Connection Is Not A Feeling.

I'm having trouble understanding correspondences- what makes a plant associated with Jupiter, for example? Is there any reading you'd suggest for a better understanding of these things? Thank you

Oh, I am like the literal worst witch to ask on something like this -- because I'm not a materialist when it comes to correspondences. I'm not of the opinion that particular materials have inherent associations.

Now, a lot of people don't agree with me on this though -- so you might want to ask other people.

I personally believe that materials have correspondences because the witch using them in their magic give them that meaning... well, I'm more of an animist so I think we convince the materials they have that meaning, but close enough.

Now things like herbs often get correspondences because they're literal chemicals acting with physical properties, but in my experience a lot of correspondence lists (like, say, candle colors) are unsourced, unexplained things likely pulled out of someones ass thirty to forty years ago and repeated without questioning by the witches who came after.

So yeah. "Things only mean things because we tell them to mean things" is where I come down in the debate. But believe me, it is very much a debate in the community.

Cleansing Carpet Refresher Powder

Many witches incorporate physically cleaning their space as part of how they cleanse the energy of their space, but most tips out there involve sweeping or adding ingredients to mop water or to surface cleansers. But I have carpets! (and simply vacuuming just didn’t feel like enough).

So, my ingredients are for cleansing, healing, and peace: 

Rose 

Lavender 

Rosemary 

Pink Salt 

Bay Leaf 

Chamomile 

Eucalyptus 

Cinnamon

Fine Salt 

I ground that up in my food processor, but a mortar and pestle works really well too! I just had too much shoulder pain to mess with that lol 

Then I added that to baking soda and cornstarch, which help to eliminate odors and lift stains/grease/grossness. I wish I had the measurements but I just poured it in until it seemed right… 

Mixed it up really well and ended up with something like that ^ then I added oils with similar properties (here I will specify that the oils I use are herbal infused oils that I get from a small mompop Indian market, not essential oils). Just a couple drops of each, or else the powder will clump up too much: 

Lemon oil 

Peppermint oil  

Rosemary oil 

Lemongrass oil 

Lavender oil 

Eucalyptus oil

Mix all of that up, and then spread it over your carpet. I tried poking holes in the lid of my jar, but that didn’t spread as easily as using my hands. Lightly tossing it to spread it over the carpet also allowed me to be more involved in my intent. Leave the powder on your carpet for about an hour, and then vacuum it up! 

Amulets vs. Talismans

Both Talismans and Amulets are magickal objects that are small in nature, therefore making them conspicuous and able to be worn or carried without arousing suspicion. Often, they will be pieces of jewellery suitable for everyday wear or objects that can be discreetly carried on your person.

1. Amulet: provides protection from danger and harm.

2. Talisman: attracts a particular benefit to the wearer/carrier. 

AMULETS:

The general consensus is that Amulets provide protection against bad luck, illness, and evil. They may do this in a general sense, or serve a more specific protective purpose.

The most common form of Amulet to be found, are necklaces and pendants as they can be worn daily without raising alarm, and it is believed by some that the closer to the body an Amulet is worn, the more powerful its effects will be.

Some potential Amulets include: gems and crystals, stones, figurines (people, deities, animals, mythological creatures); diagrams; bones; plants, and words.

TALISMANS:

Talismans are, like Amulets, items that hold magickal power. 

There is debate over what the exact differences between Amulets and Talismans are, and it will vary between sources as to what you read or see. 

In general, Talismans are said to draw things to the wearer/carrier, instead of have a passive protective effect and their magick is specific and not generalised; by this, I mean that unlike Amulets that can just serve general protective purposes, Talismans are used to attract specific benefits tat are determined by their design. They can also be charged to increase their power.

Talismans are more complicated than Amulets in appearance; Amulets can simply be a crystal hung on a leather throng that you wear around your neck, whereas Talismans tend to have symbols, figures or incantations carved or engraved onto them in colours that correspond to the intended benefit you wish to bring upon yourself. 

