How many times have you seen a website or read a book full of useful spells for abundance, money, love, lust, new job, new car, new cat? A year ago, in the midst of a very hectic teaching term, and just after running a short course in Practical Magick: the basics of witchcraft, I thought: "Gee, wonder what it's like to be bored". From there, it was only natural to write a spell to summon boredom. The spells came thick and fast, and several have been published in Circle Magazine in the States. Here, for your enjoyment, but certainly not for your enactment, is some of Katrananda's Guide to Useless Magick.

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PROTECTION AGAINST ‘BIG BROTHER’

Are you afraid you’ll appear on ‘Big Brother’ or any other reality tv show?
Does it seem as though the world is heading in the direction of mandatory appearances on these shows?
This spell will deal with your fear of exposure(lack of singing talent; that you in fact are 98% fat, 2% jaw muscles; nudity; being shown up to be the big, bleached-hair bogan you really are) and also protect you against being ‘talent spotted’. If necessary, it will prevent you auditioning.

Anti-Big Brother Bath Salts

One packet sea salt crystals
One clear glass container with screwtop lid
Blue food dye (for tranquility against fear)
Oil of fake tan – 3 drops
Oil of handcuff lubricant – 2 drops (to represent entrapment, and the pervy goings-on of ‘Big Brother – Uncut’)
1/8 teaspoon dust off the tv remote control (your power over reality tv)
Linseed oil (old fashioned lubricant for wooden baseball bats, to represent protection of all sorts) – 3 drops
Tulip essential oil – 3 drops (to represent the hope you’ll be in Holland when ‘Big Brother’ comes calling)

Mix together in a crystal bowl (crystal represents the state of your nerves), and then pour into glass container and seal. Label well, so no one uses the salt on their fish and chips.
Every time a reality tv show comes on, go and have a bath instead, using your new magickal bath salts.

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HONOURING THE WEST:

Stand silent, facing the West. Earth walk: look down at your feet and walk in a westerly direction, allowing your feet to guide you. Apologies to West Coasters, who will find this a wet experience.
Walk until you come to a bar. Enter, and climb aboard the mechanical bull. As it bucks you in all four directions, and up and down, stay centered, and consider this your casting of Circle. When the bull stops, Circle is cast and you are in a perfect state to perform magick.
Call upon the deities of the West: Sitting Bull, Daniel Boone, John Wayne, and the Lone Ranger. Ask that they inhabit your Circle and bring with them the power of their six shooters, and in the case of Boone, the sacred power of his hat. You may hear the distant sound of gunfire and galloping horses, or smell Boone’s raccoon skin hat(phew!). You may be overcome by the urge to shoot someone. Try to resist.
It is now time to draw down (energy, not guns): you are going to summon the presence of Calamity Jane, to imbue you with Herself.
Recite: “Jane of the Calamity
come to me.
Sister of Doris,
make my day.”
You will know when Calamity Jane is with you. Your eye-hand coordination will improve, and you will wish to break Circle and head for the bar. Try to resist.
Speak with Calamity Jane. Ask her for a healthy lifestyle, joyous family, sobriety. Try to ignore the bar.
When you feel you have communed with the West sufficiently, make a pistol gesture with left thumb and forefinger, point to the sky and shout: “Calamity Jane, I thank you for all your blessings. Now, on your horse, hi ho, and away! Yee-hah!”
With Calamity Jane departed, you are now free to dismiss the other deities by the same method. Finish by holstering your ‘pistol’. Try to resist mock-shooting yourself in the leg.
Close Circle by getting off the bull and saying: “I think I need a chiropractor.”
Limp to the bar for cakes and ale.

© H.Patrice 2006.

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TIGER DIVINATION

It is best to use tiger divination in a public setting, and not recommended for your own personal use, or enclosed spaces. This is expansive magick.
First, collect a cage of tigers. The number of tigers will depend on your personal resonance to the power numbers: 3, 7, 11 or 22. It is best to consult a numerologist to discover your own power numbers, and a zoologist to see how many tigers can be spared from the zoo, circus or national park.
Set up your divination table somewhere like a festival or market. You may wish to add tiger’s eye crystals to your table to open your third eye. Small statues of tigers, and a glamourous stripey cloth will add to the impact and sense of occasion. After all, it not every day that someone offers tiger divination.
Allow the client to come to you and make themselves comfortable at the table. Get the client to their question in a way that does not require a yes or no answer.
Eg: “How can I best do away with my husband without being caught?” rather than “Should I leave my husband?”
Release the tigers from their cage and observe carefully the pattern they form as they attack the client or head for the exits.

Clover leaf: luck is yours.
Tight ball of tigers: this is a knotty problem, ask further.
Straight line: the way is clear.
No tiger leaves the cage: depression, apathy.
Star pattern: a great fortune is about to be visited upon you.
Pentacle: you have magickal powers that animals can sense.
All tigers eat client: this is not a good time for you.

