COMBINED MINDS- THE GIRLS PRACTICE WITCHCRAFT

Words by Ambar Ramirez and Carmen Macri

AMBAR: We started off this column by doing a pheromone spray experiment, and since then we have seen a psychic, tried pole dancing and battled an escape room. We’ve talked about the psychedelic meaning behind Christmas, how to get over a break-up, the sinister history behind popular tools and how gossip is loosely tied to witch trials. So it only makes sense that we conduct a little magic of our own. Nothing too serious… just some practical magic, if you will.

CARMEN: Witchcraft, to be exact. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s discuss the different types of magic.

AMBAR: Across the many sites that we searched through, we found that there are actually a lot of different types of magic. But we were able to dumb it down a bit.

CARMEN: Ceremonial magic depends heavily on book learning, precise, complicated rituals and intricate sets of correspondences. Folk magic is the magic of common folk, used for practical purposes like healing, love or luck spells, fertility, driving away evil forces, finding things once lost and good harvests. Witchcraft is a blend between ceremonial magic and folk magic, usually using common materials, and depends on emotion and intent rather than a precise ritual. Left-hand magic is limited by social conventions and is often limited to beneficial magic, coming with warnings of consequences for harmful workings. Right-hand magic exists outside of social conventions and ignores taboos, often even gaining power from breaking them; only people who consider themselves of the right-hand path generally use the terminolo gy. And finally, black and white magic, though imprecise terms, they are used, roughly speaking, to differentiate magic practices with an intent that is not socially acceptable versus magic practices that are.

AMBAR: The one common rule among all the various magics is that there are no rules. And when it comes to starting the journey of practicing magic, there is no one right way of getting started. So we decided that our first step into witchcraft would be through crafting a potion.

CARMEN: Not just any potion, but a potion that would bring us money. Lots and lots of money. It was either that or eternal love … boring!

AMBAR: The potion consists of things you can find around the house which is perfect since it would kind of defeat the purpose of making a spell to receive money by having to spend money.

CARMEN: And the fact we were doing this in the office, but that is beside the point.

AMBAR: So for starters, you’ll need a cleansed bottle. We used an empty plastic water bottle and cleansed it with incense I got at the local corner store. Then to the cleansed bottle you will add cloves, basil, mint, cinnamon, any type of oil (we used olive oil) and the most important ingredient: bay leaves.

CARMEN: We won’t bore you with all the details, but with the bay leaves, you are to write your intentions on the leaves before placing them in the bottle. For example, I wrote “$1 = $1,000” short and sweet.

AMBAR: Once you have added all of the contents to the bottle and set your intentions, you have to let the potion sit for 24 hours before adding a dollop to the palm every day and rubbing it in.

CARMEN: Surprisingly, the potion smelt great and left my hands and knees and elbows (I accidentally put too much on) quite moisturized.

AMBAR: Now we know what you’re thinking. Did it work? Well isn’t that a great question.

CARMEN : So, no. But it might be a user error considering we forgot to get mint, and we also only did this on Wednesday.

AMBAR: To be fair, it was pay week… so maybe?

CARMEN : I spent $50 at a gas station on snacks last night.

AMBAR: But we also had lunch paid for us on Thursday, so money not spent is money gained, right?

CARMEN : Maybe we can update this article in a few days.

AMBAR: If anything, we can confirm the potion will leave your hands nourished, and in my book that’s a success.