Forays into "Folk magic"

[sean]

Hundreds of moons ago, in my late teens and early twenties, I tinkered with "ceremonial magick" a bit, mostly within the Golden Dawn tradition.

 

"Folk magic" (although I don't think I was aware of this term) was always appealing but I could never find a good shaman and Wicca seemed dubious.

 

Lately I've been feeling drawn back into the weirdness. 👹

 

I've been surprised and delighted at how texts on "folk magic" seem to have evolved since I last poked around in this space. Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong places.

 

I recently read The Chaos Protocols, which is more chaos than folk but it was good and it also literally caught fire one evening from a stick of incense nearby. A hole burned through the center almost exactly to the page I was on. Spooky and surely a sign for an Aries Fire Dragon to proceed. 😆

 

Last week I finished A Deed Without a Name, a grounded overview of "Traditional Witchcraft" from a scholar and practicing witch. I enjoyed it enough that I ordered Standing and Not Falling by the same author. Beautiful.

 

I'm also concurrently reading Ancestral Medicine, which is superb.

 

My "witchy read next" list expands and shuffles, mostly with Traditional Witchcraft, Appalachian Folk Magic and Hoodoo titles floating to the top. Good shit. This current feels alive.

 

Anyway, nothing more profound to say. It's been so long since I've shared anything personal here. I've actually grown bashful on my own forum. 😊

 

Sean

 

[RiverSnake]

A couple you may enjoy: 

 

-Six Ways by Aidan Watcher 

-Besom Stang and Sword by Christopher Orapello 

-The Elements of Spellcraft by Jason Miller 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by Shadow

[Fa Xin]

15 hours ago, sean said:

Hundreds of moons ago, in my late teens and early twenties, I tinkered with "ceremonial magick" a bit, mostly within the Golden Dawn tradition.

 

"Folk magic" (although I don't think I was aware of this term) was always appealing but I could never find a good shaman and Wicca seemed dubious.

 

Lately I've been feeling drawn back into the weirdness. 👹

 

I've been surprised and delighted at how texts on "folk magic" seem to have evolved since I last poked around in this space. Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong places.

 

I recently read The Chaos Protocols, which is more chaos than folk but it was good and it also literally caught fire one evening from a stick of incense nearby. A hole burned through the center almost exactly to the page I was on. Spooky and surely a sign for an Aries Fire Dragon to proceed. 😆

 

Last week I finished A Deed Without a Name, a grounded overview of "Traditional Witchcraft" from a scholar and practicing witch. I enjoyed it enough that I ordered Standing and Not Falling by the same author. Beautiful.

 

I'm also concurrently reading Ancestral Medicine, which is superb.

 

My "witchy read next" list expands and shuffles, mostly with Traditional Witchcraft, Appalachian Folk Magic and Hoodoo titles floating to the top. Good shit. This current feels alive.

 

Anyway, nothing more profound to say. It's been so long since I've shared anything personal here. I've actually grown bashful on my own forum. 😊

 

Sean

 

 

Very cool, and thanks for sharing.

 

I practiced the GD type stuff for a while, too. I have to admit part of me is still fascinated by it. I don’t practice, but the culture surrounding it is fun to me. 

 

I live close to Salem, MA, and I visit whenever I can to feed my inner witch. One thing I found interesting with the history of the city is that while they were busy burning so called “witches” in the 1600s, folk magic was perfectly accepted and practiced amongst the colonists. A good example is the Throwing salt over your shoulder to ward off evil. 

[Nungali]

17 hours ago, sean said:

Hundreds of moons ago, in my late teens and early twenties, I tinkered with "ceremonial magick" a bit, mostly within the Golden Dawn tradition.

 

"Folk magic" (although I don't think I was aware of this term) was always appealing but I could never find a good shaman and Wicca seemed dubious.

 

Lately I've been feeling drawn back into the weirdness. 👹

 

I've been surprised and delighted at how texts on "folk magic" seem to have evolved since I last poked around in this space. Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong places.

