9 Principles of Indo-European Folk Magic

The State of Magic in ADF

ADFs name is Our Own Magic. Draíochta is the general term for charming and finds its analog in Magic as magic refers to what the magi practiced among the Avestans and later Persians. Likewise, Draíochta is what Irish and Celtic magicians in the Iron age did. ADF stands for Ár nDraíocht Féin, and means both our own druidry and our own magic.

There are many forms of magic and while worship and theurgy is one of them, ADF seems to be focused more on it than thamaturgical work. Theurgy is asking gods to make a change for you and thaumaturgy is making a change in the world by virtue of your own power. Theurgical worship, while still worship, takes on a more serious expectation that the gods will do for you what you ask.

This might be the result of a stronger relationship or a contracted bargain, but still exists in modern polytheism. We generally give offerings so we might catch blessings in return during general worship. However, I don't want a theurgical magician who might be effective, I want a star player magician to work for me, or I my case, is what I want to be as a magician. I don't want my magics to maybe work on the off chance that I please the gods involved.

The focus of magical practice in ADF right now is forming right relationship with the cosmos to eliminate the need for magic to begin with. People who espouse this paradigm generally don't realize the privilege and damage that could come about. There is a high potential that is can develop into a view where those who are not blessed will be assumed to be in wrong relationship with things, or undeserved of them. That isn't anyone's business to judge. Impoverished or less fortunate persons, need to know they have the same chance for efficacy and agency as anyone else, no matter how much you think it is true.

So, as far as I'm concerned, we practice magic in ADF, and it has nothing to do with right-relationship, something is broke and it must be fixed, or nothing is broke and must be fixed... we do magic. On good days, on bad days, subliminally and supliminally... we do magic. For what reason? Because that's who we are, and it is the right thing for us to do.

The State of Magic in Celtic Reconstructionism

"We don't know how Druids did magic," has been cited as one of the problems. This is both true and untrue. We have post-christian examples, and other Indo-European examples which fits into common ie-worldviews. The nature of the spells we use as our source material show clear differences between things like Utangard and Innangard, gods-dead-spirit views, offerings, sympathetic magic, and fire with fire mentality. While witchcraft has nothing to do with religion, the worldview that powers our witchcraft and folk magic is provided by our understanding of the Cosmos, a context solely provided by our polytheism. And so we speak here of the polytheist folk witch, an outsider to their society, yet part of the village periphery.

There is a course by C. Lee. Vermeers in the Celtic Paganism files section of the group on FB. It says it doesn't focus on folk magic, and it aims to be more of a poetic charm craft. What I think is overlooked in modern folk magic is its roots in charmcraft and poeticism. Rewind to the Middle ages, the Iron age or the Bronze-neolothic ages, you find the same folk magic infused with heavy poetic charming. So I think that a true study of the craft of the fili will lead to a later post-christian folk magic when mutated and practiced in the context of the home and in the shadow of the church.

Polytheist Folk Magic = IEFM

Here I will describe the qualities I have perceived in the study of Indo-European folk magic, a namespace I first began to use in 2015 to refer to folk magic, root work, wort cunning, and and charming in the context of one of the Indo-European polytheisms.

IEFM Sources

• PGM: Greek Magical Papyri (hellens)
• The Carmina Gadelica volumes. (celts)
• Lady Wilde's Work
• The Atharva Veda (Pronounced Atarva Vey da, vedics)
• Trolldom Black Books (scandinavian)
• Lacnunga Manuscript (anglo-saxon)
• Balds Leechbook III (anglo-saxon)
• The Herbarium I & II (anglo-saxon & latin)
• Various medieval manuscripts from post christian Indo-European speaking peoples
• Reversed engineered Appalachian magic and folk songs (i.e. Yarrow). 

The Principles behind IEFM

These principles are unspoken and made up entirely by me. These are things that these spell already conform to. The way the spells in our sources conform is described briefly under each one. Each of these has no priority, they are all equally as important and feed/build off/onto one another.

