QUESTION - From time to time I have sensed what I felt was my mother-in-laws spirit guide near me. Sometimes it felt as if it were even watching me. What are possible reasons she would send her spirit guide?

ANSWER - It is not uncommon for people to report a connection to a recently departed person (or animal). This can be a visual encounter or something less tangible like in your own experience, a feeling rather than something that can be attributed to the physical senses.

The usual reason for a spirit guide to be sent would be to offer protection to the person they seek out. This doesn’t necessarily suggest anything untoward is about to occur, it could be that the guide has just been sent for quiet strength and solace. It might mean that the person is embarking on a new stage of their life and the spirit guide has come to support them through the transition period. Equally the presence of the spirit guide could suggest they have a message or a warning that they feel it important to impart before fully passing over.

It is interesting to notice that in most discussions about the spirit world the focus is very heavily biased toward trying to find a reason for the spirit visit that links to the person still living. I would say it is just as likely that the spirit has chosen to remain behind/send a guide for their own reasons. They may want closure on an event that they departed in the middle of or they may have curiosity about how people reacted to their passing. I think it is a mistake to always assume altruistic motives on the part of spirits who are surely able to be as self interested as the rest of us.

In the case of your mother in law I think you are probably in the best position to guess her motives as you are the person who knew her when living. If you had an exceptionally close and loving relationship then chances are she is sending her guide for (as above) reasons of help and support. If however she wasn’t that keen on you and didn’t like your relationship with her son then it is more likely she is keeping an eye on you to ensure he isn’t hurt at your hands. Think about what kind of person she was in life and you will be able to make an educated guess from there as to her motives for what she is doing in death.

Image http://www.deviantart.com/art/the-ghost-188892914

Grey magic is more of a slang term than a precise definition. Basically it is magic which is morally neutral and intended neither to help nor to harm. It’s also very subjective – what you might consider grey I might not and vice versa. Most people would probably agree (and I’m using these definitions slightly tongue in cheek as I don’t personally delineate between different forms of magic) that healing would be “white magic” and cursing someone would be “black magic” Grey is the bit inbetween. More specifically grey magic usually brings about negative consequences but as an indirect consequence of the working, not as the primary intention.

To give you an example – I might do a working to improve my chances of getting a job. This will have the natural consequence of the other candidates not getting the job so would effectively cause harm, albeit it indirectly, to my competitors. My key intention is not to deliberately deprive these people of getting the job so I am not performing “black” magic but as I am casting in the full knowledge that I am going to cause negative consequences for other people I am not exactly casting “white magic” either.

I have also seen grey magic used to define practical magic (as opposed to spiritual) – the practical art of manipulating the world. To be honest though I think that’s a slightly bizarre definition as all magic, regardless of colour or type, is essentially an attempt to bring about a change in the world by will and intent. 

I think there is no reason at all why you cannot put an altar next to your bed. Whenever I travel with my job to hotels I take a travelling altar with me and always set it up on one of the bedside tables. The hardest thing about siting an altar is finding somewhere practical where it isn’t likely to be disturbed and somewhere personal where people won’t interfere with it. A bedroom is ideal for both those reasons.

Altars often promote a feeling of peace and serenity in the owner and what better place for quiet meditation with your altar than the room in the house where you are least likely to be disturbed. Setting up an altar beside your bed is an excellent idea!

Hi there. I have been with my partner for 15 months. We are very much in love. He has been dealing with addiction and abuse issues for a while now. Over the 3 months he has been clean he has become increasingly aggressive towards me and seriously verbally abusive, to the point where he actually makes no sense at all. His aggression has now started to turn physical. He is fully aware it's wrong but seems to have no idea how to handle it. I want him to turn around and face himself and look at what he is doing/becoming. I could easily kick him out couldn't I?

I have considered Odin's binding and I have been studying the ritual and examining my intentions very carefully. In my text book it says I must disconnect from the person I'm binding. So my questions are...is it too severe a ritual? Would we be disconnected permanently (I don't want that)?
I appreciate that in looking at himself he may decide he no longer needs me.
Some advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

No doubt if you asked this question in certain less conventional quarters you’d get an unequivocal answer suggesting you kick him out. I’m not going to say that. However I do believe that in any abusive relationship – no matter how much focus there is on the abusive partner getting better – there has to be a final line established. The danger of being in an abusive relationship is that you will push your own limits back further and further in the belief that he will somehow get better or change until eventually you are unable to leave.

