Religion & Spirituality
New Age & Spirituality
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Enchantments: Find the Magic in Yourself
Protect your energy, honor your intuition, raise your vibration, and build spells for every part of your life.
"Hilariously conversational, deceptively deep, and phenomenally illustrated, Enchantments will blow your mind and make you laugh while imparting expert knowledge of witchcraft and why it's so needed today."-Natasha Lyonne, actress and producer
Mya Spalter spent years among candles, herbs, cats, and spells as an employee at New York City's oldest occult shop, Enchantments. In this beautifully illustrated book, Spalter sets out to share ways that she's found to live life magically and maintain spiritual connection with the elements and the universe. She offers an approachable compendium of magical knowledge that will equip you to construct your own original spells, build rituals around your intuition, and find your way toward being your own unique kind of witch. Black and queer, Spalter has written this friendly, inclusive guide that will teach anyone how to:
• Build an altar: Find the right tools to model the grace and beauty you aspire to find in your life.
• Cast a self-love spell on yourself: Recognize your own strength and power to inspire happiness and fulfillment.
• Clear out negative energies: Identify and rid yourself of the things holding you back.
• Set meaningful intentions: Create daily practices that positively affect yourself and the world around you.
You will learn how certain colors can help raise your vibrations, directions for herbal blends and potions, the keys to banishing unfriendly spirits (with cleansing rituals or even a dance party), and invaluable instructions in the timeless arts of astrology, tarot, crystals, and finding a parking spot downtown.
Open this book and enchant your own life!
"Hilariously conversational, deceptively deep, and phenomenally illustrated, Enchantments will blow your mind and make you laugh while imparting expert knowledge of witchcraft and why it's so needed today."-Natasha Lyonne, actress and producer
Mya Spalter spent years among candles, herbs, cats, and spells as an employee at New York City's oldest occult shop, Enchantments. In this beautifully illustrated book, Spalter sets out to share ways that she's found to live life magically and maintain spiritual connection with the elements and the universe. She offers an approachable compendium of magical knowledge that will equip you to construct your own original spells, build rituals around your intuition, and find your way toward being your own unique kind of witch. Black and queer, Spalter has written this friendly, inclusive guide that will teach anyone how to:
• Build an altar: Find the right tools to model the grace and beauty you aspire to find in your life.
• Cast a self-love spell on yourself: Recognize your own strength and power to inspire happiness and fulfillment.
• Clear out negative energies: Identify and rid yourself of the things holding you back.
• Set meaningful intentions: Create daily practices that positively affect yourself and the world around you.
You will learn how certain colors can help raise your vibrations, directions for herbal blends and potions, the keys to banishing unfriendly spirits (with cleansing rituals or even a dance party), and invaluable instructions in the timeless arts of astrology, tarot, crystals, and finding a parking spot downtown.
Open this book and enchant your own life!
Editorial Reviews
"Hilariously conversational, deceptively deep, and phenomenally illustrated, Enchantments will blow your mind and make you laugh while imparting expert knowledge of witchcraft and why it's so needed today."-Natasha Lyonne, actress and producer
"Imagine that your best friend, a supremely cool, funny, and irreverent person, is also a witch willing to educate and inspire you toward your own witchy practice with humor, sass, and intelligence. Wouldn't that be the greatest? Thankfully, Mya Spalter has written Enchantments, a book infused with jokes, real talk, occult know-how, stylish lingo, and serious best-friendliness. Enchantments has totally jump-started my own practice, and I am feeling the results daily. This book is magic-literally!"-Michelle Tea, author of Modern Tarot
"Part memoir, part recipe book, and part poetry collection, Enchantments lets readers in on the great secret of all witchcraft-that being a witch is about being free to be yourself. In a spirit of collaboration and community and with limber humor and wit, Mya Spalter empowers all of us to be the best magical practitioners we can be. A future classic for both new and experienced witches, or anyone in the mood for a little divination."-Dorothea Lasky, author of Milk and co-creator of Astro Poets
"All the things you've always wanted to know about becoming a witch but were afraid to ask! We can all use more magic in our lives in these trying times, and Enchantments will help us get started. Now who wants to join my coven and cast some spells?!"-Kimya Dawson, singer/songwriter, The Moldy Peaches
"Imagine that your best friend, a supremely cool, funny, and irreverent person, is also a witch willing to educate and inspire you toward your own witchy practice with humor, sass, and intelligence. Wouldn't that be the greatest? Thankfully, Mya Spalter has written Enchantments, a book infused with jokes, real talk, occult know-how, stylish lingo, and serious best-friendliness. Enchantments has totally jump-started my own practice, and I am feeling the results daily. This book is magic-literally!"-Michelle Tea, author of Modern Tarot
"Part memoir, part recipe book, and part poetry collection, Enchantments lets readers in on the great secret of all witchcraft-that being a witch is about being free to be yourself. In a spirit of collaboration and community and with limber humor and wit, Mya Spalter empowers all of us to be the best magical practitioners we can be. A future classic for both new and experienced witches, or anyone in the mood for a little divination."-Dorothea Lasky, author of Milk and co-creator of Astro Poets
"All the things you've always wanted to know about becoming a witch but were afraid to ask! We can all use more magic in our lives in these trying times, and Enchantments will help us get started. Now who wants to join my coven and cast some spells?!"-Kimya Dawson, singer/songwriter, The Moldy Peaches
Readers Top Reviews
MissaKathy B.JoRosie
Super informative with a lot of personality! Everything from the Wheel of the Year to color magic to astrology. Such a great resource for newbie witches or anyone who is curious about modern witchcraft. I LOVED reading this, and I hope we get more from Spalter in the future!
