Cat’s Rants: Confessions of an Occult Mastermind

Everything you ever wanted to know about Hoodoo, Rootwork, or the Occult! The internet’s longest running occult blog, established 2004

  • Hey kids,

    So, about three times a week – sometimes more, sometimes less, – I'm required to piss someone off or give them a slight. It's not that I want to make them feel bad, it's that they completely ignored the terms of service and other pages they agreed to which state not to text me, use chat, or use social media to contact me through, excluding emergencies, and to use email only to prevent me losing threads or following up, and allow me to keep business in one place, while also limiting contact which may reach an abusive level. I have to say this because having gotten access to some chat service, they ignore the rules, and try to enjoy easy access to me via these services, which if I leave this breach of the rules unchecked turns into something pretty shitty for me…25 or more unpaid hours chatting. So, to put this in perspective, I already work an average of 60 hours a week. I am expected – with no increase in pay – to add 25 hours to this. And no, the single client may not be the cause of 25 hours, but in some cases, yeah I'll even get a single client who, feeling they have unfettered access and I have no clients or life outside of them, will just go ham. 

    But it's actually even worse than just working way more for the same amount. It also means that I have to check chats on several platforms (many of which I don't look at even weekly, like Whatsapp,) or that people think they have unfettered access because they can text me, when in reality, I'm a terrible texter and take hours and days to respond to people I personally know and love (so for business, it's even riskier.)

    Obviously no one likes to be told that their chatting with me is work to me, and I personally feel like a real jerk because as much as I may like the client, there's a million non-work things I want to do with whatever time i have outside of work, and talking about someone's emotional issues and relationship issues isn't really fun for me, especially after doing just that for pay for all the hours I worked. Plus, it's my paying job, so much like I'm sure you don't want to work 25 hours more at your job for no increase in pay (or even 3 hours more for no increase in pay,) I do not want this either. 

    And my friends who work in my industry make similar complaints. This is our job. It isn't volunteer work. I have posted days off, for example, and I get non stop texts and inquiries and have even had people pissed off when I didn't do a scheduling request on my day off (Sunday,) because I figured it wasn't an emergency and could wait til Monday. This literally led to an epic battle and chargeback, and it was my sole "error" and not even an error. She lost the chargeback dispute lol. 

    What makes this all the more irritating is some people think I'm a free research tool. Well, this is also my job. I'm pretty dang thorough in explaining things in my writing. But if you want to know what plants correspond to Jupiter, tor what offerings this spirit likes, or why this event may have happened after you cast x or y spell….here's these neat things called books, and this other great thing called google, and you might actually use those instead of expecting a live person to tell you…since basically you are asking that live person to work by doing so (I don't enjoy spending my free time working for no pay any more than anyone else,) and getting frustrated in many cases when they don't want to spend their free time helping you for hours for no compensation. While I'm willing to explain my own written work to clarify for free (which is it's own tedium but helps me be more concise in the future,) and even answer a few questions here and there, if I'm asked general questions that require long answers, I may point you to the QYAM archive or you may wait. 

    Answering questions directly regarding paid spellwork is something I do, but even then if the support becomes egregious and takes up more than a specific amount of hours in my week, that is considered abuse. 

    Why? It's my paying job, and if I'm working for below the federal minimum wage (making $2/hr or something,) that's abusive on the part of the client, and not a situation where I can sustain paying my bills on that wage. 

    But here's the thing – THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO ENGAGE IN THESE PRACTICES IN NO WAY WISH TO BE ABUSIVE OR ILL-MANNERED! Instead, they don't really realize what they are doing. 

    So, let's compare this to something. Let's say a person who works above you in your company realizes you like the same hobby they are just beginning to take an interest in. They have very little knowledge and ask if they can ask your advice from time to time. As they pay your check, and because you have no idea that they mean "be my free on demand tutor", you agree and give this person your cell number. Almost immediately you are asked questions like why people do this thing like this, and the history of that, and did you ever make this, and what does this mean….the moment you leave work til 1am, and then when you wake before work, you are being asked about this hobby. Of course, you don't want to be rude, as this person pays your check, but this is a lot of extra work and you'd much rather be spending time with your romantic partner or doing things you like doing rather than say, explaining the history of crochet to Bill from accounting for 4 hours one night. And then of course, it worsens because they start to just casually hit you up and ask your opinion on things which are perhaps related but not the hobby itself. Of course, when you finally say you are really busy, and try to explain the situation, this person becomes incredibly defensive, and now you get demoted, or get a really bad quarterly review. 

    That's hugely abusive. Anyone would agree. 

    But when it comes to people in my job, it's considered okay to hit us up on chat or text and ask why this clearly fraudulent and awful spell from tiktok says it will do x thing, and didn't do anything, and to make me describe how none of the elements of the spell line up with any established magical practice historically, how no practitioner would say it was a real spell, that some pretty adolescent girl clearly made it up so she could pretend to be a witch, and that really even a novice could tell it's not real…which of course takes a huge discourse and discussion to explain this without hurting feelings, plus you also need to discuss their feelings about the spell etc. This isn't rare, and you bet that 90 minutes later, when I've lost all that time discussing something that has very little to do with anything I want to do with my free time, the person asking may be satisfied, but I'm screwed out of 90 minutes of free time which may have been the only 90 minutes I had to do the things I like doing…so I can work, do housework and sleep today? Ah shit, I actually needed 30 of those minutes to clean so now I even have to take away 30 minutes of sleep because you liked a clearly fake garbage spell and insisted I spend 90 minutes I kind of didn't have to explain it's fakeness and reassure you.

    BUT the client has this idea that this is normal and healthy because they have easy access to me via social media chat or text. This familiarity is like the business example above where, having agreed to help when the person needed a little help on a hobby turned into a full time job explaining everything and anything that crossed the mind of the other person…and when asked to halt this, hurt the feelings of the person being abusive as it FEELS LIKE YOU ARE CONTACTING A CLOSE FRIEND. It loses it's professionalism here. 

    People really like feeling like we are more like friends rather than client and worker. And I adore many of my clients and can even have fun chatting sometimes…but at the end of the day, we need to make it so neither of us is absorbing the other's day on any frequent level. 

    So, ask yourself this – are you asking for a lot of assistance on a paid service? If you are a paying client, of course I agree you should be able to have questions pertaining to the the service answered. If it's not an emergency, however, you should not expect an immediate answer. You have to keep in mind that the person performing this service has a lot of other clients and may need time to respond. If it IS an emergency, you should be capable of telling the person that it is INCREDIBLY TIME SENSITIVE, rather than you feel bad or scared or upset which makes it feel like an emergency, perhaps, but really often is just you being emotional and not one. "I had a scary dream last night," is not an emergency. I had one woman who literally disrupted an entire courtroom during a civil property case I was involved in because she was having a meltdown that a man she had broken up with a year ago was now dating new people (which actually made him realize how much he missed her, and he returned! It wasn't even a bad thing!) This was very abusive of her. She was blocked on my phone thereafter, and honestly, she's a lovely person, she was very embarrassed and I appreciate her allowing me to use it as an example, lol. ALSO KEEP IN MIND THE CONTENT OF YOUR REQUEST. No one should be expected to reassure you every moment, of course (and plenty of people ask me to help them when they have the most trivial of concerns, and can quickly become problematic,) but if you're repetitively asking HOW spells work or WHY something is happening, it's really a bit off when you have my huge corpus of work that explains all those things, but if you're like an abusive person I'd fired because she made me repeat over and over the same concepts, then looked up some of the worst advice on the internet and made me explain why it was wrong, – and basically, not only had I explained everything 20 times over (often on the same day, but every day she contacted me,) I was also constantly expected to act as free therapy. No where in my job description does "FREE THERAPIST" come up. In fact, it clearly states in my TOS that I am not your therapist. Further, while of course I want you to understand what's going on if you have questions, nowhere in my job description is the title FREE TUTOR. I've spent years of my life writing this blog. It is so full of info it is bursting. 

    BUT, tell someone to keep contact to email and on topic, and explain patiently that over familiarity can create a toxic situation where I am expected to work an extra amount of time one might work at a part time job TOTALLY UNPAID, and that I like to have some time to myself…and I'm the bad guy.

    TUTORING (spell coaching, one on one teaching,) is a job. 

    THERAPIST (reassuring, helping get through your emotional issues, cheering you on, explaining basic psych) is a job

    If you want to PAY ME to do either, then I will gladly help you. But neither is a free service, nor should anyone working as a practitioner for hire be expected to do either for free. 

