Book summary “Psychic Witch”: summary

Introduction

You likely feel drawn to witchcraft and psychic development, yet find yourself surrounded by superficial instruction that lacks tangible results. You want to move beyond mere belief and actually interact with the unseen forces of reality. Mat Auryn addresses this need by uniting modern psychic training with traditional witchcraft practices.

Psychic development and outer spellcasting are deeply intertwined, requiring personal sovereignty, energetic hygiene, and precise mental alignment to master reality.

You learn to build your power from the ground up through structured mental exercises, energetic hygiene, and precise ritual mechanics. The book guides you through foundational mechanics, energetic shapes, and inner tools.

• How do you establish absolute personal sovereignty and energetic boundaries?
• What mental states and planetary forces drive effective spellcasting?
• How do you cleanse, protect, and map your subtle energy bodies?

1. The Path of Sovereignty and Magick

Your journey in witchcraft begins with personal sovereignty. You must take absolute responsibility for yourself, your life, and your impact on the world. Devin Hunter argues in The Witch’s Book of Power that having the ability to improve life creates a spiritual obligation to do so. True personal power focuses on self-empowerment and uplifting others rather than dominating them.

Your journey requires you to take absolute responsibility for your life and use your power to improve the world.

Re-enchanting the World

Re-enchanting the world requires starting internally. You heal, wake up, and perceive nature and the surrounding spiritual ecology as they truly are. Instead of using magick purely as escapism, you remove your blinders and confront your own psyche. You respond to the world rather than merely reacting to it.

Christopher Penczak notes in Magick of Reiki that inner reality and outer reality are simply different viewpoints. Changing one requires changing the other. Auryn integrates conventional spells, prayers, and formulas specifically aimed at psychic empowerment.

The Force of Magick

Mastery in magick is not a final destination or the accumulation of flashy rituals. It is a continuous, lifetime pursuit of personal evolution and a state of being. You gradually accumulate knowledge, wisdom, and subjective experience until you recognize yourself as the force of magick itself.

Books and traditions are valuable aids, but the ultimate path is forged independently. Scott Cunningham advises you to seek wisdom in simple stones, fragile herbs, and the cries of wild birds.

Auryn began reading books on witchcraft at eight years old, hiding them from his strict grandparents in Northern California. He later visited a metaphysical shop filled with incense and crystals by the beach in Southern California.

2. Planetary Energies and Astrological Timing

Planetary powers function as energetic filters and archetypal forces that dictate the core energetic effects of your psychic and magickal work.

Ancient astrology recognizes 7 classical planets named after gods in ancient astrology. Each classical planet has an archetypal energetic effect on energy rather than merely governing specific areas of life. Applying different planetary energies to a magickal goal yields vastly different outcomes.

Auryn uses Venus to first draw money through its magnetizing effect, and then Jupiter to expand it, because expansion requires something to expand to begin with. The 12 signs of the zodiac represent four elements and seven planets united.

Planetary Energetic Functions

The seven classical planets operate in opposing yet complementary pairs, each dictating distinct core energetic effects for psychic and magickal work. The Sun creates and sustains, while the Moon manages cycles, rhythm, and transmutation. Mercury exchanges and moves, acting as a liminal union of opposites without a complementary pairing.

Venus draws and receives, and Mars projects and directs force. Jupiter expands and elevates, while Saturn restricts, structures, and decreases.

Magickal Timing and Recipes

Magickal planetary hours should be calculated using the traditional method based on local sunrise and sunset rather than rigid sixty-minute clock increments. Ancient astrologers and witches synchronize with the cycles of nature by dividing the period from sunrise to sunset by twelve to determine daytime planetary hours. This method adjusts for seasonal variations in daylight length rather than relying on modern midnight-to-midnight clock methods, artificial time zones, or the 60-minute increments favored by Arthur Waite.

The three modalities are cardinal, fixed, and mutable. Cardinal signs act as hinges opening seasons and correspond to creation and action. Fixed signs mark the apex and stability of seasons. Mutable signs represent transformation, adaptability, and the ending of a season.

Jake Richards notes Appalachian traditions regarding folks born with a veil, born blue, or breach who walk between worlds and need talismans to process spontaneous psychic openings. This Appalachian folk magic charm utilizes buttercup flowers and personal items as a protective talisman for individuals experiencing spontaneous psychic sight.

