Happy Samhain! Today is warm and sunny even for October. I was dressed very witchy today from my witch hat to the witchy dress to my laced up boots. I got a lot of stares and compliments. Ah let’ em. I think it’s great that the weather is cooperating. Children have their warm wonderful hearts set on trick or treating. I bet they are all driving their addled parents crazy, eager to march out on the streets, engaging in a old, old tradition of scouting for candy. I have a bowl of candy ready for the kiddies!
I strained the hawthorn cordial. I didn’t really get as much as I would have liked. That’s ok. I performed one more bonfire last night. The air was chilly but that didn’t stop me from enjoying seeing the dancing flames from the burning hag tapers. The fire warmed me. Today I shared some of the frosted chocolate cake with my Mom. I offered a slice for my brother too. I tossed in some lollipops for them as well. It felt good to share that with them.
I can’t wait to try the hawthorn cordial. Tonight I am cooking a Shepherd’s Pie for the ancestral supper. I am so craving this meal. I have never cooked it before. It should be good! Afterwards, I plan to perform a ritual.
Whatever fun you plan to have, whether you are bobbing for apples, enjoying pumpkin pie or trick or treating, keep your pets inside and eat lots and lots of candy! Remember, the spirits are out and about tonight. Be sure to light a candle at the window to help lost spirits find their way.
I shall soon be busy preparing for Samhain, especially the Ancestral Supper. One popular theme about the Ancestral supper is that everything has to be black. Ok no problem, I love the colour black. I already have a black spider tablecloth on the kitchen table. I have a black spider web table runner I can use. Black spiderweb placemats and Halloween plates will go. I may stock up on a couple of wine glasses. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not spending a fortune here. Far from it. I visit the dollar stores in October. If you are savvy enough and have an eye for the good quality items, you can find some nice Halloween dishes and decorations.
I enjoy rum with coke, the spicy rum is most preferred. Mulled cider of course, one of my most favourite Samhain traditions of all is cider. I love to add a sprinkle of cinnamon, mugwort, rose petals, oranges, apples and nutmeg to the cauldron pot. A dash of red wine and we are all set. By the 31st, I can finally strain the hawthorn cordial. Oh I can’t wait. I still have some pumpkin bread, I baked two loaves of rosemary bread, and I might make herbed butter too. Roasted pumpkin seeds and roasted hazelnuts oh my gosh, what a treat. Truly.
I plan to light a lot of candles. Candles lend a beautiful ambience to a dinner table. It can be a good idea to decide ahead of time about what music to play and enjoy while eating. Since the theme is an ancestral supper, the music can be that which our ancestors enjoyed. I love listening to Viking music on YouTube. Celtic music is a good choice. I am both Celtic and Scandinavian, and Irish and French Acadian. I grew up listening to good quality fiddle music. I sure have a lot to choose from! I may listen to Loreena Mckennitt and the Viking music on YouTube. This will be a special occasion now!
I plan to wear a black gown with a bodice to lace up. I want to wear my black mourning veil and a circlet. A shawl and a lovely witch hat tops it off.
I want to decorate the back yard too. My garden is my outdoor altar. Tons of fiery leaves cover the garden, mulching and sheltering the garden from the frosty cold. I might do the outdoor bonfire ritual if the weather cooperates. The rain has scared me. I hope it doesn’t rain on October 31. Nope, no rain now. I might hang the creepy snake and spider stew wreath over the door. Glowing pumpkins topped with eerie spiders add a spooky touch. A large cauldron spewing smoke next to a skull is creepy too.
I usually honor my late grandfather and my pets. I am not attending the Samhain ritual on the Commons. This will be a solitary Samhain. I choose to celebrate alone than be forced to deal with the crowd’s toxic bullshit. I am not truly alone. Spirit is with me. My bossy cat too – who probably sees lots of spirits in this apartment but doesn’t react to them. As long as her food bowl and litter box are taken care of by yours truly, she doesn’t care. Solitary is the way to go.
I am all set. My cat Penny shall supervise all activities of course. She’ll get a catnip treat.! (I get the trick lol). I would love to hear what you all have planned for your festivities! Do tell. Leave a comment below.
