Rose Ariadne's Chitchcraft Blog

Dear Friends,

Like much of traditional magick, the subject of familiars is one that has been distorted and virtually destroyed throughout the years due to propaganda. Along with working with the energy of the earth, honoring the wisdom of old women and following the patterns of the seasons, the concepts of familiars was demonized during the Inquisition and subsequent witch trials. Fortunately, for us, we can still retain the power of familiars to aid us in our magickal workings.

If you’ve ever considered yourself a “cat person” or a “dog person,” you’re more comfortable with the concept of familiars than you realize. If you’ve found yourself attracted to a certain type of animal, like a wolf or a frog, and began collecting images of that animal, you’ve started to develop a relationship with an astral familiar.

Familiars come in many different shapes, sizes and forms. Many people think of them merely as an animal helper that contributes to magickal workings. For example, the stereotypical image of a witch includes a black cat. According to legend from the “other” side of Inquisition, cats were demons trapped in feline bodies! This myth has perpetuated to this day in the superstitious fear of black cats.

In truth, physical animals like cats are only one type of familiars. And they are not demons in the slightest. Familiars of all sorts (the differences of which I’ll explain in a moment), are attendants in magick and in life. They are creatures, physical or not, who have a special rapport and sometimes psychic connection with humans.

I’ve always been attracted to animals and cats in particular. In times during my life where I’ve found myself without a feline companion, one has dropped into my lap unexpectedly. For example, my sister had to give up a cat that kept clawing her furniture. In my care, Sheba has done nothing of the sort. Of course before I took her into my home, I looked the cat square in the eyes and sent her a mental picture of what would happen if she did that to my nice couch.

If you desire to work with a familiar, you’ll need to understand that while you can have some influence over its behavior (like I have with Sheba) they are truly their own creatures. This is even more so if you’re working with an astral familiar.

But first, let’s dive into a few definitions. There are two basic types of familiars. There are physical animals that take the form of pets or creatures that show up in your life consistently. Pets aren’t to be owned, contrary to conventional belief. They allow you to care for their physical bodies but their mental and spiritual components are all their own. Keep this in mind when you start to work with them. With these familiars, you’ll find that you are able to communicate with them without using words.

The second type of familiar is an astral familiar. Astral familiars are most commonly animals that cannot possibly be owned as pets. I have a friend who has been drawn to polar bears for nearly her entire life. As a child, she drew them constantly and began collecting polar bear artwork in her teens. Once she discovered this path, she instantly knew that a polar bear is her familiar.

With an astral familiar, you are feeling a connection with the spirit of an animal, rather than it’s physical being. The animal energy attaches itself to a person and shows up in their collections, their dreams and their attractions as a result of their subconscious trying to voice this connection.

When it comes to working with familiars, nothing beats astrals for help in magickal workings. As much as I care for and love my “furry” children, they simply aren’t predictable. They walk out in the middle of a ritual, or decide to take a nap halfway through. I consider myself honored when they choose to enter my circle, but I don’t rely on it. If they feel dawn to add their energy to my magickal working, all the better. But I also call upon astral familiars when I need to add extra power to my spellcraft.

In order to get in touch with your astral familiars, it’s important that you spend some time meditating. Spending time in meditation will help you get a clear picture of your familiar and how best to contact them. As with other meditations, start your astral familiar meditation by grounding and centering yourself. Relax your entire body and feel your body expand and connect with the universe. Once you’ve reached a state of relaxation, clearly state in your mind that you wish to see and connect with your familiar.

Take note of the scenery that you begin to see. Notice what type of terrain you are in. Then take note of the types of noises you hear, what you smell and then what you see. Within a short period of time and attention, your animal familiar will present itself to you.

In the next message, I’ll tell you exactly what to do with your animal familiar once it presents itself to you, and how you can use it in your magickal practice.

Brightest Blessings,

Rose Ariadne
Your Warm And Caring “Resident Witch In Charge”

Dear Friends,

The reason this piece is called “relearning” to read auras is because I believe we were all have the ability to read auras in childhood. You may have lost it along the way or retained it partially. Whatever your level of experience with aura reading, it’s completely possible to relearn and retain this skill.

As I mentioned in the last post, auras are a representation of our spirit and inner life. You can strengthen you aura by spending more time in meditation and doing other spiritual work. When you do these things, your aura will brighten and intensify. If you want to learn to read auras, I suggest that you do these things on a regular basis. Since you’re going to be practicing on yourself first you need to make your aura as bright as possible.

Relearning to read auras may take a little work. When I was first starting out, it helped me to imagine that I already had the ability to do this. It lessened my “struggle” to see auras and I found the ability to see them came much faster when I just let go and allow them to be seen, if this makes sense. Auras are not figments of your imagination. Since they already exist, you don’t need to create them. Relax a bit during these exercises and you’ll find that it comes to you more easily.

Speaking of the exercises, let’s dive right in to your relearning. To start, you’ll be looking at the energy surrounding your own hand. Place your hand on a white piece of paper or a brown paper bag. Pay attention to the edges of your hand against the neutral background. It can sometimes help to have a set of color crayons or colored pencils handy. As you see the interplay of colors, sketch them out in color on the paper. Go with what your instincts tell you. If you think you see a specific color, then use that color.

Your aura will fluctuate within the field around your hand. Although people often say their aura is “orange,” “green” or a variety of other colors, what they are actually describing is the dominant color in the auric field. Everyone has every auric color within their field. Certain colors tend to dominant based on the person or objects feelings or state of spirit.