You can craft this protective charm by following these specific steps:

• Cut the heel from your left worn unwashed sock in a circle.
• Place buttercup flowers numbering the age of the person, new salt, and tobacco purchased with silver coins in the center.
• Fold the fabric away from you once to give an oblong eye shape.
• Sew the openings shut with red thread while praying for the Sight to be eased.
• Stitch a red cross on the front center and make a loop at one corner for a necklace.
• Wear it close to the skin, never let it touch the ground or allow others to touch it.
• Powder it with baby powder and anoint it with whiskey weekly and when the Moon is in Aries.

Drawing on 400 years of family history in southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, and western Carolinas, this artifact provides a barrier against the jaws of death and jaws of life.

3. Foundational Mechanics of Spellcasting

Witchcraft operates through the fundamental mystery of universal interconnection. You realize that everything is linked across layers of reality from the macrocosm to the microcosm.

Mastering the mystery of universal interconnection requires grounding your energy, utilizing physical materia, and crafting precise sigils and poppets.

Energy Techniques

Grounding prevents system overload during energetic work. You protect your health and discharge excess energy safely.

• Relax as much as possible.
• Visualize a tube of energy descending from the bottom of each of your feet into the earth to create a loop and descending chain with an anchor at the bottom.
• Affirm that excess energy automatically flows from your body down into the anchor.
• When finished with the magickal work, ground once more by visualizing the energy leaving your body and the chain dissolving into the earth.

Centering focuses your awareness and energy on the spiritual center in the present moment. You tune your mind to the here and now using breath and visualization.

• After grounding, close your eyes and bring attention to your breath.
• Visualize your auric field as an egg of white light around you.
• Inhale and visualize the energy shrinking and condensing at your heart center while focusing your mind.
• Exhale and visualize your aura expanding back to the egg shape while relaxing.
• Continue for about thirty seconds, affirming that you are right here and right now.

Physical items or materia free up mental storage capacity during spellcasting. Your conscious mind has limited storage resembling computer RAM. Using physical tools keeps the lower self occupied and aligned with your magical intent.

Sigils and Poppets

Prayers involve a passive recipient asking a separate divine entity for help. Spells involve active partnership and personal sovereignty where you step into the driver seat.

Austin Osman Spare developed a direct method to translate a clear statement of intent into an abstract symbol.

• Write out a clear full sentence starting with 'It is my will...' avoiding negative words.
• Cross out all repeating letters until only a unique set remains.
• Form the remaining letters into a single stylized symbol until it is unrecognizable as letters.

A poppet acts as an energetic surrogate and mirror using sympathetic and contagion magick.

• Assemble or cut open a blank poppet.
• Place personal links, your name in Theban, and appropriate sigils inside the poppet and sew it shut.
• Hold the poppet, envision it glowing with life force, and recite the empowering incantation.
• Breathe on the poppet's face nine times to complete the link.
• To dismantle, declare the link broken, cut it open, and remove all personal links.

Disposal of spell materia depends on the goal, duration, and environmental safety.

• Assess whether the spell was to draw or banish, whether it is short-term or long-term, and evaluate environmental impact.
• Put drawing spell remains into a sachet or bottle to maintain energy.
• Bury attraction or protection herbs in the front yard, and long-term spell herbs in the backyard, checking ecological safety.
• Put food materia and banishing herbs into the compost bin.
• Throw away all salt and avoid putting salt on or in the ground.

4. Understanding Spellcasting and Consciousness

Magick combines a scientific understanding of mechanics with artistic and personal expression. Aleister Crowley defined magick as causing change in conformity with True Will, where science represents the theory and instructions, while art represents personal expression and adaptation. Witches should rely on their intuition and improvise when unforeseen disruptions occur during a ritual. Rituals act as theatrical performances, and unexpected glitches like failing sound systems should be met with quick intuitive adaptation rather than panic.

During a Black Rose Witchcraft ritual at Pantheacon, when the sound system failed, Mat Auryn improvised by leading the room in a loud IAO chant and clapping beat.

Shifting Consciousness

Entering the alpha brainwave state is the primary precursor for effective ritual consciousness and magical work.

The alpha state bridges the conscious and unconscious mind, allowing you to act as both hypnotist and hypnotized to access psychic information. You can use a specific color visualization method to reach this state.

