What you are saying may well be true, Lark. But it's not what I said! Many, many times, in England when witchcraft was classed as heresy, quite a lot of women were condemned as witches simply because they owned some animal or other that was "claimed" to be a "familiar".Usually old women, who lived alone, and perhaps were unpopular in the village. Or were just a bit "strange". It was all nonsense, of course, but many women were Tried for heresy because they kept a pet animal.
the main problem of old days is religion, thats why those "some" people being a short thinker and claim that every women that have a pet (toad, cat, owl, etc) is a witches.
But, modern day's main problem is politics, and people become more opened about their faith system.
about familiars, it could be an animals or spirits, depends what you like, if you like animals, give your blood on their food (only once) it means "to be ONE" and connecting your will to it.
if you want spirits, hmm.. its hard to tell you openly. BUT, the point is, you put a piece of your soul and bind it into something (jewels?) its up to you.
thats how they'll be assistant for our magick, and understand our will.
Brysing, you are absolutely correct from the historical standpoint. Older women often kept pets of some sort to keep from being lonely. And they might well have talked to them since they had no one else to talk to. This of course led to charges of witchcraft as of course one just knew that you couldn't talk to an animal and be understood! It was one more way in which the unscrupulous or superstitious could bring charges against someone whose property they covetted or who they just didn't like.
Somehow this has been taken up in modern books as a misunderstanding that these pets were familiars. So we have a lot of misinformation floating about in books on the Craft where we are being taught that physical animals are familiars, when in fact they are basing their assumptions on the Christian viewpoints about witchcraft during the witchcraft trials.
On the other hand, within Ceremonial Magic, there were workings to create "familiars" which are in fact not physical beings at all. They are more like a "servitor" or a "fetch". And so the confusion continues with the truth being overlaid by Medieval superstition.
I didnt. My friend cast the spell on me while i was sleeping. I flew 30 miles in my dream and saw through the eys of a hawk, that landed on their windowsill and i could see in and see them sitting there listenimg to the stereo with headphones. I lived in tangent and them in sweethome, out by yellowbottom and greenpeter, brownsville, waterloo, lebanon and peoria in oregon. I had never even been there at that point. Then the phone rang. It was them. 2:30 a.m. Telling me how to make no bake fudge. I told them what happened and they said they knew. Lol. Guess they wanted to do something nice for me as i had shown them kindness.