    If you keep that in mind, and be respectful of my time or your worker's time, you won't ever need to worry that you're a burden or that you've become abusive. 

    Hopefully that explains things,

    ~Cat

  • Hey Occulties,

    As I'm about to put up a new spell for you all to use, I'd like to take a moment to discuss realistic expectations and the sphere of availability, because, while I've discussed this before, we all know a lot of people won't take the time to peek at those articles, and I want to be sure everyone has a fair grasp on what to expect. 

    Now, I want you to think of something you really want, and make it something that is pretty far out of your reach at this moment, but not so far that it's ridiculous. So, let's say right now you can't afford a car and don't have one, but you'd be willing to settle for a used one…and if you're being fair, you really like one that costs around $10k. Problem being, you don't make $10k per month right now, and even if you did, you have rent and utilities and bills to worry on so it's not like you even have the means to spend every penny you make on a car. By your estimation, what you CAN save per month, means that a used car will take you almost 18 months to get. To complicate this, you will need to buy insurance and pay for costs of registering the car, etc, and that means it could take an added 2 months on top of that. You really don't want to settle for anything lesser as it might just fall apart and then you need repair costs, so you feel kind of stuck. 

    In short, spending $10k on a vehicle is kind of out of your reach.

    You look into getting a loan but the loan is also going to cost you more per month than you can afford to spare. It might cut down the time you need to save if you get this loan, but now you're strangling your finances in 6-8 months if you get it then, and making it perilous for yourself because if you are going to have 0 left over after paying the car loan monthly…well, one little unforeseen emergency happening means that car could cost you your home if it was a big enough emergency (rentals aren't cheap and neither are mortgages, ugh.) 

    So, you turn to magic. You do a spell and now there's a pretty nice used car for cheaper. It's still out of your price range because it's $6k. You see a real junker and that might be something you can get in a month, but again, it will likely need repair even though it's pretty good for a $2k car, and it has about 43 million miles on it, so how much longer is it going to last? Your options improved a lot, but it's still out of your reach! What gives? 

    Well, look, I'll be honest and say I've seen some "get a vehicle" spells manifest very nicely with someone getting something in their price range and in good repair for quite a steal, so this isn't to discourage you from trying…but we sometimes need to be more mindful of our sphere of availability, and in this case, the person seeking a $10k car now when it's so far out of their budget, was not being mindful. The desired outcome lay too far beyond the borders of their sphere of availability. 

    Imagine now that my neighbor Bob has a gorgeous mature rosebush with two-toned red and gold roses. I look at his rosebush every day and want one like that for myself. So I go to the local hardware and garden store, and lo and behold there are some options for similar types of roses. One costs around $20 and is not even a shrub. It's baby tea roses in a pot – basically what rose seedlings are, and plus I want full sized roses like Bob, not little tea roses. The next is about $30 and is a dormant shrub. It looks like a twig with roots. Now the next option is a "bush" that looks like a wooden chicken foot and leg (not the meaty part, haha,) covered in wax coming out of dirt, and this is about $40. Then there is a smaller bush all bloomed up and full of foilage and this looks similar to Bob's mature bush, just much much much smaller, and this is $60. I look and look and finally in one store I find a bush much like Bob's rose bush (a bit smaller maybe but quite close to the same,) and this is $125.

    My maximum budget though, is $30.

    Now before I go on, the "maximum budget" is your maximum reach to bring to you that which you desire, with the rosebush being the desired end result. In spells I might want something grandiose, but I have to keep in mind how much power I have to draw to myself that which I want. So much like my "budget," my energy will only pull something in so far, okay?

    So, I go home with a dormant shrub which if you are a horticulturist at all, you will know….it looks like a tiny twig haha. But it's all I could get. Is this a loss? Not really, because if I care for the plant, if I nurture it, I will eventually have a bush rivaling my neighbor's mature rosebush. Of course…it might take a few years. However, whilst I was at the garden shop, I had noticed that bloomed shrubs went for $60. So, I go home and plant my little dormant rose shrub and it blooms within a month. I sell it back to the garden shop for a trade of two dormant shrubs, and in a month, I raise those up. 

    Now back to our magic. The shrub represents how far you can get with your spell. You got to one benchmark, then you went back and did another spell, and now you're much closer to your goal. Because you got your shrub, let's say you're about a quarter there, then when you trade for two, you're halfway there when you bloom those out, and now trading them for four, when these little dormant shrubs mature into foliage and flowers, now you can trade for that nice mature rose bush, just like your neighbors. 

    BUT, it took you 3-4 months to do this. You did not do it in one step. Still….you could have worked on that first dormant shrub you bought for a few years and had this as well…just you sped up the outcome by continually working towards your goal to bring the desired end more rapidly.

    Spells can work like this. I may want something well out of my reach. But if I work to get a few steps closer, and let the spell manifest, then use magic to go another step further and faster than I could get there without the spellwork, the thing I want can still be mine. I just can't accomplish it in one step. I have to work towards it like I did with the rose bush example. 

    People don't like this. We live in an instant gratification type of society. 

    And allow me to be very frank – I want what I want RIGHT NOW too, haha. 

    It's only natural we feel this way. We have been raised to see the goal and yet we don't emphasize to people that often to reach a big goal, there's plenty of steps involved. 

    Have you ever been to a friend's home (or maybe your own,) where the friend had gotten depressed and stopped cleaning for a month or two? It's not uncommon and many people I know have had this happen or have seen it happen. Now the house is a mess and they are overwhelmed. How do you solve this problem? It's a lot to clean, but you start by focusing on one chore. So you tell your friend, start gathering the dirty laundry and put it in the washer, and I will start washing the dishes and putting them away. You move through the house like this. You focus on one chore, and then the next and in a few hours that house will look so much cleaner than it did, and you won't feel like it's overwhelming to keep going. 

    Well, working towards a goal works like that, too. You focus on a step that is closer in reach. So if we go back to our car example, I might say…look, part of the problem is I don't make enough money to get the car I want or to keep it if I get it. So, what I could do, is I might do some work for a promotion at work to make more, or a new job. I will need to keep in mind it needs to be something I have the training and qualifications to do, and that the pay scale must be realistically what people can expect as pay for that job. No one is going to pay you $125/hr to flip burgers or sell shoes. HOWEVER, if you're making $16/hr at your current job, but there's another one you have all the qualifications for (just in a different industry,) for $40/hr (and maybe it's not something you would love doing – maybe it's cleaning houses, but you know how and it's not hard,) then you might do a spell to get the job if you want to ensure you get it. Now you're making a lot more per week, and this goes towards affording a car. 

    I'm purposely using numbers to help you understand. We tend to understand that if we want a thing that costs x, and we earn y, that we must save for a specific time or earn more to get an item that is currently out of our financial reach.

    And when you think about it, if you are now earning almost 3x what you once made, you might be able to budget and get the car that way…but it's still going to take longer than you'd like just budgeting. HOWEVER, since you make more, you might do a spell to get a car you want and be able to afford it, and now, suchas in our earlier example, you are getting options you can afford, whereas before you were not because you earned so little. 

    So with each step we take, we increase our sphere of availability. That means we increase the reach of our magic. If you think on the rosebush example, first I had one $30 bush, but when I got that, I quickly made it so my reach was now double what it was when I hit that goalpost. I then quadrupled my budget by working a bit again, thus quadrupling my sphere of availability. With the car example, I worked on the main issue keeping me from being able to afford a car – low income, – and by increasing my income, I increased my sphere of availability, thus making a car within my reach – even by using a spell to get a more affordable option than I'd have without a spell. 

    So, we focus on one problem that's keeping us from our desired goal, rather than the whole end goal. We do this and as we fix or repair the smaller issues, we grow our sphere of availability, which in turn brings us to our desired goal faster with each step. 

    WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH GETTING MY EX BACK? some of you are saying. 

    Ah, well, I stuck to numbers because that's a bit more logical than love, but that's a fair question. Let's say your ex moved away, isn't talking to you, is still very angry with you, and you think one stinky reconciliation spell will fix that. Well, you try that and unbeknownst to you, your ex forgives you, but they still don't want to speak to you, still live far away, and just forgiving you didn't mean you were getting back together. In fact, from where you are, it looks like nothing happened at all. That's OK though. Maybe you should try a communication spell next, okay? And so you do, and now you're unblocked and your ex asks you something pretty unromantic and doesn't seem too interested in coming back…and still lives far away. Well, you might try a love-drawing spell next. Now your ex texts you and is flirty and seems kinda interested in you again! So other than this person living far away, you basically are so close to what you want! Well, now you'll have to tackle the distance issue, either through magical or not magical means, but you have your ex wrapped around your finger so I bet you're a lot happier. 