Mya’s voice is incredible, and it makes Enchantments a delightful read. The book is well-organized and informative, plus it’s written in a way that’s easy to understand. Works well as a read-through a + as a reference to keep handy for different witchy holidays, color associations, planet meanings, etc. Recommend for anyone with witchy inclinations!
Cloudy
It was really fun to read through and I tried some of the methods mentioned, it works! I wish I could visit enchantment store one day.....
HotCakes123CraftyPea
The book is okay for beginner tips, but I really feel like it was advertising for the store Enchantments in NYC that the author works at. Some of the information which came from Enchantments she didn’t want to share which didn’t make sense because why put it in the book. It’s a good read if your bored but I found myself stop reading for a while because she mentions the store so many times.
Black cat Gregorius
When I asked her on Instagram if she mentioned mabon in the book, not only she deleted my comment she never bothered to answer ( Maybe she thinks I'm a mabon enthusiast, or a mabon loony who knows ? ) No, not really I couldn't care less for Aidan Kelly's infamous autumn equinox name. Anyway the book is a vibrant and funny witchy 101 with some New York flair. she clearly has a mercurial nature and that adds some spark to her writing, oh... and the illustrations are pretty good too.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Table of Contents
Intro
Part One: Witchy Implements
1. Altars: Create a Sacred Space
2. Colors: Hues to Help You Achieve Your Goals
3. Candles: Craft a vessel for your intention
4. Plants and Minerals: Harness your energy with herbs and crystals
5. Planets: Tap into the power of the solar system
6. Calendar: Find ways to Embrace the Changing Seasons
7. Covens and Collaborators: Work Magically with Others
Part Two: Magical Intentions
8. Uncrossing, Protection, and Banishing: How to clear negativity from yourself and your space
9. Attraction Magic: How to Draw Love, Warmth and Abundance
10. Money Drawing: How to Invite and Encourage Prosperity
11. Divination: How to Access Inner Knowledge
12. Astrology: How Movements of the Planets Mirror and Influence Us
Chapter 1
Where the Magic Happens, or Altars
Now that we're well acquainted, I'll show you my altars. The altar is an area of your home that's devoted to your spiritual life. It can serves as a workspace for building your spells, or as a tiny temple for honoring a deity, saint, intention, or concept. The important part is that your altar is a dedicated space. Most people who practice witchcraft or another polytheistic worship have at least one altar in their home. But no pressure. Even people who aren't spiritually inclined seem to be able to get down with the beneficial function of an altar as a place to model peace and balance in our lives. It's aspirational.
If you don't already have a designated altar, find an uncluttered area where you can place items of spiritual significance to you: photos of departed loved ones, plants, postcards, paintings, crystals, mirrors, beads and jewelry, flowers, shells, stones, miscellaneous items of sentimental value. Go nuts. I wish I could come over and help you with this part. It's my favorite. I actually have a dream of starting a business called Spalter's Altars, where I go into people's homes and help them assemble altars out of items they already have or that we could go find at a yard sale or the dollar store. One of the principles of magic that I appreciate the most is the notion that you have what you need all around you. It's just up to you to be sharp enough to see it.