 

I recently read The Chaos Protocols, which is more chaos than folk but it was good and it also literally caught fire one evening from a stick of incense nearby. A hole burned through the center almost exactly to the page I was on. Spooky and surely a sign for an Aries Fire Dragon to proceed. 😆

 

Last week I finished A Deed Without a Name, a grounded overview of "Traditional Witchcraft" from a scholar and practicing witch. I enjoyed it enough that I ordered Standing and Not Falling by the same author. Beautiful.

 

I'm also concurrently reading Ancestral Medicine, which is superb.

 

My "witchy read next" list expands and shuffles, mostly with Traditional Witchcraft, Appalachian Folk Magic and Hoodoo titles floating to the top. Good shit. This current feels alive.

 

Anyway, nothing more profound to say. It's been so long since I've shared anything personal here. I've actually grown bashful on my own forum. 😊

 

Sean

 

 

 

Have you been reading here over the last couple of years  ( esoteric and occult forum) ?

 

There have been  threads on similar subjects  .  But damn, cant remember the titles or even the poster - he disappeared  .

 

It was about a type of old wicca ' folk magic .. damn ! wish I could remember the posters name , I conversed with him a bit back then .

 

I looked through the index, nothing rang a bell .  I found this though, you might enjoy reading it

 

 

[ Aries fire dragon eh ?  I used to be in  a wicca covern that had  an Aries,  Leo, Sag ... all fire horses !   The Aries and Leo ones where GF /BF   .... that was 'fun' . ] 

 

[Nungali]

Aha !   Soon as I stoped thinking about that poster ..... < flash> 

 

Seth Ananda ... something like that  .

[Nungali]

Hmmm ... looks like he came back and edited it all out a year later ?

 

 

 

[mrpasserby]

On 7/23/2019 at 9:34 PM, sean said:

I recently read The Chaos Protocols, which is more chaos than folk but it was good and it also literally caught fire one evening from a stick of incense nearby. A hole burned through the center almost exactly to the page I was on. Spooky and surely a sign for an Aries Fire Dragon to proceed. 😆

 

I am a former member of rune soup forum. In my experience: Gordon White is the real deal.

 

[Nungali]

I also noticed the mention of 'Hoodoo titles'  in the OP .  If  'Voodoo' or Voudon' or similar comes under that, I have done a bit of that,  the actual practices are wonderful  to partake of (well, the ones I went to where ) and 'shamanic ally powerful' ...

 

 

... and they got drumming !   

 

 

 

I like Louis - he is pretty cool ;

 

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2019 by Nungali

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Sean

 

Regarding Chaos Magick, if you do two searches:
 

Chaos Magick and alt-right and Chaos Magick and the political left

 

You'll find enough connections between Chaos Magic and right wing politics, in particular his anointing as an avatar of Kek, the Egyptian Frog god of "chaos", Kek:

 

Trump and Kek

 

to make your stomach queasy and hopefully dampen your enthusiasm for what what is both philosophically and in terms of technical procedure a very limited and incoherent system of magic.

 

As far as "Wicca" and "folk magic" goes, unless your interest is in primitivism for primitivism's sake, there are more philosophically rigorous and technically powerful means of practicing folk magic which was assimilated into the development of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy during the Hellenistic period as what was later called Natural Magic, which I will return to in a moment.  First I would like to address the question of religious paganism in a Philosophical context and I can do no better than cite the discussions of the Greek Pantheon in Philosophic terms from this site:

 

Cosmic Principle: The One

 

and this interesting extended cosmological model:

 

Cosmology

 

an exposition of the Great Chain of Being, a  spiritual model I have cited in my discussion of Agrippa's Doctrine of Occult Virtues, a core concept examined and explained, specifically here:

 

On 1/28/2015 at 1:13 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

This cosmological structure going from ideas in the “Mind of God” to their manifestations as physical objects here on earth, is called “the Great Chain of Being" and was the fundamental idea of how the Cosmos functioned from the Hellenistic period to about 1800. Its History and development have been admirably chronicled by A. O. Lovejoy in his book of the same name, The Great Chain of Being.

 

And it is this cosmological model which raises "folk magic" from a collection of the proverbial "old wive's tales" into part of a rational model of magical action and practice.

