Secular Witchcraft & DIY Witchery

Greetings and Welcome to DIY Witchery!

I’m Alex Wrekk (they/she) I am an agnostic secular witch and have built my personal witchcraft practice over 15+ years. I am the owner of Portland Button Works and the Spiral House Shop I am an organizer for CritWitchCon, librarian at the Archive of Witchcraft, Magic, and Occult Zines (AWMOZ), I’m 45 year old punk,vegan, anarchist, feminist, and zinester (itt means I make zines). I identify as white, bisexual, and a relatively cis woman. I love DIY projects, building altars, making charms, collecting jars, filling my pockets with acorns, zines, travel, befriending crows with peanuts, my Jackie Cat, Ian B, my house and home and things I grow in my garden while living in my 120+ year old house in Portland, Oregon.

I have built my own practice and I do not discuss particulars about it very often. I call it DIY Witchery because it is built on my personal DIY punk ethics and methodologies. It takes a hands on and trial and error approach to witchcraft. ie: fuck around and find out magic.

I don’t cast spells so much a build them and then release them. From the outside it probably looks like cottage witchery set loose in a punk house of a philosophy student drop out. In reality, I probably draw a lot on folk magic, traditional witchcraft, and a twist of chaos magic for the fun of it.

I got tired of this being so long so I’m putting a “cut” here.

Keep reading

friend-crow asked:

Alex Alex Alex!!! Do you have an idea of when you might get that Green Mysteries herbarium (if that's still something you might carry)? I have a powerful need but I'd prefer to buy it from you.

upthewitchypunx answered:

I haven’t decided if I’m going to carry it. They retail for $90! I think they would sell, but buying multiple copies is a bit of risk. Let’s talk on Sunday and we can work something out.

friend-crow:

Originally posted by akron-squirrel
I am sadly adding this to the list of things I shouldn’t buy until I know what my surgery is gonna cost…

Ya, looking at E’s copy was gorgeous! And they were talking about getting the fancy hard cover version and I don’t event want to think about how expensive that one is!

friend-crow asked:

Alex Alex Alex!!! Do you have an idea of when you might get that Green Mysteries herbarium (if that's still something you might carry)? I have a powerful need but I'd prefer to buy it from you.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to carry it. They retail for $90! I think they would sell, but buying multiple copies is a bit of risk. Let’s talk on Sunday and we can work something out.

anarcho-occultism:

Everyone into occultism has one of these (or more than one)

an-anarchist-shapeshifter asked:

How do cards gain meaning in an occult sense? Like, both tarot and french-suited playing cards started as game pieces, but they have gained an understood meaning. Is it just someone whips up an organized table of connected ideas or is each card interpreted from a certain framework?

cryptotheism answered:

Oh good question!

Many things that we now consider staples of western magic are ideas that have been added to over generations by several layers of thinkers. Tarot Divination specifically is an excellent example of this!

In 1770, A french printmaker and occultist going by Etteilla published a book about how to do cartomancy with a 32-card Piquet deck. He writes down some simple but strict associations for the cards, and makes what is probably the first mention of reversals in carotmancy. He said that he learned the system “from an Italian.” Now, its unclear how much of the system is his own invention, people have been doing cartomancy for as long as there’s been cards, but the text presents a larval, bare-bones version of the cartomancy methods we know and love today.

Its 1780-ish. The Rosetta stone hasn’t been discovered yet. Occult-inclined Europeans are obsessed with Egypt. That’s where our boy Trismegistus is from! There’s a concept in Egyptian mythology called The Book of Thoth, a mythical book of spells penned by the God of Knowledge himself. This was the Holy Grail for European Occult Egpytaboos.

In 1781, Antoine Court de Gébelin claimed that Tarot cards were the “original book of Thoth,” Saying that Tarot cards had been used by ancient Egyptian priests for their own magical ceremonies, and that their designs contained ancient mystical secrets. This is 100% not true, but he writes a pretty fun pseudohistory for Tarot that involves Romani people bringing the decks to Europe through the Levant where they then taught its esoteric secrets to several Popes.