When it comes to having your Talisman on your person, it is much more common for the item to be something you can carry in your purse, pockets or bad than something you’d wear. They can also be placed near the item or person you wish to bestow the benefits upon. For example, you may place the item above a child’s bed if you want to give them good dreams, or put it into your purse if you wish to draw wealth and prosperity to yourself. 

Tip Your Witch: ✧ Buy Me A Coffee! ✧

It's actually been on my mind for a while so now I have an excuse to talk about it!

But I think it's a good idea to read public/beginner oriented/teaching posts with a critical eye to ask how the author might have edited or adapted that information specifically to communicate a concept in only a few hundred words.

In my faith reciprocity and mutual support with spirits is central. It's both spiritually sacred and sorcerously vital. This reciprocity is multifaceted, individualized, and impacted by my bioregion. To fully step out my beliefs on this topic in a public-facing way might take 20k words or so. Longer if it's explicitly for beginners and more things have to be explained along the way.

But in a 400 word post about spirit-working sorcery, this entire sphere of my practice gets distilled down to: "always pay the spirits for their help in your spells."

Over time I've received a few asks (and a couple vagueblogs! lol) which implicitly assume the basis for my spirit-working is transactional, cash-in-hand gig labor.

I do think that people want to take public-facing posts written for the masses and use them to reverse-engineer insight into someone's practice. I think wanting insight is perfectly fine, of course.

But I also think that it's good to question exactly why Content™ posts are saying what they're saying.

Is the author just parroting what they heard? Do they claim to have direct experience with the topic at hand?

Is the author claiming to be providing insight into their real practice, or are they writing a general how-to on the topic?

Who is the target audience of the post? If it seems like it's for beginners, is it likely the author chose to present only beginner-friendly information?

If the author didn't include disclaimers and warnings, is it likely they would have been scolded for not including them? Does this have an impact on how much of the post relates to their real practice?

Maybe this is just me, but I feel I have very often run into the following 2 situations:

It's pretty clear to me the author has no direct experience, they just learned about something and they're excited about it, and they're parroting warnings, disclaimers, and "rules" because everyone else says them.

It's pretty clear to me the author has a lot of direct experience, knowledge, and insight into the topic, but that they have edited their work to either avoid being yelled at, and/or to surgically install training wheels into the topic to help beginners avoid breaking an ankle.

("Why don't people just be honest with their practice without everything being edited for polite society or the palates of beginners?" because they will be yelled at and driven off the website, lol)

If you want my opinion... I think there are a lot of great writers out there trying to provide good information on how to practice witchcraft. I just would be very hesitant to assume much about what they're actually practicing based on those posts.

Been tossing this idea around in my head but for spirit-working witches I lowkey think a good place to start is going around to make introductions to a variety of helpful spirits, either benevolent or neutral in moral dignity, who can be called on at any time.

Literally going around and meeting the archangels/monarchs/guardians/gatekeepers (etc/whatever) of the four elemental roads. Just shaking hands and saying hi. Asking for their support, patience, and grace in working with them and their domains.

Brief introduction to the structure you live in, or absent of that, the land you live on.

Choosing your top 5 personal favorite kitchen spices, one or two nice rocks, and the nearest convenient tree and just doing a series of private rituals to meet them one by one.

Because then by the time you want to get started with other stuff, like finding familiar spirits, learning new skills, or solving problems, you already have met several spirits who are likely to be easily invoked to stand by your side and offer protection, assistance, and guidance for the task at hand.

Just because you don't know any spirits on a friendship level doesn't mean you have to be alone. You can still have spirits standing with you to help and ensure things go well. You can lay a compass, call forth the elemental gods, and ask them to provide assistance for the duration of the ritual. You can ask them to send a teacher or a guide to you to help you with something important.

Etc.

So You've Got a Spirit Problem: An Adept's Guide to Taking Care of Business

Knowing how to do magic is not at all the same thing as knowing how to solve a problem.

Here is a map to one trail through this irritating, often murky, forest. The steps are generally presented in the order I'd recommend taking them, but naturally the details of execution are up to you.