Once you feel comfortable with seeing the energy around your own hand, move on to other subjects. You can use plants, animals or other people. If you’re using a human, concentrate on the area around their crown chakra (their head) for the most intense concentration of auric energy. Just like you did with your own hand, you can take a sketch of the aura using color crayons or colored pencils. Simply draw an outline of the person, animal or plant and sketch in the colors of the aura around the figure. It’s helpful if they are standing in front of a blank canvas, like a white wall.

As you begin to see the color patterns, just let the process happen naturally. Don’t overthink it or try to analyze what you are seeing at this point in time. Simply take down the “notes” with your crayons or pencils, and analyze later. Take note of which colors are dominant, which are missing and if any seem to pulse together.

Once you’ve taken your notes, it’s time to start figuring out what is going on with a person’s aura. The following guide will help you interpret the colors that you see.

Red – Energy, activity
Red/Orange – Physical activity
Orange – Thought, mental energy (communication)
Orange/Yellow – Happiness, social activity
Yellow – Speech
Yellow/Green – Sickness, Healing Activity
Green – Health, Creativity
Green/Blue – Nurturing, Caring
Blue – Devotion, Love
Blue/Purple – Learning, Spirituality
Purple – Wisdom
Purple/Red – Accident, Danger, Abrupt Change

In addition to these colors on the color spectrum, you may also see the following colors:

Clear – advanced spirituality, spirit guides
White – experiencing the influence of spiritual beings, receiving and giving guidance
Grey – under the influence of lesser spirituality, caught up in bureaucracy
Black – presenting a harm to other beings, domination
Brown – confusion, opposition, conflict

Reading auras and taking sketches of auric colors can help you understand yourself and those around you. Once you’ve mastered the skill of tuning into the auric fields, you can also practice a type of “aura therapy” where you cleanse and brighten the auras of those around you.

After taking the initial sketch of a person’s aura and noticing areas of trouble (purple/red, yellow/green, brown, black or grey), you can complete a second sketch. This time replace the troubling areas with pure green color. As you do this, visualize your crayon or pencil magickally erasing the dark auric colors and replacing them with health and vitality. While you’re completing this exercise, have your subject close their eyes and concentrate on the same thing. After you’re complete, you’ll find that they will feel refreshed and renewed.

Dear Friends,

Auras are a spiritual signal that our bodies project. Some pagans are very drawn to reading auras and some are not. There’s nothing specifically “witchy” about viewing auras, but I’ve found myself drawn to it over the years, and it’s become a nice addition to the rest of my knowledge about the spiritual side of life.

If you are tempted to think that auras are a new development that came with the “new age” thinking of the past forty years, you’d be wrong. Auras have been present for a very long time. Just looking at paintings of Jesus, Buddha and other figures from the various world religions and you’ll see the artist representing the aura as a halo. In remote cave paintings found in Australia, show golden halos around the heads of figures.

This indicates that either people have been able to see auras for a very long time, or they were at least familiar with the concept. In my opinion, I suspect that the ability to see auras was something that was more commonplace in ancient times. I think that everyone had the ability to see them, and it’s only through our consistent attention on the material plane that the ability has faded away over time. It’s time to get back in touch with your roots!

Before we get into the method of how to see auras, I think it’s important that you learn a little bit more about them. As I was learning this skill I found it very helpful to understand what I was seeing and why I was seeing it.

As you’ve learned through your study of the craft, everything in the Universe is created from vibration. Every single thing from the largest planet to the tiniest atom relies on vibrations to exist. An aura is nothing more than a visible vibration that emanates from living and non-living things. You can see auras on people, on plants, on crystals, on water and on rocks.

Besides just being visible, auras can tell you a lot about the person or thing that you are viewing. Auras display emotion. They change color depending on the thoughts or feelings of the person. Living objects like people, plants and animals have fluctuating auras that change with time. Non-living objects like stones, water and crystals have fixed auras that stay constant.

Auras are composed of high level frequencies of energy at the UV level. These UV frequencies can be seen with the naked eye. This relatively recent discovery has created the start of the scientific proof of auras. With more research and time, auras will be seen by scientific instruments very clearly. In the meantime, we’ll have to rely on our eyes.

Learning to see auras is an acquired skill, but it’s very easy to do with practice. If you have a desire to learn to see auras, you’ll find that it’s a helpful tool in your magickal practice and your life in general. When you have the ability to see auras, you’ll be able to detect when someone is lying, when they are telling the truth and what they are feeling. An aura doesn’t lie.

I’ve found that the ability to read auras has been very helpful in dealing with people from all walks of life. I can judge a person’s character by their aura, in addition I can gage their level of spirituality, for lack of a better term. There really isn’t a level of spirtuality, per se. But I can see if a person’s intentions are good and what they are feeling in that particular moment.

For example, if I see a person that has a clean, bright aura, I know that the person can be trusted. I also know that they’ve taken some time to work on themselves spiritually. They’ve done work to clear their aura through a variety of spiritual practices. However, if someone has a dark gray aura I now that no matter what their appearance or manner may be, there intentions aren’t pure.

Other people, myself excluded, have perfected the art of diagnosing medical problems by reading auras. Friends that I have talked to that have this ability say that the section of the aura that surrounds the afflicted area shows up red or orange. Although they (and I) suggest that you always consult with a medical professional when it comes to your health, an aura reading can help you key in on certain areas that you may have otherwise missed.

Children have a natural ability to read auras. Since you once had the ability, it’s very easy to get it back if you know how. We all lose this ability as we grow older due to social norms and the lack of recognition. However, the ability to read auras is still there.

In the following section, we’ll delve more deeply into how to read auras. I’ll give you specific tips for training your eyes to make the connection between what you’ve seen before and what you can see now.

Brightest Blessings,

Rose Ariadne, Your Warm And Caring “Resident Witch In Charge”