    But it took steps, didn't it? Just like all the above examples took steps. With each step, you grew your sphere of availability but you had to tackle a few issues to get to where you want. 

    Realize then that there are a lot of things we want right now that might be enough out of our reach that we will require steps to get there. This isn't a failure on the part of magic itself, but rather a failure of the petitioner or spellcaster (depending on if the petitioner is the spellcaster or is dishonest with their spellcaster,) to accurately assess the amount of work required to get to the goal. So when you do a working with the intention of say getting your ex to come back, if there's a lot of damage and issues, it can easily require a few workings to bring that goal into your life. It means that it won't take 5 days or something equally short to get what you want. 

    And unfortunately there are a lot of charlatans out there who feed on people who don't understand spells and magic who have this desire to have what they want RIGHT FUCKING NOW, and so they will tell you they can bring something to fruition without steps or even without requiring a few days. They are basically saying they are super-powerful. Yet if we look at magic like a muscle, the amount of muscles they would need to do what they say would basically mean they are Godzilla and not human. Realistically, an expert caster may need weeks or even a few months on really difficult problems that are well outside of the client's sphere of availability. 

    And, if you are the spellcaster, if you're an expert you may have more "muscles" in casting spells, but if you're a beginner…you may have less reach from not having built up this strength. It should never reach Godzilla-strength so be wary of those who claim to be able to tackle every issue with such speed and ability, but yes, and expert should be able to bring more and faster than someone unpracticed. YET ALL OF US NEED TO MIND THE SPHERE OF AVAILABILITY because by so doing, we not only keep our expectations in a realistic place, but we also spend less time reaching that goal by creating goalposts which help us get there. 

    Hopefully that made some sense.

    ~Cat

  • Hello Occulties,

    I'm sure my own derision of certain practices using newer forms of media to reach a new generation of occultists hasn't been missed, but when it comes down to it, that's less to do with the media being used and more to do with the vast majority of purveyors of "information" who use these forms as their major platform.

    Allow me to help you to understand this if you're learning.

    A bit over a hundred years ago in the United States, it was not at all odd to have a traveling "doctor" arrive in your town, hocking a miracle cure. We still refer to these folks as snakeoil salesmen and they were a very real thing. Dr Quackenstein's miracle cureall  (which might contain morphine or cocaine or both but was probably 90% grain alcohol at best,) would be sold to you via Dr Quackenstein who had, in advance, brought along a few folks who pretended to be suffering some greatly crippling ailment, be miraculously cured after sipping a bit of Dr Quackenstein's Miracle Cure-All. Dr Quackenstein would display clearly falsified credentials and after selling bottles of his fake medicine would travel quickly to the next town, always fooling more townspeople. The cure-all cured nothing, and people ended up losing hard earned money for something that did not cure anything (excepting maybe a little back pain for a day or so.) 

    This is because he put on a great spectacle, and since time immemorial, the weak minded and the ignorant have been greatly moved by a spectacle. This also was because like many people trying to learn spellcasting and/or find spellcasters, people were so ignorant on the topic of medicine, that you and I might laugh at their ignorance today, but even smart people back then really didn't know much about medicine. I am reasonably sure people still got bled by their doctors for certain conditions (but that might have fallen out of favor a few decades previous.) 

    Now back in Dr Quackenstein's heyday, it helped quite a bit that medicine was not what it is today, and that many were illiterate, and that many were never ever going to have any sort of medical knowledge taught to them. It helped that many still believed the miasma theory (bad smells were the carrier of disease,) and that our understanding of bacteria and viruses was still very poor. 

    Just as it helps people who put on a spectacle to attract customers now that many of you do not realize that the study of the occult has been a serious field of study (the best occultists I know are far more like college professors than they are like goth looking hippies or wizards painted on the side of a 1970's van,) and that being psychic is actually as rare as maybe being born with green eyes. In fact, serious scholars who were not out to wow you with their miraculous exciting stunts (so they were not entertainers,) and people who were a form of medicine man or woman who also took their craft as seriously as the midwife might, – these are our forebears. That some people with talent may have been showboats is very true, but a serious occultist has more in common with a real doctor or professor than he or she does with today's Dr Quackensteins. 

    BUT, because people are so ignorant about the study and practice of the occult, they are their forebear's equivalent of the townsperson running to purchase this cure-all, and eschewing the doctor that has a PhD in medicine and has been the town doctor for 20 years, since Dr. Realdoctor sure as hell never cured blindness (and Dr Quackenstein cured that stranger's blindness when he stopped through, right?) Dr. Quackenstein dressed like he had money, – all flashy and fine? Meanwhile the town doctor had a battered old medical bag and …I mean, he's not made much being the town doctor since he allowed you to pay him with chickens sometimes, so he must not be as good as Dr Quackenstein. 

    That's what you all are doing when you tell me this person PRETENDING TO BE A PRACTICING SPELLCASTER told you that say…cinnamon replaces brick dust when sprinkled around the home. No. BRICK DUST – as popularized in the horrid movie Skeleton Key, has some historical significance as a protective powder in hoodoo. If you replace it with cinnamon it is not at all going to help you except I guess your house will smell like cookies for the first gust of wind that passes through. You are disseminating Dr Quackenstein's theories as far as you can if you pass that rotten bit of advice along.\

    But Dr Quackenstein is fun, and convincing, and so in tune with modern times right? Yeah, kids, I get it. I've seen the young adults who are literate but can't read a book and sadly it's mostly their parents and teacher's fault for exposing them to tablets and forms of media we now realize are as addictive as drugs pretty much at birth. And the other reality is experts would be older and would not be like to come from that generation, and therefore would be all about the books (SO MUCH OF LEARNING SPELLCASTING IS READING! Oh so many hours of my life spent reading and studying! I could have 8 PhD's with all this damned reading!) 

    So, I want you to understand…. I want people to learn real stuff. I want them to know the history, and how this works and to be able to pass on the accumulated knowledge of all the real occultists who came before them and before me, and during my time, to other generations that come long after I am dead. But to do this we need to push against the Dr Quackensteins. We need to tell the people who thought it would be cool to pretend to be a witch on TikTok to fuck off. That's like thinking it's cool to pretend to be a doctor, give out medical advice, and kill people in so doing, because you know it's totally neat to pretend to be a surgeon to your followers. 

    It's not that I hate new forms of media. It's that the people who are more apt to use them are not apt to be experts, and many of them are Dr. Quackensteins. There's some great folks who are the real deal who are using those new forms of media, too. Just you need the real occultists who are on the platform start to increase in number (and they are daily), and realize that the Dr Quackenstein's of the world are PERFORMERS (most occultists are more like PROFESSORS,) and that if someone is putting on a real show…they probably are just an entertainer, not the real deal.

    I really hopes this helps many of you. 

    ~Cat

     

  • Greetings everyone,'

    I missed you so much. After Mr NinjaCat, and spellcasting, writing is my true love. Unfortunately doing it on an old iPhone is something I definitely do not love, haha, but I've solved that problem and can type on a traditional keyboard again. 

    So, as tired as it may be for some readers, I'll start with a Questions You've Asked Me and hopefully move on to a fresh spell article thereafter. Because I have some great questions saved up…I have to get to these first.

    Q: Why are so many spells for personal gain, rather than the good of the community or people?

    A: Well, let's start with the idea that you propose that most spells you or the reader knows are solely to profit the petitioner (personal who the spell is cast on behalf of,) or someone they care about (so to indirectly benefit them.) Now, I think many of my readers are familiar with love spells to get the love of a particular person. How hard is it to work on a person, – to change their mind? It can be very difficult, especially if the target is resistant. Now apply that to thousands or up to even millions or perhaps billions of people. So this kind of work is understandably hard to make effective on a large scale sometimes. And cursing someone can be hard for some people, but imagine you go after your perceived problem person in a political place – so you're trying to say, destroy a leader you believe to be a detriment to your city, state, region, country, etc. This person clearly has supporters, all of which add positive protective energies which can undermine your work, so you can face a pretty powerful opposing force. If 500 people are praying for this leader to remain in power or even expand his or her power, than 5 going against this person are facing a very large block. 

