Is it true that if a Witch own pets, his/her magick is stronger? I've never read anywhere that this is so, but I've heard from an RL coven member that her magick became stronger when she adopted a dog.
So is it true, And if it is, does the amount of pets affect it as well?
well i don't really believe that you get stronger when you get a pet but i do believe in familiars and that they can help you in the craft. Maybe this person you are talking about just found her familiar and it has been helping her.
Does getting a standard pet aid in stronger magick? Nope. You can own a million pets and it can do absolutely nothing. Now it is common for a witch to end up with a familiar. A familiar can take the shape of a regular pet or a spiritual being. This type of pet generally has a strong connection with the witch that you don't get from a regular pet. It would not be uncommon for a familiar to aid in a ritual working or during meditation. My cat Luna falls under this. She will sit in my lap as I meditate, snuggle beside me to scare away nightmares, sit beside my altar when I do workings, appears like she is reading my bos when I work on it and etc. However, a witch can't just go out and force a bond like this. It just happens on accident. Therefore, you can't go to the pet store with the idea of buying a familiar.
A "familiar" was a so-called "identification" of a witch during the old witch hunt days by the Catholic Church.( Not the real Church,just the fanatics!) That lonely old woman who lives alone on the edge of the village, must be a witch! She has a cat that follows her everywhere! Or a dog, or even worse, a pet owl!
Over the centuries people have come to really believe in the witch's "familiar". But then again, some people will believe in anything! Especially if it is about witchcraft! There are people who still believe we fly around on broomsticks!
I'm not sure where the idea that a pet is the same as a familiar came from. I guess I have to blame it on some of the crop of poorly researched books on the market these days. But the fact of the matter is that our beloved pets and a Witch's familiar are very, very different things.
A Witch's familiar is an animal spirit or a magical construct created by the Witch or the Magician as an adjunct to their magical workings, as a repository for power, and if needed as a defense against magical attack from another magic user. A Witch or a magician can draw upon the energies of the familiar when they need an extra boost of energy in a magical working. Conceivably if the spell is important enough, the Witch could completely drain the familiar of energy causing it to "die" or cease to exist. And in the case of a magical attack, the attack could be diverted to the familiar so that it would be the familiar which is destroyed rather than the magic user. None of these are things that I think any of us would want to do with our pets.
There is an excellent article on familars here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familiar_spirit
Animals are very sensitive to the energies around them and they may be drawn to us when we are working magic because they can sense the energy. They also want to be around their people, which again will make them want to be where we are..and that may be where we are doing magic. Neither of these things makes the animal a familiar or inherently magical in and of itself.
One old folk story for cats being a common familiar was that they were one of the few creatures that could host two souls in the same body. It was believed the familiar spirit would then reside within a cat to aid the witch in a physical form. I always found this one amusing.