Then in 1783, Ettellia responded with another book. Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées tarots (“Way to recreate yourself with the deck of cards called tarots”) Where Ettellia basically claims “uhm actually I knew about tarot divination way before Court de Gebelin published that big ass book. But anyway here’s an interpretation of Tarot symbology that includes multiple references to Egyptian, Zoroastrian, and Greek mythology.” But the smartest thing he did was include spread methods that involved Thoth and Numerology. Napoleonic Occultists fucking loved Thoth and numerology.

In 1788, he formed a little magical society for the express purpose of discussing and workshopping ideas for Tarot divination. In 1789, he made a TRULY smart decision, and published a Tarot deck that was Specifically For Magic, and that basically cemented Tarots place in magical history.

Occultists just kept iterating! Someone would speculate “maybe the suits correspond to the elements” and people went “yeah, they correspond to the elements! That makes this tool even more fun and interesting to use!” Then people go “What if the suits and the elements also correspond to parts of the Self?” and people went “Sure they do! That makes this tool even more interesting!”

But its also not just one thread. Eventually you get the Golden Dawn saying “The Major Arcana correspond to the nodes and paths on our version of the Quabbalistic Sefirot, you know, the hermetic version with a Q.” and some occultists responded “Idk about that! Love what you’ve done with the color symbology though!”

The development of magical ideas is an iterative process. It is people whipping up a table of correspondences, but that table needs a mythology to keep it together. Originally, the mythology that gave tarot “power” was its Egyptian pseudohistory, but these days its the fact that occultists have been iterating on and fine-tuning this system for hundreds of years.

Humans don’t think in tables of information, they think in stories. The cool thing about stories is that they’re flexible. If magic is anything, its learning how to engineer stories to make the tables of information more effective.

I’m gonna plug my patreon where I post all of my occult research if you wanna see more stuff like this

publishinggoblin:

Y'all are in for such a treat when CT gets this research finalized into a tome. It’s amazing that we have a researcher on these topics at our finger tips here on tumblr!

daloy-politsey:

Henry Kissinger will turn 100 in three days unless something really great happens.
Likes charge. Reblogs cast.

spiralhouseshop:

Hey! It’s our 11th birthday!
@portlandbuttonworks opened as a little storefront on N Killingworth on May 20, 2023 combining my custom pin-back buttons business with a zine distro and our ever growing catalog of pre-made button designs!
In 2016 we moved into a shared warehouse on Bryant and just as we updated our website and moved into a larger browsable shop space, the pandemic hit and we moved back into our North Portland home.
From there we shifted our focus more to zines and books and other catalog orders until the world was able to gather again and needed our custom button services. Last year we renamed the catalog as The Spiral House @spiralhouseshop
While we are unsure of our next move, we are currently pressing buttons and shipping orders from our North Portland home as well as attending zine events and vending at local events.
For this special occasion we are offering 11% off for our 11 years of business. Use coupon code: BIRTHDAY11 on our website for custom or catalog items for shipped or picked up items!
Portland Button Works & The Spiral House Shop
Create personalized custom pins & buttons, pre-made buttons, zines, books, comics, & more, including a curated selection of witchcraft & mag
Portland Button Works & The Spiral House Shop

upthewitchypunx:

I’ve had a few questions about the rooms in our house, so for those of you actually interested in the rooms, here’s some info …

Keep reading

My family seemed dismayed that our new vehicle doesn’t have a name yet. They are all Christians and might not even know what animism is, but they keep saying things like “ *car* told me their name right when I looked at them.”

It’s pretty cute.