    So, it's not that we don't have historical examples of people using their spells for what they feel is the greater good, it's just that, generally speaking, when we see magic in today's society like that, we are seeing religious groups working together for a particular leader or cause, as this is more effective than the solitary practitioner working for or against such a large group.

    But realistically, humans are also very selfish creatures who often are more worried with the issues we are directly dealing with – our income, our romantic life, etc – than those we are enduring on a greater scale. Basically, you care more about if you can pay your light bill than you care if an unnamed person has food enough to feed their family. 

    Therefore, the reason is that people just are more concerned about themselves, and also likely will have little to no impact by themselves on a complex societal ill. 

    Q: My offerings to a spirit got MOLDY! Was it refused? (I know this is a repeat but it was asked a lot for a few weeks.)

    A: Ouch. Well, it can sometimes mean that it wasn't exactly what the spirit wanted, yes. I've had "food fails" happen, and interestingly only one object of many got the ick in a few of those cases. When this happens, I do try to avoid serving the same thing twice if it got mold. 

    BUT, look, you don't need to leave things out for forever. Food in certain homes and climates can attract pests. If you can't leave a half a sandwich somewhere for over x amount of hours without bugs or mice being a risk, then don't leave offerings out longer than that. I try to leave mine out for at least a day but in my climate this is entirely non-problematic. 

    Outside of that, don't get too freaked out. Try a different food item than what got moldy next time. Many spirits DO appreciate any gift, but just like humans, they don't like everything so sometimes you made a really nice gesture (appreciated,) but the gift itself just wasn't anything very liked. Think of it like coming to dinner and while you loved the entree, you weren't really into the vegetable, or maybe you didn't like the side. Were you mad at your host for making you a free dinner? I sure hope not! But you don't have to enjoy everything served to appreciate the gesture, and that's the same with spirits.

    Q: (also a repeat but I've gotten it several times recently) If I am positioning an altar or idol in a particular direction, what does that mean exactly. Which direction am I facing if I am working on that altar or placing that idol?

    A: Super easy. So if I place the altar to the east, that means when I stand at it, I face eastward. If I am placing statuary to the east, then the statue is going to have it's back to the east, and face me as I stand, directionally facing eastward. Remember, as the operator or supplicant, where you are facing – so where your eyes are directed towards, – if required to face a direction, – is what is meant when you are directed to place an altar to the east, west, south, north, or even northeast, northwest etc. For an idol or statuary, when we are working with this being we will face to the direction indicated, with the statue (if it is of a being,) facing us. So technically, the statue is facing in the opposite direction. Hopefully that was clear. 

    Q: My love target keeps returning, then leaving, and I have to do the work again, with each time needing more and more effort to get my target to return – what gives?

    A: Are you refusing to work on your own toxic behaviors? And before you tell me they are toxic (which is highly possible, as well,) I am not asking why you are reconciling a toxic person who you blame for breaking things off. I am asking you, are you working on yourself (non magically,) and not repeating your own toxic patterns and behaviors (or trying to eliminate them. Trust me, there are no innocent parties and you do have them, even if the other person is more severe. Until you are accountable and working on yourself, too, the situation will continue to deteriorate even if you use love work to bring this person back. 

    This is something I frequently repeat, and not because I like to, but because it bears repeating.

    Next, how compatible are you? I have seen couples who can't keep it together because they communicate badly. AND, if communication work is applied at a regular rate, this problem does improve the relationship, leading to less or no break ups. However, this won't overcome having different life goals (example, one wants children or marriage, the other wants neither,) or huge personality conflicts (sometimes we really like how  someone looks and makes love, but we don't really like them so much, or vice versa,) or just incompatible styles of contact – some people feel very trapped by cuddly and very affectionate folks, others require this. So, start understanding your goals, values, and love languages and see how compatible they are. Sometimes they are very poorly aligned. 

    If that doesn't provide the answer, ask yourself, is every time I bring this relationship back together like ressurrecting a corpse? haha, yes really. Do you feel like what once took a magical nudge, now feels like it's taking greater efforts? And for less time? One reason I am very secure in my relationship is that whenever we have a serious falling apart, when we come back together, it is 3 times stronger and better. We learn from our problems and grow back even better. But if that isn't the case for you – if it feels more tenuous and fragile each time, – then possibly you are doing what I term "holding the target hostage in a relationship." You don't want to give up so you keep roping them back in, and each time, they try harder and harder to escape. That's the opposite of what should be happening if we are healing or working on a healthy viable relationship.

    Again, I say this a lot and have said it many times here and privately to clients over the years, but love spells do not create compatibility. If a relationship has elements which cause it to disintegrate without love spells, we need to examine this and see if it is something we can change and improve independently, or if it's a problem where it's so deeply a part of one or both of the parties, that it will continue to wear at the relationship. We also need to be honest with ourselves and willing to work on our own toxic behaviors. And lastly, if someone is very mentally unsound and perhaps suffering from a mental or personality disorder, we need to be honest as to whether or not we can remain, especially if that person refuses to be treated – and in some cases (because I see it a lot,) to ask ourselves if we need psychological help…the amount of untreated mental illness out there is sadly staggering, and I see it tear couples up every day, with one party wanting the other to seek needed therapy, (and sometimes the party contacting me refusing to seek therapy despite their partner's requests.) There is nothing wrong with getting therapy. Even if you're mentally sound as can be, it will only help you. 

    Q: I purchased an expensive oil from (company name redacted) on Amazon and it was garbage, but had good reviews – can I get a refund?

    A: I would ask Amazon the refund part, but never buy a large batch oil or powder from any seller, and if they sell items on Amazon, they are already likely too large to make usable oils and powders. Some items like oils must be hand made as they are almost like spells themselves. So if you don't trust a machine to do a love spell, don't trust it to make your ritual oils. 

    Q: I cursed someone a few years ago. While I did hear of some bad luck they had, I lost interest soon after and just let go of the situation and people involved. I didn't hear anything about the person because no mutual connections really remained, I guess. A few months ago, I found out via the LOCAL NEWS of all places that their bad luck continued to spiral and their lives are terrible. When I contacted some mutual connections I"d not really talked to in a few years, I learned the last few years were terrible for this person and kept getting worse and worse until they were in a situation bad enough to be on our local news. I never meant it to go so far, but then I'm not sure if it's my curse? Can you lend insight? I actually feel badly now, and am concerned I did this. 

    A: A friend of mine, when he was a much younger man, got in a fight. My friend is a very muscular and tall person. He looks like a strongman, even now in his middle age. When he was young, he must have been in even better shape, I assume (I met him when he was middle aged.) Well, he hit his opponent just right in that fight, and the other man died. Now my friend is a sweet, kind person, – a truly good friend who has always been the first person to help and not ask for anything in return…just an all around great person. I have never felt he was aggressive or scary in any way. Not even when he told me that story. But…because of a choice he made to get in a fight (hurt someone) that person died. He did not mean for them to die. But they did. And he even served time for it. 

    You made a choice to hurt someone when you cursed them. Now just like my friend, that choice may not have been with the intention of causing as much trouble to them as they got, but there's a strong chance that you magically "hit them just right" and it caused way more damage. Maybe you wanted them to lose an important relationship or job or move and that was just the right place to hit, because it made them fall and keep falling. That thing was the glue holding them up. 

    I'm not saying for sure it was your curse, but it could be. And you will need to accept that. It's perfectly fine to feel badly. BUT if you're not prepared for your curse to exceed your expectations, don't curse people. Just like if you don't understand if you hit someone just right (even if you didn't want to give them more than a black eye,) you can cause permanent damage or even death, then you should not pick a fist fight.

    Instead of beating yourself up over it, you can try to help the person…but chances are the actual curse is long dead. It just triggered a series of really unfortunate events that are continuing to impact the target. This is why I tell people something isn't a nice or a kind spell. Because feeling bad later often is the child of acting on impulse, which means you probably should not have cursed them until you were sure you were willing to accept the consequences that might come with it. 

    It sucks but like my friend above, sometimes intending lesser damage doesn't guarantee that you won't inflict greater, even if you never would have intended to take it so far, and even if you're a genuinely kind and good person otherwise.

    Q: Why is it when I work with a professional, I seem to make them angry by checking in frequently?