The early frost hit Halifax. I laid a frost blanket over my beans last night. This morning, I saw my breath. I stored the summer dresses in the drawer and pulled out the winter woollies. It is that time. It is our time. The Witch season has arrived. Pumpkins fill the shelves at the supermarket to adorn front porches. The leaves turn and that magical feeling/ chill is in the air. Toss your Witch hats!!! Enjoy the link to an awesome witchy song!!
The image above is a photo of my scrying mirror. Cool isn’t it?
I harvested my tomatoes, forty one in total. The tomatoes are ripening near a windowsill. I harvested the catnip. I put the plant and roots in the soil. I don’t see why I should buy a new catnip every year. The cats can’t tear it up because I set a cloche around the plant. Now the plant is sheltered from the cold while it adjusts. Later, I will lift the cloche and mulch. The plant will grow again next year. I will put it up and hang it in the planter next summer for Penny.
I read Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s book about mirror scrying. I own a scrying mirror. I am eager to begin mirror scrying. Here is an article that tells you about an ancient method of divination that is changing the way people view the world and -the dead.
The Psychomanteum: How an Ancient Tool for Contacting the Dead is Making Breakthroughs in Paranormal Investigation
On the latest episode of Travel Channel’s Kindred Spirits, Amy Bruni & Adam Berry investigate a mysterious haunted mirror in Gettysburg’s famed Farnsworth House. With help from haunted object experts Greg & Dana Newkirk, the paranormal investigators use the object to construct an ancient device meant to contact the dead: the psychomanteum.
Whether using tarot during investigations, performing classic seances, or making use of the Estes Method, sometimes its the most unique tools which provide the most intriguing responses. On Thursday’s episode of Kindred Spirits, Greg & Dana Newkirk, curators of the Traveling Museum of of the Paranormal & Occult, are drawn to construct a psychomanteum, a method of summoning the dead which has been all-but-forgotten by today’s paranormal investigators. But what exactly is a psychomanteum, and how does it work?
The Nekromenteion in Epiros, Greece | via Shutterstock
Stemming from the Greek “nekromanteion”, which translates to “oracle of the dead”, the psychomanteum was such a popular method of spirit contact that they’re made reference to in the epic Homer’s Odyssey, where Odysseus speaks with his dead mother by gazing into a pit of blood. It wasn’t until the 1950s that archaeologists actually excavated one of the devices in Epiros, officially pulling the psychomanteum out of legend and into reality.
While crystal balls, mirror scrying, and other forms of chiromancy remained popular throughout the years, it wasn’t until 1993 when Dr. Raymond Moody, a researcher of near death experiences, published the book Reunions: Visionary Encounters With Departed Loved Ones and brought the psychomanteum back to life. In his book, Moody recounts how he took inspiration from Greek nekromanteions and other shamanic mirror-gazing traditions from around the world, constructing his own psychomanteum, and documenting some three-hundred individuals’ experiences with the method.
In a room blocked of all sunlight, Moody placed a chair in front of a large mirror hung on a wall which was tilted forward at a 45 degree angle, so as to obscure the gazer’s own reflection. Behind the chair was placed a low wattage lamp, meant to replicate the soft glow of a single candle. Before seating themselves in the psychomanteum, subjects were asked to focus on a loved one who had since passed. Then, the gazing session would begin. The results were astounding.
Out of the subjects, a quarter of them stated that they had made contact with the dead, seeing and even speaking with their loved ones in the mirror’s reflection. About ten percent of these subjects even said the spirits actually came out of the mirrors and touched them. In nearly a quarter of the cases, the contact with the dead didn’t occur immediately, but within 24 hours of the psychomanteum session. Even more startling, nearly every single subject strongly stated that their reunions were not fantasies or dreams, but insisted they were real events with elements of physicality.
Dr. Raymond Moody wrote that the sessions with his modern day psychomanteum weren’t just an effective method of contact with the dead, they quite literally changed the lives of the users, healing wounded relationships with the deceased and reshaping the way they saw the world.