My advice is to establish a very clear line in your own mind as to what would constitute the end for you. What would be his last chance?  At what point does enough become enough? I can’t tell you to when leave him because this line of what is acceptable is different for everybody. For some women a single slap is enough to warrant divorce, others will give second, third or even fourth chances. Neither is right or wrong, every woman has the right to draw her own line in the sand. Think hard about how many chances you are prepared to give him, communicate it to him and stick to it. If and when he crosses the line then it’s over - and you would be strongly advised to walk away.

Obviously the above only applies if you do not believe yourself to be in danger. If you feel you are under any threat of danger from staying with this man then of course you should leave him immediately.

The addiction (I’m presuming drug abuse) is a worry. If this man isn’t seeing a doctor then he certainly needs to be. You haven’t said what kind of substances he is taking but if he’s been clean for three months and is still displaying these kind of side effects then the drugs are substances that warrant medical help and support to come off. There are medications he can be prescribed to help with the severity of the withdrawal and he may also be offered counselling. I strongly suggest you encourage him to see a doctor as soon as he can and if he is already seeing a doctor then look for another one who will offer the support he needs to get through this.

I’ve had a look at Odin’s Binding (click for link). The principles are actually quite sound – it’s a very simple basic binding. To be honest though, you’d get the best results from scrapping the wording used in the spell and substituting your own words explaining precisely what it is you want to happen as a result of the working. Be aware though that binding isn’t curing your problem, it’s just delaying it. You may be able to prevent this man from harming you with a binding but you are not addressing the underlying problem of his addiction, his violence or his unhappiness. I think you would be better working on the root cause rather than bandaging over the wound which is all a binding will achieve.

You ask if Odin’s binding is too severe a ritual – No - it is a very simple basic binding spell. The power as with any working comes from you, not the spell itself. The success/failure of the ritual will be in the strength of your visualisation of the link between this man and his poppet and the transference of your intent into the binding. I wouldn’t worry about permanent disconnection, remember that you are controlling this working, if your intention is not to bring about a permanent end to your relationship and you state and visualise that clearly, I don’t see you having a problem.

Going forward I think you are aware something in this situation has to change. Either his behaviour has to change or you have to walk away. Staying in this abusive cycle is doing neither of you any good. The best advice I can give you is to put forward some constructive suggestions – talk about taking a break from each other, him seeing his doctor, he avoids friends or situations that make his behaviour worse, he avoids alcohol etc…. See how he reacts. If he’s willing to give it a go then possibly your relationship still has a future but if he rejects your attempts to mend this then you’re just back in the cycle of abuse.

Incidentally if I were looking to resolve this situation with magic I would be focusing less on binding and more on healing him. Poppet work would be useful but rather than doing a binding, try making some individual “body parts” of a poppet (just some pieces of cloth stuffed with filling from an old cushion) and then stitch the pieces carefully back into a whole, focusing all the time on allowing your love and healing to enter the poppet and join his disjointed parts together. Focus on all that he is coming together to form the unity of the man you love and then once finished keep the poppet somewhere safe and secure where you can hold it daily and infuse with your love and support.

QUESTION - Am I quite young to be asking about witchcraft, I am a descendent of a witch but I do not have any experience with witchcraft. I believe I am a green witch, I have a strong connection with earth, Mostly water. Where should I start? My mother has also performed witchcraft when she was about 14.

ANSWER - It’s always interesting to hear witches talk about when they first came to the craft. Although many do come to it later in life I would say the majority of witches I have met usually have some awareness of it in their younger lives, be in their teens or their childhood. So it is not surprising to hear someone in your age group displaying an interest in witchcraft.

