Introduction
The veil between the worlds is thinnest at Hallowe'en. Take advantage of this to cast extra-powerful spells, read the future and communicate with spirits who have passed on.
Need-Fire Spell
The Anglo-Saxon tribes that invaded Britain called Hallowe'en 'need-fire.' They lit bonfires to magically endow the sun with the strength to survive the winter. Such bonfire customs survive in Great Britain, but have been moved to the 5th of November and associated with the burning in effigy of Guy Fawkes. Revive the old magic by lighting your own 'need-fire' out of doors and add a colorful touch of the modern with fireworks.
Protection against Evil Spirits
The fierce faced lanterns carved out of pumpkins and, in colder climates where pumpkins are rare, turnips, are apotropaic charms intended to ward off evil spirits and protect traveler and household from harm. Make a Jack O'Lantern (US: Jack-O-Lantern) to keep the ghosties and ghoulies at bay. It is said that when you see the flame flickering, a spirit is near...
Hazelnut Love Spell
A girl might divine who her future husband was going to be by lining up hazelnuts in front of the fire, each of which represented one of the boys that was wooing her. She would then chant, "If you love me, pop and fly. If you hate me, burn and die."
Water Love Spell
Another tradition from America instructs the curious girl to take a lamp and go out on the night of Hallowe'en to a spring of water and peering in she should see the reflection of her future husband.
Apple Love Spell
To find out who your future partner in life is going to be try this simple divination spell. Take an apple and peel its skin off in one long piece, saying:
"I pare this apple round and again
My sweetheart's name to flourish plain
I fling the pairing o'er my head
My sweetheart's letter on the ground be read."
The peel should then have landed in the shape of your true-love's initial.
The Seining Ritual
It has been suggested that the game of Dooking, or Bobbing for Apples, in which a person must catch apples floating in a basin with his teeth is a forgotten survival of the Pagan 'baptism' ritual of seining.
October Magick
October Magick
Magick doesn't happen just with spells and rituals. It's the activities and events that allow for fun and memories, or that help others. Here are some suggestions on how to make October Magick...
Donate blood (think of Dracula)
Finish any incomplete projects and pay off lingering bills (if possible) to close out the old year and begin the new year afresh.
Go for a walk and collect twigs, leaves, pinecones, moss, seedpods, and feathers.
Leave food out for the birds and other wild animals.
Light candles, a fireplace or bonfire, put up Halloween lights to get a start on the season of light
If you don't have a wicker man left from Beltane, make one from dried grass or grains of some kind. Burn it in your Sabbat fire. If you don't have a fireplace or firepit, burn him in your cauldron, barbeque grill or hibachi.
Make a Scarecrow
Tell ancestral stories and tales around the fire, or at the dinner table.
Visit cemeteries to do a clean up project, visit ancestors, or just immerse yourself in the history
Have a mask-making ceremony in which you create masks to represent your ancestry.
Rake some leaves and jump in the leaves (especially fun if there is a child around to do this with you)
Decorate your computer with Halloween, Samhain or Autumn wallpaper or screensaver
Make a quilt, crochet an afghan or braid a rug using Autumn colors
Make a music tape of Halloween or Autumn inspired music and songs
Go for a drive strictly for the purpose of foliage gazing
Have a wine tasting party
Learn to weave (think of grandmother spider)
Plant trees (Japanese maple is a great Autumn tree) and flower bulbs
Pick apples from an apple tree and make a home-made pie or cobbler from scratch
Make a big pot of soup
Collect pictures of past Halloween's or Autumn activities and make a scrapbook; add pressed leaves, poems and sayings, seasonal sketches
Gather firewood
Samhain is the best time for divination; learn tarot, runes, using the pendulum, scrying
Start to knit a warm sweater
Visit a charity haunted house
Take a late night walk under the full moon
Make a batch of popcorn and hot spiced cider and watch Halloween movie videos
Gather up and press leaves of red, gold, and yellow
Set up an ancestor altar, with candles and your ancestor's pictures
Buy orange pumpkins and red, green and yellow apples
Easy decorations: a cauldron of apples, a candy dish of candy corn, chains made of black and white beads or paper loops, pumpkins.. carved or not
Make foods of fall; beef stew with thick gravy, apple crisp with vanilla ice cream and cinnamon sauce, pumpkin pie with whipped cream.... macaroni and cheese (it's orange!)
Make a Halloween tree; paint branches black and gather into a vase with black stones for anchors. Add orange Halloween lights, drape with dried moss and thin black ribbons. Even add ornaments!
Start a nature sketchbook. With the wonderful colors of fall, this is the perfect time to record the leaves changing colors, bare branches against a stormy sky, squirrels stocking up for winter...
Go on a hayride
Bake sugar cookies and cut out with Autumn-shaped cookie cutters. Frost with chocolate, maple and orange flavored frostings
Make or buy onion braids
Buy lots of orange, yellow, brown and gold candles to brighten up dark days and evenings
Make witch balls (clear glass ornament, swirl around silver paint inside, fill with red threads and herbs)
Collect pinecones for decorations and firestarters
Leave food outside as an offering to the dead
Make hot chocolate, French toast and bacon for Sunday Breakfast
Adopt a black cat (or orange or any color)
Watch for ducks and geese flying south for the winter
The most traditional Samhain activity is to prepare an extra plate at the dinner table to honor those passed. After the meal, place the plate outside overnight for any passing creatures. In the morning, bury whatever remains on the plate in the earth.
Buy some new fall clothes; corduroy pants or green denim jeans; a sweater or a college sweatshirt, a suede jacket, new hiking boots
Wear a costume to greet trick or treaters on Halloween night or accompany trick or treaters
Try a new shade of hair color; such as auburn or dark burgundy (red is the color of witch's hair)
Make homemade applesauce, apple dumplings, apple turnovers..
Make popcorn balls
Have a costume party; for kids only, for adults only, or families
Buy pumpkins and carve jack-o-lanterns
Bob for apples, do apple divination, cut an apple cross-wise to see the star that the seeds make. nature's own pentagram
Make caramel apples
Do a Past-life Regression therapy
Start to meditate if you don't already do this
Harvest and dry herbs
Celebrate a late Oktoberfest with beer and German food
Make and/or collect miniature buildings for a miniature Halloween village
Written and Compiled by Cindi Wafstet
© August 2002
Permission to share freely as long as credit is given.
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