 

As far as the religious aspects of "Wicca" goes, I have no real interest in any pagan pantheon except the Ritual Daoist pantheon because it was designed by fangshi for fangshi and such ideas and practices became the basis of Ritual Daoism and its application to internal cultivation.  Here is a short discussion of my background in Ritual Daoism from my PPD, my apology to non Dao Bums who cannot follow the link to a members only part of Dao Bums:

 

On 1/4/2018 at 3:50 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

First of all some background, I first became familiar with the Dao De Jing, Yi Jing and Taiji quan in the Summer/Fall of 1966, from my older brother who brought them home from College with him.  There was not much available in books at the time, though there was some literature on acupuncture and between us we managed to find enough to keep us interested.  Early in 1971, my brother got Charles Luk's Taoist Yoga book, as well another book by him, which I think was called Secrets of Chinese Meditation, which while it dealt mostly with Buddhist meditation, had a couple of chapters on Daoist meditation and was a useful supplement to Taoist Yoga.  Over the next several years I bought everything that I could find on qigong.  There was precious little at the time, but if you actually studied and thought about what you were reading, it was possible to learn a fair amount.  I was also working on Western magical practices at the time, and had some background in hatha yoga, which was helpful.  It must have worked because by the time I actually started to study Internal Martial arts with a real teacher, he was very impressed with how much my qi I had developed.

 

Around 1976, 1977 at the latest I read Michael Saso's Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal, which was my introduction to the "religious" Daoist system of ritual and meditative alchemy, which as I have said, I prefer to call ritual Daoism.  This resulted in a major reorientation in my thinking about Daoism, and "internal alchemy", and since I was already also interested in Western Ritual magic, and had practiced it some years I became primarily interested in learning more about the Daoist Ritual System, though I kept the material and practices dealt with in Taoist Yoga, as containing fundamental insights and being of great importance, the practical question being was it possible to achieve the same type of results through Daoist Ritual methods as the deep meditative methods outlined in Taoist Yoga.  I will post more about what I consider to be the relationship between these practices, and also qigong such as Mantak Chia wrote about, in subsequent posts.

 

My research into Daoist Ritual developed slowly but I continued with working out the synthesis of qigong and Western magic which I had started earlier in the 70s.  The 80s were a particularly strong period of development in Western magic as I proved in practice the usefulness of practicing Golden Dawn type magic within the fuller worldview and practice of Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy.  At the end of the 80s I would humorously summarize my studies and their directions as "Cornelius Agrippa meets the Golden Dawn in Medieval China".  In the 90s I started practical investigation of Ritual Daoism with good results.  I have continued to work toward a synthesis of Chinese and Western Esotericism since then and it is this synthesis which I am thinking about teaching.

 

As I have said, this thread will be about the more purely Chinese aspects of my studies, and so I hope that someone who is interested in Chinese magic will find it to be a useful overview of Chinese magic, its theory and practice and what resources are available to study it.

 

This is already a longish post, so I will end it here.  I hope that you find it interesting and stimulating.

 

ZYD

[s1va]

11 minutes ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

Sean

 

Regarding Chaos Magick, if you do two searches:
 

Chaos Magick and alt-right and Chaos Magick and the political left

 

You'll find enough connections between Chaos Magic and right wing politics, in particular his anointing as an avatar of Kek, the Egyptian Frog god of "chaos", Kek:

 

Trump and Kek

 

to make your stomach queasy and hopefully dampen your enthusiasm for what what is both philosophically and in terms of technical procedure a very limited and incoherent system of magic.

 

As far as "Wicca" and "folk magic" goes, unless your interest is in primitivism for primitivism's sake, there are more philosophically rigorous and technically powerful means of practicing folk magic which was assimilated into the development of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy during the Hellenistic period as what was later called Natural Magic, which I will return to in a moment.  First I would like to address the question of religious paganism in a Philosophical context and I can do no better than cite the discussions of the Greek Pantheon in Philosophic terms from this site:

 

Cosmic Principle: The One

 

and this interesting extended cosmological model:

 

Cosmology

 

an exposition of the Great Chain of Being, a  spiritual model I have cited in my discussion of Agrippa's Doctrine of Occult Virtues, a core concept examined and explained, specifically here:

 

 

 

And it is this cosmological model which raises "folk magic" from a collection of the proverbial "old wive's tales" into part of a rational model of magical action and practice.