    A: While any number of reasons may be the cause, you might remember that every contact you make that requires response is work. So, every time someone needs my attention, the time I spend attending them is technically work, which can add up quickly, as well as be considered disruptive and and rude (for example, frequently using holidays, days off, or bizarre off hours times to contact the worker,) and if it's repetitive (being asked to explain the same thing repeatedly, to comfort or encourage someone frequently,) all the worse. So, I tell people, think of it like dealing with a doctor. If you'd write your doctor ten page novels daily while repeating the same questions over and over and think this person should be comforting and encouraging you while you heal (so in a spellcasters case while you move towards manifestation,) all while several times daily expecting this doctor to spend hours explaining every stupid and fake and wrong thing you found on the internet (and the right answer,) WHILE THIS PERSON HANDLES ALL THEIR OTHER CASES SIMULTANEOUSLY….then…I"d hate to be your doctor, and that isn't appropriate. 

    In reality, every professional has a limited amount of time. This doesn't mean you should not be able to ask questions, or consult if problems and situations arise. This means you should have the courtesy to understand MANY PEOPLE work with this professional and that hiring an expert does not at all suggest you own them or have the right to take over their whole week with often very unnecessary inquiries. It also means you should NEVER expect them to drop every other commitment, case, and aspect of their own personal lives to cater to your needs, regardless of the severity (and with most of these folks it isn't anything severe.)  

    As an expert, I don't need you to check in if nothing is going on, unless nothing has gone on long enough. So if you fail to see improvement in a few weeks, that is actually a thing to bring to my attention. If it hasn't improved in under a week, that is pretty normal. So, telling me every 2 days that nothing is happening is pretty annoying, as you might guess. 

    And the opposing type to this person exists as well… It really isn't helpful if you have problems with the service, the situation, or me, and don't ever bring that to my attention, especially if you bring those problems to anyone else's attention rather than mine. How can I handle something I should be handling (and gladly would,) if it is never brought to my attention? If you complain on any site, forum, or on social media before first attempting to settle it with the person who's services you used, you are your own problem. If I tell Mary that Maggie forgot to return my book, and I suspect on purpose, but fail to inform Mary that I never asked Maggie for my book back, I am vilifying an innocent person. That is the same as complaining about a worker's service to others without ever telling the person you're complaining about that you're unsatisfied and allowing them the opportunity to remedy the issue. Sadly, people who do this don't tend to get very far in life or get the things they want, because they are too afraid to actually handle any problem, and resent the innocent party for there being one only for fear of confronting the issue directly. That's a pretty deep psychological issue, and I hope these types get help rather than continue to alienate, smear, and offend those who never meant them harm. 

    Q: I am in a love triangle – I'm the "third party," as it were, and everyone seems to be against me! Is there any way to remedy this so my friends and loved ones don't view me as the bad guy, and my partner's friends and family accept us?

    A: I recently did some research on my social media about people's opinions of people who try to break up a couple to get one of the partners for themselves, and my research brought me many very descriptive responses detailing that absolutely no one has any respect for (and several people have violent feelings towards,) persons who come between a couple. You're not wrong to think you're fighting an uphill battle in which society thinks you (and possibly the partner you take if you succeed,) are garbage. I'm sure that's a very painful reality to deal with for the third party, and if they succeed in breaking up the couple, the half of the couple who goes off with the third party. 

    The easy answer is don't pursue a person who isn't single. BUT, you already did. :-/ So, I can't give that answer. 

    So, first accept the reality that there are people who will never respect or trust you again. It is what it is. You made a really bad choice, and that's the price of bad choices. Just be glad no one's dead or in jail because bad choices often end that way. 

    The next step is time. You need to stay together with the partner you took, and without vilifying the person or people who you hurt and destroyed their relationship. So the other half of the couple you split up who was removed – they should not be put down. You should show sympathy for them – excluding in an abuse situation, and generally with abuse it is a female who must be the one who left her marriage for another man to get away from an abusive man. If you're a woman who believes she took a man out of an abusive situation, you aren't apt to get sympathy. So, you must show a healthy and good relationship to friends and family, while showing regret and sympathy towards the person you hurt. 

    Magically, you will need to keep your relationship with this person functional (which if we look at percentages, less than 15% of a relationship born of cheating last over a year, and after 5 years it's far far smaller,) while showing regret for the party you hurt. PLUS, do a lot of sweetening on the friends and family. You probably won't win everyone over. Remember the rejected partner may very well have been loved and treasured by friends and family and you and the person you took betrayed them in a terrible way. You need to do sweetening and reconciliation until people forgive you. As for people trusting you? That might take awhile. 

    So, you need to really work on keeping this love relationship functional and visibly so, and there are a lot of spells for that. It probably will require magic as the turmoil that the partner you took will also experience from friends and family will constantly impact the relationship for awhile to come. You should do reconciliation and sweetening on friends and family and for a while to come. Meanwhile, as much as you may resent the person you you stole their partner, you cannot show contempt or aggression, and must instead act sympathetic towards them and regretful for your actions, or else, you merely rile the disrespect, mistrust, and hatred of many around you. 

    If it works out and you stay together, then congratulations for beating the odds (even if you used magic.) If it doesn't, my personal advice is to act as if you don't know either side of the couple nor what anyone's talking about if they bring up didn't you break them up. Honestly, society doesn't view it kindly, and putting distance between yourself and the event will be the best thing you can do.

    And if you're thinking of going after one side of a couple, just don't. Better to spare yourself all of the above than to have to try to live in the mess it causes.

    Hope that was educational,

    ~Cat

  • Every year during December, several people waste my time getting a long consultation and tell me they will pay me next year, usually well after the first of the year. Literally “haha, pay you next year!” Then they get fired before they can hire because working for free for hours isn’t cute or funny. Consultations are work. 

    I also have a lot of paid and paying business you’re stealing time from by being so short sighted and selfish, and frankly, I don’t appreciate you doing that to al the great and awesome people I work for. 

    So if you want to get fired, play that pay you next year card. I have plenty of business and I don’t need yours. I think it’s rude and infantile and frankly, I don’t want to work for people who steal that time from my clients or me because they clearly were not raised right.

    I already have a really heavy work load with a lot of people getting holiday anxieties and depression and needing me more, and so I’m very busy. 

    It’s a rough time of year but if you can’t pay me til next year, kindly get on my radar next year. If you need to wait to pay you can wait to get the consultation, allowing me more time for paying and paid business. If you don’t follow this reminder, I’ll fire before you can hire…unless it’s like the last day of December because thats about the only day “pay you next year” is funny.

    Thanks for understanding,

    ~Cat

     

  • Hey kids,

    Sorry I took a break from socials and posting. I was beyond busy with work and personal stuff. I have two very ill loved ones and thought one was going to die (well he still is going to die, just not as near to it as we thought,) and working 70 hour weeks and having that added stress just didn’t leave me with time to post. 

    Unluckily for me, and lucky for you, the starving season is upon us, which means less paying business and more time to post. It will only last a few weeks but I’ll be thinner and you’ll be more informed by the time it’s through so…hey I could lose 15 lbs and I bet you could get smarter. It’s a win win with that ❤️

    Let’s get to the questions! The first isn’t so much a question I was asked but rather something me trend recently mocked among my peers as it’s been touted as hoodoo and is not at all real or hoodoo or even a working that gets results.

    Q: If I put cinnamon on my doorstep, will it keep out evil?

    A: No, and what horrors of TikTok witchery vomited forth they idea, i can only guess. It would seem the author, having no idea the properties of the herb of cinnamon bark decided that it looks something like brick dust and wrongly suggested this as a replacement, when this would be about as apt as substituting salt for sugar in cooking or magic (because they look alike!) – which would lead to an awful cake and a terrible spell. You also cannot use mullein as a replacement for grave dirt. 

    Dear ones, please do not make up shit as you go along. Mis-teaching others so you can pretend to be a competent spellcaster to your IG followers will haunt you later if you ever become a competent spellcaster. This one is so stupid that experts – and most of my peers are old crumudgeonly occult authors – are laughing at how stupid this is. It’s easily identifiable as false to anyone with an ounce of training as being made up. 

    Q: Are there spells to make me more charming to others? 

    A: Yes and no. There are workings which will make you catch the eye of others and make them want to speak to you or to find you attractive. This will fall flat quickly if you are socially inept. But if you’re looking to cast a wide net and have people finding you attractive, and you aren’t going to send off “go away” signals or act desperate or needy, attraction work actually works very very well. 

    There are workings that can be used to make you a more charismatic speaker or to exude a leadership quality, but these are better used when you are giving a speech, or about to lead people. Because if you lack these qualities naturally, this is glamoury and under scrutiny, you will quickly lose the alpha glow.