The items you collected for your altar are now to be considered ritual items. Ritual items are set apart from your other possessions, and you take special care with them. By "ritual," I mean an elevated habit-that is, a habit that has some symbolic meaning. Humans love ritual; we'll make a ritual out of anything. We've all wished on an eyelash, blown out birthday candles after chanting a little song, knocked on wood, or blessed someone who sneezed. We can't get enough of ritual, because it resonates with something deep in our human condition. Performing a prescribed action with the knowledge that you're part of a tradition is really powerful. It's an opportunity to inhabit a less mundane frame of mind. But we don't always realize our own agency to create and curate new and personal rituals, to respectfully draw from different practices to cobble together our own unique way to feel connected. Your altar can be a physical representation of what that process looks like for you.
I take immeasurable pleasure in making and maintaining my altars. Beyond my primary altar, every windowsill and plant pot in my house contains some semi-intentional collection of magical crap, so I'm always ready to create an altar to suit my mood or intention. I use whatever I have to hand at any moment: a feather, two marbles, a die turned meticulously to a particular side, broken statuary arranged to appear somewhat less broken, small plastic animals, sea glass and precious stones, widowed earrings, minuscule pinwheels, loose change, mica flakes and dried-up cherry blossoms, golden bobby pins and tiny crystal cordial glasses. I haven't yet applied the life-changing magic of tidying up, or whatever you call it, but I'm worried it wouldn't work on me because I truly...
Intro
Part One: Witchy Implements
1. Altars: Create a Sacred Space
2. Colors: Hues to Help You Achieve Your Goals
3. Candles: Craft a vessel for your intention
4. Plants and Minerals: Harness your energy with herbs and crystals
5. Planets: Tap into the power of the solar system
6. Calendar: Find ways to Embrace the Changing Seasons
7. Covens and Collaborators: Work Magically with Others
Part Two: Magical Intentions
8. Uncrossing, Protection, and Banishing: How to clear negativity from yourself and your space
9. Attraction Magic: How to Draw Love, Warmth and Abundance
10. Money Drawing: How to Invite and Encourage Prosperity
11. Divination: How to Access Inner Knowledge
12. Astrology: How Movements of the Planets Mirror and Influence Us
Chapter 1
Where the Magic Happens, or Altars
Now that we're well acquainted, I'll show you my altars. The altar is an area of your home that's devoted to your spiritual life. It can serves as a workspace for building your spells, or as a tiny temple for honoring a deity, saint, intention, or concept. The important part is that your altar is a dedicated space. Most people who practice witchcraft or another polytheistic worship have at least one altar in their home. But no pressure. Even people who aren't spiritually inclined seem to be able to get down with the beneficial function of an altar as a place to model peace and balance in our lives. It's aspirational.
If you don't already have a designated altar, find an uncluttered area where you can place items of spiritual significance to you: photos of departed loved ones, plants, postcards, paintings, crystals, mirrors, beads and jewelry, flowers, shells, stones, miscellaneous items of sentimental value. Go nuts. I wish I could come over and help you with this part. It's my favorite. I actually have a dream of starting a business called Spalter's Altars, where I go into people's homes and help them assemble altars out of items they already have or that we could go find at a yard sale or the dollar store. One of the principles of magic that I appreciate the most is the notion that you have what you need all around you. It's just up to you to be sharp enough to see it.
The items you collected for your altar are now to be considered ritual items. Ritual items are set apart from your other possessions, and you take special care with them. By "ritual," I mean an elevated habit-that is, a habit that has some symbolic meaning. Humans love ritual; we'll make a ritual out of anything. We've all wished on an eyelash, blown out birthday candles after chanting a little song, knocked on wood, or blessed someone who sneezed. We can't get enough of ritual, because it resonates with something deep in our human condition. Performing a prescribed action with the knowledge that you're part of a tradition is really powerful. It's an opportunity to inhabit a less mundane frame of mind. But we don't always realize our own agency to create and curate new and personal rituals, to respectfully draw from different practices to cobble together our own unique way to feel connected. Your altar can be a physical representation of what that process looks like for you.
I take immeasurable pleasure in making and maintaining my altars. Beyond my primary altar, every windowsill and plant pot in my house contains some semi-intentional collection of magical crap, so I'm always ready to create an altar to suit my mood or intention. I use whatever I have to hand at any moment: a feather, two marbles, a die turned meticulously to a particular side, broken statuary arranged to appear somewhat less broken, small plastic animals, sea glass and precious stones, widowed earrings, minuscule pinwheels, loose change, mica flakes and dried-up cherry blossoms, golden bobby pins and tiny crystal cordial glasses. I haven't yet applied the life-changing magic of tidying up, or whatever you call it, but I'm worried it wouldn't work on me because I truly...
