Go2Magick
Forty-one issues in, we still write the rituals ourselves. This autumn's lead essay walks through the full working we use at the apothecary each October 31st — from the hand-tied herb bundles to the single beeswax taper lit at the precise moment the sun crosses the horizon — with annotations on what each element does, why we chose it, and what to do if the working goes sideways.
Six topical lanes through 312 published essays, ritual guides, lunar calendars, and practitioner interviews. We file by path, not by date — because most readers come to the Journal looking for a working, not a feed.
From a beginner's first Imbolc to a 13-step Samhain ancestor working, the guides here are written to be performed at the kitchen table. Each carries a printable ritual draft, a sourcing list, and an honesty disclaimer about what we do and don't promise.
78 articlesEvery sabbat incense we sell starts as a working we use ourselves. The autumn blend we built for this issue — a slow-burning resin-and-herb composition intended for the Samhain threshold working — went through eleven revisions on the bench before we signed off on the version that goes into tins. The first version, back in 2017, was an honest mistake: too much dragon's blood, too little mullein, and a base note of copal that turned out to be wishful thinking. We sold it anyway, in those early months. We still get emails about it.
The blend you can buy now, listed under the working name Threshold, is built around three resins — frankincense, copal, and a small amount of dried mugwort leaf that we grind ourselves in the apothecary's mortar room, in batches of no more than four ounces at a time. We do not outsource the grinding. We tried, in 2021, and the supplier's mill ran too hot and cooked the volatile oils out of the leaf; the resulting powder smelled like a bakery instead of a hedgerow. We went back to hand-grinding the following Monday, and we have not revisited the question since.
"If you can't tell, when you open the tin, that a person ground this — slowly, with intention, in a small room — then we haven't done our job. The incense should announce itself."
Mugwort is the most difficult ingredient in the blend. It is also the one we will not compromise on. We source dried mugwort from a partner farm in the coastal Cascades under our 2022 Fair-Trade Sourcing Charter, and we pay roughly four times the commodity price per pound; in return we get leaf that was cut at the right lunar quarter and dried on screens in a barn, not pelletized in a dehydrator. The difference, when you grind it yourself, is the difference between a working and a product.
The full working — including the proportions of each resin, the moment in the ritual at which the incense is lit, and the alternative blend for readers without a smoke-safe space — runs in the printed issue. The abbreviated guide is here, in the Journal, for everyone who reads us online; the working draft, the printable altar card, and the batch-blending notes are reserved for our subscribers and for customers who order the Threshold kit directly from the apothecary. We have always thought the right way to read a working is with the ingredients on the table in front of you.
— Haldis Wren, in the mortar room, Salem, Oregon
Issue 40, published in high summer and now in its second printing, gathers the year's best writing on tarot, scrying, osteomancy, and pendulum work — including the most-read essay we published in 2024, Reading the Cards When You're Reading for Yourself, and a 14-page interview with a hereditary rootworker from the Mississippi Delta.
312 essays across 41 issues are indexed in the archive above. Back issues can be read in print by visiting the Salem apothecary, or ordered as bound reprints through the consultations team.
We commission two kinds of work. Long-form essays from practicing witches, rootworkers, ceremonial magicians, hedge-druids, and folklorists with a body of practice behind their writing. And shorter coven-notes — letters, reflections, ritual anecdotes — from readers who have worked with the Journal for at least a year. We pay on acceptance, we credit our writers, and we publish on a six-month editorial calendar so each piece gets the attention it needs.
Send a 400-word pitch, a sample of your previous writing, and a one-paragraph bio that includes how long you have been practicing. We reply to every submission within four weeks, even when the answer is no.
Submit a PitchMost essays end with a working. The Journal is the front door to the apothecary — and the apothecary is where every ritual described in our pages is sourced, blended, and shipped. Close the loop from reading into practice.
Shop the CollectionThe Journal is a working publication. It is not a content calendar. We publish because we have something a practitioner wants to say to other practitioners — and we have, since 2014, on a quarterly schedule.