This guide assumes that as someone who knows how to do magic, you may be called upon to assist others from time to time, so there is a distinction made between you as the practitioner, and the victim of a haunting.

Never rely on visualization-only techniques.

There is a difference between Energy Work and visualization. If someone has told you that all you need to do to protect yourself from spirits is to imagine that they cannot hurt you, they are wrong.

Yes, where your attention goes, energy flows - but as it turns out, real spirits are probably more powerful than the wispy energy patterns sprinkled about by you imagining stuff really hard.

I have met many a practitioner who was convinced they were up against an incredibly powerful spirit, because years of visualization did nothing. The first time they cast an actual spell with real power (that takes like 45 minutes of prep and 15 minutes of execution), the spirit was gone.

Fancy that.

Please place the mask over your own mouth and nose before assisting others.

Spirit hauntings often affect more than one person. Household members, social groups, entire Discord servers - it happens.

Attend to your own personal protections first. If this is your first rodeo, a few suggestions:

We may assume there is a timeline pressure; by the time you're called in to help, things may have become rough. There is no need to avoid taking care of the problem for months while you carefully craft a system of protections.

Obtain or recharge a single personal amulet of protection, especially one crafted against malefic spirits (as opposed to a general protection). Charge it and wear it for the duration of this process.

Obtain or recharge a single household ward for your own home, if you are not the one being haunted. If your home is already under spiritual attack, now may not be the right time to place wards. Read on for details.

Obtain or recharge a single ward for your sleeping space, a heavy-handed one that strongly protects your sleep, and strongly limits spirit movement into your room.

For the duration of solving this problem, engage in spiritual cleansing techniques more often. Also ensure you are getting enough calories and rest - depending on how resistant the problem is, your ongoing energy may be required for some time, and burnout helps no one.

Gather as many details as possible.

If you are assisting another person, get down (in writing) as many details as you can about when the haunting began, who it affects, the symptoms, any locations where the spirit is present, etc.

Consider that sometimes the spirit haunting is caused by a spirit which cannot be banished, like local nature spirits who are going to dwell there regardless of your actions. Whether you need to approach the situation as a warrior or a diplomat should be ideally figured out before you begin taking actions.

Make sure wards are not trapping the spirit inside.

If there is a potential that this is happening, open up or partially dismantle a ward (this can often done by opening a household door or window with Intent) so the spirit can leave.

Ask it to leave.

Not, "leave me/my friend alone." Not, "go away."

"Please leave this household permanently, and do not come back."

Combining this with a good-faith offering can help a lot. Place the offering outside, ideally beyond the property line, but we all do what we gotta do.

"Please leave this household permanently. I have placed an offering of [stuff] outside for you, because we are not enemies. This offering is yours if you accept these conditions: that you leave this property and do not come back. Please accept this offering, and leave."

Tell it to leave.

"You must leave this household, and all the people in it. This is not your home. Authority has been given to me to revoke any invitation which brought you here. Leave now of your own volition. If you do not leave, force and aggression will be used against you to force you to leave."

And if that doesn't solve it, time to get down and dirty.

Maybe you didn't even ask it to leave, because you arrived well after that was already attempted. If things have already escalated:

Prepare personal protections for everyone involved.

If you cannot reasonably do so, teach them how to shield through energy work. Remember that there are many inherently protective amulets found in nature which do not require much (or any) magic to be worked over them before they are effective; employ these to your advantage.

Optional: Figure out the spirit's weaknesses.

This step may be especially useful if banishments have already been attempted, and failed.

Gather a wide variety of magical symbols, amulets, talismans, and objects charged with various energies.

Find the spirit or connect to its energy (ideally behind a mirror, or through a protected scrying device, or using some other technique so it can't see you).

Hold up each symbol, object, etc., up to the spirit in turn. See how the spirit is affected. Take notes (ideally, have an assistant who can take notes as you describe what you're seeing).

Suppose the spirit seems totally unaffected by watery energies or solar symbols, but seems very affected by fiery energies and iron - now you have helpful answers.

