Quotes from Judika Illes

Hunting: eating meat involves killing a fellow creature, whose spirit guardians must be appeased to avoid disaster and maintain spiritual balance

Just as with fire and knives, spirits must always be treated with respect and caution. A combination of common sense and knowing how to work with them ensures safety.

Nichos may be open for continuous view or have doors protecting the privacy of the spirit within.

In December 2013, The Times of India reported that, despite laws introduced to combat the phenomenon, witch hunts continue unabated, especially in rural areas. Their study indicates that many of these cases are rooted in property disputes, just as so many witch hunts were centuries ago during Europe's Burning Times.

Sometimes, wonderful, great fortune unexpectedly emerges phoenix-like from the ashes of disasters. Sometimes a crisis is required to spark needed transformation and growth.

I've learned that, just like beauty, what constitutes witchcraft is dependent upon the eye of its beholder.

Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend

The actual meaning of the word Witch is linked to "wisdom" and is the same root as "to have wit" and "to know." It comes from the Anglo-Saxon wicce (f) or wicca (m) meaning "wise one," witches being both female and male. On

Women are sacred and powerful because they can give life, because their bodies reflect the lunar phases, because the emergence of womanhood and fertility is announced by the rhythmic shedding of magical blood (and in many tribal societies, just as in many offices or wherever women live closely together, menstruation becomes synchronized and frequently linked to a specific moon phase).

Rituals and visualizations may help identify spirit allies. Sometimes mediums or spiritual advisors can identify your spirit allies

To earn an ally, be an ally. Many, if not most, spirits possess sacred animals, plants, or places. Working on their behalf is an act of veneration and should eventually attract favor and attention.

What isn't expressed in any of the definitions given above is a perception of the witch as a figure of female empowerment: in a world of good, polite, agreeable, well-behaved, passive girls, the witch is an independent, empowered, autonomous, frequently assertive, and defiant woman, beholden to no one. (Unless,

Most spirits possess various forms, which they consistently assume. • Most also possess various preferences in food, fragrance, colors, and gifts. • Some spirits are identified with certain numbers, trees, animals, birds, or plants. • Individual spirits possess specific symbols, known as attributes, which serve as the equivalent of a calling card. Poseidon's attribute is a trident; Rosmerta's is a cornucopia

It couldn't be clearer than in the ancient tale of Isis, Mistress of Magic, who has enough power to stop the sun in the sky but can't conceive the child she is destined to bear without sexual intercourse. Isis can resurrect her dead husband long enough for a quickie, she can charm up a working gold penis because the original went missing during the resurrection process, but with all that power she is unable to conceive a child without sperm.

Heathen: This Anglo-Saxon word literally means "dweller on the heath." The heath is the area outside the settlement; post-Christianity, those wishing to maintain old traditions retired to the heath, hence the name. It came to be synonymous with "Pagan," sometimes with the added implication of rude, ignorant barbarian. The word has been reclaimed by Neo-Pagans subscribing to Northern European traditions and today is used with pride. See also Asatru

Other means of communicating with spirits include divination, dreams, oracles, and visualizations. Spells and rituals can also facilitate communication.

One ritual recorded in the Magical Papyri simultaneously invokes Adonis, Anubis, Ereshkigal, and Hermes. Each of those spirits derives from a different pantheon: Canaanite, Egyptian, Sumerian, and Greek, respectively.

medium is any person who serves as a conduit to the spirits. It is a relatively general term. Various techniques exist. Mediums may or may not be shamans or engage in ritual possession. Some deliver messages in trance, others while completely awake and conscious. Mediums may use tools such as divination devices, automatic writing, or planchettes. A person presiding over a séance is called a medium.

Maenad: A female devotee of Dionysus. In many ways, the Maenads served as the prototype of the wild, free, ecstatic female witch. Eventually they too would come to be hysterically persecuted and outlawed. Among the theories of historical witchcraft is that it is a surviving vestige of Dionysian spirituality. See CREATIVE ARTS: Dance: Maenad Dances; DIVINE WITCH: Dionysus;.

The type of work you do, the food on your table, beverages, fragrances, music, friends and animals surrounding you, all this affects the types of spirits you attract. Any sounds, images, fragrance, foods, work, or emotions that are constantly, consistently present potentially serve as lures for spirits (or serve to keep them away).

This English word derives from the Greek mageia and the Latin magia meaning "art of the magus or magician." These words in turn derive from the Magi, a Persian caste of priests, spiritual practitioners, and masters of astrology and divination. (See Magi, Magician.)

Witches are commonly depicted reading. This may not seem unusual today, however up until the eighteenth century artists rarely depicted women in the act of reading with two significant exceptions: women who are clearly studying devotional material and witches who study books of magic.

Bats have powerful associations with death and ghosts. A hoodoo charm to stop ghostly harassment displays African magical roots: Should you feel that ghost's unwanted presence, toss one single black cat hair, obtained without harming the cat, over your left shoulder saying, "Skit, scat! Become a bat!

The Druids left no monuments: they preferred nature to buildings and taught in groves and caves where they also conducted rituals. The French cathedral of Chartres was built over a sacred Druid site.