My first "spell jar"
Witchcraft is always one of those things I’ve wanted to believe in but had no tangible proof of any of the sort of stuff you’d see in movies like Hocus Pocus. I was fascinated as a kid to the point of trying to make magic potions to try to improve my life circumstances out of basically anything I could find around me. At the time I remember being disappointed with it all.
So I left it and even explored traditional religion before eventually settling on a sort of agnosticism with respect for nature. I had no evidence of anything inherently spiritual and I still don’t, but I also recognize there’s a lot in this world I just don’t understand.
In a slight side tangent I’m kind of addicted to Pinterest and the last several months Pinterest has been showing me these pagan blog posts about things like witch bottles. I’m constantly the skeptic but the whole idea of the thing started to make me curious enough to try it. At worst I figured, I’d have a pretty jar filled with random stuff.
So I bought myself this little heart shaped jar and it just sat on my desk for awhile. I somewhat put it off not even knowing where to start. A simple Pinterest search for witch jar basics was all I needed.
Anyone else see the nug??
I was surprised by a lot of it being common sense. Even the posts with words like spell to be mentioned that’s basically like a mantra of sorts. Mantras have been shown to have extremely beneficial effects on reducing anxiety and other things. There’s also something to be said about speaking aloud the intention you want to achieve.
For many its the first step of starting something new. Anyone who has started something new knows that the hardest part is getting started.
The jar partway through filling
The thing I found interesting is basically you can make up stuff if you want, as a lot of the blog posts I found were conflicting. Basically people determine what these things represent for them a lot of the time and how to incorporate them, although I’m not sure the majority of witches would agree with me there.
I’ll share below what I put in my bottle with a brief note as to why next to each thing. The idea behind this jar is it’s a “manifestation” jar. When I collected the materials for it I was thinking a lot about what I want over the next five years specifically.
Heart Shaped Jar with Cork (Had the choice between that and a star, I’m going more for love and less for being a “star”.)
*Beeswax *(To keep it pure, sterile, and pretty)
High quality mexican cannabis (To hopefully keep myself in steady supply)
*Sea Shell *(To manifest plenty of beach time)
A Piece of a turkey feather (To assure freedom as I try to get my legal situation handled)
thyme:
*Glass from Taxco *(Both to ensure I visit Taxco again and that I start glassblowing again)
*Pesos *(MONEY. WANT MOAR MONEY)
*Citrine *(Also supposedly for money, motivation)
Lavender: For continued love.
3 or 4 Bent Pins: I read somewhere if you’ve had a traumatic past you can put bent sewing pins in the jar to help get rid of bad spirits. Not sure about that but I found it amusing.
Cinnamon for wealth and spice of life
Peppercorns: Comfort endurance, flexibility according to Pinterest
*Cloves: *Friendship, prosperity, clearing your head, cause it fucking smells good
Bay leaf: protection, manifestation, mental clarity
Charcoal: For no more sickness, as it saved my life with the botulism.
*One of the aformentioned bent pins. *
Now other people would have you do more strict rituals and I can see the value in those for therapeutic reasons as well. However I think it’s valuable just to go through the process of both making your own connections and doing fun research on Pinterest.
What I did to finish it up was to just put all these things in the jar in the most visually appealing way. I thought about what it meant. I also smelled the jar often. If you add spices, its bound to smell HEAVENLY which I’m also convinced is part of the value. Aromatherapy anyone?
After its filled you seal the top with wax. I used beeswax but it was messier than I wanted. You can use any size jar with a cork. Corks are best because, well, witchy and aesthetically pleasing. The posts say to keep these bottles close to you. I spend most of my time at my desk, so it sits by my computer.
And even after making it, just looking at it can help refocus. Cause I remember if I’m desperate enough to try witchcraft for productivity sake, I better just get back to work.
For anyone curious, if you type in basically anything followed by witchcraft in Pinterest will yield interesting results.
This brings me to my next point. What’s the point? Why even bother if magic doesn’t exist as it does in the movies?
Turns out witches are actually likely just intelligent people with knowledge of plants, their environment ect. These are people who know how to naturally deal with their ailments. These are also people who have incredible powers of self introspection. Often these people knew how to use deadly plants and substances in therapeutic means, making them seem otherworldly.
It turns out when you put time into basically making pretty art with intention while considering your life, you actually do make positive changes in your life. This is just a complex fun way to go about goal setting. And things like tarot cards are useful for self introspection because of the questions the meanings of the cards might have you to ask yourself.
For now I’ll end this by saying that I’m not sure on any of this. I hesitated on even posting about it but I think my findings have been interesting enough to talk about at least from a therapeutic perspective. I’m not convinced of anything supernatural, but I’ll continue my pagan experimentation for the hope of more fun therapeutic adventures.