With such a powerful tool so easy to create, why aren’t more paranormal investigators using the psychomanteum? Mostly because they don’t know the method even exists. Like many traditional methods of spirit communication, they’ve been forgotten, replaced with fancy gadgets as seen on television, or branded as “dangerous occult practices”. For this reason, The Traveling Museum of the Paranormal & Occult has spent the last several years roaming the country with a portable psychomanteum, swapping a quiet room for headphones and white noise, and educating the public on the history and practice of therapeutic mirror gazing. On the the third season three episode of Travel Channel’s Kindred Spirits, that lesson will be shared with an even wider audience.
Of course, things are bound to get even stranger when you build your psychomanteum out of a gigantic haunted mirror in one of the most paranormally-active locations in the world.
The psychomanteum as seen in Travel Channel’s Kindred Spirits | via Greg Newkirk
“When Amy Bruni and Adam Berry phoned us a few months ago and asked us to get our butts to Pennsylvania, we were actually on the road to the Appalachian Mountains for Operation: Return the Crone,” Greg says. “Fortunately, a pit stop in Gettysburg was right along the way. When we arrived, they told us that they were dealing with a very old, and potentially very haunted mirror that the owners claimed could have been the source of the aggressive paranormal activity in their building. We already knew it was going to be a unique case, but we didn’t realize how strange it was about to get.”
With only a few days left to shoot the case, Amy & Adam were looking for a way to investigate the mirror that would yield the best results. The team immediately got to work building what might be the largest modern psychomanteum ever.
Haunted object expert Greg Newkirk peers into the haunted mirror | via Greg Newkirk
In the episode, the group heads to the basement, which the owners had styled to represent a traditional Civil War era funeral, and gingerly began to tilt the massive mirror to a 45-degree angle. Once it was safe and secure, Greg placed a bowl of water beneath the mirror – a step that Dr. Raymond Moody had left out of his modern psychomanteum (the Greeks would often gaze into the water’s reflection in the place where the mirror made contact with the water). Once everything was secure, he lit a single candle behind the designated gazing seat, and hit the lights.
Adding one more twist to contraption, it was decided that both Dana and Amy would use the psychomanteum at the same time. Not only was it big enough, but having two gazers would help confirm or negate the visions presented in the mirror as merely hallucinations… or something more.
Amy Bruni & Dana Matthews gaze into the psychomanteum | via Greg Newkirk
We won’t spoil the episode for you, except to say you’ll be shocked at the outcome.
This rainy morning I was in my garden and I decided to harvest the tiny carrots. I fed the carrots to my pet guinea pig/ animal familiar Magic. He devoured them in seconds. I knew he would because the carrots were organic. He squeaked for more but that was all I could offer him. I put the soil from the pot on to my garden. The soil is full of nutrients for the garden. I trust Magic enjoyed his free organic breakfast of carrots and carrot tops. I harvested a pea and shallots. The single tomato was in too bad form to keep so I left it to compost in the garden.
Tonight is the Blood Moon of October. The Blood Moon is powerful. Tonight there will be a lunar eclipse. The moon is at 25 degrees Aries. The Blood Moon is also known as the Shedding Moon or Falling Leaf Moon.
The colours that correspond with the Blood Moon are dark blues, black and purples. The gemstones that also correspond are obsidian, amethyst, and tourmaline. Apples and yew trees correspond and apple blossoms, pennyroyal, mint, catnip, and sweet annie. Herne, Apollo, Cernunnos, an Mercury are right for the Full Moon. The Elements of Air and Water correspond with the Blood Moon. You can invoke these elements or decorate your altar tonight with these herbs and gemstones.
Tonight would be the perfect time for divination. It is close to Samhain. Consider contacting your ancestors or a deity. If you read Witches Book of the Dead or Nocturnal Witchcraft, you can get some great ideas on how to set up an altar and contact spirits in a fun and still safe way.
May the Goddess bless you with a magical Blood Moon
Please do not steal or copy from this blog. If you do, be prepared to be stomped on by the Fates and karma for your bad character. I can be reached at :
heddyjohannesen @ gmail.com
The Nekromenteion in Epiros, Greece | via Shutterstock
The psychomanteum as seen in Travel Channel’s Kindred Spirits | via Greg Newkirk
Haunted object expert Greg Newkirk peers into the haunted mirror | via Greg Newkirk
Amy Bruni & Dana Matthews gaze into the psychomanteum | via Greg Newkirk