Combine your discoveries with information about any previous banishments that may have been attempted to aid you in choosing your next course of action.

Less optional, but still optional: Perform divination

1. DO NOT CONVERSE WITH THE GODDAMN SPIRIT.

2. You do not need to know everything about the spirit before you get rid of it.

It drives me fucking CRAZY when people refuse to banish or get rid of obviously harmful spirits because they want to know its backstory, its personality traits, its gemsona, its full natal chart, and its favorite comfort foods first.

"We can't banish it until we know why it's doing this!"

The fuck you can't.

If your attitude is literally that it's okay for beings to hurt you as long as they have a good reason for it... Or you're not going to set boundaries unless you know why someone has crossed you...

I don't know what to tell you.

And hey, by the way, if it's an obviously bad spirit that you've already acknowledged is harming you, IT'S GOING TO LIE TO YOU AND MANIPULATE YOU.

There's a hell of a lot of people out there who have fully acknowledged the absolute hell a spirit has caused them, but they want to talk to it because idk, why wouldn't you want to talk to your own personal torturer, and thirty minutes later they're accepting the spirit as their new guardian and building it an altar.

So.

Divination is useful to help determine the outcome of your banishing actions and to give you insight into how to perform your operations effectively. This is a really good idea if you don't have a million years to randomly try stuff until something sticks.

It is not to become penpals with a harmful spirit who has already shown you its intent towards you.

Telling a spirit something, or sending messages, is extremely different from two-way communication. Don't open yourself up to a force that is causing active harm.

So now you've got to banish.

Your banishment will be greatly increased in efficacy if you surround it with supportive actions. The ability to employ any of these techniques of course varies depending on situation. Employ as many of them as possible.

Petition benevolent spirits, ancestors, and divinity to assist and support your workings.

Include as many people as affected by the haunting as you can.

Flood the house with supportive and helpful energies.

A floor wash or steam pot will be very helpful. Smoking out an entire house is difficult to get away with these days, but a fine option. If you can't get to the whole house, especially try to work on the areas where the spirit is known to be present.

Protective symbols hung about, including saint candles, also tends to assist in shaking the spirit "loose" from its moorings.

Loud and cheerful music, fresh air, and a generally upbeat mood helps the proceedings a great deal.

If it is determined that the spirit is attached to a single person, focus applying smoke, blessed waters, and talismans to their person.

Trap the spirit inside of something.

When you banish a spirit, where does it go? Just outside the property line? All the way across town? To the ends of the earth? How long until it finds its way back?

A cobalt-blue bottle filled with sand is a handy spirit trap. The spirit will eventually be freed again, before this world is over - and likely, quite a bit before that. Research why and how spirit traps work, and what techniques may be used to occupy the spirit for a great length of time before it can escape.

Perform your banishment.

As this post is for those who already know how to do magic, I leave the details up to you. Reflect on what you've learned about the spirit up until that time, and utilize powers which seem best suited to cross it.

Relying upon your personal power alone is not advised. Draw from sources greater than yourself. Asking divinity and benevolent spirits to arrive and support the working while you undertake it is a fine idea.

Once the spirit is gone, or trapped, dispose of various implements and clean up as you normally do.

Cleanse the home or person if you haven't.

Any technique will do.

Set up home wards if they did not already exist.

This includes helping others understand how to maintain protections in their own home.

Listen to yourself, or the person you are helping.

Mighty sorcerer though you are, it is possible that the spirit was not actually removed when you performed your banishment. Do not discard gut feelings or intuitions that the situation is not fully at rest.

You may need help, or new techniques, or simply ongoing effort applied to the situation before it is completely resolved. Every now and then, rare as it may be, the solution is really just to apply protection and go about your business.

Taper off healing, cleansing, and spiritual hygiene back to your normal levels.

Even if a spirit has been correctly removed, a person or place may have sustained actual spiritual damage. Instead of immediately dropping extra spiritual self-care when the spirit is gone, try maintaining it for a little while (especially if your normal level is zero). Staying clean and hygienic will help spiritual injuries heal on their own. Mundane actions, such as continuing to get enough food and rest (where possible), will also help.

