Someone who teaches you & I'll tell you why. It's great to be someone who is self-motivated & self-taught, HOWEVER, when you are dealing with someone as not cut-and-dry as magick & the paranormal you NEED to have someone who knows better be able to give you feedback & guidance as to what you are doing right & what you are doing wrong. Because it is easy to make some newbie mistakes & assumptions and lead yourself down a path that has no merit.

If you were dealing with something black & white like teaching yourself to build a cabinet, or sew a quilt, you'd know the mistakes you made visually when the quilt falls apart or the cabinet door falls off. With magick, spirits, and the paranormal you may not get that immediate feedback that you would need to know if you did something right or wrong.

There's a reason there are so few genuine practitioners compared to the populous of the world, and it's because it would be impossible for us to teach everyone & teach them properly. Which is why you have people who are self-taught upstarts, and some who concentrate on one specific area may have success, some who spread themselves out & try to tackle too much too quickly are going to wane, and some are going to give up after they don't have any sort of feedback on what they're doing.

The best possible way you could learn at all right now, and for anyone else interested too, is to ask questions in here & get feedback. However, don't try to bite off more than you can chew, and instead focus on building a knowledge base that would be a foundation for moving forward.

creepyhollows wrote:Someone who teaches you & I'll tell you why. It's great to be someone who is self-motivated & self-taught, HOWEVER, when you are dealing with someone as not cut-and-dry as magick & the paranormal you NEED to have someone who knows better be able to give you feedback & guidance as to what you are doing right & what you are doing wrong. Because it is easy to make some newbie mistakes & assumptions and lead yourself down a path that has no merit.

If you were dealing with something black & white like teaching yourself to build a cabinet, or sew a quilt, you'd know the mistakes you made visually when the quilt falls apart or the cabinet door falls off. With magick, spirits, and the paranormal you may not get that immediate feedback that you would need to know if you did something right or wrong.

There's a reason there are so few genuine practitioners compared to the populous of the world, and it's because it would be impossible for us to teach everyone & teach them properly. Which is why you have people who are self-taught upstarts, and some who concentrate on one specific area may have success, some who spread themselves out & try to tackle too much too quickly are going to wane, and some are going to give up after they don't have any sort of feedback on what they're doing.

The best possible way you could learn at all right now, and for anyone else interested too, is to ask questions in here & get feedback. However, don't try to bite off more than you can chew, and instead focus on building a knowledge base that would be a foundation for moving forward.

We have a saying here in Belgium: you're touching in the dark. It means you don't know what you're doing for sure. And thats the way how I feel now. I can 'touch' things but I don't know for 'sure' what they are. It would be so amazing to have a teacher. But I have to learn to be patient and maybe one day when someone sees or reads me on the forum they will give me a chance. Because thats the only way I know where to find one. I do know I am NOT giving up. I just WONT. I wanted this since my youth. And hope dies last they say.

I do know I get alot of support here on the forum. Though I can be a pain in the *ss. I talk too much, and maybe I am a noob. But like you said I need to build a foundation. You cant run before you can walk.

Hey Jez, what you really need to do, is get your foundation down and strong, and learn how to cut a circle and use your tools, if your interested in witchcraft go to the podcasts at itunes and download "a Witch's Primer" by Ariel, I'll help you through it and teach you the stuff he might not touch on, like blessed water, and so forth. Then after you learn how to cut a circle, you just need to learn a few more stuff, then you can start to call in positive being, like Goddess and Gods, and we will work it from there.

You mentioned hoodoo, Voodoo and Santeria. None of them are dark, they all have all the range from totally white to black magic in them. Voodoo and Santeria are not just magical systems but religions that have magical practices in them too, so you have to be initiated to participate. Hoodoo is indeed a magical tradition and not a religion so you don't need to be converted. If you want to learn hoodoo I would recommend luckymojo.com there are many articles about different aspects of hoodoo that will help you learn it's history and practices. There is also a forum and the owner, cat yronwode, offers a class on hoodoo which lasts a year and explains in depth many different aspects of the practice. Bear in mind though that hoodoo doesn't generally work with spirits. They only work with the spirits of ancestors and the spirits of the dead, especially when you work with graveyard dust. Even working with Saints, that many hoodoo practitioners do, is not a traditional part of hoodoo, since hoodoo came from the -former- slaves that were baptists.

