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Help! Has The Talisman Gone Bad?

akaWiintermoon

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Jan 3, 2002
Messages
553
Hi all, I came in this section to see if anyone had any knowledge of talismans?
I brought a talisman called, 'Talisman of the Seven Archangels' from http://www.circleraphael.co.uk wich I recieved on Tuesday and wore all day. I took it off that night but put it back on Wednesday and left it on 'till earlier.
I got this talisman as I've been looking a lot into angels recently and thought this might get me closer to them. It does offer money wealth, all your dreams come true etc, and whilst this wasn't why I got it I couldn't help but expect something of course. I'm only human! lol
The trouble is I've had nothing but bad luck, really bad luck since I got it! It's been so bad I had a panic attack earlier!
I can't find a phone number for the company so have emailed them for advice. I've also taken the thing off! I just wondered in the mean time if anyone has any help or advice?
 
Wintermoon, if you look at the back of your talisman you should find a small nodule somewhere near the top. This should move slightly from left to right when pressed firmly. If you look closely it will say "good luck" on one side and "bad luck" on the other. Just make sure the toggle is pointing towards "good luck" and things should improve.
 
Hi mindalai, thanks for your reply. I'm afraid there's nothing movable on the front or back of the talisman. On the back is imprinted The C.O. Raphaels' logo and some words: 'Created by the circle of Raphael' apart from that there is just hall marks as it's silver.
That's very strange though, why would you buy a talisman and set it to bad luck?! I've never heard of that before?
Thanks again for your reply anyway. :)
 
It isn't Australian is it? Because if it is, you're probably wearing it upside down.
 
Lol, no, I belive they are made, and deffinatly sent from, England. I notice I also end up really teary and wound up after wearing it for a while. Mind you, with the luck I get from it it's not surprising is it?! lol
I feel a lot calmer now. Even though I've smoked about 10 ciggies. Just to help calm me down. ;)
 
Magical Emergency First Aid

If it's bugging you, try burying it in a jar of salt. If you have one of those glass jars with the rubber seal and metal clasp, all the better.

Close the clasp tie a piece of red cotton thread round the clasp, or round the lid and don't open it again until the next New moon. Then, take the talisman back out and give it a clean with a piece of white cloth and some white wine vinegar.

Take it outside and show it to the New Moon. :)

Don't use the salt for anything else, but but throw it back into the sea, when you get the chance.

A proper thaumaturge might have better advice. ;)
 
Hi Pietro_Mercurios, thank-you for your advice, it's apprechiated. :) Is that some kind of cleansing ritual?
What's a thaumaturge?
 
akaWiintermoon said:
Hi Pietro_Mercurios, thank-you for your advice, it's apprechiated. :) Is that some kind of cleansing ritual?
What's a thaumaturge?
Yes. An emergency Moon powered cleansing ritual. Should suit you.

Don't know why anyone wants to fiddle with angels and kabbalistic stuff these days, anyway. Hardly auspicious times.

A thaumaturge is a magician. I'm not, mind. ;)
 
According to the Circle of Raphael website, they offer a Unique Money-Back Guarantee to clients who feel they have not benefited from "the ancient science of talismanic magic". So send it back to them and ask for a refund. It's clearly violating their promiseto you that "All Circle of Raphael talismans contain only pure and positive energies and it is totally impossible for any of them to ever function on a negative level."

(Incidentally, have you spoken to your GP about your panic attacks? A friend of mine went through a stage of suffering terribly from them, but he's been a lot better since he started taking medication for them. Not that medication is the answer to everything - but it may be helpful at least for the short term, until you've had a chance to explore the underlying cause of your attacks.)
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
Yes. An emergency Moon powered cleansing ritual. Should suit you.

Don't know why anyone wants to fiddle with angels and kabbalistic stuff these days, anyway. Hardly auspicious times.

Hi Pietro, haven't done the salt thing yet, bit too afraid to go near it! I'm nuts, heh :madeyes: I was hoping I'd have a reply from the site already but nothing yet.

