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Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft: Family Coven and The Laws of Magick

Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft: Family Coven and The Laws of Magick

Last updated on: March 6, 2016 at 9:52 pm by Lydia MN Crabtree

Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft: Family Coven and The Laws of Magick 2016-03-06T21:52:47+00:00 Lydia MN Crabtree

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Part of Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft is not just about having Sabbat celebrations or Full Moon celebrations or even the traditional rituals of daily life that are available to Family Covens. Part of Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft is understanding the fundamental laws and paths of magick. I am going to be looking at these laws of magick in relationship to the Family Coven.

To review, a Family Coven is defined as any group or persons who pool their physical resources for the purposes of survival and then share a spiritual and magickal connection that is or is not tied to single religious focus. The focus of Family Coven is specifically around a shared spiritual and magickal connection.

This connection should be spiritual and magickal and not religiously focused. That is to say that Family Coven is more concerned with energy, energetic ties, and energy uses in order to affect physical changes in health, mental wellbeing, emotional stability and physical connectivity.

Because the focus is on the energy and not the religion, you can practice Family Coven with a group of people whose religious leanings vary widely from Christianity to paganism and all the paths paganism can manifest in. The focus is the energy and energetic ties and NOT individual religious beliefs.

The Law of Knowledge is the first law of magic that a Family Coven needs to establish. This law says that the more you know of a thing, the more power and control you have of that thing. Knowledge is power.

In relationship to Family Coven, the Law of Knowledge could be stated, the more you know about the individual parts of a Family Coven, the more power and control that Family Coven has as a magickal working unit.

Establishing Knowing

To know is a powerful mantra of paganism and often used when referring to those who have come to the path for study. However, what is quickly learned in the path of knowing is exactly how much is really unknown. This is common in Family Coven’s. In order to work great magick you must understand the raw potential for magick that resides in your Family Coven.

Have each Family Coven member complete a short survey about each other. What is all the family coveners’ names? What is their favorite foods? What is their favorite color? What is their spiritual understanding? As mother priestess or father priest, ask yourself what is the energetic signature of each of the members of your Family Coven? Do you know?

Psychic Game

Play a psychic game with your family coven. As a group, select one person to close their eyes, then have each person in the family coven go over to the person with their eyes closed and stand behind them sending energy into their back. The person with the closed eyes much guess which person is doing the sending. This game is to strengthen the energetic knowing of each Family Covener to each other.

Daily Practice

To satisfy the Law of Knowledge in Family Coven, you should undertake some daily rituals to promote the energetic knowing of all family coveners.

Start with the Family Light. An oil lamp or other type of candle, is lit when everyone in the Family Coven is present. If you have a child who is only present on weekend, you might have two Family Lights. One is used to represent the Family Coven without the child and another is used to represent the Family Coven with that child.

Have everyone touch the lamp or candle and have a mother priestess or father priest visualize the connectivity of energy between each family covener, the family light, and themselves. Instruct everyone to take five deep, slow breathes in and out to buy some time for the mother priestess or father priest to do this work. Then think of a family chant to say and have a big affection fest where everyone gets love and attention that is positive.

Light this light every day when everyone is present and on weekends to start the day off right.

Long Term

Create a Family Coven Grounding stone to promote a longer term connection. This is another tool that Family Coven’s use to strengthen the energetic knowledge within the Family Coven. Take any stone, the larger the better. My Family Coven is very fortunate to have had an artisan create us a Family Coven Grounding Stone based off of my Family Coven Sigil.

Once you have selected the stone, you and any parenting partners within the family group should gather together during a Full Moon to charge the grounding stone. I found the best way to do this is through sexual magic of the parenting partners. This means you make love and raise energy that at the pentacle of release, you direct the energy into your stone.

Before I raise energy, I am sure to set the intent for the Grounding Stone. I do this by writing down in great detail what I want my grounding stone to do. However, my craft sister, Disa, would likely create a bind rune out of a combination of Nordic Runes because she is a Nordic practitioner. My friend who spends significant time studying the Ogham might create a sigil based upon that magical alphabet. I know high magicians who might create a magical seal that will direct the purpose of the grounding stone. Truly you are limited only by your imagination and a willingness to do some research.

If you are newer to the pagan path, my way of writing down in detail what I want the grounding stone to do is an easy and tried and true method. Let’s walk through how to do this now.