    You see, magic teaches us that we cannot change anything’s nature without great effort or for a long time. So if you were never socially adept and were in fact quite socially clumsy, physical attraction will fade quickly when you metaphorically stick your foot in your mouth. To some effect, magic may nerf the damage but you are going against your nature. One can learn most things but…I am not a mathematician nor was I ever inclined to be, and though I’ve no doubt you could drill the material into me over a considerable amount of time, and I’d seem to have adopted it well, I will still always be clumsier with mathematics than someone who was inclined towards that sort of thinking from birth. Social skills, and seduction is a social skill, are the same. So I recommend you try to work on these skills if your attraction work keeps falling flat.

    And this also goes for being a charismatic leader. There are those well born to the role by that just being their nature. If you were not and wish to be, you need to try to learn those skills. Using a glamoury to give off an energy you have them will not provide you with the necessary skills to uphold that illusion. 

    So if you are unwilling to do any work past using energy to create an illusion and think one spell will change you into something then you also believe magic will make a bird a fish, and you are wrong. 

    It can be used to make others find you more attractive which is wonderful if your only issue is you aren’t very good looking. The reality though is I know many ugly people who do quite well with their desired sex finding them attractive and several beauties who people find dull and uninteresting. If you are socially inept or lack any leadership qualities this type of working will produce limited results. 

    Q: Have you ever cast a spell that didn’t work for absolutely no fathomable reason? 

    A: The only way I can be sure of this is if I did the work for myself, so that limits my answer a fair amount, having worked for others for quite some time. Mostly the failures that come to mind are those where I’m quite aware with hindsight where I fell short, and at least three quarters were my own behavior or lust for results in those cases. The other quarter or less were more my own misjudging my situation and applying less effective methods for being too blinded by my own perspective by being in the middle of the very situation I was working on (as well as being young and inexperienced in many of those instances.) I can think of two that were non working because the spell was nothing but some made up crap I found online back on the early days of the internet finally being a big thing. 

    So no, even the failures, for the most part, worked, but just didn’t manifest completely or didn’t have near enough to the desired outcome to qualify as successful. Absolutely nothing I’ve done for myself comes to mind as having no fathomable reason for failure if it failed. 

    We need to understand magic requires that we work with it and use it to the best of our ability, and to have the willingness to admit that if we work against it or apply a less effective method, it may fall short. If you were to throw your phone in a bucket full of warm salt water and leave it there for two days, then take it out and not put it in rice but allow it to air dry, then when it presumably wouldn’t work, call the manufacturer to complain that the phone is not working for any understandable reason, you have a very good comparison to people who did something I explicitly told them not to who then complain the spell doesn’t work. Much like the manufacturer of the phone you immersed in salt water for two days, lying that you did that or saying you did but it’s their fault the phone isn’t working does not negate the fact that you made it not work through your own actions. Furthermore sometimes a problem we didn’t mean to cause or were not aware of does impact results. One might compare this to complaining to a phone manufacturer that their phone doesn’t work because you are in a dead zone with absolutely no service. Again the manufacturer (who here is the practitioner or spellcaster,) is not at fault having no say as to whether or not their product will work in a no service area (which might be compared to not addressing key problems and obstacles to manifestation, which if you are casting for yourself is often due to being wholly ignorant or willfully ignorant – example, you don’t want to admit you behaved so horribly towards a love spell target that they may be too scared to return to you because you did the equivalent of chasing them down the street with an axe, – so as to either miscalculate what you need to do, or refuse to address that you have created an obstacle of such enormity that it will require a lot more work.) 

    So I am honest with myself with my own failures in that I find them a helpful tool in future endeavors as, so far as I can recall, when I have worked for myself, I see where and why the spell did not work. 

    Q: I am working with a spellcaster I find too commercial. Everything is a promotion or a spam email, and I don’t feel like they are real because it seems impersonal. Are they fake?

    A: In some respects, I share your concerns. The problem with some ritual products, for example, is that they are required to be handmade. I also know that advertising helps small businesses but in saying as much, I can’t dictate who writes their own copy or uses a service. Being too commercial is a red flag to me as well, but I don’t fault anyone for using the myriad of options to help them promote their own business at the same time, If you feel they are always trying to sell you something, I’d offer that if you’re uncomfortable with their business model, you should find a different worker.

    While there was a specific worker I was asked about here, surprisingly, I was undecided as they seemed very real from what I could see. I won’t name names but I do appreciate that someone asked and in this case, if you’re uncomfortable, move on. One person’s perfect spellcaster may be another’s nightmare. 

    Q: Is there a wish spell where I can get whatever I wish for?

    A: I’ve never seen one I’d deem as legitimate. Spells are a bit like medicine, so you’re asking is there a single pill that cures any health complaint – anything, known or unknown, for diseases, ailments, bacterial infections etc. Much like medicine, magic doesn’t have one miracle drug to cover any problem, so you need to use more targeted work to achieve your goals.

    Thats all for now. I really want to get to some spell articles. If you’re missing any email from me, the October and November mega-rush has subsided and PLEASE let me know if you’ve not received any reply that’s overdue by more than 3 days. Also just as a reminder—do not use texting to contact me. I am a terrible texter and I will lose the thread. 😂 For faster service, email only.

    ~Cat

    all content is copyright originalninjacat.com, I offer a reward if you see my work reposted anywhere, and as always if you have questions, contact me

  • Hey occulties,

    I’m going to try to get a few articles which aren’t this series in after this but going on in our series, let’s just roast this horrid chestnut;

    Misconception: The general public understands at least a fair amount about spells, spellcasting, and the occult, (or isn’t there some reliable and trusted way of accrediting people who cast spells?) so if I want to learn to cast spells or hire someone I shouldn’t have a hard time, despite knowing literally next to nothing. 

    Reality: It would be fair to say maybe even 99% of the world is actually so ignorant on spellcasting and the occult and that which they do know is often very very very loosely based on reality. To complicate this, there are posuers and psychos around every corner who if you know magic arent usually hard to spot but if you don’t know much of that you do know is trash, you’re gonna run into some problems. 

    IMG_1597
    Back when people read, this was still a problem, but now that you have a generation of people looking for notoriety on the internet, it’s exploded. Terribly. 

    Let’s pretend for a moment (and I’m going to use American restaurant practices as my base,) that you’ve never been to a restaurant in your life. Let’s further pretend that about 75% of people have not. I realize this is unlikely but what most of you know about dining out compared to someone who knows next to nothing about it is how painful this is to hear people who know nothing about spells or spellcasting discuss spells and spellcasting and try to put people who are experts down. So you join a Reddit like r/restaurantsreviewed and after reading a few posts, you think you understand how it’s done and you walk into a small restaurant near your home and sit and wait for the wait staff. People come and go. No one comes to get your order. Finally a young lady behind the counter says “Sir, can I help you?” And you say “yeah um I thought you came to the table-“ and she says with a giggle “No I guess you missed the ‘order here’ sign above the counter,” (how DARE she embarrass you by telling you to read a sign!?) “but if you come over here I’ll gladly take your order!” Despite the “attitude” of the smiling friendly girl, you walk up and say “I’d like a turkey sandwich, with Swiss and bacon and mayo” The staff looks at each other, confused. “Sir,” says the girl, “this is a noodle shop. We basically sell ramen and pho dishes.” How dare she humiliate you?! So you go back to your friends and say “I would like to say that Steaming Noods is a scam! Not only did the staff not take my order and refused to give me a turkey sandwich, Britney laughed at me and was rude!” The leader of this band of reviewers says “yeah if they’re rude they probably don’t even have turkey and sell cat meat.” You know because a noodle shop that has no bread and treated you courteously deserves both of you tearing them down, and making bold accusations like they sell cat meat for you not reading the menu or a sign instructing you to order yourself at the counter, but others chime in and one girl even says “I used to date the owner of Steaming Noods and like I’m pretty sure he got me pregnant but like he totally wouldn’t return my calls so you know his food is garbage,” So, a trashy girl claiming she had a fling with the owner also now has something to do with food service or quality. I’m so surprised I don’t see this in respected food review journals, But unfettered by all of this, you walk into Gary’s Steak House. A nice young man greets you at the door. “Do I order here?” You ask. You are told you’ll need to be seated and wait staff will bring you a menu. So you sit at a nice table and a different young man comes to your table and plops down a thing that looks like a paper folder. He asks if you’re thirsty. “I’ll just have a water, I guess,” you say and the boy writes this down, mumbles that he will give you a minute to decide what you’d like to eat, turns to leave and you say “I want a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese, bacon and mayo.” The boy looks at you for a moment then gently says, “We don’t have that here, but we do sell a few sandwiches – burgers mostly, but there’s a fried chicken sandwich you might—“ EXCUSE ME!? Is this child telling you that you are WRONG!? You become indignant and while the young man says you just need to look at the menu as surely something will appeal to you, you scream “I said I want a fucking turkey sandwich and if I don’t get one, you aren’t a real restaurant, you fucking frauds!” Now other people are staring at you. Gary, the owner, walks over and says “I won’t have my wait staff abused sir, – you have to leave.” You immediately review Gary’s Steak House as having rude staff, an evil owner who humiliated you and the food (of which you ate none) as being full of visible insect activity. Your friends on r/restaurantsreviewed join in and then post reviews ranging from that Gary’s is a secret sweatshop full illegal immigrants, that Gary doesn’t pay taxes, that Gary has herpes, that several of them – all of whom have never been to Gary’s steak house – got food poisoning there. 