After the reading, regroup your tigers and wait for another client.
You will find Tiger Divination a unique and exciting talent.

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© H.Patrice 2006

SPELL FOR MORE TELEMARKETERS

Materials: home telephone; five large green candles

Dress your altar – line the altar with pages torn from the Yellow and White Pages, and place the five green candles before a photo of the Telecommunications Ombudsman.
Incense: one part sandalwood, one part frankincense, three parts mobile phone chips, one part telephone notepad

This spell is to be used when you find you are the only one of your friends and family who do not receive telemarketing phone calls at 5pm.

You will need to arrange with a friend to telephone you throughout the spell at five minute intervals.

1. Answer the ringing telephone, and use the words “Sorry, I’m in the middle of dinner”.
2. Settle yourself before your altar and call upon the names of Gods and Goddesses who have proved to be nuisances. Eg: Zeus appearing in various forms to innocent young maids; Krishna and his flute playing; Aphrodite participating in beauty contests and wars; Bast shedding on the furniture. Be really insistent. Don’t take no for an answer. If they don’t respond, keep invoking until you clearly hear the words ‘bugger off’.
3. Answer your telephone and use the words “Sorry, I’m washing my hair.”
4. Light the five green candles as representatives of abundance and the growth of telemarketers in your life.
5. Answer your telephone and use the words “Please, I’m an old man and it’s hard for me to get the phone.”
6. Say the following words: “Oh, gods of communication, I call upon thee in my hour of need. I am unloved and unnoticed. I receive no telephone calls from pests. No one tries to sell me roof tiling. There are no calls from India from people pretending to be Australian. I am calling on you, repeatedly and I have the following offer for you: if you grant my wish, you can save yourself twenty five miracles a month. Just by granting this one wish, off-peak, you will be able to call for half-price during Samhain and Beltane. And also, gods of communication, you will get a free set of steak knives.”
7. Answer your phone with the words: “I can’t hear you, my hearing dog alerted me to the phone ringing. Is that you, Mum?”
8. Smudge the telephone with your incense, all the while invoking gods and goddesses in alphabetical, telephone book order.
9. Answer your phone. If it is your friend, hang up. If it is a telemarkter, rejoice, for your spell has worked. Say: “Go away” and hang up.
10. Allow the candles to burn down, and set fire to the picture of the Telecommunications Ombudsman. Stamp out the fire with the telephone book. Your spell is done.

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© H.Patrice 2007

A DREAM PILLOW– Good Health For Your Belly Button

Central to the core of the self is the belly button. Symbolising our link to our birth mother and Mother Earth(all that dust and dirt that gets in there). It reminds us that we came from the union of male and female. It is a personal, private part of the body. Just try asking someone if you can see their belly button. It is a dark cave of mystery.
Hence, viewed in this way, it becomes evident and essential to keep the belly button healthy.
On a physical, practical level, cleaning it out and scenting it with rose or neroli water is a good way to keep the belly button healthy, and to honour The Mother connection.
The belly button bears great weight. In western society it is dictated that it be pert, and an ‘innie’. Many are pierced, despite this practice being frowned upon by Chinese medicine. Fashion has demanded that the belly button hold a multitude of fat and intestines in place. If the belly button becomes unbuttoned, there is the risk we could unravel, or peel apart like an over-ripe mango.
The belly button is under constant stress to be healthy and functioning at the highest level. Thus, a time of relaxation is important to distress the navel.
A dream pillow, infused with magick, will aid peak health for the belly button, allowing it restful sleep.

Take a square of flannelette(satin is too cold for the sensitive belly button area to tolerate), and fold it in half. Sew up two of the sides, leaving one side open. To be truly traditional, a bone needle and twine made from animal gut can be used. Urban, post-modernist witches can use a sewing machine. Or purchase online at www.bellybuttonhealth.katranandagetsrich.com.
Fill the dream pillow with the following: dried lavender flowers; hops, dried snowdrop petals(the flowers nod over in a sleepy fashion); cat fur(cats sleep 18 hours a day); lawn clippings(sympathetic magick relating to lazy Sunday afternoons when your dad worked in the garden and you made a nuisance of yourself); dust blown from a suitably sleep-inducing book; plenty of belly button lint. This latter operates on the Law of Contagion in that your belly button fluff, which has been in contact with the belly button, will mingle with the sleep-inducing elements.
Sew up the open flap of the dream pillow, or hire someone to do it for you. Attach two ribbons to it to form a belt.
Of an evening, tie the dream pillow around your middle so that the pillow covers the belly button. Your partner will appreciate this look, as it is giving your navel restful sleep. Your partner should praise how you look wearing your dream pillow, especially when worn under a negligee, or if sleeping naked. You may even find your partner aroused by this sight, so overcome is s/he by the self-care you are displaying.
Belly button dream pillows make wonderful gifts for the whole family, and young brides-to-be will particularly appreciate the gift of one.
Not to be used during, pregnancy or worn by belly dancers.