If you are helping another, give them steps for things like cleansing baths how how to clean their own aura.

Witch tip:

Winter season is upon us, which means that these types of candle holders in the shape of a tiny house will be sold as Christmas decoration again. These are amazing as home wards, to bring warmth and joy to the home, and for protection spells!

- Paint protective symbols on them or in them - charge the tealight you put in there with protection magic or magic for a happy home - choose tealights (or make them) with scents that you associate with protection or cozyness/happiness - lay a wreath around it as a symbol of your protective ward, for example a small wreath made of rosemary, or a plain metal (iron) one - you could even lay a circle of salt around it - charge the candle to become your hearth, the basis of all magics to be worked for the home - also good for working with hearth deities such as Hestia - also can be used as a house for a servitor created to protect the home - paint it in happy colours to attract joy and happiness to your home - instead of a candle, fill it with herbs, crystals, and other symbols to attract magic into your home (sort of like an open spelljar or an altar) - use it as a focus when working with the "spirit" or "soul" of your home - charge it specifically to eliminate strife and negativity within the home during the holidays

The possibilities are endless!

On Purple Dead Nettle

My new plant-love of this Spring season is the unassuming (and yet striking beautiful) Lamium purpureum, aka Purple Dead Nettle.   This wild forageable is considered a “weed” in many yards and gardens and yet has great medicinal, edible, and magical properties.  What more is there to love? I first noticed purple dead nettle after seeing it on a Youtube channel - it turns out, it was growing in my neighborhood all along and I had been oblivious! Purple Dead Nettles (Also sometimes called Purple Archangel) is found around the world.  In warmer areas, it is a annual Winter weed that provides much needed ground cover - here in Southern New England it is a early Spring flower that blooms for about six weeks starting in mid April.   It is highly distinguishable by its square stem (proving its membership to the mint family) and distinct red/purple leaves.  It can grow up to 8-10 inches tall but generally prefers to stick close to the ground. It is a super food - all parts of the plant are edible though its leaves are fuzzy so it can be a strange experience to eat it on its own.  It can be added to salads, used as an edible garnish, made into pesto, or added as a green to smoothies.   It’s flavor is green and reminiscent of grass or clover. Medicinally, it is an astringent, diaphoretic, and purgative.   It has anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties.  It’s leaves can be made into a salve or applied directly for on-the-go wound care.   Consumption slows the production of histamines so it has a claim to fame as a plant used to treat seasonal allergies.   It can be dried and drunk as a tea but can have a laxative effect if consumed in quantity.   It is also listed as unsafe for pregnant and breast feeding humans. On of the best quality of this wonder-plant, in my opinion, is that it is one of the earliest bee friendly flowers that blooms in the colder climates.  Bees and other native pollinators seem to prefer Purple Dead Nettle to other plants.  Yet another reason not the mow this lovely plant down and let it thrive!

Magically it is associated with happiness and cheerfulness and considered useful for grounding when combined with yarrow.   Like all hearty plants that will grow “anywhere” it also has an association with strength and resiliency.  For magical purposes, dead nettle is most often dried and turned into an incense blend or tea (see the above mentioned warning about drinking too much of it.) Last but not least, I wanted to share a fun fact.  The Latin name for Purple Dead Nettle (lamium purpurium) means “diminutive purple monster” - a nickname given to the plant that spread out of control.   Laugh all you want but be careful where you plant it if you don’t want a yard FULL of dead nettle.  But for real - who wouldn’t want a yard full of dead nettle?  Certainly not me… Like my work?  Please consider supporting me by Buying Me of Ko-Fi.

You can literally just ask your ingredients/tools what they are best at, or if they'll be helpful in a specific spell, or for advice on how to best utilize them.

Yes, you can, right now. You can just do it, whether or not you're a spirit medium or can "visualize".