    I could keep going but you’re getting my drift, I hope. It’s hugely accurate as well because this is about how realistic “reviews” of most spellcasters are…it’s someone often not even having any idea of what they are talking about and trashing someone who is doing a competent job and has been more than courteous to someone who is confused, rude, – and the amount of times people ask me things that are on the contact form they need to fill out to speak to me isn’t small…so also at fault for being oblivious. In this example, the person could have read a visible sign, or looked at a menu, but having no understanding of restaurants and how they work, instead blamed perfectly courteous and innocent people and even lied on them because this person felt embarrassed by their own misunderstanding, and this was then supported and fueled by others, many of which likely had no understanding that they were supporting bad behavior. And frankly I’m not exaggerating. Years ago, I believe THE Becky of Becky’s Diner (the owner anyhow, as Becky sold the restaurant in the 10s as I recall,) had the audacity to tell a patron to quiet their screaming child who had been wailing for at least a half an hour, much to the annoyance of all other patrons. The butthurt parents posted a vile review, and Becky responded. Then a bunch of parents of small children started flinging complete falsehoods about Becky’s. Even the health inspector came. These accusations were made by people who had never even been to Portland in many cases. And mind you, this child’s parents were the ones in the wrong. Many people did defend Becky and her diner, but it’s an internet famous incidence of a business being unfairly maligned and lied on because someone had their feelings hurt when they were the ones in the wrong to begin with. 

    And most of us understand how restaurants work, and what manners we should have while a patron and what the expectations are on both sides. 

    Plus we live in an age so stupid that Yelp allows people to review the county jail. Like you arent going to get anyone too happy about getting arrested so I’m reasonably sure your drunk uncle Randy isn’t giving five stars for that super fast book and release on his last drunk driving request. 🙄 Who knows? Maybe they’ll get 2 stars for feeding him a bologna sandwich while he waited for bail. 

    And yet we expect fully ignorant and in many cases fiendishly misleading people to serve as our benchmark on how to get spellcasting advice. I remember a Reddit where I asked someone who posted a spell why bay leaves in this spell as they really didn’t fit. She couldn’t explain it and said just because. This is not expert. Experts can tell you why any ingredient and I shared this with friends and we all snickered on it. Because it would have been ineffective for the inclusion of bay leaves. The ego bruised “witch” told people I was mean and a hack because she didn’t know what she was doing. Many years ago I told a girl to stop posting my blog articles. She stalked me for years after my saying this and hurting her feelings by saying it, often writing awful things to me for no cause, and even posted on a go fund me for me after my house fire that I should have died. This is someone who other people thought was an “expert” because she ran a group where she posted other expert’s material. 

    But in defense of others, you know little about something and you want help understanding it. I’m with you there. Find any self described expert. Not a customer but an expert. Most experts – not all certainly – will have a blog or a spell posted. Find any spell on my blog, ask me why I included something. Give the link and I’ll look and tell you. Ask me questions. I won’t pause to look it up. I need to know which post you’re referencing, past that I have been casting spells for longer than many of you have been alive and don’t require books or google to know why I do a thing. And any real expert can do that but a few frauds can as well. But you’ve just cleared a large number right out. Next look for a list. If they have a list of bad people they are probably insane. Like if you have three or four years to allow me to speak nonstop, I can list every single fake I know but the reality is I wouldn’t take the time as frankly if I’m attacking other businesses to look good it’s probably for attention and honestly talking shit comes with the responsibility of handling angry people who’s business – scam or no – I’m damaging, so they will retaliate and if they got a personality disorder they’ll publish all sorts of weird lies and dramas. That’s a lot of horseshit to trudge through on top of an already demanding job which is why the vast majority of real spellcasters might defend themselves if someone else fires the first shot but don’t bother making fraud lists. So if they got bad shit to say about people – named people – and they make full lists to “warn you”probably also a fraud. Now you just cleared the field so well, you’ve got a huge chance of finding a real practitioner.

    I mean, my greatest critic is a dope-addict from Portland who tried to steal my husband (she likes married men) and who’s stalked me for years because while she failed as a home wrecker she did get chased out of Portland for being a shameless scumbag. She posted I was arrested in Portland when I wasn’t even living in or present in Maine at the time, and included a Portland police log where my name isn’t on the police log since I didn’t live there nor was I arrested there. She was never a client and you can tell it’s her because she calls my husband my boyfriend to deflect responsibility. She actually lost me business. Let that soak in. If you believed her or promoted any of that or joined in on it you actually victimized her victim with her, – a woman who sleeps with other women’s men and stalks them and bullies them by posting fake stuff online. Bravo. Several of you have had me curse your antagonists for doing less. 

    But shameless failed homewreckers aside, this has become the norm. Your feelings get hurt, or you don’t understand how something works or you don’t read the instructions and you blame honest people. Maybe you really even had a bad experience – you know I’ve said this a thousand times but even 300 bad reviews would be less than 1% of my lifetime business. But the ones that stand out and that I was shown come from people I never wronged (arguably I didn’t let failed homewrecker take my husband but that wasn’t business lol) like one comes from someone I didn’t reply to a scheduling inquiry on my posted day off. I have another from someone who got mad at me for not replying to a text while getting a root canal. I had a drill in my skull so I sure didn’t reply then. 

    So start by asking questions. An expert can answer them all. Why this thing or why that day. Avoid people who have a lengthy list of bad spellcasters or who frequently review them. I can tell you right now if you’re working with 8 different people, the problem is probably you. You know if 100 doctors can’t save someone with stage four pancreatic cancer, it doesn’t make all of them quacks so if a bunch of people can’t fix your problem maybe it’s unfixable. 

    I realize this will make me unpopular but IDGAF. The only way to know who’s real and who’s not is to either find a completely unbiased board of review composed of other experts (no such thing) or to know enough to spot who’s fake. I got 20 years of posts here. Feel free to find one. Click the link, copy, paste, email and ask me anything. Almost all of this except where noted is my original work. I won’t need to look anything up. That’s a sure sign of an expert and any expert I know can do the same. 

    ~Cat

  • Good afternoon, my dear ones, 

    Today’s misconception is one of the most stupid which arose in the later 20th century, and continues on to this day…and it goes like this:

    Misconception: It’s always better to do spellwork yourself rather than have someone else do it!

    Reality: An expert is always is the best choice to perform the most skilled and effective work, and even experts have their expert peers spellcast for them from time to time, because just as heart surgeon or brain surgeon can’t easily operate on themselves, so are there times even the most expert spellcaster needs the help of another. 

    Anyone who tells you, assuming you’re a novice or have never cast a spell before, that you would do better than an expert in casting a spell is stupid or lying, and should not have your trust either way. 

    Oh, I’m sure I hurt the feelings of a few stupid people and liars. I don’t mind being the most unpopular girl in the room, though. I see that rotten piece of foul smelling garbage passed around, normally only in places where the stupid and dishonest pass around advice to those seeking knowledge from people without any, so rest assured, if you see advice presented, you are nowhere you will learn anything at all, and it’s best to move on. 