Are you too young to be asking about witchcraft? No. I don’t believe a person is ever too young to be learning about anything. Fuelling our interest with knowledge and information is what helps us to grow as people and to find the paths we will walk on through our lives. Learning by reading and interacting with those who already practise witchcraft would be a good investment of your time if you have a genuine interest in following a craft path.

Practising as a witch is a different matter and a highly subjective consideration. I have known competent witches in their teens (although usually they have had guidance and support on their path from an elder) but equally I’ve known a lot of witches who believe any form of magical practise should be restricted to adults only. I sit on the fence a bit with this one, I think there are teenagers with the maturity and wisdom to start out on a craft path but I also feel a bit of life experience is invaluable to a witch. I’d support anyone your age who wanted to learn, explore and discover but I’d be a lot more cautious if you were talking about making a formal commitment to what can be quite a challenging way of life at your age. (Think of it like marriage – you probably won’t commit to your first partner and you might want to learn about and try a few other walks of life before you commit to a specific craft path either).

In terms of a starting point - you talk about having a strong connection with earth and water and that is great, that is you listening to your natural instincts which is one of the things that makes a good witch. This is something you can work on quite comfortably at your age. Spending time in nature, perhaps finding way to let it inspire you creatively (painting, poetry, music…) will help you to build a relationship with nature and the elements. Rather than buying introduction books on witchcraft, try reading some books about plants and herbs and even try growing a few. Learn the skills behind the craft so that if your path does evolve into the path of the witch it will be a path of substance rather than style and built on a firm bedrock of your own appreciation of nature and your understanding of how to manage the living world.

Image http://www.deviantart.com/art/Man-and-Nature-136842934

QUESTION - I've been filing for disability since 1998...been turned down 3 times....have another hearing Aug. 26 2015....is there some way to go about winning my case this time....plz help

ANSWER -  There are certainly some things you can do to maximise your chances of success, some of which are practical and some of which are of a more magical focus.

Practical first – when you go into any panel hearing the situation (as I’m sure you know) can be very stressful. The danger of this is that you will miss out some of the key points you need to make. I strongly suggest you may some notes on prompt cards and take them into the hearing with you. That way if you do find the pressure gets to you or you become emotional you can still ensure you cover everything you need to say.

Disability hearings, emotive as they may be, will be decided on hard facts rather than emotion so it is important you can get across the particulars of your given situation. It is crucial that you focus not just on the disability itself but on the things your disability prevents you from doing in order to live a fulfilling life. Try to come up with some very specific and tangible examples to clearly illustrate the impact your disability has on your life. A clear understanding of your day to day life and the things your disability prevents you from doing is the key to winning your claim.

From a magical perspective what you are looking at is manipulation magic. My suggestion is that you obtain the names of the decision makers as a priority. Any working you do will have the greatest impact if you can target it specifically at the people who will be sitting on your panel.  Find out in advance what these people are called.

Once you have the names of the people then you can start to target a manipulation working toward them. The simplest way to do this is with the use of candle magic. Popularly yellow candles are used for this purpose but as with most colour associations, a personal preference or a colour linked to the specific working you are undertaking will work just as well. Personalise the candles by carving the names of the individuals onto their candles and I’d also suggest carving a rune on there as well (teiwaz, the rune of success – looks a bit like an arrow would be your best choice) and perhaps anointing with a touch of orange oil. Speak out loud and confirm the link between your named candle and the name of the person it is representing. Confirm this link in your own mind (perhaps by repeating the name a few times until you are confident the association is formed) and then light the candle and state clearly into the flame that your will is greater than the will of the person whom the candle represents and they will agree with you and find in favour of your claim at the disability hearing. Repeat for each of the individuals and leave the candles to burn.

The success of this working will be dependent on the strength of the association between the candles and the individuals represented and also the projection of your own will and intent into the spell. Don’t pay lip service to the wording, think very carefully about the outcome you want and have a very clear visualisation in your mind booth of what you want the outcome to be and the benefit that outcome will have on your lif. Visualise yourself happy and relieved with the panel ruling in your favour and then project that happiness back into the spell to add power to it.

Let me know how it goes!

