I actually made a witch bottle in my previous house, as I was very unhappy there despite it being, to all intents and purposes, a lovely house, so I felt there must have been some kind of supernatural reasoning. (In all likelihood, there probably wasn't, I just didn't like the neighbourhood and was looking for any reason that wasn't just as simple as that - although the previous owners' son had died in the house, so I do wonder if I had picked up on some of the lingering sadness from that. I don't know how he died, but I do have a horrible feeling it may have been suicide - the room which I presume was his had something particularly soul-crushing about it.) I read a lot of guides online on witch bottles before making one, but did not find anything like your description above of the 'mechanics' of how the witch bottle works (probably because there are a lot of inept mages online, and at the time I didn't understand what "etheric" meant) Despite most recipes calling for urine, hair, fingernail clippings, and in some cases blood, I was, however, very careful not to add anything of mine to the bottle (getting the instinctive thought of "Don't do that!"), only adding some mud from the garden as an indirect link to myself, along with white wine vinegar, sea salt, bent nails, broken glass, rose thorns, chilli powder and probably some other stuff that I've now forgotten. I corked it and sealed the cork with black wax (with sparkles, as the only black candles I could find were birthday ones!) and then left it in a drawer and forgot about it for 8 months. Then when I later opened that drawer, the wax had broken, the cork had partially popped out and tarry black/brown fluid had oozed all over the bottle and the drawer. This was alarming. So I made an improvised floor washing liquid with more vinegar, salt, lemon juice and chilli powder, wiped up all the mess, put the whole lot in the bin, then took a long, cold shower. I should point out that I noticed no improvement in the well-being of the house before or after creation of the witch bottle. I should also point out that I was careful to fully fill the bottle with liquid so that the expansion of air with the seasons did not force the cork out, and the house was a relatively stable 18-20°C (about 65°F) the whole time anyway - this thing leaked all on its own.
Overall no long-term damage done, but a reminder these are not things to be trifled with. I learned my lesson, and in my defence, I was relatively new to anything occulty and had not found my patron gods yet. However, I am now more careful to only use Florida water in my new house, which I feel fits the category of building up good things to the point it effectively pushes away bad things (as all good banishing does, if one thinks about it). Mr. Crow
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-03-15 11:55 pm (UTC)I actually made a witch bottle in my previous house, as I was very unhappy there despite it being, to all intents and purposes, a lovely house, so I felt there must have been some kind of supernatural reasoning. (In all likelihood, there probably wasn't, I just didn't like the neighbourhood and was looking for any reason that wasn't just as simple as that - although the previous owners' son had died in the house, so I do wonder if I had picked up on some of the lingering sadness from that. I don't know how he died, but I do have a horrible feeling it may have been suicide - the room which I presume was his had something particularly soul-crushing about it.) I read a lot of guides online on witch bottles before making one, but did not find anything like your description above of the 'mechanics' of how the witch bottle works (probably because there are a lot of inept mages online, and at the time I didn't understand what "etheric" meant) Despite most recipes calling for urine, hair, fingernail clippings, and in some cases blood, I was, however, very careful not to add anything of mine to the bottle (getting the instinctive thought of "Don't do that!"), only adding some mud from the garden as an indirect link to myself, along with white wine vinegar, sea salt, bent nails, broken glass, rose thorns, chilli powder and probably some other stuff that I've now forgotten. I corked it and sealed the cork with black wax (with sparkles, as the only black candles I could find were birthday ones!) and then left it in a drawer and forgot about it for 8 months. Then when I later opened that drawer, the wax had broken, the cork had partially popped out and tarry black/brown fluid had oozed all over the bottle and the drawer. This was alarming. So I made an improvised floor washing liquid with more vinegar, salt, lemon juice and chilli powder, wiped up all the mess, put the whole lot in the bin, then took a long, cold shower. I should point out that I noticed no improvement in the well-being of the house before or after creation of the witch bottle. I should also point out that I was careful to fully fill the bottle with liquid so that the expansion of air with the seasons did not force the cork out, and the house was a relatively stable 18-20°C (about 65°F) the whole time anyway - this thing leaked all on its own.
Overall no long-term damage done, but a reminder these are not things to be trifled with. I learned my lesson, and in my defence, I was relatively new to anything occulty and had not found my patron gods yet. However, I am now more careful to only use Florida water in my new house, which I feel fits the category of building up good things to the point it effectively pushes away bad things (as all good banishing does, if one thinks about it).
Mr. Crow