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What occultist hasn't always dreamed of having their own occult store? Also, finding some of the more rare incenses, herbs and supplies in quite difficult at times, and I wanted to offer them all in one location for serious practitioners. I have seen far too many sub-standard products everywhere that is just plain pisses me off! I still can't beleive that most people who sell Abramelin incense don't even use the right recipe! Not one single ingredient in it is correct! (by any translations) And what is that crap they sell in some occult stores called incense that is more like powdered sandlewood with some essential oils added? Do you think the Master Therion put Storax on his list so that it could be substituted with patchuli perfume oil? I don't think so. Btw, random rants are quite common on this site, some folks even enjoy my writing :) Well being as my start up costs were somewhere between $20 and $50, the whole brick and morter thing was just not possible (still in the works on that aspect), off to the www it was. Fortunatly I already had had 10 years of experience building cheesy occult websites (you should have seen my first Enochian site with the blue letters on the orange background and Beavis skrying as the entry image!) I had also been busy asking as well as answering numerous questions about magic online during that time, so I got to know the internet quite well. I had been practicing various forms of magic for over 15 years by this time so I felt more then qualified (more on this below) It took months of work to build the first incarnation of this site, and boy did it suck LOL, no wonder I only got a few orders. Well at least some people found the site, they kept being nice enough to email to let me know which of my links didn't work :). So here I was ready to make a fortune off my great products (hey *I* think I hae a pretty damn good selection). Did I mention that my monthly advertizing budget tends to be less then my start up costs? (I do have a catalogue oming soon though, I made a lot last month). Well the first year my site did quite well, I am pretty sure that I covered both the costs of domain name registration AND my montlyhosting! Just going into year 2 now, and apparently magicians that do have money are starting to find my website :). Of course this had led to much more ambition to pretty up my site and offer a LOT mnore products. I have always wanted to sell metaphysical supplies, so fortunatly finding wholeslaers for most items wasn't a problem at all, and I promptly had several huge boxes of rocks and herbs sent (ok so maybe I made a little more then just site costs of you include the in person tarot readings I was doing). I have found an very good quality Pagan herb wholesaler that sells the best herbs I have seen in ages, and have a favorite essential oil supply place that I have been buying from for years and years. I of course also went out and put some of my nice tins of incense in a local Pagan store, they are selling like hotcakes, about 4 per month. I sold incense and powders for 2 weeks at an unadvertized (as of then) craft faire and made minimum wage for my efforts, oh well I made at least double of that of any other vendor there. Did I mention that I have customer drawing powder as well as incense to smoke my products with to draw customers? <g> I am next going to start selling locally (I moved) at the market starting in spring (that place is busy!) as well as from a studio in the house. I keep having the locals ranting and raving about how good the products smell, so I will have to see how well they go over. Unfortunatly there is not a very large magical community on this small island, but there are a lot of open minded folks :) The nightshademagic.com staff? Well that is me, unless one counts all the help that I recieve in making, promotion and ideas from the various invisables LOL. For some time I had a friend and submissive helping with financial backing and business ideas as well as support, and I have had the most awesome advice and support from my kickass teacher during this whole process. Aside from that, it's just me. One day there will be little nightshademagic tins of incense in every occult storeb (if that is the direction I decide to go), but until then a payroll is just not an option. I do have one site (www.sacredmagic.com) that helps out by refferals and hosting some of my products for commission as well. Everyone seems to think that I live in the US, well I used to, and did do mailorder (different business) from there for some time, but I now reside on a small wooded island in Western Canada. You know, the sort of place where one can still walk into the local post office and see people in line with bear feet and their big shaggy dog with them. So what if it takes a day's travel including a ferry trip to a different island to get my western union payments LOL. It's worth it, there are a lot of trees here, and there is truly nothing like sitting in the woods on a high speed internet connection hehe. My business goals? Well quite simply to offer as many high quality authentic products for magicians as possible. As long as I make rent, food, have some money to blow, can keep my supplies up and travel once in awhile I am happy financially. I will also eventually get around to doing my magical wilderness retreats that I keep talking about since I quite enjoy teaching. I am also working on editing my damn enochian book that I wrote a few years ago. Never write a book, leave it unedited then do the Abramelin opeation. Perhaps it would just be quicker if I rewrote the thing. Anyways, I am currently putting up chapters of it on this site. I might get ambitious and self publish it though, or put out smaller books on specific enochian topics as there seems to be a large demand for books on Enochian that actually explain how to work the system. If you are still awake here is the section that far too many sock puppets, er I mean inquisitive customers want to know about. My magical practice and experience. This could take 20 pages in itself... I started about 1989 give or take a year. I don't really count the odd thing that manifested when I was a kid or seeing ghosts and talking to them at the age of 5 (no I was not diagnosed with some off psychosis), I am counting from the day that I consciously decided to start on the path. Everyone always has some pretty interesting reasons why they started in magic, my only reason is that I was suddenly drawn to it. I was raised in a culture that does not largly beleive in magic and are not very superstitions. Fortunatly they are metaphysical and there were many theosophists around me as a youngster (hey don't give me that look). I was fortunate enough to have a theosiphical practitioner as a babysitter when I