Our new vehicle previously belonged to a person who was not well mentally or physically and the car didn’t seem to know cars cold have names. I had a distinct feelings of giggles when we vacuumed it and took it through the car wash. It seems happier and proud that it is cleaned and cared for. Hopefully a name will come soon.

spiralhouseshop:

Hey! It’s our 11th birthday!
@portlandbuttonworks opened as a little storefront on N Killingworth on May 20, 2023 combining my custom pin-back buttons business with a zine distro and our ever growing catalog of pre-made button designs!
In 2016 we moved into a shared warehouse on Bryant and just as we updated our website and moved into a larger browsable shop space, the pandemic hit and we moved back into our North Portland home.
From there we shifted our focus more to zines and books and other catalog orders until the world was able to gather again and needed our custom button services. Last year we renamed the catalog as The Spiral House @spiralhouseshop
While we are unsure of our next move, we are currently pressing buttons and shipping orders from our North Portland home as well as attending zine events and vending at local events.
For this special occasion we are offering 11% off for our 11 years of business. Use coupon code: BIRTHDAY11 on our website for custom or catalog items for shipped or picked up items!
Portland Button Works & The Spiral House Shop
Create personalized custom pins & buttons, pre-made buttons, zines, books, comics, & more, including a curated selection of witchcraft & mag
Portland Button Works & The Spiral House Shop

♊ Happy Gemini Season! ♊

gothiccharmschool:

You! Are you in the PNW (or want to make a trip)? Do you want to attend a super wonderful fancy event next Saturday? You want to go to the Vampire Masquerade Ball!
Pretty people! Wonderful performers! An amazing vendor room! And oh, y'know, I’m the emcee.

curiosa-hypnotica:

Reblog if you believe trans rights are human rights.

spiralhouseshop:

Hey! It’s our 11th birthday!
@portlandbuttonworks opened as a little storefront on N Killingworth on May 20, 2023 combining my custom pin-back buttons business with a zine distro and our ever growing catalog of pre-made button designs!
In 2016 we moved into a shared warehouse on Bryant and just as we updated our website and moved into a larger browsable shop space, the pandemic hit and we moved back into our North Portland home.
From there we shifted our focus more to zines and books and other catalog orders until the world was able to gather again and needed our custom button services. Last year we renamed the catalog as The Spiral House @spiralhouseshop
While we are unsure of our next move, we are currently pressing buttons and shipping orders from our North Portland home as well as attending zine events and vending at local events.
For this special occasion we are offering 11% off for our 11 years of business. Use coupon code: BIRTHDAY11 on our website for custom or catalog items for shipped or picked up items!
Portland Button Works & The Spiral House Shop
Create personalized custom pins & buttons, pre-made buttons, zines, books, comics, & more, including a curated selection of witchcraft & mag
Portland Button Works & The Spiral House Shop

spiralhouseshop:

spiralhouseshop:
Portland Button Works and The Spiral House Shop are excited to be sponsoring this super fun Joey Ramone Birthday Bash on May 19th, 2023 in Portland, Oregon!
There will be cake! There will be a Piñata! There will be Rock n Roll! And it will benefit lymphoma research!
Celebrate Joey’s birthday at the NEW Twilight Cafe location (832 SE Grand) with the first three Rmones albums played in chronological order!!
Monty Vega and the Sittin’ Shivas
Lobotomen ( perform ROCKET TO RUSSIA )
The Beat-On Brats ( perform LEAVE HOME )
The Fauxs ( perform RAMONES )
This tonight! The venue has changed to Swan Dive one block north!

The Beast aka Ol’ Red the 1995 Ford Explorer that we bought for $1 five years ago has been sold to someone for $1 who is a friend of a friend who seems like they will love it and fix and that’s all you can ask for a vehicle of that vintage.

with The Beast leaving our curb, Jackie Cat leaving the planet, and Heathen B leaving the whole country it’s a whole new era at The Spiral House.

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Greetings and Welcome to DIY Witchery!

Hey! It’s our 11th birthday!

Hey! It’s our 11th birthday!

♊ Happy Gemini Season! ♊

Reblog if you believe trans rights are human rights.

Hey! It’s our 11th birthday!

Portland Button Works and The Spiral House Shop are excited to be sponsoring this super fun Joey Ramone Birthday Bash on May 19th, 2023 in Portland, Oregon!

Monty Vega and the Sittin’ Shivas

Lobotomen ( perform ROCKET TO RUSSIA )

The Beat-On Brats ( perform LEAVE HOME )

The Fauxs ( perform RAMONES )