Don't get me wrong, I find cultural and historical research of correspondences to be very important. But also, just ask the thyme in your cupboard what it likes to do in its spare time. (Bonus points if you take notes and compare to your research later on)

Here's how I do it. I call it my "pinging" method, like how a modem pings a server. Here's how:

Prepare your question.

If you want to be polite, start with a, "hello, is anyone there?" Although admittedly this is more for animists. If you believe you're just reading energies and there is no indwelling spirit, why not get right to it?

Questions to explore utility and correspondences include:

"Magically speaking, what are you best at?"

"If I added you to this spell, how would you influence/affect it?"

"What kind of intents are you best at supporting?"

"What kind of magic do you not like to be involved in?"

"What other ingredients do you work well with?"

"What other ingredients do you not get along with?"

Focus on the thing which you would like to communicate with.

Avoid performing this technique on living animals, as it often scares them :(

Have it in your field of vision, or touch it, or do whatever you need to do in order to feel focused on it.

Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know, aka OBFUK (my handy acronym I use to replace "visualize," which I ordered that way because it kind of sounds like "oh f*ck," as in, "oh f*ck, the ubiquitous use of the word 'visualize' has caused many witches to be ironically equipped with blinders that require energy perception and control to be funneled through a filter of sightedness and images, which for many is counter-intuitive and detrimental to their practice"). Anyway -

Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know that the object which you would like to communicate with is aware of you and will hear you when you send your question.

Send your prepared question.

Speak or think your question to the object. OBFUK that the object receives your question.

Anticipate receiving the answer.

Listen, here's the downfall of this technique: You need a wee bit of open space in your mind. No, you don't have to be a meditator to do this technique (I did it for years before I began meditating). You just need enough space for the answer to arrive.

I have found that ideally, this means actively anticipating receiving your answer for 1-3 seconds.

This works on the same meditative trick as, "wait for your next thought to come and it never will." The force of anticipation itself is what creates an open platform for your answer to arrive at.

Your mind does not have to be "totally clear". You can have a lot of tabs open and still be able to pull off this technique.

Analyze what comes.

We will all get answers in different ways. Repeat: there is no golden standard for how you are "supposed" to receive your answer. Here are some ways your answer might appear to you:

Snippets of memories, songs, scenes, verses, or literature pop into your awareness.

A fully or partially formulated concept comes to you all at once.

You are strongly reminded of something (say, the god Aries, or a soothing woodland scene).

An image or images come to your mind's eye, either still or animated.

Nothing seems to come to mind at all, but certain things on your altar or around your house, or certain colors, suddenly stand out or seem especially relevant.

Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel energy moving on or around you.

Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel as if you can smell or taste something that wasn't there before.

It is unlikely that you will hear a voice in your mind that says, "hi, I'm Basil, and I'm good at..." Our particularly clairaudientally blessed friends may receive such information, but the rest of us are likely going to have to apply some level of interpretation to what we receive.

Be aware that if you're talking to something with an indwelling spirit, it may not be interested in trotting out answers to your question, and may have questions of its own, or something else it wants you to know instead.

Ask more questions, or say goodbye.

I believe good manners go a long way, so even if you feel you haven't received any answer, it's polite to send a message like, "thank you for your time, have a good day."

Your answers are now UPG.

I really want us all to understand this!

UPG stands for Unverified Personal Gnosis. It means that you have personally received information through spiritual means, however, that information is not necessarily agreed upon or accepted by anyone else but you.

Please don't go around sharing your UPG as if it is actually verified spiritual canon!

Even if that information is totally cohesive within your personally constructed spiritual system, I'm sorry, but your personal spiritual system is not universal.

If I have a communication session with my rosemary plant, and it tells me, "yes, I'm a plant of protection and dreams [community accepted correspondence], but that's only one side of me; I'm also a spirit of evil, nightmares, and destruction, and that's why I can also defend against them [unverified personal gnosis]," it is wildly misleading of me to go on Tumblr and post a new rosemary correspondence that includes "cursing, nightmares, and destruction" as if everyone needs to automatically accept and believe my own claims.