The Grounding Stone is more than a Grounding Stone. Think of it as an energetic machine. Inside the stone is all the bits and parts that are going to carry out the task you are about to set for it.
Now, what do you want this machine to do? The Grounding Stone can be charged to do the following things, as your need requires:
1. Tie every family coveners’ energy to a physical thing. This helps to spiritually and physically tie the persons involved to the stone and in turn allows parenting partners to use that stone as a way to call back lost children or energetically prompt teenagers breaking curfew to come home. It also helps give a magickal tie to all the members in the family coven. Unlike the Family Light, this connection, this tie, never goes off or out. It is meant for long term use and application.
  1. This is and should always be the main function of the Grounding Stone.
  2. Every Family Coven member should be tied to the Grounding Stone.
  3. In addition, tying pets’ energy to the Grounding Stone also keeps the Family Coven from losing them.
Use the Grounding Stone as a failsafe for all magickal working done by the Family Coven.
1. Decide what magickal working will not be released (say magick that might kill someone or something; or damage physical property; or is outside a specific set or moral or ethical guidelines: “And it harm none” or “Only to the greatest and highest good of all concerned”
2. Then charge the Grounding Stone to take all magick done near it and filter out anything that could be harmful, allowing only the magick that is safe into the greater universe.
3. Or, you could charge the stone to filter any magickal workings done by the younger persons in your household say under the age of eighteen or persons who have yet to have a coming of age ritual. This would divert all their workings and only allow safe ones to go out into the universe.
Tie the energy of persons with ADHD and/or especially rambunctious toddlers into the Grounding Stone so that excess energy is daily and consistently being siphoned off and grounded into the earth.
Tie the protection of the physical family covenstead to one location. In this manner the Grounding Stone acts as a battery drawing energy up from the earth to power the family covenstead shields
Charge the Family Coven grounding stone with the job of siphoning off and prohibiting negative and harmful energy including and not limited to:
1. Viruses
2. Bacteria
3. Poisonous animals and insects
4. Food poisoning
5. Negative energy carried by people – like mail carriers or delivery people or neighbors.
6. Negative energy carried in by people if your home is used for public pagan events or if you host a party with people you know only as acquaintances
7. Negative energy carried in by extended family members who may not like you, your parenting partner(s) or the spiritual choices you have made.
I have found it best to pick no more than two of these functions for one Grounding Stone to do. You can always create more grounding stones if you decided to set one up to power the shields, for example and then devote another to tying the energy and magic of the family together. Decide what this grounding stone you are working on will do.
Decide where the Grounding Stone is going to live outside of your home but near the main entrance.Now write down in detail what you want it to do for you and how it will get charged.
1. I charge you Grounding Stone of Oakwood Family Coven to maintain a connection of energetic ties between myself, Oakblossom, my partner, Oakmoss, my other partner, Oakstone and our children, Bud, Stem, Leaf, and Root and our pets, Cher and Sunny. I tie and bind these magickally connected people to this stone, not for the purposes of grounding their energy but for the purposes of connecting them magically, continually. Grounding Stone of Oakwood Family Coven you will be charged by the rays of the sun and by the deep lava flow beneath the ground. You have the mechanisms to draw energy and maintain these connections without harming humans or pets or the Earth because you are tapped in now to the well spring of never ending energy. Further Grounding Stone of Oakwood Family Coven you will siphoned off all negative energy that dares to enter this family covenstead. Virus, Bacteria, poisonous insect or animal, illness, the flue, the common cold, cancer, or negative energy and general bad moods, you Grounding Stone will detect and pull off of those who pass by you before they enter into the family covenstead. Through you Grounding Stone I can find my pets, my children, my partnering parents and my family coven is healthy in mind, body, spirit and heart.
2. To do this same working with runes, you would identify the rune of good health, select a rune for each person, and a rune for energy connection and create a sigil.
3. The same process would be used by any magickal alphabet or sigil use.
4. This process might take some tweaking and could take several times of writing until you have a charge for the Grounding Stone that you like. Every word matters because you can think of these words as actual mechanisms you are creating inside the mechanical workings of your grounding stone.
Once you are clear and have written charge for the Grounding Stone, have every person who is able read the charge to the Grounding Stone, preferably in circle and if not a formal circle then around a meal or dinner table or place in the covenstead the family coven often gathers and the energy of the family coven would be the strongest. This might be where you light the daily family light.
1. For children who cannot read, hold them in your lap and have them repeat after you.
2. For children who cannot speak, hold them in your lap and connect to their energy and then you read the charge to the Grounding Stone for them.
3. For pets, do the same thing as for children who cannot speak.
Once everyone has put their own energy into the spell, take the grounding stone to where ever you are going to charge it with your parenting partners on the Full Moon. The closer to the actual moment of the Full Moon, the better.
Keep the Grounding Stone visible as you work the energy together. Upon orgasm focus all your attention to the Grounding Stone. Try to visualize it coming to life as you have specifically described. See the little mechanisms springing into being inside the stone, ready and programmed to do the work you have already decided it will do.
Now take the Grounding Stone Charge that everyone read from and burn it until it is ash.
Take the ash and rub the stone with it getting into groves and crevices. Children will love to take part in this messy part of the Grounding Stone creation.
Once you are satisfied that the Grounding Stone is charged, and has been properly programmed, put it outside in the place you have already chosen for it.
Take the Grounding Stone Charge and place a copy of it in the Family Coven Book of Shadows for future generations to use.

Maintenance of the Grounding Stone

The Grounding Stone should be cleansed and reset once per year at Imbolc (February of each year). This is the time of year to do maintenance of all types related to the covenstead. You can wash your stone with blessed moon water or a water and essential oil concoction of your own making. You can sage the stone. You can use bells or chimes to clear the stone. Whatever you do, visualize the inner mechanism of your stone being cleaned and oiled and in excellent working order. Then print and burn another copy of the Grounding Stone Charge and smear the ash all over the Grounding Stone again. This reminds the Grounding Stone exactly what it’s programming should be.

These are just some of the activities and tools that can be used to create knowledge within a Family Coven. What type of activities do you utilize to promote knowledge within your Family Coven?

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