Michael34786 wrote:Hey Jez, what you really need to do, is get your foundation down and strong, and learn how to cut a circle and use your tools, if your interested in witchcraft go to the podcasts at itunes and download "a Witch's Primer" by Ariel, I'll help you through it and teach you the stuff he might not touch on, like blessed water, and so forth. Then after you learn how to cut a circle, you just need to learn a few more stuff, then you can start to call in positive being, like Goddess and Gods, and we will work it from there.

Hey Michael, how sweet of you! First of all what is podcast? (i am sorry dumb european girl here) I have Itunes here on my computer. How much does it cost?

-arianna- wrote:You mentioned hoodoo, Voodoo and Santeria. None of them are dark, they all have all the range from totally white to black magic in them. Voodoo and Santeria are not just magical systems but religions that have magical practices in them too, so you have to be initiated to participate. Hoodoo is indeed a magical tradition and not a religion so you don't need to be converted. If you want to learn hoodoo I would recommend luckymojo.com there are many articles about different aspects of hoodoo that will help you learn it's history and practices. There is also a forum and the owner, cat yronwode, offers a class on hoodoo which lasts a year and explains in depth many different aspects of the practice. Bear in mind though that hoodoo doesn't generally work with spirits. They only work with the spirits of ancestors and the spirits of the dead, especially when you work with graveyard dust. Even working with Saints, that many hoodoo practitioners do, is not a traditional part of hoodoo, since hoodoo came from the -former- slaves that were baptists.

Hey Arianna, I do know that voodoo hoodoo and santeria is also a relgion. The reason I call it black is that most people consider it black. But thats a different discussion. I have learned alot about them already and I know the lucky mojo shop very good. But the problem with Cat is that you have to order many things and be a fixed custumor to get access to her course. It will take at least a year before I can enter...

That's ok, I just wanted to clarify that they're not black per se exactly because it's a common misconception. Yeah, you have to be an established customer of hers to take the course but her products are awesome so it's worth the money to buy them. I live in Europe too so paying for shipping from her shop is expensive but everything I've used had truly worked wonders. Since you're familiar with the page, there are many members from AIRR who will are willing to do coaching. Some of them offer courses too. Dr Raven (also known as Conjureman Ali) had written an article in his blog a few months back regarding suggestions of books and courses for people who are interested to learn more. I don't have the link right now but if you do a google search you will find his page where he has a link to his blog.

-arianna- wrote:That's ok, I just wanted to clarify that they're not black per se exactly because it's a common misconception. Yeah, you have to be an established customer of hers to take the course but her products are awesome so it's worth the money to buy them. I live in Europe too so paying for shipping from her shop is expensive but everything I've used had truly worked wonders. Since you're familiar with the page, there are many members from AIRR who will are willing to do coaching. Some of them offer courses too. Dr Raven (also known as Conjureman Ali) had written an article in his blog a few months back regarding suggestions of books and courses for people who are interested to learn more. I don't have the link right now but if you do a google search you will find his page where he has a link to his blog.

WOW thnw Arianne !!! That makes me so happy!!! WOW these last few posts were so incredibly nice !!!! I think I am drawning in luck

There should be 29 Episodes, start out at lession 1 at the very bottom, you can download it onto you Ipod or your computer.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a-wi ... d301231262, if you didn't know the podcast are free, and I'll contact you thru facebook, you should have a friend request there, so this way if I'm on facebook, you can IM me with questions, instead of waiting for a email back.
The reason why I like Ariel's podcast is because it has alot of exercises, and it's also close to what I learned a long time ago.