Occult Spelling Lesson – not okult spulling laysun.

Hello my dearies,

I do hope everyone is enjoying the Holidays. Your old friend Cat just got her house back from the Reign of Terror (aka my two year old nephew, and his six month old brother,) and can I tell you something? There is nothing better to convince people to keep using birth control than a tantrum-throwing two year old! 🙂 I do love my nephew, but I also thank him for reminding me why I’ve not yet reproduced. 😉 If you are not reading between the lines, your friend Cat likes peace, quiet, breakable things (to remain unbroken and unmolested,) curse words…finally, my home is back, and again smelling like cigarettes and incense …instead of smelling like a diaper bag which it was starting to. 😛 You might not like the smell of cigarettes, but to me the smell of cigarettes is the smell of freedom! 😀

Anyhoo, now that all of the residents of my home (on four and two legs,) can now breathe a sigh of relief, let’s get to what we love talking about! Yes, that was the occult if you missed that. 😉

Today’s offering is something I was inspired to post after several people on the Hoodoo For Everyone board spoke up about certain words that ticked us off to see misspelled all of the time. It occured to me that perhaps some occult terms are not conveniently located in a spell-checker, and also that some people misspell words but do so with other English words (see Angel/Angle) ergo making the ignorant spell-checker bot not pick up on your boo-boo.

For Your Occult Convenience:

“Phoenix” is the famous bird that is immolated and rises from its own ashes. This is not “Feenix” “Finix,” Pheenux, Phonix, or PHONICS (which, phonics and phoenix are not even slightly related.)

“Angel” is a Hebrew spirit which is oft portrayed in art as a winged being resembling a human. It is not an Angle, an Anjul, or even an Anjill.

“Altar” is any structure where religious, devotional, or spiritual (even spell,) offerings are made. This is not to be confused with the verb “To alter,” which means to change. You can alter your altar, or use your altar to alter your circumstances, but they are not one in the same.

“Sacred” means is a state of holiness given to an object or place. This is not to be confused with the verb “To Be Scared,” because if you’re scared, this means you’re frightened…not neccisarily holy. 😉

Now the next thing I say is going to piss off a lot of people, but here goes:
“Magic” is a form of spellcraft, charm, mojo etc. “Magick” is what Alestrair Crowley called HIS spellcraft to differentiate it from that of the Golden Dawn. Furthermore, NO ONE is confused that you mean card tricks and pulling rabbits out of hats and s*** when you write, “So I used some magic and my ex came back!” In fact, the adding of the “k” to magic has now fallen out of favor, and many respected occultists don’t use that misspelling. Its actually, so far as I know, never been a hugely popular trend in African/ATR-based spellcrafts, but someone can correct me if I’m wrong there. Ten years ago, it was just beginning to slip out of fashion in the pop-occult world…but just like no one Macarenas anymore (if you don’t know what that is, you definitely shouldn’t be using a k on your magic,) because that fell out of being fashionable, so did the pretentious k on your magic. I am formally dropping the magic/k format here and today because I think we can all put on our big person panties/undies and admit that I know the difference between card tricks and spellcraft, and, honestly, I don’t use the “magick” spelling anymore off of the site in correspondence. Get out a freaking dictionary…the olde tyme spelling is pretentious, and use of it probably implies you actually think those around you are stupid enough to not know what illusion is as opposed to spellcraft. Magic is also NOT SPELLED as so: Magiq, Majiq, Majick, Madgeick.

“Incense” is a combination of herbs and oils, sometimes found in pressed cones, rolled on sticks, placed on a charcoal briquette, or in “self-lighting” forms which emits a scented smoke. It isn’t insence, insense, or incence.

An “Athame” is a double-edged ritual dagger. Its not a “hathamey,” athemey, asthemy, athum, etc. While this does originally come from the word “Artavus,” it has since evolved into its own word. Wikipedia has a very interesting paragraph about the word’s etymology here.

A “faun” is a mythological half-man/half goat. Not to be confused with a baby deer, who is a fawn. 😉

Hmm…I think that’s it. 😉

Either way, I’d wanted something a bit lighter for the holidays, so I do hope this was educational for everyone. Back soon with a money spell for the new year!

~Cat

ALL WRITTEN CONTENT IS COPYRIGHT THEORIGINALNINJACAT, AND THE IMAGE IN THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO UNDER COPYRIGHT. Failure to respect my intellectual property, and any attempt to steal it will result in very bad consequences. Please read my disclaimer