 

As far as the religious aspects of "Wicca" goes, I have no real interest in any pagan pantheon except the Ritual Daoist pantheon because it was designed by fangshi for fangshi and such ideas and practices became the basis of Ritual Daoism and its application to internal cultivation.  Here is a short discussion of my background in Ritual Daoism from my PPD, my apology to non Dao Bums who cannot follow the link to a members only part of Dao Bums:

 

 

This is already a longish post, so I will end it here.  I hope that you find it interesting and stimulating.

 

ZYD

 

 

ZYD - Thanks for sharing.  Though my knowledge and understanding of this topic is very limited, I found the post and some of the links interesting to read. The details provided in the analysis are impressive.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

44 minutes ago, s1va said:

ZYD - Thanks for sharing.  Though my knowledge and understanding of this topic is very limited, I found the post and some of the links interesting to read. The details provided in the analysis are impressive.

 

You're welcome, I am glad that people are finding my interesting.

 

This book by Professor Jerry Alan Johnson gives information on the Ritual Daoist development of folk magic into natural magic:

Daoist Mineral, Plants & Animal Magic

Quote

The following book contains the Study of the Realm of Minerals, Introduction to the Alchemical Transformations of Minerals, History of Magical and Medicinal Rocks, Formation of Minerals and Crystals, Minerals in Traditional Chinese Pharmacology, Absorbing the Healing Properties of Gems, Creating Gem Ens Elixirs, Cleansing the Crystal With Sunlight, Moonlight, Flowing Water or Earth, Ritualistic Cleansing and Incantations, Charging a Stone, Storage and Care of the Gem Elixir, Dose and Administration, Toxic Stones, Planetary Gem Elixirs, The Categorization of Planetary Gem Elixirs and Specific Powers, Lapidary (The Secret Powers of Rocks and Gems), The Magical Qualities of Gemstones and Minerals, Magical Defenses using Minerals and Stones, Ritual Cleansing, Purifying the Altar Room, Summoning the Celestial Immortals, Using Breath Incantations to Open, Imprint, and Activate a Magical Stone, Ending the Ritual and Closing the Magical Ceremony, The Magical Energetic Properties of Gemstone Formulas, Divination Using A White Jade Ball, Healing With Crystals, Prayer Beads (Malas), Using the Prayer Stone Beads, Types of Prayer Beads, Using Malas As An Oracle, Using Malas to Ward Off Ghosts, Magical Stone Rings, Imprisoning a Spirit in a Magic Ring, Other Techniques Using Magical Rings, Magic Stone Talismans, Secret Powers of Metals, Planetary Metals, Spirit Rocks, Good Energetic Rocks, Evil Energetic Rocks, Element Rocks, Energy Regulators, Sacred Stone Formations, Gathering Qi from Caves, History of Cave Meditation, Preparation for Cave Meditation, and Guidelines for Cave Training. Also contains an Introduction to the Alchemical Transformations of Plants, Superior, Medium, and Inferior Herbs, Gathering Energy from Nature, The Magical Properties of Trees, Gathering Qi from Trees , Locating Tree Power Spots, Precautions, Tree Spirits, Forest Spirits, The Magical Properties of Plants, Visionary Plants, Gathering Qi From Plants, Gathering Energy from Bushes, Suffumigation, Meditation for Absorbing the Plant’s Essence, Plant Spirits, Chinese Historical Encounters With Plant Spirits, Communicating With Plant Spirits, Harvesting the Magical Essence of the Plant’s Spirit, Ancient Chinese Plant Alchemy, The Magical Art of Plant Alchemy, Creating A Magical Plant Tincture, Plant Ens (Creating Immortal Elixirs), Plant Stones (Creating Immortal Pills), Using Herbs To Create Talismanic Paper, The Study of the Realm of Animals, Introduction to the Alchemical Transformations of Animals, Animal Images of Ancient China, Chinese Totem Animals, Using Animal Masks For Protection, Animal Magic (Familiars), Types of Familiars, Interacting With Animal Familiars, Daoist Bagua Animal Totems, Daoist Celestial Animal Totems, Animal Shapeshifting, Animal Sacrifices, The Energetic Power of Blood, The Blood Ritual, and Creating a Blood Spirit.