Image http://www.deviantart.com/art/Wandering-Aimlessly-134972641

QUESTION - Can you give me a spell please that I will cast myself to rid myself of a toxic unhealthy love (going through divorce) and allowing myself to not obsess and go back to him again and again. I love him but must let go. Fear and negatively creep their way in every time.
I am looking for a spell that will also combine attraction from someone new.

I hope to find a new love that will treat me with the respect, kindness and goodness that I deserve and will loving mirror that back. This is the end of my 3rd marriage and I so badly need to discard old patterns that continue to bog me down and cause me to choose men that hurt me. I need luck, magick and hopefully some of your good advice and a spell.

ANSWER - I think everybody in the universe would understand and sympathise with this and I think you are very brave for voicing it out loud. I get a lot of questions from people who are unable to identify their own 
self-destructive patterns of behaviour and it is a refreshing change to get a question from somebody who isn’t asking for help getting back into that cycle of negativity but who is in fact looking to break it.

I can’t pretend I’ve got all the answers but I can give you a couple of suggestions that I hope will be of some use. The most important thing to my mind is that you make more than one change in your life at the same time. If the only change you make is getting rid of this man then there will be a huge hole in your life that will make you long for him all the more. You need to mix up your usual patterns and routines and make it harder to identify the gaps and the empty times you used to spend together. Try and introduce some things into your routine to look forward to as well, some things you really enjoy. Even simple things like an evening in the bath with a glass of wine will act as milestones that will break up the stress involved in forcing yourself not to contact him.

I am also a fan of putting a brave face on things because when you project unhappiness you invite a situation where people want to talk about how bad things are for you and you end up acting as a magnet for every negative emotion for miles around. Try to project positivity in the hope that people will project it back at you and your interactions will be something to lift up your day rather than drag you back down.

When we fall in love with somebody, a part of that love isn’t just about the other person but it is about loving the person we are when we are with them. This can be one of the hardest things to let go. When we lose that person we were involved with we are, to an extent, mourning a part of ourselves that was lost with them. It is important to re-establish your own identity and learn to see yourself as an independent person again. This links in with the magic I am going to suggest you perform. What you need is to attract is a man who is good for you as a person. So in order to do this you need to think hard about what defines you as the person you are. My suggestion is that you get a clear glass ball and fill it with things that represent you (A flower, a phrase from a poem, a lock of your hair… anything that works for you) and then hang it close to the entrance of your home. The exercise of thinking about the things that represent you will focus your mind back to your own self identify as a person and put you in the best frame of mind for undertaking the spell work.


Use a pastry brush to coat the top half of the ball with honey - which symbolises both the sweetness of attraction and the stickiness of a snare. Anointing with rose oil is a traditional staple in working love magic so carefully anoint the base of your ball with rose oil. Visualise this ball as representing all that is good and positive about you and when you look at it, visualise it sending your positive energy into the world to look for a partner who will love and appreciate you. The visualisation is the power in this spell. Revisit your ball daily and make a very conscious effort to reinvigorate your working, focusing each time on the true essence of yourself being projected into the world to find its true partner. 

It is rare I get involved in spell work for people I do not know personally and there are several reasons for this. As this is a question that is sent quite regularly to the site I wanted to explain in full so readers properly understand why it is a no.

Spells tend to work best when the person casting is to some extent personally involved. This can be quite a tenuous link but some level of personal relationship will always benefit the success of a working. Casting for people over the internet when the relationship is at best a (probably anonymous) email contact is unlikely to yield consistently good results. Usually a reader would be better advised to consult a local magical practitioner who they can meet face to face and establish a rapport with.

Generally when casting any kind of working my preference is to use a taglock to link it to the intended target. Asking for things like pictures and real names over the internet opens a can of worms inappropriate for a website that attracts a young audience. Having been very clear in the advice that people are better not to give out more over the web than they feel comfortable with, it would be slightly hypocritical to start asking for intimate details and pictures for the purpose of spell work. Better to avoid the matter altogether.

A lot of the spells the site is asked to perform are quite simply impossible. Some verge on ridiculous. Asking for a limb to be grown back or to magically transform black hair to blonde just isn’t possible. Getting involved in such workings even with the best of intentions would lead to the site coming in for ridicule. This site also often speaks out against magical charlatans and getting involved in workings for some of the requests received would pretty much be becoming involved in the murky business of promising impossible magic for money which is totally not supported by WPF.