1. Lore
• Lore is the single most important piece of poetic charmcraft. Lore automatically comes about in these traditions. Without lore, and in the absence of myth, what happens to day and what is done here magically, becomes the lore of tomorrow. In the Lacnunga manuscript, the 9 herbs charm, starts out by addressing the spirit of Mandrake as an herb for the sole purpose of reminding Mandrake what it had done for the magician previously. The human experience is all about Story, and lore takes its place as probably the fulcrum of these principles. 
2. Animism
• As is common among early religions which naturally occur, the animist roots of our polytheism express themsleves in unique ways. Tools and herbs are treated as beings you work with. This destroys my theurgy argument above in some levels, but not others. Using tools and herbs who are beings can tale on various views, but the spirits of knives and divination methods are invited spirits, aka elves/trolls/sidhe folk. Therefore, all oir tools are spirit houses, the thing we call idols.
3. Liminality
• Power lies in inbetween places. Power lies in the unsettled. This expresses itself in IEFM in the use of plants that do not grow on the ground, things thrown which do not land, the troll aurga, or troll eye which is a branch that splits and rejoins making a hole. Magical times of day are not day or night but between.
4. Proximity
• Nearness to the effect is imperative. There are no spells with a ranged distance besides elfshot response which is flung back toward the elves who are near. If distance is required, you work on a personal item belonging to the patient. Poultices and herbal applications occur on the problem, charms address the problem and wound as if it were an animistic being.
5. Sympatheticism
• What i do here will be done there. In an animist worldview, what I do here is told to the spirits and they do the work for me. Because of my thoughts on theurgy... and giving so we may receive... when we do sympathetic magics we are doing so we WILL receive. The reception or affect is forcibly willed. And so in my personal worldview, the sympathetic magic occurs because when we change the innermost microcosm, to maintain consistency and balance, the macrocosm also changes. So weather you think spirits or cosmic machinery is doing the change... the bottom line is what we do here in the sacred center will be done there. Side note: spirits work on a set of psychic machinery and functions so there isn't a being v mechanism dichotomy to our magic... they are the same thing.
6. Like For
• We use gold color to bring in wealth, we use water to bring in rain, we use honey to bring in sweetness from folks. This is simple homeopathic, opposed to allopathic, approach and needs no explanation.
7. Like Against
• Fighting fire with fire seems to be the spirit of most of the healing and apotropaic spells I come across. Elfshot is fought with elfshot, fever is fought with notions of heat, hysteria and shock is resolved with hysteria and shock. Some of the Irish lore involves repelling the sidhe folk with Iron, while some of the folklore simply describes their inability to wield it. While this may be seen as an opposite, iron ore is found in the ground, the realm of the fairies, and so it depends on your conception of the opposite how well that would conform to this principle. This is one of the places where the old ways can be harmful. A modern magician doesn't ignore this, we rework it with common modern gnosis.
8. Do as if
• The words, charms, incantations, spells, and charm acts are all done as if the effect has taken place already. While some of the spells request a change, the lower level functions of the spell involve treating a wound or ailment as if it is a being who has already acquiesced to any requests the magician has made.
9. From the Center to the Edge(and back)
• When we want something to come into our lives, like a change, we call it from the Edge inward, to the sacred center. It crosses one or more enclosures on its way. Likewise, when we want to get rid of something, we move it from the center out into the wild. This creates a dichotomy between order and chaos, man v wild, village v forest, etc... that is seen in our mythology. The Vanir are the Wild gods and the Aesir are the gods of the enclosure and of human things like wisdom and smithing. The 9 Sisters chant in anglo-saxon grimoires involves the Sisters being stand ins for a boil wound where the sisters leave the community enclosure.

3 Spells Exhibiting these Principles

1. Nine Herbs Charm
2. Against a Kernel
3. Against Jaundice (Atharva Veda I. 22)