Fiona Horne - Witch - a Magickal Journey - A Guide to Modern Witchcraft

Copyright

Thorsons

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published as

Witch: A Personal Journey &

Witch: A Magickal Year

Random House, Australia 1998, 1999

This combined edition first published by Thorsons 2000

This 20th Anniversary Edition published 2017

FIRST EDITION

Text © Fiona Horne 1998, 1999, 2000, 2017

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Fiona Horne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Source ISBN: 9780008265144

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008268190

Version 2017-07-18

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Spelling It Out

Read This First!

Which Witch Is Which?

The Herstory of Witchcraft

Witches’ Britches

Witchy Style and When to Take Your Clothes Off!

This Goes with This and That Goes with That

All You Need to Make Your Own Spells

Is It a Bird? Is It a Snake? No, It’s My Familiar!

Magickal Animal Partners

This Is the Place to Be and I’m in It

Magickal Hotspots

Spell Boundaries

Casting Circles and Making Your Own Sacred Space

Altar-ed States

Setting Up Your Own Altar

Seven Days to a Magickal New You!

A Magickal Makeover

Having Your Wicca’d Way

Spells to Sort You Out

The Labyrinth of Love

How to Find Your Way In and Out

Bitchcraft

Hexing, Psychic Attack and Protection

Cosmetic Conjurings

Making Your Own Witchy Cosmetics

Divine Dealings

Getting a Grip on the Past, Present and Future

Bed, Knobs and Broomsticks

Magickal Sex

Flying High

Magickal Drugs

Cyber-Sorcery

Making Magick with Your Computer

Spin That Wheel!

The Wiccan Wheel of the Year

Days of Our Lives

Witchy Days Throughout the Year

The Witches Are All Rite!

Celebrating the Life of a Witch

Gobbledy-Gook!

Unusual Words and Terms

The Library

For the BookWitch!

About the Publisher

BLESSED BE

My heartfelt thanks go to:

My special friend Liam Cyfrin. I couldn’t have written this book without his advice and Witchy insights.

The brilliant girls, Tracey Shaw and Lauren O’Keefe, who not only do a magnificent job of running my website ( www.fionahorne.com) but are also good friends!

All the wonderful Witches who shared their stories with me.

All the generous people who took the time to write in to my website and who sent me letters offering their comments and support.

My gorgeous friends and family who supported me during the writing of this book.

My awesome management team in London – Terry Blamey and Alli Macgregor, and in Australia – Melissa LeGear, Justin McNeany and Rochelle Nolan.

And, last but not least, the spunky team at Thorsons, especially Louise, Joanna, Jo, Jessica, Karen, Paul and Meg.

Foreword

The journey of this book began 20 years ago in Australia – the world was different then. Witches were still cloaked in fear, suspicion and myth. Now, in these ‘woke’ times, who doesn’t know a proud, self-professed Witch?

I’m grateful that this book has stood the test of time, being re-released in this 20th Anniversary Edition. I hope it is useful to you, whether you are new to the Craft of the Wise, or a devout practitioner looking to refine and deepen your skills.

Witchcraft is a spiritual path – it welcomes all seekers.

Enjoy your journey.

Blessed Be,

Fiona Horne

May 2017

www.fionahorne.com

Spelling It Out

READ THIS FIRST!

Some say that you have to be born a Witch – a Witch cannot be ‘made’. I disagree. In our society, where the majority of alternative spirituality is hushed or treated with derision and scepticism, it can be hard to hear your inner calling.

I spent most of my teenage years as a practising Catholic, going to Mass every Sunday with my parents and attending a Catholic girls-only high school. At times I found comfort in the rituals that many people of all faiths reduce their religion to. It was pleasant to think that all I had to do was be good and I would go to heaven, and that the only spiritual responsibility I had in my life was to obey the Ten Commandments.

When I was thirteen I had a favourite nun, Sister Geraldine, who taught at my high school – she was tough and cool and didn’t take crap from the school heavies. She told me one lunchtime that she’d never had a boyfriend in her life, that she’s always loved God and He’d always loved her back, and she always felt happy and good about herself. I was in High School Hell at the time, no girlfriends, no boyfriend, constant fighting at home, and in her words I saw freedom from the depressing nightmare my life had become. So, I decided to become a nun.

I started to read the Bible and educational books about the Catholic faith but I found so many contradictions and disempowering female stereotypes, that instead of my usual attitude of blind acceptance – of having faith – I started to question everything spiritual I’d been brought up to believe. The deeper I delved into the religion the stranger it seemed to me, being made mostly of legends and unexplained laws, yet demanding absolute faith in these stories and rigid adherence to the rules. I listened to the sermons preached from the pulpit and became more and more convinced that the Catholic faith was not for me.

I started to look for alternatives. The most obvious one to an angry, rebellious thirteen-year-old who didn’t want to be Catholic any more was Satanism. So I went to the library and discovered the tacky fiction writer, Dennis Wheatley. All his books featured demons and evil witches, Satanic sabbats, sex and death. This all seemed quite thrilling at the time and I happily lit black candles in my bedroom, said the Lord’s Prayer backwards and read the Malleus Maleficarum under my sheets at night by the light of a torch. However, rather than becoming seduced by black magic, I became depressed with its banal, cruel and perverse obsessions and my interest waned. About the same time my attractiveness to boys increased and not long after discovering Satanism I discovered boys, and they were to occupy my every waking thought for the next few years of high school.