I had to look up 'auspicious' as I didn't know what it meant. Kind of means blessed, miraculous, good omens, right? I don't think these times any any worse intent wise than any other, there's just more of us and we have more distructive weponry. You don't buy 'the age of aquarious' then?! lol

Hi Gray, ta for your reply too. I was waiting on the guy to email back before I sent it off. I feel like melting it down at the moment! (Says in the money back bit that's what they do to returned ones.) As for the panic attack, thanks for your concern. I've been suffering from them for years. I'm agoraphobic but I make sure I go to my local shop everyday at least. There was just a huge hold up for about 20 mins and although I managed to stay (Kept running in and out of the shop!) it wasn't nice. Haven't had one like it in there before. On the waiting list (again) for help. Thanks for your advice though. :)
 
I firmly believe that you can "reset" all sorts of things. Tarot cards, talismans, crystal balls etc. Then right ritual to do this is one you come up with yourself, one that makes sense to you. For example when my tarot card went "naughty" I put them back in order [they had never been in order since I bought them 15 odd years ago] and hey presto - reset and working fine.
Even when I did a seance well back in the 80's and we weren't allowed to smash the glass we had used [my mates mum wasn't rich], I came up with a cleansing ritual of letting tapwater run into it for 7 minutes. Hey presto - nothing ever happened.
Rituals can be made up by anyone, the trick is that you have to "feel" that it is working. Take the salt example, sounds nifty to me but if it means nothing to you, why should it work?
Let your guts tell you what to do. Imagine your talisman, think of why you believe it is giving you bad luck. Is it due to waves eminating from it? Maybe you want to stop them by rubbing it with vinegar [acetic acid, always good for a lot of things] or maybe you want to bury it for one night in a grave of a person you loved, they could take all the bad vibes away and next day all is gone. Or hold it in front of a speaker with your favourite music on for a magical time [say 7min] and many many more.

Just because you make them up doesn't mean they don't work. I'd say the contrary is true. Steven King knew this way back when he wrote "it". The kids in the story are fighting an ancient evil through their own rituals and they are the only ones that work.

Go and become stronger than a piece of metal, show it who's the boss!

8)
 
I've looked at the talisman on the website you mention and although it's a pretty poor specimen I can't see anything particularly negative about it. I suspect it simply doesn't work.

The letters in the outer circle (starting from the top and reading to the left) are AHIHAShHAHIH. AHIH ('eheieh') is a name of God and can be translated as 'essence', ASh ('esch') means 'fire' but used as a divine name can mean 'fire of God,' and the remaining H is superfluous. However, I think the intention was to reproduce the name of God that appears in Exodus 3:14, AHIH AShR AHIH ('eheieh asher eheieh' meaning 'I am that I am'), but it seems to have been copied (or recopied) by someone unfamiliar with Hebrew who somehow mistook the resh (R) for a he (H).

The central portion contains the Hebrew letters Sh, R or V, B or K, H, H, R or V, M or Ch and B in the centre. Again, the copying is poor and I can't produce anything intelligible from the characters. In any event I've found no recognisable names of negative forces although equally there's nothing here to connect the talisman with the archangels.

Sometimes bad luck just happens - for example I've been uncharacteristically clumsy for the last week or so, which I put down to nothing more sinister than trying to do too many things at once or paying insufficient attention to what I've been doing. The only external forces at work are entirely mundane. In my opinion - speaking as a magician - what you have in your possession is a piece of metal containing some poorly reproduced Hebrew characters and which in all probability has no intrinsic power. My advice would be to return it, obtain a refund, and forget about it. Pay it no more attention than that.
 
Thank-you Emeth and Dingo for your replies, they are very helpful, I do apprechiate it.