• Ideally, get into a comfortable sitting position with either your feet flat on the floor or your legs crisscrossed.
• Straighten your back so that you’re sitting with your spine, neck, and head aligned in a straight column.
• Consciously relax your mind and body as much as possible while ensuring that your back, neck, and head are still as straight as is comfortably possible.
• Bring your attention to your breath and begin taking steady, deep, rhythmic but comfortable breaths.
• Close your eyes and keep your awareness on your breath.
• As you inhale, visualize that you’re inhaling the color red.
• As you exhale, visualize that you’re exhaling the color red all around you in an egg-shaped energy field of your aura.
• Keep inhaling and exhaling the color red for a few moments.
• Move on to these different colors after red in this order: orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white.
• Once you’ve completed this visualization exercise, affirm to yourself, "I am in the alpha state of consciousness, where I am fully in touch with my psychic and magickal abilities."
• Let the visualization fade, and when you’re ready, open your eyes and perform whatever witchy task you set out to do.

Practitioners with aphantasia or neurodivergence can utilize alternative sensory and moving meditations instead of strict visualization. When mental imagery is difficult or impossible, you should rely on alternative psychic clairs, tactile sensations, verbal descriptions, or pendulums. Elizabeth Autumnalis and Mat Auryn accurately perceived the same forest spirit despite Liz not seeing it visually in her mind's eye.

Strategic Magickal Goals

Enthusiasm and sincerity form the emotional and motivational foundation required for successful magical results. Enthusiasm stems from divine alignment, and sincerity ensures your motives are pure and untainted by ego or pretense. Spell goals must be meticulously planned through five main areas that are important to look at when crafting your goal: precision, openness, realism, enthusiasm, and strategy for larger goals. Vague goals lead to unintended results, while goals that are too rigid or unrealistic block manifestation, requiring stepping-stone spells for large objectives.

Mat Auryn cast a focus spell that successfully resulted in organizing an entire home occult library alphabetically by author instead of writing his book because his goal lacked specific subject parameters.

Profound psychological and sensory immersion during spellcasting removes self-imposed limitations and activates energetic pathways. Witches should engage in a form of method acting or self-hypnosis across physical, etheric, astral, emotional, mental, psychic, and divine levels. You should approach spell ingredients as living animistic allies rather than lifeless commodities. By honoring and building a respectful communicative relationship with materia, you shift away from a Western colonial mindset.

5. Approaching the Mysteries and Cosmology

You map your internal energy through the three souls and three cauldrons while operating reality via the fundamental Hermetic Principles.

Foundational Models

Witches view the self as threefold, dividing consciousness into the Higher Self, Middle Self, and Lower Self. The Higher Self is pure divine spark from Source, the Middle Self is the personality and conscious mind, and the Lower Self is the instinctual aspect and subconscious mind. Traditions differ on where emotions and the body reside, but reconciling them helps map internal energies to levels of reality. The Blue Rose line of the Faery Tradition and Black Rose Witchcraft associate the Lower Self with the moon, the Middle Self with the sun, and the Higher Self with the star.

The Three Cauldrons serve as energetic containers and focal points within the body to process, transmute, and brew specific types of energy. Derived from the Irish bardic poem The Cauldron of Poesy, the three energy centers are the Cauldron of Warming beneath the navel for etheric and vital energies, the Cauldron of Motion at the heart for astral and emotional energy, and the Cauldron of Wisdom inside the head for psychic and celestial energies. The three alchemical essentials of Mercury, Salt, and Sulfur operate as fundamental forces of transformation present in all things. In alchemy, these three forces encode spiritual knowledge and mirror the divine rays, astrological modalities, and the Three Souls, symbolizing the interaction between consciousness, mind, and the fire of the soul. On the image of Baphomet, the burning torch above symbolizes Sulfur, the caduceus below represents Mercury, and the head of consciousness in the middle represents Salt.

The World Tree and the corresponding Witch's Tree provide a map of the three primary realms of existence used for psychic exploration. The cosmos is divided into the Upper World for collective unconscious and cosmic forces, the Middle World for physical reality and imminent divinity, and the Under World for ancestors and the astral. Witches internalize this map as the Witch's Tree to explore different realms via inner psychic means.