The other major concern about doing spell work for strangers is that the motives are unknown. The consequences of the magic have to be considered. I am not going to hex someone without understanding that person’s point of view for example. Over the internet you only get one side of the story. It is irresponsible to conduct spell work on half the facts.

Finally this site was set up with the very specific purpose of providing an advice perspective on questions relating to witchcraft and this (and the private correspondence connected with the site but unpublished) is quite a time consuming venture. Extending this to providing spell work as well just isn’t tenable at this stage in time. Working on the basis that there are other sites who offer bespoke spell work it is best that Witch Path Forward concentrates on its primary focus.

Image http://clackographix.deviantart.com/art/Sparkles-183190110

QUESTION - I was wondering if it's possible to have a lot of energy in your body to manipulate electronics or when I get so angry at someone and wish something it happens not that I meant to I try to focus on good and wish good things to happen but it doesn't work I feel like I have bad in me or something I just don't understand it could you please help me understand it

ANSWER - There are a couple of questions in here and we’ll have a look at each of them in turn. Firstly you ask if it is possible for the energy in your body to manipulate electronics. The simple answer is yes, I know a lot of witches who report issues with electronic products failing to work when they are near to them.  Some witches don’t even wear watches for the reason that the magnetism in the watch mechanism stops working after a short while. I can’t offer you a scientific explanation for this, just anecdotal confirmation that you are definitely not alone and that what you are experiencing seems to be a fairly common phenomenon among magical practitioners.

My own thoughts on this subject is that magic generates its own energy and this energy seems to disrupt other non magical energies like electricity and magnetism. That’s as far as my high school level physics takes me but I’d be surprised if the facts differed greatly from that explanation.

You seem worried that you feel out of control when having negative thoughts. Might be worth reading this answer where a reader was having similar issues.

I see a lot of concern in the modern magical community relating to the concept of good/bad. I suspect a lot of the “see no evil” New Age folk are to blame for this. I personally believe that we all have good and bad within us and that labelling parts of ourselves as bad and trying to repress them isn’t a very healthy thing to do. Undoubtedly you have bad in you, so do I, so does everybody else. A far healthier way of living your life is to come to terms with the fact that there are bits of yourself you don’t like and learn to live with them. (Interesting article worth reading here where I discuss Raven Kaldara’s monster theory. Read it - I think it will help.)

I believe it is not just possible but highly plausible that when we repress parts of ourselves we bottle up like a pressure cooker and eventually that negative energy explodes out in different directions. I don’t think it is your “badness” but the effort you are putting into negating this side of your character that is causing the consequences you describe in your question. My advice to you would be to view yourself as an imperfect human like the rest of us. Try to do the right thing by all means but accept you are not perfect and you will make mistakes. Taking the pressure off your shoulders to be unrealistically “good” will stop this inner turmoil and help you to relax. I think you’ll find if you do that your energies will stop going haywire and you will get fewer instances of things happening beyond your control.

Image http://www.deviantart.com/art/Lightning-100224065

A spell, simply put, is the deliberate channelling of intent and energy toward a desired end. There are many ways this can be achieved. Intent can be put into the world via a carrier (think smoke, steam, flowing water, wind), it can be channelled solely via the mind (think meditation based workings), it can be spoken aloud using language to shape the intention and it can even utilise music or chanting to achieve the necessary end result.

For most of these examples a wand would not be necessary. The purpose of a wand in magic is usually as a director of energies. A wand tapers to a point and is favoured by many witches as bringing a precision to the energy they wish to control. A wand can be used to draw the boundaries of a circle for those witches who practise circle work where the energy is focused to separate a small area from the mundane world to be used for magical workings. Similarly some witches use a wand to create a circle for protective purposes, raising a boundary that negative energies cannot cross.

A wand can be a useful tool but is by no means a requirement and many witches choose not to use one.

Image http://www.deviantart.com/art/Pentacle-oak-wand-55111498