Hey occulties,
I’m going to try to get a few articles which aren’t this series in after this but going on in our series, let’s just roast this horrid chestnut;
Misconception: The general public understands at least a fair amount about spells, spellcasting, and the occult, (or isn’t there some reliable and trusted way of accrediting people who cast spells?) so if I want to learn to cast spells or hire someone I shouldn’t have a hard time, despite knowing literally next to nothing.
Reality: It would be fair to say maybe even 99% of the world is actually so ignorant on spellcasting and the occult and that which they do know is often very very very loosely based on reality. To complicate this, there are posuers and psychos around every corner who if you know magic arent usually hard to spot but if you don’t know much of that you do know is trash, you’re gonna run into some problems.
Back when people read, this was still a problem, but now that you have a generation of people looking for notoriety on the internet, it’s exploded. Terribly.
Let’s pretend for a moment (and I’m going to use American restaurant practices as my base,) that you’ve never been to a restaurant in your life. Let’s further pretend that about 75% of people have not. I realize this is unlikely but what most of you know about dining out compared to someone who knows next to nothing about it is how painful this is to hear people who know nothing about spells or spellcasting discuss spells and spellcasting and try to put people who are experts down. So you join a Reddit like r/restaurantsreviewed and after reading a few posts, you think you understand how it’s done and you walk into a small restaurant near your home and sit and wait for the wait staff. People come and go. No one comes to get your order. Finally a young lady behind the counter says “Sir, can I help you?” And you say “yeah um I thought you came to the table-“ and she says with a giggle “No I guess you missed the ‘order here’ sign above the counter,” (how DARE she embarrass you by telling you to read a sign!?) “but if you come over here I’ll gladly take your order!” Despite the “attitude” of the smiling friendly girl, you walk up and say “I’d like a turkey sandwich, with Swiss and bacon and mayo” The staff looks at each other, confused. “Sir,” says the girl, “this is a noodle shop. We basically sell ramen and pho dishes.” How dare she humiliate you?! So you go back to your friends and say “I would like to say that Steaming Noods is a scam! Not only did the staff not take my order and refused to give me a turkey sandwich, Britney laughed at me and was rude!” The leader of this band of reviewers says “yeah if they’re rude they probably don’t even have turkey and sell cat meat.” You know because a noodle shop that has no bread and treated you courteously deserves both of you tearing them down, and making bold accusations like they sell cat meat for you not reading the menu or a sign instructing you to order yourself at the counter, but others chime in and one girl even says “I used to date the owner of Steaming Noods and like I’m pretty sure he got me pregnant but like he totally wouldn’t return my calls so you know his food is garbage,” So, a trashy girl claiming she had a fling with the owner also now has something to do with food service or quality. I’m so surprised I don’t see this in respected food review journals, But unfettered by all of this, you walk into Gary’s Steak House. A nice young man greets you at the door. “Do I order here?” You ask. You are told you’ll need to be seated and wait staff will bring you a menu. So you sit at a nice table and a different young man comes to your table and plops down a thing that looks like a paper folder. He asks if you’re thirsty. “I’ll just have a water, I guess,” you say and the boy writes this down, mumbles that he will give you a minute to decide what you’d like to eat, turns to leave and you say “I want a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese, bacon and mayo.” The boy looks at you for a moment then gently says, “We don’t have that here, but we do sell a few sandwiches - burgers mostly, but there’s a fried chicken sandwich you might—“ EXCUSE ME!? Is this child telling you that you are WRONG!? You become indignant and while the young man says you just need to look at the menu as surely something will appeal to you, you scream “I said I want a fucking turkey sandwich and if I don’t get one, you aren’t a real restaurant, you fucking frauds!” Now other people are staring at you. Gary, the owner, walks over and says “I won’t have my wait staff abused sir, - you have to leave.” You immediately review Gary’s Steak House as having rude staff, an evil owner who humiliated you and the food (of which you ate none) as being full of visible insect activity. Your friends on r/restaurantsreviewed join in and then post reviews ranging from that Gary’s is a secret sweatshop full illegal immigrants, that Gary doesn’t pay taxes, that Gary has herpes, that several of them - all of whom have never been to Gary’s steak house - got food poisoning there.
I could keep going but you’re getting my drift, I hope. It’s hugely accurate as well because this is about how realistic “reviews” of most spellcasters are…it’s someone often not even having any idea of what they are talking about and trashing someone who is doing a competent job and has been more than courteous to someone who is confused, rude, - and the amount of times people ask me things that are on the contact form they need to fill out to speak to me isn’t small…so also at fault for being oblivious. In this example, the person could have read a visible sign, or looked at a menu, but having no understanding of restaurants and how they work, instead blamed perfectly courteous and innocent people and even lied on them because this person felt embarrassed by their own misunderstanding, and this was then supported and fueled by others, many of which likely had no understanding that they were supporting bad behavior. And frankly I’m not exaggerating. Years ago, I believe THE Becky of Becky’s Diner (the owner anyhow, as Becky sold the restaurant in the 10s as I recall,) had the audacity to tell a patron to quiet their screaming child who had been wailing for at least a half an hour, much to the annoyance of all other patrons. The butthurt parents posted a vile review, and Becky responded. Then a bunch of parents of small children started flinging complete falsehoods about Becky’s. Even the health inspector came. These accusations were made by people who had never even been to Portland in many cases. And mind you, this child’s parents were the ones in the wrong. Many people did defend Becky and her diner, but it’s an internet famous incidence of a business being unfairly maligned and lied on because someone had their feelings hurt when they were the ones in the wrong to begin with.
