The Modern Guide to Witchcraft by Skye Alexander Read Free Book Online Page A

taking a shower. Regardless of how your intuition communicates with you, it’s important to remember that your so-called sixth sense is just as normal and important as the other five senses.
    Think how much you’d miss out on if you lacked the sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch. The world would be a much duller place. Now try to imagine how much more you could get out of life if you had another sense on top of those five. The good news is that you do!
    Because intuition doesn’t “make sense” (that is, it doesn’t rely on our five physical senses), people tend to discount its validity. Yet many noted scientists have acknowledged that intuition played a significant part in their discoveries. In his later years, Nobel laureate Jonas Salk, who found a vaccine for polio, wrote a book about intuition titled
Anatomy of Reality.
In it he proposed that creativity resulted from the union of intuition and reasoning. Bill Gates said, “Often you have to rely on intuition.” Albert Einstein believed “the only real valuable thing is intuition.”
    What we call intuition is the connection between your conscious mind and the cosmic web. Intuition is a witch’s best friend. Sometimes intuition is the most important factor in spell-working. You can memorize the properties of different herbs, gemstones, or colors. You can follow all the prescribed steps in a ritual. But if you don’t trust your intuition to guide you, you’ll never develop your full potential. To connect with your intuition:
Listen to the “voice within.”
Pay attention to hunches.
Pay attention to your dreams and what they’re trying to tell you.
Notice “coincidences.”
Write down impressions and insights that you receive, even if they don’t make sense in the moment—they may turn out to mean something more in the future.
    As you start paying attention to your intuition, it will grow stronger and begin funneling more useful information your way. Being able to draw on your intuition will enrich your life and enhance your magickal ability in countless ways.
THE MOON AND YOU
    One of the most important connections we have in the magickal universe in which we live—and one of the most obvious—is earth’s closest neighbor: the moon. We can easily see the impact the moon has on our planet and its inhabitants. For example, the moon’s twenty-eight-day cycle influences the oceans’ tides; higher tides usually occur during the full moon. It also affects the weather, crop growth, animal and human fertility—as the
Farmers’ Almanac
has professed for two centuries—as well as the way we feel and behave. More babies come into this world during the full moon than at other times of the month. Ask police officers or hospital workers about the full moon and they’ll tell you they see more crises, more crimes, and more activity in general when the moon is full. No, the full moon won’t turn you into a werewolf, but it might bring out your wild side.
    Astrologers associate the moon with emotion, intuition, and creativity—the very things that witches rely on when they do magick. So, if you want your spells to be more powerful and effective, pay attention to the moon’s cycles and learn to draw upon lunar energy.
Connecting with the Moon
    Since ancient times, the moon has fascinated earthlings. Poets, artists, musicians, lovers, astrologers, and magicians all find the moon juicy subject matter for study and inspiration.
    “Evidence of Moon worship is found in such widely varied cultures as those of the Anasazi Indians of New Mexico, the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, pre-Columbian Peruvians, Burmese, Phoenicians, and Egyptians. In the Craft, when we refer to the great god by the Hebrew names El or Elohim, we borrow terms that entered Hebrew from Arabic, where the god name ‘Ilah’ derives from a word that means ‘moon.’”
    —M ORWYN ,
S ECRETS OF A W ITCH ’ S C OVEN
    Because the moon plays such an important role in magick—and in our