GadaffiDuck said:
Locus of control..................................sigh

Gadaffi, (I hope this comes out right, not long woken up but felt compelled to reply to your comment.), I have read a few pages of the other thread in this section when you argue about 'Locus of control.' I'm glad I did because had I not your comment there would seem even more sarcastic. I don't know if that's what you were aiming for? You put down nothing useful, not even explaining yourself or your objective.
I'm very glad that you feel so secure in yourself (I really am) that you don't feel the need, or desire, for any external showing of faith towards a religous/spiritual cause. We all have our own views, and/or way of coping with life in this world.
Wether I'm more on the button or you are we'll never know, unless possibly until we die! But please respect that other people do have different views from you and do have faith in those views even if you do think it's all a load of twadle. I'm not looking to argue with you at all, I respect that you don't belive in what I and other people do. Just please, if you don't feel able to constructively debate or pass comment, maybe you should dwel on how your reply comes across. Unless of course as I mentioned, sarcasm was the intent?
 
One of my friends gave me this talisman as a gift a few years ago. I can't honestly say i thought that having it changed my luck one way or the other, though i was very insulted when the giver started trying to suggest to me that improvements in my mental health were due to the talisman (as opposed to a sh*t load of work in therapy :( ).

I binned it about a year back, and can't say that made much difference either.
 
Hi River, pleased to hear about your mental health improvements, a belated 'well done!' for all your hard work. :yeay:

Actually, I do aprechiate Gadaffis' perspective, it's a lot more psycological than I thought. Although I wasn't expecting to lead a suddenly charmed existance, I wasn't expecting anything negative either! However, lots of things did go wrong. I've since put it back in it's box and origonal packaging and thank goodness, nothing else has gone wrong, things seem back to normal. I'm not taking any chances and that's where it's staying untill it's posted back!

Thanks again for all your help and replies folks. :grouphug: :D
 
The URL which opens this very recent thread doesn't work at all for me.

Might it not work on this side of the Pond?
 
OldTimeRadio said:
The URL which opens this very recent thread doesn't work at all for me.

Might it not work on this side of the Pond?

What browser are you using? It wouldn't open for me in Opera, I had to resort to using IE to open it. :no-no:
 
Gadaffi, could you expand on what you mean by "Locus of Control"?
 
'Locus of Control' is one of those clever-sounding phrases that students use a lot in the weeks after they first learn them, like 'cognitive dissonance'. ;)

In my day, it were cod-Marxism, like 'empowerment' in its various forms and, my favourite, 'participating in one's own oppression'. :lol:
 
Lol.

I discussed it with him here

If I read him right it's just a case of 'who's the boss here'? By attributing any power over your life/luck/mood/blah-di-blah to an external thing you are abdicating your responsibility to recognise and develop, in an all round good mental health way, your own power to control these things.

So all magic(k), with it's trappings, tools, entities and forces, is essentially a form of mental weakness or folly, in spite of the fact that some of the most well known magic(k)ians have also been qualified psychologists and that the methods and results of both fields have remarkable similarities. Or else it just makes people think you're a bit odd which apparently isn't good for you ;)

My take on all this as a fairly sane magic(k)ian is a bit too long-winded and dull to get into, but I don't necessarily disagree ..... not while I'm in mufty anyway ;)
 
Does simply wearing a talisman actually count as magic, though? Surely the whole point of magic (and psychotherapy, I guess) is to immerse yourself in the performance of ritual?

Expecting a shop-bought talisman to change your luck seems a bit like expecting a copy of The Rough Guide to Depth Psychology to transform your personality by its mere presence on your bookshelf.

Or am I completely missing the point?
 
graylien said:
Does simply wearing a talisman actually count as magic, though? Surely the whole point of magic (and psychotherapy, I guess) is to immerse yourself in the performance of ritual?
Sure, I'd say - it's what you'd call talismanic magic. I guess the idea being that association with a symbol can modify the outside world.
 