And most of us understand how restaurants work, and what manners we should have while a patron and what the expectations are on both sides.
Plus we live in an age so stupid that Yelp allows people to review the county jail. Like you arent going to get anyone too happy about getting arrested so I’m reasonably sure your drunk uncle Randy isn’t giving five stars for that super fast book and release on his last drunk driving request. 🙄 Who knows? Maybe they’ll get 2 stars for feeding him a bologna sandwich while he waited for bail.
And yet we expect fully ignorant and in many cases fiendishly misleading people to serve as our benchmark on how to get spellcasting advice. I remember a Reddit where I asked someone who posted a spell why bay leaves in this spell as they really didn’t fit. She couldn’t explain it and said just because. This is not expert. Experts can tell you why any ingredient and I shared this with friends and we all snickered on it. Because it would have been ineffective for the inclusion of bay leaves. The ego bruised “witch” told people I was mean and a hack because she didn’t know what she was doing. Many years ago I told a girl to stop posting my blog articles. She stalked me for years after my saying this and hurting her feelings by saying it, often writing awful things to me for no cause, and even posted on a go fund me for me after my house fire that I should have died. This is someone who other people thought was an “expert” because she ran a group where she posted other expert’s material.
But in defense of others, you know little about something and you want help understanding it. I’m with you there. Find any self described expert. Not a customer but an expert. Most experts - not all certainly - will have a blog or a spell posted. Find any spell on my blog, ask me why I included something. Give the link and I’ll look and tell you. Ask me questions. I won’t pause to look it up. I need to know which post you’re referencing, past that I have been casting spells for longer than many of you have been alive and don’t require books or google to know why I do a thing. And any real expert can do that but a few frauds can as well. But you’ve just cleared a large number right out. Next look for a list. If they have a list of bad people they are probably insane. Like if you have three or four years to allow me to speak nonstop, I can list every single fake I know but the reality is I wouldn’t take the time as frankly if I’m attacking other businesses to look good it’s probably for attention and honestly talking shit comes with the responsibility of handling angry people who’s business - scam or no - I’m damaging, so they will retaliate and if they got a personality disorder they’ll publish all sorts of weird lies and dramas. That’s a lot of horseshit to trudge through on top of an already demanding job which is why the vast majority of real spellcasters might defend themselves if someone else fires the first shot but don’t bother making fraud lists. So if they got bad shit to say about people - named people - and they make full lists to “warn you”probably also a fraud. Now you just cleared the field so well, you’ve got a huge chance of finding a real practitioner.
I mean, my greatest critic is a dope-addict from Portland who tried to steal my husband (she likes married men) and who’s stalked me for years because while she failed as a home wrecker she did get chased out of Portland for being a shameless scumbag. She posted I was arrested in Portland when I wasn’t even living in or present in Maine at the time, and included a Portland police log where my name isn’t on the police log since I didn’t live there nor was I arrested there. She was never a client and you can tell it’s her because she calls my husband my boyfriend to deflect responsibility. She actually lost me business. Let that soak in. If you believed her or promoted any of that or joined in on it you actually victimized her victim with her, - a woman who sleeps with other women’s men and stalks them and bullies them by posting fake stuff online. Bravo. Several of you have had me curse your antagonists for doing less.
But shameless failed homewreckers aside, this has become the norm. Your feelings get hurt, or you don’t understand how something works or you don’t read the instructions and you blame honest people. Maybe you really even had a bad experience - you know I’ve said this a thousand times but even 300 bad reviews would be less than 1% of my lifetime business. But the ones that stand out and that I was shown come from people I never wronged (arguably I didn’t let failed homewrecker take my husband but that wasn’t business lol) like one comes from someone I didn’t reply to a scheduling inquiry on my posted day off. I have another from someone who got mad at me for not replying to a text while getting a root canal. I had a drill in my skull so I sure didn’t reply then.
So start by asking questions. An expert can answer them all. Why this thing or why that day. Avoid people who have a lengthy list of bad spellcasters or who frequently review them. I can tell you right now if you’re working with 8 different people, the problem is probably you. You know if 100 doctors can’t save someone with stage four pancreatic cancer, it doesn’t make all of them quacks so if a bunch of people can’t fix your problem maybe it’s unfixable.
I realize this will make me unpopular but IDGAF. The only way to know who’s real and who’s not is to either find a completely unbiased board of review composed of other experts (no such thing) or to know enough to spot who’s fake. I got 20 years of posts here. Feel free to find one. Click the link, copy, paste, email and ask me anything. Almost all of this except where noted is my original work. I won’t need to look anything up. That’s a sure sign of an expert and any expert I know can do the same.
~Cat