    Casting spells is a skill. When I was 13-14,and just learning magic, I couldn’t do the things I can do now more than thirty years later. This isn’t because I had no innate ability for the practice as I excelled quickly, but because I was a novice, so if I were to choose who to cast a spell for me at that age or this one, I would choose me today. I also had to take a wood shop class at that age, and have assembled a few pieces of furniture and so forth from diagrams since and if I had to choose my very young self vs me now, we both suck at that stuff but young me would have more patience than me now so I would actually choose anyone else, then young me, then me now since me at any age has not refined that skill. I took a first aid class and I’d still choose a medical doctor over myself to treat a wound of mine, even though it’s my wound…see because that’s what experts are for – dealing with those matters they are an expert in. 

    Truly, any thinking person doesn’t require me to tell them something of such simple reasoning: if you are not an expert at a thing, an expert will do better at that thing than you would.

    And all experts even hire experts in their own field from time to time.

    But most of all, anyone who passes on this piece of rubbish advice – that your novice work will exceed that of an expert – is a fool and should be avoided at all costs.

    ~Cat

  • Hi Occulties, 

    As we continue on with our series, let’s hit this revolting piece of garbage with a little bit of truth…

    Misconception: Love spells don’t work, and when they do, they make the relationship cursed and it can never be happy again, plus it’s evil to make a person love you anyhow! 

    Reality: People are not always compatible with the person they want to be in a relationship with, and let’s not forget, a large number of people refuse to address the problems that led to a relationship falling apart (to make needed changes to have a healthy relationship,) or they do not want to see that the person they claim to love isn’t really the person they perceive them as. This means a lot of people complain that this must be wrong, when in reality, they are merely experiencing that they should have been careful for what they wished for (a person’s love,) and now find themselves regretting having it! In other words, they have a fantasy of what the love of this person would be like and it isn’t reality. 

    Let us first discuss that fantasy rarely if ever matches reality. When we first find ourselves attracted to a new person, we often project this fantasy of who we want them to be, who we hope they are, onto them, and everyone is acting as their perfect selves if they too are interested (probably you aren’t even sure if this person farts yet, but I assure you that they do,) so this is a very exciting and fun stage, but as you come together the cracks in that perfect veneer do begin to show and you start seeing the bad and ugly and annoying parts of a person…and fantasy gives way to reality. My mother always said you need to love someone warts and all – meaning the awful stuff too – and you know this is true. If you only want the good and can’t bear any other part, you do not love this person…at least not enough to be compatible with them. I’m not saying you should tolerate abuse, but rather they will enjoy hobbies and foods you do not. They will be annoying sometimes, and they will be selfish sometimes, and lazy sometimes and maybe pick their teeth at the dinner table and if that’s enough to make you feel like you can’t love them through that, the problem isn’t spellwork. The problem is you don’t really love them, at least not enough to be more than friends. 

    Sometimes the physical chemistry – that is, that sexual attraction to another, – is so strong, that we confuse this overwhelming urge with being in love, especially when we are young. Unfortunately, in time, the same cracks in that perfect veneer show and someone comes to me telling me they want so and so to stay but they don’t like (here say all this person’s personality quirks,) so I need to change that and keep them invested in my client. Again, this is not being in love nor will a love spell change this person into who you believe you love into the person you want them to be. 

    And like I always say… just because a jerk loves you, it doesn’t make them not a jerk. 

    And you know, just because you love someone, it doesn’t stop you from being a jerk, either. All of us, myself included, can be awful to our partners. I’m not saying we should be but rather that everyone is sometimes. We should strive not to be awful, and we should always work on ourselves…but there is no healthy relationship that never ever suffers a conflict throughout its duration, except maybe in a novel. At this writing, there’s a wonderful fellow Jimmy_on_relationships who is on several platforms but I will link to his Instagram here. He, and many other relationship coaches, relationship therapists, and the like are all very helpful in helping you and your partner work on and overcome toxic behaviors, because…

    Even if you use spellwork, continuing to engage in toxic behavior patterns will continue to erode the relationship. Love spells don’t create an infinite dose of Molly in the other party, but instead create a period where during their influence you can nurture a relationship into being or into healing so it’s whole again. It’s not the spell’s fault if you refuse to address the toxic behaviors that keep destroying the relationship. 

    Basically, love spells aren’t responsible for you having emotional issues, confusing infatuation with love, having unrealistic ideas of love, or having misguided ideas like everyone expresses love how you do. Feelings of love and affection don’t fix people, they just help to create or mend relationships. They also don’t create compatibility when it doesn’t exist.

    So they do work and quite well, but people misunderstand that love doesn’t fix a number of issues, and even given an opportunity to fix their issues, continue to not work on them. 

    And love cannot be falsely created…affection, infatuation, desire, cameradierie…these all can be instilled, but while these are the seeds of love, if no love can exist, love will not grow, so technically you can’t force anyone to love anyone, but those proverbial seeds do often blossom into love. The idea that love magic creates a synthetic love though is a misunderstanding. Love is both something which grows from the rockiest and most inhospitable environments, but also something which too often withers before reaching maturity, – that’s not spellwork, as much as it is the nature of love.

    ~Cat

  • Hi occulties, 

    In continuing on with our series, another old false chestnut I am so sick of seeing, hearing, or reading:

    Misconception: Only newbies and untalented people use candle magic! A talented practitioner doesn’t need candles so wouldn’t use them!

    Reality: The only part you have correct is that someone with talent doesn’t need candles. 😑 I don’t even require tools but I use them. My first husband is a carpenter and can build you a house with hand tools too but he prefers to use modern power tools and a nail gun, just…  he could probably do everything with practically zero tools at all, which because first Mr NinjaCat isn’t an insufferable hipster douche, he doesn’t have to prove that in such a method for people to believe he’s an amazingly skilled carpenter. I can fuck your life up or bless it with zero tools or even just a drop of ritual oil. A single drop. But I don’t need to work that way because I’m only an insufferable douche incredibly rarely and almost always when you’re not paying attention. 

    Candles, like herbs, oils, roots, minerals, rocks/crystals, metals, incense, dirts, and even animal parts and biological witness samples are all some of the many ingredients and tools you may find in spellwork. The meatball waving around a lovely crafted wand and saying abracadabra (it’s a pointing tool, actually, to focus energy and send through the wand, and as a hoodoo, I might argue your hand can be used in place of it, much to the annoyance of my Solomonic brethren,) and complaining it “didn’t work” (no, you just do not understand how it is used,) is the same person who is generally dictating what real magic is, whilst also not knowing what a wand is for. Candle magic is popular because it works so well. There are legions of other methods for spellcasting, but having an affinity for candle work does not make for less of a spell or even a more simplistic spell. A few of you have seen my complicated set ups and realized “shit, she isn’t just burning a chime candle in a bowl, and this is wild.” 

    Hoodoo has a tradition called “setting a light.” This is literally burning a candle, it’s a single candle spell. And, while it’s not the route I’d recommend for very complex issues, – at least not by itself, but certainly it’s recommended in conjunction with other work, – it’s very effective! I think my first “go to” for myself is just setting a light, and I’ve been spellcasting for over thirty years. So it’s not just for newbies, and yet it’s also a fairly good method to try for your first spells, too. I mean, I’ve been crocheting a long time and knowing how to do a single crochet and half double crochet (and the full double,) – none of these are hard stitches. Beginners use them and experts do, too. Every skill a beginner learns is a fundamental skill, and therefore experts use it frequently. 

    Furthermore, depending on your paradigm (loosely, the type of spellwork being utilized,) candles may be present in a working to represent the element of fire, which, in certain traditions, is essential. 

    And keep in mind west I said above – just because one CAN work without tools, that does not make it the most effective manner of working, nor the most expedient…just like anyone skilled in many things, you probably can accomplish the same task without tools – just like I can do arithmetic without a calculator, – but you will do the task faster with tools. 

    This means candles may very well not be required or used in many many spells. But it also means that their inclusion of candles and candle magic are not in any way suggestive that someone lacks skills as a spellcaster. If you or your caster only know candle spells, then yes, you are likely a novice. Of course if you only know how to work magic in one way…you’re a novice. 

    This douchebag hating on candle magic needs to stop though. It’s like looking down on someone for enjoying scrambled eggs when you like yours hard boiled and assuming they can’t poach an egg or male it over easy or devil it because they prefer the damn egg scrambled and that’s “beginner shit” ever since you just barely learned how to poach an egg and can’t cook an egg 50 different ways. To say candle magic is only for novices in fact reveals that you are not an expert and are putting on airs  having probably recently learned how to do some singular spell thst isn’t a candle spell. So stop showing your ass by saying it. 

    Candles have a place in many spells and novices and adepts use candle magic. 

    ~Cat 

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