Why keep a blog in these times, even when you are "already an author"?
This question has been asked by several people lately, and generally, I try to avoid answering, but the truth, I have always tried to be honest about what I think, what I say and what I do.
Before having this blog my only contact with the rest of the people was a small page on MySpace where I published (with enormous difficulty) a ritual or a spell every week, in fact, it was the year 2005, and it was just on a MySpace page Where I found my first coven, back then in Caracas, Venezuela, and they organized events every week in various city parks, it was there that I began to relate to "witches of the city" as I like to call them, and I met at that time the world of Wicca and neopaganism.
But since long before I was already entering the world of magic and sorcery, only for me it was more about something familiar, and I believed from a very young age that it was something that each family practiced separately at home, it was not until The 13 years I understood (by my friend Jonathan) that this was not the case, and that on the contrary, we were a minority.
The origins
I came from having lived in a tiny town in Roraima, in the Amazon for about twelve years, on the border between Brazil and Venezuela, surrounded by healers, witch doctors, and ayahuasqueros. They took me to live in the capital city of Venezuela to send me to study four years at the military school, and after that, I attended a different school on the other side of the city before attending University.
When you go from having lived for so many years among people much older than you, essentially the elderly, and then you go from there to live in the big capital city, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the people around you, mostly schoolchildren who are showing off their cell phones, collection brands of shoes and caps. Collating with them was not easy, so it didn't take long for me to become "the newbie", the one everyone wants to bully.
When you arrive in the city, the concept that you have there about magic and sorcery, or about shamanism is something very different, and certainly more superficial. Back then, Santeria and Palo Mayombe were a fashion in Venezuela, they were "something cool", in which everyone wanted to participate, and my family had been part of them from the beginning, so I saw this "fashion" as something hurtful.
Followed by this, in the city, no one looked for plants in the field or bathed in the rivers, they did not cook soup in an old cauldron on wood and wood at the edge of the river, nor did they celebrate every time they got quartz or some beautiful mineral that they could interpret as "a sign" from the spirits, or as "a gift" from the ancestors. Herbs, oils, and crystals are something you bought at the store or even from a catalog.
Shamanism and healing were somewhat more superficial, however, I was lucky to meet very good healers and witches in the city. Witchcraft was then more a fashion to follow, an excuse to look cool and meet on the weekends with "your coven", a path that called you from the inside, now it was a trend followed by people looking for a place where to feel at ease without being judged, many came there and discovered that this was their way, many others got there, just in passing, others saw this as the best way to make fame and money fast.
Social networks
Once I had my first account on (back then) MySpace and attended these meetings in the Yahoo groups, I learned something extremely important, a lesson that I have followed even to this day... It always seems to know nothing, acts with discretion, does not be the know-it-all, let them judge you, let them act in front of you, and let them teach you each in their own way, that is where you will see with your own eyes, who really knows what he is talking about, who is really there for learning, and who really got there by reading a couple of books and already sells himself as the last court messiah, and of those last ones, unfortunately, there were many.
Over time I learned to judge a little less because I discovered that in the big concrete city, you could also find great believers, pagans, clairvoyants, witches and "modern shamans", who were not superficial fools because of living in the city, On the contrary, they took advantage of this as a huge advantage to teach classes, teach others, organize rituals online, create digital groups, and even held small conventions in a popular cafe to exchange esoteric books and share opinions.
Over time I got to know the internet blogs, and from there everything changed, it was my friend who recommended creating a blog and writing there every week, my personal rituals, my book recommendations, which rituals had worked and which did not, and what was my point of view about it, like “Today I used the invocation ritual of this book, and it didn't work as I expected, but maybe it is due to…”, and my blog in Spanish was always very popular.
Years later I began to write a blog in English, and since then I have kept my space, as a safe and free space to comment, free of judgments, because the Haters do not get in here to read, much less to respond, the brain does not It gives them for this, they are so busy promoting their hatred on Twitter and Instagram that they do not "waste their time" in coming to read me, so this is still a safe space, where I can connect freely, without editions, without intermediaries, without filters, directly with my readers.
The best thing about having a personal blog, and not one of those “business blogs” with many different authors talking about a single topic, is that here I can freely express my opinions, and without having to think “this will not please my editor "," This is not in accordance with the theme of the blog "," if I publish this, another author may be angry ". The truth is that my blog in English receives an average of 900 readers daily, even on days when I do not publish anything, and yes, I know that is a low number for the "standards of today", but for me Knowing that my blog is read by so many people daily is fascinating and quite motivating.
This also means that there are 900 other people out there who connect with me and who share the same experiences, who know that here they will read about real magic, real magic, not "Instagram magic", where all spells look like magazine pictures, where healing does not look like a beautiful path of pain-free illumination, where the gods are beings of enormous power who can act in your favor or against you.
This is a space free of egos and full of hard work, do you want your spell of results? Go and work for it, because if you believe that magic is the fast way to get things, you are in the wrong place. Here we do not join the new fashion of saying "the gods are only archetypes and your powers are superior because you are light and blah, blah blah" ... Those are arguments of "Plastic Witches".
The "plastic witches" are people who spend the full moon eating Doritos and watching Netflix, while they tell you with a beautiful Instagram photograph "use the energy of this moon to meditate deeply, walk through the forest under the light of the stars and bathe naked in a river ”, this is not (Thank God for it) one of those spaces full of superficial witches who do not practice magic with blood because they fear an infection, or who do not know the incredible healing properties of the earth from the cemetery because "everything is energy and you just have to visualize it".
And I'm not saying (and I've never said it) that witches should all celebrate the full moon, prick their fingers with a needle or eat raw meat of a deer on a new moon to regenerate their power, no. The problem is not their conception of magic and witchcraft, the problem is that they sell you something that they themselves do not practice, like those who say "witchcraft is a path of spirituality to help you connect with yourself", but they are more focused on "looking cool" and "looking dark badass witches" than really being.
And it is very unfortunate that the most popular members of our community, spend most of the time accusing the followers of the predominant religions, for being "highly superficial and commercial", when at the end of the day, they are exactly a reflection of this that they criticize.
And it is for all these reasons that I maintain my blog, and will continue to maintain it for more years, no matter what happens, because if you are looking to practice real magic, not only “magic that seems cool to boast”, but you really want Contacting the other side, you want to practice that unusual power you have to see the future, enter the world of dreams, or move between worlds while you sleep, I want you to know and be sure that you are not alone, and that there is another huge group of people like you out there ready to connect with you, and there is a blogger with poor spelling ready to answer each and every one of your emails, publishing books from time to time with some spells, and learning new rituals every day that you die for sharing with you.
And do yourself a favor, when you read a spell or a ritual, and you want to practice it, do it, don't stop doing it, don't let fear or laziness win you, go and do it, you don't know how powerful he is world of sorcery when you give it a real chance beyond what is written in the books.
Elhoim Leafar
