunities for cultivating this internal growth as you try to fathom an appropriate response to the problem at hand. Internal growth may mean letting go and not taking any action; or it may mean stepping up and doing something, when inaction is the path of least resistance.

Gypsy Lantern:XKI do not want to be a doorway by which suffering comes into this world.


However, I do serve with both hands. The emphasis there being on the word *serve*. It has to be done in a spirit of service, not as an emotional lashing out. The work is not done to punish or get revenge, but to correct an imbalance. I can generally tell when I encounter a situation that is badly unbalanced, either through direct spirit consultation or just through the instinct that develops when you do a lot of sorcery. Imbalances come in many forms, and tend to be accompanied by a jarring sense that something is amiss, as if the chi of a situation is not flowing as fluidly as it should due to some blockage or problem.

Correcting that problem will sometimes involve serving with the right hand – such as sorcery to help someone lift themselves out of a bad situation they have become mired in. Or it could involve serving with the left hand - such as toppling the power structure that creates and perpetuates that bad situation that many others have become mired within.

There are certain deities who are all about that sort of work. I've come round to the perspective that if you don't take this sort of work to them, and let them step in and do what they do, in areas where it is needed, it's essentially a denial of an important part of their mysteries. It's like you are making a personal judgement call about an area of their remit, and treating the "upsetter" mysteries as somehow wrong or evil or cruel, rather than as systemic forces of nature that serve a purpose.

I don't approach such work as "an act of violence", but as a means of freeing up a stagnant or toxic situation to create healthy growth. Sometimes things need a helping hand to find their proper fruition, and that's what sorcery is for. It's like tending a garden, and that involves pulling up weeds as well as planting.

Yeah I think we are talking about a very similar if not the same approach. I'm serving with both hands because they're a pair and as Ursula Le Guin said very eloquently:

"Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. "

The whole handed path thing always struck me us limiting and not a helpful world view.

I spend a lot of magical on the job time shifting the stagnant and the toxic, but like a gardener I'm not making judgment calls on the overall existence of a thing, just where it is in the system right now. I like the language of Feng Shui for yin problems and yang problems and that any extreme is unhealthy. All about the situation.

GypsyLanternI don't approach such work as "an act of violence", but as a means of freeing up a stagnant or toxic situation to create healthy growth. Sometimes things need a helping hand to find their proper fruition, and that's what sorcery is for. It's like tending a garden, and that involves pulling up weeds as well as planting.

For me it's when the intent isn't weeding, reshaping, tending, or even a bit of hard decision making but straight up 'FUCK YOU, DIE ON FIRE' retaliation magic that I distance myself from. Not fire magic, not even burning the fields magic, but the hatred based passionate acts of violence. I don't allow myself these actions regardless if others would define them as magical or not.

GLXKBut regardless of how much I'd like to see them get their comeuppance I haven't the whole story nor the wisdom to know how to make them fail without hurting others in the process.

It would be presumptive to think that you automatically had that wisdom and grasp of the bigger picture, right off the bat, but by directly engaging with various real world situations through sorcery, this is exactly the sort of understanding that you are trying to cultivate as you go along. Generally, work such as this will be done on the point of a spirit or deity, whose wisdom and grasp of the whole story is deeper than your own. But as you go on, you sort of develop more of an instinct for it yourself. Ultimately, all sorcery, whether served with right hand or left, involves as much internal work as it does external work; and all situations where you feel that sorcery may be required as a response, are best looked upon as opportunities for cultivating this internal growth as you try to fathom an appropriate response to the problem at hand. Internal growth may mean letting go and not taking any action; or it may mean stepping up and doing something, when inaction is the path of least resistance.

I've been thinking a lot about the ethics of magic again and obviously ethical action in general. I was talking to my mentor about the idea of patches, a practitioner's beat as it were. He listened as I was talking about places and replied that his are people, communities of people including non human people. I think that perceptional shift was important for me. Place and people tend to be joined in my perception but he was advocating the reversal. Where your people are is your patch, however you define that.

In terms of caring for my patch, my people, I will use whatever means feels correct at the time. But if it's not mine I have to spend extra amount of internal time sussing out the workflow. At this point in my practice wanting to participate or intervene does not mean it's correct for me to do so. I can ask and express an interest in helping but I can't do so without clear invitation. Maybe my patch will grow to include all of humanity at all times, but it's not right now. I find a good indicator of this is when I can/cannot translate a thing into what we've discussed as hunting magic. If i can't get myself to grok it as my business on that level, it's not mine.

I can't actually remember what book I got that one out of originally, since we're going back 20 years and change. I was then taking a rather uncritical approach to magical texts: if Galadriel Mooncup's Faery Herbal said that vervain was protective, that was good enough for me. Questions along the lines of "Hang on, where are you guys getting this shit?" were a later development.

All I can say is that it did seem to help me at that time, and now my relationship to the herb includes "protection" as a characteristic.

Vervain turns up listed as a herb of protection in a lot of places. Based on the material you've posted above, I'm guessing that it might possibly have got its rep from its apparent effectiveness against things like insect stings and bites, infections and painful conditions like neuralgia. It often happens that a herb with some medical property gets assigned the magic/sacred tag, and things you can use to treat infection or reduce injury are more likely to end up being seen as protective (garlic being the most obvious example).

mardolOK, so I think what I really meant was why. I know very little about herbalism, and even less about magical herbalism. Is it calming to the person wearing it, or is it actively protective, or does it reduce tension in the general atmosphere?