was quite young who taught me a few things over a few years. Unfortunatly I don't remember most of it LOL. I was pretty much raised Agnostic, my parents beleived God existed (I think) and there is a lot of religious diversity in Canada. I didn't know who the devil or god was until about the age of 10 or 12 when I brought home a devil halloween mask I had found. I then got my 15 minutes of Christian upbringing. My day of Pagan upbringing is when we went and built little faery houses for the Fae during one brownie camp (yeah I was in girl guides as well, you can stop ROFL now). My father regularly read tarot when I was a kid, and also gave me a few readings, unfortunatly he never did teach it to me (darn). This is seriously getting too long. Read Donald Michael Kraig's Modern magic when I was about 19. Started dailly practice at that time and read every single book on the topic I could find (no internet yet, and I hadn't found the BBS yet). Joined a GD order a few years later. Left after a few months of practicus. Got cursed by my cheif adept (found the magical square on the back of my photo later). Continued my gradework on my own for a few years. Started with Enochian work. Went online only to discover that I had been pronouncing the damn names all wrong (GD style) and that I painted my tables the wrong colours LOL. I was fortunate enough to have the awesome Enochian community folks teach me Enochian, and a couple of them spent countless hours day after day explaining the intricate details of the system to me. I would thank them publically, but I don't know if they would want to be associated with a site like this LOL. I had been doing invocation for a year or 2 by this point of angels, and decided to move into evocation, first of archangels and angels then to demons. I didn't have a teacher when I started evocation and couldn't find one (and considering how well the last student/teacher relationship went I wasn't in much of a hurry), so I figured I best ask the entities themselves. The Goetia is full of "gives secrets, gives wisdom" etc. So I spent years day after day (nearly) evoking entities and asking them as many questions about magic and the practice of it as they would let me get in in a session. I also asked for some magical exercises. I fortunatly found skrying quite easy after the initial impressions so light that I wondered if it was working or not phase. I joined a Wiccan coven for a few years (ceremonial magic is seriously lacking in the earthy aspect). They were decent coven, not one of those fluffy lameass ones that are so prevelent. Practiced Santaria/Vodou as well, all from books though as no one would say a word about it to me. Fortunatly that worked well enough for my spells to work and interesting things to happen with the offerings :) I still keep up some aspects of this practice, and have fortunatly since then actually gotten some more accurate info. Over the years I have worked on my own, led rituals, led private groups, worked with others, took turns skrying/evoking with others, worked with a group to gain different perspectives as well as to work with others. I also spent quite some time practicing BDSM and/or and evocation combined. I completed the Abramelin operation. Only about the most difficult yet most rewarding thing I have ever done. I highly recommend it. If it is on your path, get to it. I get emails asking for magical advice all day everyday, and that is the one peice of advice that I think is most worthy. More recently my Vodoun type practices have led me towards HCR (hoodoo conjure rootwork). I have found a most excellent teacher in this. I have only been at it about a year and half now. The making and laying of the spell powders has got to be my fave aspect. They really take herbal work to a new level, and work oh so well (see my article on spell powders here). Definatly a far cry from the Scott Cunningham stuff LOL! I also enjoy working with dead folks (here is where the who the hell would sell human bone necklaces part comes in). I have been working with my ancestors for about 8 years now, and other deads for a couple of years. I have always been able to feel, see and hear dead folks, (don't you dare say "oh how lucky", it made for some troubles when I was young living in a house haunted by a spirit that pretty nasty) but they were usually yelling at me or trying to spook me, so I wasn't quite sure how to work with them until I got some proper training. I have worked with people who's bones that I order, with a few well known magicians of past and of course spirits. I do have one peice of necromancy advice... Don't go to a Jewish cemetery full of holocost victinms that were flown over to be buried there and accept a bucket of dirt "for your flower garden" of nixed deads f rom the groundkeeper, even if you do ask the deads first and leave the proper offerings! Well if you do, don't leave it in your apartment for several months and do daily magical rituals near it LOL. Oh I nearly forgot to mention, I have also helped friends and aquiantances with spellwork over the yeras, or done work for them, or written rttuals for them. So now I have taken up client work. It is cool that my specialties are useful to others, and helpful to give others a boost once in awhile. Hey I even have pro magical work done for myself on some situations. Such as when I am too attached to the outcome that I cannot work affectively, or too stressed about a situation, or something that I am not as good at. I do take client work requests, but do not do them all obviously. I will inform the person of what the chances are of success considering their situation then have them decide if they still want the work to be done. Most situations hae a high success rate, however others do not, and I like to be up front about this sort of thing. I find client work to be quite affective. It is much more affective if I can mail something to the person, and if the person is having the work done on another that the client actually place an object on the subject's property. Also, the client must do their end on the physical for me to bother. For example with job hunting I will dress candles for you, I will enhance your chances and your aura, I may send you some compel powder, but you have to actually go job hunting and applying for the jobs. I am continually making additions to this website, and will be adding many articles and rantings, as well as new products over time. Check back often. If you would like a catalogue just ask. My opinionated rantinga and writinbgs can be found around the net, yahoo groups and occult forums. Warning, I am not nice. I am quite upfront and truthful. I don't like fluff or bullshit. I am quite nice aside from that though LOL. Now that you have read about me, my practice, and my site, buy some incense dammit! :) Nightshade |