• Get into a comfortable, relaxed position where you will not be disturbed and close your eyes.
• Enter alpha, ground and center yourself.
• Visualize silver mist swirling around your feet, moving upward until your vision is filled with mist.
• As the mist fades, find yourself in a forest before a vast and powerful oak tree, the Axis Mundi.
• Observe the massive trunk, towering branches with silver and blue stars, and giant roots.
• Place your hand upon the trunk, call out to the Anima Mundi, and request entry to feel her presence and receive insights.
• When finished, thank the spirit of the World Tree, turn away, and step back into the silver mist.
• Allow the mist to fade, move your fingers and legs, open your eyes, and ground and center yourself.

Hermetic Principles

The first two Hermetic Principles establish that the universe is a mental construct and that different planes of reality are linked by correspondence.

The Principle of Mentalism states that the universe is held in the mind of THE ALL, making consciousness the basis of everything and allowing us to co-create reality. The Principle of Correspondence states that as above, so below, meaning the microcosm reflects the macrocosm and internal actions affect physical and higher planes. The Hermetic Principles of Polarity and Vibration explain that opposites are parts of a spectrum and nothing rests. The Principle of Polarity states that everything has an opposite which is actually the same thing in a different degree, and occultism seeks to reconcile these paradoxes. In Jim Henson and Brian Froud's movie The Dark Crystal, the evil Skeksis and gentle Uru Mystics exemplify the Principle of Polarity as opposite beings that were once a singular species of UrSkeks. The Principle of Vibration states that everything moves and vibrates, including our thoughts and consciousness.

Everything in the universe flows in cycles between poles and operates through non-moral cause and effect. The Principle of Rhythm dictates that energy flows from one pole to the other like a pendulum swing, showing that all cycles are temporary. The Principle of Cause and Effect states that every effect has a cause, meaning nothing occurs in a vacuum or by random chance. The Principle of Gender must be stripped of Victorian heteronormativity and viewed through modern understandings of generative and creative energy. While older texts use flawed heteronormative language and gender essentialism, the Principle of Gender refers to generative and creative functions rather than biological sex. In psychism and magick, the projective 'I' relates to the conscious mind and the receptive 'me' relates to the subconscious mind.

6. Cleansing and Protection

Your Lower Self acts like a sponge, picking up miasma from daily life, intense emotions, and psychic work. Cleansing is a casual clearing akin to dusting, whereas purification is a deep cleaning like scrubbing.

Regular cleansing removes heavy energetic miasma from your subtle bodies while active shielding and warding protect you from psychic parasites.

Cleansing Rituals

You can use Exercise 24, adapted from Storm Faerywolf's Kala rite, to transform internal blockages.

• Begin by filling up a glass of water and hold it to your belly, the cauldron point of the Lower Self.
• Breathe slowly, envisioning negativity leaving your body and filling the water.
• Raise the glass of negative energy up to your heart, the cauldron point of the Middle Self, and recite the invocation to the All-Powerful Spirit.
• Focus on your Higher Self and recite the invocation for divine light to transform the water from darkened lead to brilliant gold.
• Raise the glass to your forehead, the cauldron point of the Higher Self, and recite the Witch Fire incantation.
• Drink the water and state the closing affirmation.

Adam Sartwell's tub tea uses specific herbs in Exercise 25 to wash away foreign energies during a warm bath.

• Heat water to boiling and pour over a mason jar filled with hyssop, lemongrass, and lavender.
• Place a plate on top and steep for at least 15 minutes.
• Strain the herbs and add the liquid to a warm bath along with a handful of Epsom salts and optional lavender essential oil.
• Hold hands over the bath, recite the cleansing chant, and imagine absorbing the gunk.
• Pull the plug while in or exiting the bath and repeat the chant as the water goes down the drain.

Warding and Scraping

Shielding adds a passive layer of protection around an entity or space, like a turtle shell or a castle moat. Warding is inherently apotropaic, actively repelling and turning away negative forces like warning colors on venomous animals or gargoyles meant to intimidate.

Aidan Wachter's scraping technique in Exercise 33 utilizes a dull boline or athame glowing with a black Saturnian aura.

• Hold a dull boline or athame visualized with a black aura in your right hand.
• Slowly sweep it over the left side of your body from head to toe about an inch away, reciting the scraping chant.
• Switch the blade to your left hand and repeat the scraping process over the right side of your body.
• Visualize your energy body glowing white, increasing its immunity, and make the declaration of energetic clarity.
• Finish by shielding yourself.