Worth a thread? I know there are traditional correspondances so the use of particular ingredients equates to the invoking of particular traits, also there are the medicinal properties of plants, but I've also seen people on here talking about herbs etc as allies, spirits the practitioner can call on. Be lovely to understand more about these approaches.

Aye, if somebody knows enough then that would be great.

Herbalism is something I've been interested in for a while as it intersects with other interests of mine, and has just been vaguely hanging around my life since childhood. But really, isn't herbalism a bit like the tarot? - it takes a lifetime to learn, and you have to practice it a lot. I keep a few dried herbs in jars for various purposes, I read books, and I brew beer, but yeah, so, so much more to learn.

Unless anybody else wants to step in, then I'll have a think and start one in a day or two.

ps - this seems like a good place to suggest a slightly random thread I've been considering a while. Alcohol has a long and glorious history of mysticism and celebration. The spirit of alcohol has been invoked by humanity since the day we started growing grains. And lager is still horsing people on any friday night outside the pubs. But in addition to this, there is a mostly ignored herbalist element to brewing since, after the 15th century hops became the standard flavouring for beer, and other alcohols are usually the liquid equivalent of a ready-meal, they do the job but they're boring and full of chemicals. Personally, I pine for the days when real absinthe could be bought and it wasn't illegal to make spirits (although I think that was banned partly because of explosion risk). Considering a good old herbal will usually have a section on wines that can be made I see no good reason why beer cannot also be used as a base. So I was thinking about possibly starting an extremely infrequent blog-like thread of general explorations into alcohol's mystical history, and the potential of combining herbalism and brewing for practical purposes. If this is an inappropriate idea, then just say.

I want to know about your magical beer! I wanted to make nettle beer for St. Kevin last year, but never got round to it. This is a thread I would love.

Mardol, you might be interested in looking into Metheglins, the traditional mead recipes that include medicinal herbs.

--Ember--

I'm having trouble keeping up with this new flurry of posts.

Originally the word "beer" was used to differentiate hopped beer from unhopped beer; which was ale or gruit. Generally speaking you want a bitter ingredient for flavouring, so ground ivy was often the most popular admixture in Britain, but heather was popular in Scotland, and rosemary was a common ingredient as well. Where it gets interesting is that the ingredients used for flavouring were themselves psychoactive to some extent. Hops for instance is a sedative in its own right and is a main ingredient, along with Valerian, in herbal sleeping pills. I'm curious as to how much the feeling of beer-drunk is coming solely from the hops... Henbane beer, using that famous "witches herb", was very popular in Germany and Scandinavia until various medieval laws banned it. I checked one of my books and apparently the Egyptians did use beer as a carrier for medicinal herbs. It's surprising how efficiently hops dominated the market over the centuries. My hunch is that it probably just tasted better, but there's only one way to find out.

Apologies for the thread de-rail, but I have plenty to copy and paste now. Thanks for the website Grant, looks amazing!

Pharmaceutical drugs as allies:

Sooo... middle of last year, I finally got some professional help wrangling my headweasels. Was on Escitalopram for a while, which suited me pretty well but which didn't produce the kind of remission we were hoping for. My weasel-wrangler switched me onto Venlafaxine, which has some positive effects (better concentration, improved mood, more optimism, calmer etc) but has side-effects which are kicking my ass. Chiefly, the problem is fatigue (coupled with sleep disturbances). Which means that even though my potential functionality has improved, my actual functionality is lying on the sofa going "wurrrrgh."

I hit on the idea of communicating with Venlafaxine in an animistic manner. I've been entering trance, and trying to establish a respectful dialogue with the Venlafaxine spirit, thanking it for its presence in my life, thanking it for all of its effects and what they can teach me, and then describing the effects I'd like to see more of in future. I guess I'm seeing some progress, but I feel like the workings could be more... sophisticated... than simple trancework.

I've got some vague idea of building a mojo hand around one of the pills, but not sure what else to put in it. I've also considered a contact ritual of the kinds I use with my Gods and spirits, but again, not sure how to go about it. Any input from the community?

Sheesh, there was a book I'm remembering written from the point of view of someone talking to Prozac. Anyone remember that? It wouldn't have been called "Dear Prozac" or anything like that, I don't think, but was along those lines. Filed under PSYCHOLOGY/MEMOIR, more than likely. May be ideas in that.

Something I have never done is written corporate memos to chemicals, but it seems appropriate.

Listening/Talking: Oh, yeah, probably one of those. It just stuck in my mind because the chemical was being personified.

Been pursuing this... like many in this class of drugs, Venlafaxine brings on vivid dreams. I've been finding myself dreaming about past events/situations/people which gave me trouble. Not unusual, but the last few times I've had a person or a group of people with me who were acting as allies/support, and the dreams have ended up being broadly positive rather than fed-up-making. Still having trouble with fatigue though.

I've had those exact same symptoms as a stress response before. Stress, or an (up to now unknown) allergy, would explain this. If it happens again, and it still isn't parsing clearly as a magical thing, then try some anti-hystamines. Those things are ace.