 

In the series of posts starting here:

 

On 11/11/2018 at 6:49 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

On 11/11/2018 at 1:11 AM, wandelaar said:

On 11/10/2018 at 4:30 PM, OldDog said:

Any comparison to any western religions?

 

Ask because his research semed to be very broad.

 

Maybe in the second half of the book, it looks like he is taking a more broad view from there on. I will keep you informed.

 

I found Western Classical Philosophy particularly Aristotle's Four Causes and his concept of the "unmoved mover", better translated as "unchanged changer", to be very useful in modeling wu wei.  There are passages in both the Neiye and the Dao De Jing that support this comparison, especially in regard to the notion of "the One".  I have posted on these ideas in several places, but if you are interested I can work up a post and some references for here.

 

ZYD

 

I give a cross cultural comparison of Chinese and Western Philosophy which forms the cosmological basis of Natural Magic.  These are actually some of my most important posts on Dao Bums since the flesh out a connection which I have mentioned for years, but never addressed in this detail.

 

ZYD

[sean]

50 minutes ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

Regarding Chaos Magick, if you do two searches:
 

Chaos Magick and alt-right and Chaos Magick and the political left

 

You'll find enough connections between Chaos Magic and right wing politics, in particular his anointing as an avatar of Kek, the Egyptian Frog god of "chaos", Kek:

 

Trump and Kek

 

to make your stomach queasy and hopefully dampen your enthusiasm for what what is both philosophically and in terms of technical procedure a very limited and incoherent system of magic.

 

Oh for sure, 100%, I'm aware of this connection. Thanks for mentioning this. A few thoughts.

 

One, I do think there's some lefties in the Chaos space and that this Kek shit is a relatively recent, reactionary current.

 

Two, I think that conceding entire spaces (whether that be philosophical, aesthetic, magical, physical) to problematic members is something leftists have fucked up on quite a bit historically. "Oh, the bourgeoisie are often religious. Let's try to throw out religion."

 

Last, I'm definitely not trying to become or identify as a "Chaos Magician". Just exploring the landscapes. I do feel a certain power lurking within Chaos syncretism that seems lacking in typical New Age hodge podge. Maybe this is even because it's incoherent, in the sense that it's not trying to create an orderly tradition from components, more like consciously borrowing broadly for utility.

 

In any case, I'm currently much more drawn to various animistic, folk magic traditions. 👻

 

50 minutes ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

And it is this cosmological model which raises "folk magic" from a collection of the proverbial "old wive's tales" into part of a rational model of magical action and practice.

 

As far as the religious aspects of "Wicca" goes, I have no real interest in any pagan pantheon except the Ritual Daoist pantheon because it was designed by fangshi for fangshi and such ideas and practices became the basis of Ritual Daoism and its application to internal cultivation.  Here is a short discussion of my background in Ritual Daoism from my PPD, my apology to non Dao Bums who cannot follow the link to a members only part of Dao Bums:

 

Interesting, thank you for the links. I love the idea of incorporating Daoist pantheon into my practice, that would feel very full circle.

 

Funny enough, I sense part of my present attraction to folk magic is actually this less rational, less formally lineaged, "granny magic" aspect. Kitchen and farm magic so integrated into the workday as to often go unnoticed; then only passed down by fragments of memory and literal cookbooks with handwritten notes in the margins.

 

I'm just a baby witch though, so don't take my reveries too seriously. 😆

 

Sean

 

[thelerner]

I'd be interested in Kitchen magic.  I always liked the herbalism that involved the moon.  From picking under the full moon, to letting tinctures rest from moon to moon. 

 

<addon> looking into it, Kitchen magic is just cooking with intent.  Not that different then how its taught at an ashram or monastery.  Clean environment, fresh wholesome food, mindful preparation with intent for food as blessing, lastly plating in simplistic beauty.  The formal Tea Ceremony is a tradition that capture this art very well.

 

The AlmazanKitchen youtube videos of cooking amongst nature, the man doing everything just so.. are meditative and mouthwatering to watch.  Halfbakedharvest.com site is filled with creative recipes and her pictures of her plating ring of simple elegance.  