7. Spiritual Shapes and Sacred Spaces

Geometric shapes such as circles, crossroads, triangles, and squares move, hold, and activate energy across multiple planes of reality.

Just like stones or plants, shapes have inherent properties and their exact opposites, shifting in scale from one pole to another. Sacred spaces create containers for energy work, orient practitioners in time and space, and act as a protective suit making nonphysical energies workable.

Circles and Scrying

Circles partition the practitioner from time and space while tapping into all of time and space. A ring worn on the pointer finger associated with Jupiter brings sovereignty and expansion. Laura Tempest Zakroff notes in Weave the Liminal that energy flows perfectly in a circle without getting trapped in angles.

Mat Auryn uses an ouroboros ring kept on his altar for charging when not worn out and about.

• Wear a ring on your pointer finger, ground and center, and cup your hands with the ringed hand on top.
• Visualize blue electricity running through the ring to create an energetic double that drops between your hands and spins clockwise.
• Slowly open your hands, drawing a clockwise circle on your non-dominant palm with your dominant hand while expanding the energetic ring around you.
• State: I cast this circle to create a space beyond space and a time beyond time.
• Repeat dropping a second energy ring, expanding it, and stating: I cast this circle to block out any energies and spirits that are not allies of mine.
• Repeat a third time, stating: I cast this circle so that all energies raised herein will be confined.
• Visualize the three rings merging into a giant bubble, seal it by saying As above, so below! The circle is sealed!, and snap your fingers on both hands.
• To release, envision the bubble returning to the ring as energy rushes out into the universe.

Triangles and Squares

Manifestation requires the harmonization of time, space, and energy. In alchemy and occult philosophy, combinations of three form triangles of creation. The pyramid shape creates an external geometric container that amplifies internal psychic clarity and spiritual connection.

Mat Auryn was advised by a mentor to grid his reading space with selenite while working as a professional psychic reader in Salem, Massachusetts.

• Sit straight with crossed legs, enter a meditative state, ground and center.
• Visualize a white light triangle on the ground around you, with lines drawing upward to an apex resting above your head to form pyramid walls.
• Visualize a prismatic opalescent white light orb of your Higher Self hovering over the apex, beaming light down to fill the pyramid and your body like water.
• Perform your meditation, journeying, or mediumship work.
• When finished, return the liquid light to the Higher Self, dissolve the pyramid, and ground and center.

Conclusion

Psychic development and outer spellcasting are deeply intertwined, requiring personal sovereignty, energetic hygiene, and precise mental alignment to master reality.

You now see that inner psychic mechanics and outer ritual practices form a single unified path. Your energetic hygiene, mental focus, and spiritual boundaries must work together continuously. You cannot separate your psychological state from your magickal results.

1. Maintain absolute personal sovereignty over your life and your reactions.
2. Ground your energy consistently into the earth before every working.
3. Cleanse your subtle body and your physical space regularly from miasma and psychic parasites.
4. Align your rituals with planetary hours and astrological correspondences.
5. Craft your sigils and poppets with absolute sincerity and clear intent.
6. Protect your energy field with active shielding and sacred geometric boundaries.
7. Return constantly to the center of your own power to shape reality effectively.

10 Key Ideas

1. Your psychic development and outer spellcasting require personal sovereignty, energetic hygiene, and precise mental alignment to master reality.
2. Planetary powers function as energetic filters and archetypal forces that dictate the core energetic effects of your psychic and magickal work.
3. Mastering the mystery of universal interconnection requires grounding your energy, utilizing physical materia, and crafting precise sigils and poppets.
4. Entering the alpha brainwave state is the primary precursor for effective ritual consciousness and magical work.
5. You map your internal energy through the three souls and three cauldrons while operating reality via the fundamental Hermetic Principles.
6. The first two Hermetic Principles establish that the universe is a mental construct and that different planes of reality are linked by correspondence.
7. Regular cleansing removes heavy energetic miasma from your subtle bodies while active shielding and warding protect you from psychic parasites.
8. Geometric shapes such as circles, crossroads, triangles, and squares move, hold, and activate energy across multiple planes of reality.
9. Re-enchanting the world requires starting internally by confronting your own psyche and realizing that inner reality and outer reality are simply different viewpoints.
10. The three classical planetary pairs and astrological timing help you synchronize your magickal goals with the natural energetic cycles of the universe.