Spirituality for Beginners

A wild candle flame usually means the wick is too long. Here is how to rule out the physical causes first, then what high, low, flickering, crackling, and smoking flames, soot, and wax are traditionally read to mean.

A hedge witch is a solitary witch who works at the boundary between the everyday world and the spirit world, through herbs, dreams, trance, and the old ways of the village wise woman. Here is where the name comes from, what hedge riding is, and how to begin.

Planetary squares are seven magic squares, one for each classical planet, where every row, column and diagonal adds up to the same number. Practitioners trace words or numbers across them to make sigils.

A besom is a round broom of twigs bound to a wooden handle, and in witchcraft it sweeps a space clean of unwanted energy rather than dust. Here is where the besom came from, why witches ride brooms, how to use one to cleanse a home, the history of jumping the broom, broom folklore from around the world, and how to make your own.

A Ouija board is a talking board printed with the alphabet, numbers, yes, no, and goodbye, read with a heart-shaped planchette that moves under your fingertips. Here is where the board and its strange name came from, why the planchette moves, what the churches and the scientists say, the three rules, and how to open and close a session step by step.

A witch’s cauldron is a small cast iron pot on three legs that holds fire, smoke, and water on the altar. Here is where the cauldron came from, the myths behind it, what practitioners use it for, how to burn incense and petitions in it safely, how to choose a size, and how to keep cast iron from rusting.

Dowsing rods are two bent rods, one held loosely in each hand, that swing together or apart in answer to a question or a place. People have walked fields with a rod for five hundred years, looking for ore, water, and answers. Here is what dowsing rods are, the kinds, what makes them move, what the tests found, what the churches said, and how to hold, calibrate, and question a pair step by step.

How to keep a moon journal, one page per Moon cycle: what to write at each phase, new moon and full moon journal prompts, and a free printable fillable page.

What a Book of Shadows is, where the idea came from, what goes in one, thirty page ideas, and how to start yours this week, whether you are Wiccan or not.

What a grimoire is, where the word comes from, ten famous grimoires from the Greek Magical Papyri to the Grand Grimoire, what goes in a modern one, and how to start your own.

A tarot deck has 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana for the big turns of a life and 56 Minor Arcana for the everyday. Here is every card with its keywords, its upright and reversed meanings, how the suits and court cards work, and how to learn the meanings without memorizing a book.