 

Food is life, is medicine, is companionship, is pleasure.  If I went to Hogswarts, first class I'd sign up for is cooking.  There's probably meditative cooking classes somewhere I could find. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by thelerner

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, sean said:

 

Oh for sure, 100%, I'm aware of this connection. Thanks for mentioning this. A few thoughts.

 

One, I do think there's some lefties in the Chaos space and that this Kek shit is a relatively recent, reactionary current.

 

Two, I think that conceding entire spaces (whether that be philosophical, aesthetic, magical, physical) to problematic members is something leftists have fucked up on quite a bit historically. "Oh, the bourgeoisie are often religious. Let's try to throw out religion."

 

Last, I'm definitely not trying to become or identify as a "Chaos Magician". Just exploring the landscapes. I do feel a certain power lurking within Chaos syncretism that seems lacking in typical New Age hodge podge. Maybe this is even because it's incoherent, in the sense that it's not trying to create an orderly tradition from components, more like consciously borrowing broadly for utility.

 

In any case, I'm currently much more drawn to various animistic, folk magic traditions. 👻

 

 

Okay, I was about to ask for more description here , but  ....

 

Quote

 

 

Interesting, thank you for the links. I love the idea of incorporating Daoist pantheon into my practice, that would feel very full circle.

 

Funny enough, I sense part of my present attraction to folk magic is actually this less rational, less formally lineaged, "granny magic" aspect. Kitchen and farm magic so integrated into the workday as to often go unnoticed; then only passed down by fragments of memory and literal cookbooks with handwritten notes in the margins.

 

I'm just a baby witch though, so don't take my reveries too seriously. 😆

 

Sean

 

 

 

Okay  gotchya .

 

1. I have been a long time practising magician .

 

2.  Also a cook / chef ,     as well as professionally .

 

3 . A gardener / farmer  ,   "    "    .

 

I was also the  preparations maker / distributor for Biodynamic Agriculture Australia , for some time .    Now Biodynamics is interesting - it is a blend of 'folk farm magic' and some alchemical principles .

 

If one is not a hard core Steinerite , and  can stand to look deeper into the history of it all, one finds some of this is based on old Euro 'farm magic' 

 

Eg .   'Clay preparation'   ( lets say it is the mediator  between   the  'raw' form of  good earth  - manure , and the 'complex' - quartz crystal rod  - the 'earthly and cosmic forces'.   If you use prep 500 and  501 , the clay prep should be used as a balance .  The same way as 500 and 501 is prepared ;   put a little in pure water and stir it, one way, then the other.  'Sprinkle' it about .

 

This comes from the old tradition of  'erde or ton sanger    ( earth or clay singer ) . '

 

 

It goes like this  ;

 

Farmer A notices that although they are both seeming to the same thing  farmer B's fields seem richer and greener, his cows fatter and giving more milk  ( maybe even, like with our neighbour across the river  " Why do my cows keep coming over here to eat your grass ? I got plenty of good grass over at my place ? '  )   So A gets one of his sons to go over and spy on B and see if he can get any info. The son comes back ;

 

" He went to a patch of bare earth and scraped up some clay  and sprinkled it into a  barrel of water, then he started stirring the water with his head over the barrel and sang scales  , going up   and then stirred it the other way  and sang going down  . Then after a while he stopped and  took up a pail of the water and a tree branch and went around his farm dipping the branch and leaves in the water and sprinkling it about .

 

Now being a 'Neo-hermeticist '      ..... I was curious to see if there was a modern or scientific reason behind this practice .  I did remember something from  (ancient history ) when I studied some soil science at Uni .   Anyway, basically ;

 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jpln.201700605

 

There are some other great concept in BD agriculture ; like the farm is an entity with its stomach in the air and its head in the ground .

 

When I first read that I was  ... wtf !   But now it makes much sense .

 

So how did   old grannies, and farmers and cooks get this knowledge ?     here is another example, and I have seen this  with a friends father farmer, when I was a youth .