The thing with this sort of talisman idea is that it is ritually constructed and charged by an experienced practitioner ... or that's what they're trying to sell you anyway - that particular website and design didn't really fill me with confidence.
The way most of the world does their magic(k) works this way - you want something done you go and see your local shaman/palero/witchdoctor etc etc and he/she does it for you. They will frequently give you something to do, say, wear, wash in etc etc but they have the knowledge and experience to actually work it.
If you believe that magic(k) is more than a psychological system of personal development (which is pretty much all the Western Hermetic Tradition says it is these days) then objects prepared/charged by a magic(k)ian become powerful magic(k)al items. It's the thing itself, not the act of making it.
According to some traditions some things have inate power in themselves - certain images or words or objects - in hoodoo for example there's a million things each with their own magic(k)al properties and just mixing the relevant ones together and maybe saying a prayer or two you can make all sorts of mischief ... goober dust - graveyard dirt, sulphur and various other odds and ends ground up together - is bad medicine whether it is made by a two-headed doctor or your aunt Sally, provided she has the right recipe.
It's a very democratic way of doing magic(k), available to all who are prepared to pay, unlike the rather elitist, psychologified (!) post Golden dawn style ceremonial magic(k) which requires years of dedicated practice and really only affects the self, or even the medieval/renaissance magic(k) of the grimoires which again frequently requires lots of patience, hard work and scholarship on the part of the individual.
 
Uh huh. Regardless of some of the above pooh pooh posts, the locus of control theory is v.elegant when properly understood e.g. outside a few weeks of student understanding :lol:
 
With regards to the whole 'Archangels' and bible references of 'I am the I am', etc, i've never really understood this aspect of witchcraft (if that's the correct term). The bible is quite negative towards witchcraft and spirituality outisde of the context of Jesus/Holy Spirit, etc, so surely if you believe in the angels/people/powers mentioned in the bible you would also believe magick is evil, or at the very least that you couldn't rely on the help of the Arch angels, without being Christian? And if you don't believe in the teachings of the bible, then it's all pretty pointless anyway?

I used to have a friend who claimed to be a White Witch, did tarot cards, spells and claimed to be quite powerful, but when i'd discuss this with her, she tended to go around in circles and contradicting herself, much like most religious people when questioned.

This post isn't meant to be an attack in any way, i am genuinely interested in an explanation, how people can bring the two things together, the God of the bible and Magick, even though they are so clearly at odds with each other.
 
DieDieMyDarling said:
With regards to the whole 'Archangels' and bible references of 'I am the I am', etc, i've never really understood this aspect of witchcraft (if that's the correct term). The bible is quite negative towards witchcraft and spirituality outisde of the context of Jesus/Holy Spirit, etc, so surely if you believe in the angels/people/powers mentioned in the bible you would also believe magick is evil, or at the very least that you couldn't rely on the help of the Arch angels, without being Christian?

Or Jewish.

Egyptian magic and medical authors from around the time of Christ attempted to graft Jewish beliefs onto their own occult knowledge. Thus there are late medical papyri which list prayers and incantations to Jehovah right along with those to the Egyptian, Greek and Roman gods.

The Gnostics tried to do this same thing with the tenets of the infant Christian religion.

This included the creation of talismans and amulets. Some of the "Jewish" medallions must have wound up back in Jewish hands and not been entirely rejected. The same thing with their "Christian" equivalents.

So Judaeo-Christian "good luck pieces" became acceptable....or at least tolerated.
 
GadaffiDuck said:
Uh huh. Regardless of some of the above pooh pooh posts, the locus of control theory is v.elegant when properly understood e.g. outside a few weeks of student understanding :lol:

I'm sort of loath to comment, but what the hell, I will anyway. Rotter's LOC is a 'nice,' 'pat' theory, but something of a 'motherhood' statement. An Internal or External locus, of itself, is meaning less. There are some questionable assumptions underlying the theory. And in no way can locus of control be generalised...

In a therapeutic setting it would be THE LAST thing I'd bring into a conversation.

:roll:
 
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