It is now on you to experiment with the information you receive, compare it to other resources, and decide if what you heard was valid, legitimate information for a certain group, tradition, or practice, or if it is untrue, or if it is only true for you.

Your UPG might end up being totally valid and verified by others (this is then called verified personal gnosis) and this is such an exciting, wonderful, and validating thing to experience.

However, every single time I have a question about a spirit or god, and someone says, "hold on, I'll ask them!" and comes back 5 minutes later with an answer they assume I should accept as canon, I want to reach through the screen and slap them.

Your spirit communication is not automatically spiritual canon, and should probably undergo many steps of testing and verification before EVEN YOU accept it as true.

Troubleshooting

"It isn't possible for me to complete the active anticipation portion, what could I do instead?"

This technique is specifically a telepathic one; you receive communication within your mind. If doing so on the fly isn't possible, I'd recommend trying an entirely different technique, such as asking the same questions through tarot or another divination system, or petitioning the ingredient for a dream.

"I don't think I'm receiving any answers, what do I do?"

Not all spirits want to talk to us. Or from a secular perspective, not everything is imbued with enough energy for us to get a reading, or that energy may be hard to access or understand.

Objects which are very often used in witchcraft, such as magical and culinary herbs, minerals, and animal parts, often have something to say. (Perhaps the reason they are used in magic is because they're so willing to work with us in the first place!)

You can also gently cleanse the object and offer it some incense or water, then invite the spirit/energies back, and see if that changes your results.

Or, you may need to try contacting it over several days, maybe also with feeding and cleansing, before it responds. (Remember, it takes the object energy to communicate with us, whether it is a spirit or just a lump of energy, something must be expended to send you a message).

Plus also: This technique is a skill you need to practice. If I tell you how to hold a guitar and how to make three cords, it's still going to take you a minute to strum out Wonderwall. I recommend a minimum of hours of practice before you write off your own psychic abilities.

"I don't know how to tell the difference between a spiritual answer and my own thoughts."

Practice, practice, practice - and verify. Also be patient and gentle with yourself, and move forward with the understanding that far from 100% of people are magically born with thought patterns clear, regular, or tame enough to easily (or ever) track.

Perhaps the best way to move verify is to communicate with common ingredients in witchcraft, ask them for information, and then verify it against information online. Don't give up too quickly; common correspondence lists are often oversimplified to the point of uselessness. Your herb might have given you a snippet of information commonly ignored by mainstream witchcraft.

"I'm only getting invalid answers - my rose quartz told me it's used for blood magic and banishing."

Try cleansing and charging objects before you read on them. For beginners, it may be difficult to discern whether you're contacting an object, or the energies it's sucked up or wallowed in.

There may be an indwelling spirit or energy "haunting" the object and returning invalid or silly answers. Try reading on different objects and see if your luck improves.

You may be particularly psychically closed off. When I don't properly connect, I get all kinds of nonsense that seems like a real answer, when it's just my random thought generator (un)helpfully trying to fill in the blanks. General practice of divination and spellwork will assist you. I would avoid using this technique to practice, as it may confuse your discernment to accept your inner voice as external communication. Set it aside and come back to it after a couple of months and see if there are changes.

Similarly, the spirit might just not want to talk to you, or isn't present in the item (or, the energies you seek to understand don't exist in that item).

The spirit may be giving you valid information that most people just don't agree with. My UPG for rosemary is that it is sort of an "uncrossing" agent for your life in general - part of the way it protects you is to align things around you so that misfortune is diverted. It's not a good luck charm, this is just how it achieves its goal of protection. This isn't totally off the wall; I think almost everyone agrees that rosemary is protective, powerful, and "high vibrations." But I don't think I'm going to find anyone else talking about how rosemary works the way it does, so I'm not going to be able to cross-check this anyway. But even if they do, they might talk about a different aspect of rosemary or something else it does. So I'm caught in a limbo where this information is true for me and the plant works that way every time I use it, but I can still never verify that with my community. If your answers aren't totally out of left field, you may be receiving genuine information about how the object wants to work with you. But that doesn't mean you will ever be able to verify that with your community.