 

Pop sits around at night smoking his pipe and staring into the fireplace  .... he must be tired , he looks like he is in a trance  byt then he speaks up ' We might plough up the bottom  fallow pasture tomorrow . '

 

WTF, its weeks before time, weeks before rain, the wrong time to do it and even the weather report says so . But, he's the boss, so it's done .   And seed is put in ... what a waste !    Two days later it pisses down rain.     Crafty old bugger .

 

But, even unconsciously , he has so much experience ( and intelligence and awareness and observation skills must be present ) that each day he notices small signals and subtle messages from nature  (much as the indigenous do here - consciously )  and when he 'vagues  out '   'inspirations' surface from this underground knowledge and  .... flash!   ' Intuition' .   (Studies show the most intuitive people have a LOT of experience in the field that they are being intuitive in ) .

 

 

Here is some  source material about Moon cycles for agriculture that  a lot of 'folk knowledge' is either drawn from , or discovered by experience , trial and error .  Mostly 6 rhythms are used :

 

The Phase -  new moon to full moon to no moon    every 29.5 days

 

Moon opposition Saturn  27 .5

 

Moon ascending / descending      27 .3

 

Moon nodes        27.2

 

Apogee  /  perigee   27 . 5

 

Moon in constellation   27 . 3

 

( there is a 7th  for averse  or 'no agriculture'  - when Moon has its 'node day ' -  crosses  the Sun's path  , in some places , like some   ag systems in SE Asia , no ag work, not even harvest , is done on these days ) .

 

 

this results in when to plant seeds , water, harvest, fertilize, weed, etc .

 

 

 

 

 

here is another one I read about that amused me .  woman in labour having difficulty . The midwife arrives , kicks the husband out, then goes around untying anything that is tied, the curtains, tied back are released, any knot in the room is undone, etc   And then the baby is born .  (no, I  dont have explanation for that one  ) 

 

 

A good cook can  observe someone and know what they should eat  for the next meal .    This is affirmed when the eater declares " Man that was good !  That was just what I needed ! 

 

(I used to cook meals and snacks and stuff  for big knobs in the high end if the film industry )

 

And of course  ..... if you dont like someone   ....... you can give them the farts all day      

 

 

( but that would be black magic       )

 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2019 by Nungali

[Nungali]

As far as making herbal  tinctures and simple preps go , and putting bottles of stuff under sunlight  ( basic Rosicrucian practice  { AMORC 'Rosicrucian' that is } )  or Moonlight , I recommend this great basic intro book with some easy to follow experiments you can do yourself ;

 

[Nungali]

.... oh, yes, I neglected to mention another type of perhaps 'folk ' magic .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

' Fool ' s     Magic '    -  is he a fool   or a Fool  or is he just acting like the fool  .....   and really 'some type of powerful sage '  ? 

 

Of course, one can easily tell by the results of the operation - considering its intent  , irregardless of how ridiculous the operation seemed  in the first place

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nintendao]

On 7/31/2019 at 7:40 PM, Nungali said:

And of course  ..... if you dont like someone   ....... you can give them the farts all day      

 

( but that would be black magic       )

 

More like brown magic 

 

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by Nintendao

[Nungali]

 

half a mo'  Ninny    <  rubs   temples .... thinks  >   ...

 

 

Here is what  you need to eat for lunch ;

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I cant get it to you, you need  to make it yourself ;

 

 

Ingredients

• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 1 Thai red chili, or to taste
• 2 tbsp palm sugar
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1-2 fresh limes, to taste
• 6 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 Thai eggplant, halved and thinly sliced
• 200 g green papaya slivers (about one large handful)
• 1 Asian long bean, cut into 2″ lengths

 

 

 

Directions Yield:  Serves 2

1. Pound garlic and chili with a mortar and pestle until garlic is crushed and chili is broken into small pieces. Add palm sugar and fish sauce. Squeeze juice from limes into mortar.
2. Mix and pound dressing in mortar until palm sugar is fully dissolved. Add  tomatoes and Thai eggplant to mortar. Lightly bruise with pestle for about 30 seconds.
3. Add green papaya slivers and bean. Toss and lightly press down with spoon until evenly mixed and papaya is fully coated with dressing.
4. Serve in mortar or on a plate, or in hollowed-out papaya.

 

 

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by Nungali