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A Familiar Question
by Lupa©
Most pagans have pets; we seem to
be a very critter-friendly group! From
furry dogs and cats to sleek snakes and lizards to brightly colored birds—and
then some—animals grace our everyday lives.
Almost every pagan I know has some kind of pet wandering around their
home.
However, some assume that any
animal that lives among magic workers is a familiar. They may point out how “Puppy always sits at
the edge of the circle when our coven holds rituals” or “Our cat Midnight loves to sit on our altar
amid all the ritual tools”. This really
does nothing to differentiate between a pet and a familiar, as these are normal
animal behaviors. Most dogs are social
creatures that love to get in on the action when company’s around, and cats are
notorious for perching—and knocking things off shelves! But just because an animal is in a pagan
home, doesn’t necessarily make it a familiar.
This, of course, begs the question
of what makes a familiar different.
There isn’t a lot of information on practical familiar work out there;
most of what we have are old stories of animals given to witches by the Devil
and sent off to do strange, nefarious tasks. And while we have tons of resources on totem
animals, which are noncorporeal, there’s very little on physical animals as
familiars.
The primary trait of familiars that
I have found in my research and practice is functionality—what role does the
animal play in the pagan’s magical practice?
Most familiars I’ve heard about do things like guard their human during
ritual work, particularly astral travel and other potentially risky activities. In addition to protecting the physical body,
the animal may also serve as a spirit guide, similar to a power animal,
traveling with the person on hir journey.
Some lend their energy to magic by their presence, which may be
augmented by a donation of a bit of fur or shed skin. And familiars may also be used to perform certain
magical tasks. This doesn’t mean letting
your dog run out of the yard on some errand or another, but rather
communicating intuitively with your familiar regarding what needs to be done,
and then asking for hir cooperation.
Not every animal is capable of this
type of concentration. I used to have
ferrets, and no matter how much I tried to train them, they never could sit
still. I ended up with ferrets knocking
over stuff on the altar, stealing offerings, and bouncing on me while I tried
meditating. Perhaps they would make
awesome Discordian familiars, but they were just a little too crazy to work
with me! Other animals may not be all
that great with intuitive communication, or may not be inclined to work magic,
just like people.
Because of this, a familiar must be
carefully selected. Some people advocate
working a ritual to attract a familiar.
One such example is in Timothy Roderick’s excellent work, The Once Unknown Familiar. The nice thing about his ritual is that it
allows for contact both with animals already in your home, and animals that you
haven’t met yet.
Sometimes you don’t always have the
time to wait around for a familiar to show up.
Just as there’s not just one person in the world with whom you are
compatible for life, so there isn’t just one familiar you can work with. When I first started working on my book on
animal magic, I realized that while I had researched information on familiars
and heard a lot of stories about others’ experiences, I had no experience
myself. Since I was working on a
deadline, I didn’t have time to waste.
In addition, I had to be very specific about the type of animal I had
because of pet restrictions in the building I lived in at the time, as well as
time restrictions I had in my busy schedule.
My solution was to turn a trip to a
small, local pet store into the ritual itself.
A ritual is an action with intent, fueled by Will, and doesn’t
necessarily have to happen within a circle.
I made my statement of intent and headed out the door. Sure enough, the
trip was a success, and I came home with Tatzelwurm, an ocellated skink who has
been a wonderful familiar since then.
She’s small, doesn’t require a lot of maintenance, but has completed a
couple of magical tasks for me with fabulous results.
What keeps her from being just a
pet is her participation in magic. She’s
a guardian during rituals; even if she doesn’t come out from hiding, I still
get an energetic “ping” from her when I evoke her. And she’s completed a couple of tasks for
me. Usually what she asks me to do, once
I’ve told her what I’d like her to accomplish, is to leave a small two-hour
candle (unlit, of course!) in her tank for a few days. She charges it without my help, and once it’s
ready she’ll “nudge” me to let me know.
While she doesn’t chew on it, fortunately, there are always tracks in
the sand around it where she’s thoroughly investigated it. And once the candle has burned, I tend to get
results within a reasonably quick time.
Her reward is crickets—mealworms are her usual fare, but crickets are a
treat.
Of course, this isn’t the do-all
and end-all of familiar work. Still, I
wanted to emphasize that a familiar isn’t just a pet; it’s an animal that is an
active participant on magical work. Of
course, there’s nothing wrong with “just pets”, either—the joy of sharing your
life with another living being is magic in itself!
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