LEARNING TO SPELL
Meet the modern-day witches I managed to heal my own broken foot
JULIE Aspinall, MD of a dog security firm, swears by the power of spells.
The 57-year-old claims to have healed her own broken foot using witchcraft and credits it with helping her find love, the house of her dreams and success at work.
Julie first started looking into witchcraft in her early 20s and learned how to cast spells.
She says: “When I was in my teens, I knew I was different. I was quite popular, but I knew I didn’t really fit in.
“People used to say I was the luckiest person they knew – if I wanted something or wanted something to happen, most of the time it would. I felt like I was somehow special because things would just go well for me.”
After the 2005 Isle of Lewis scandal – when eight islanders were wrongly accused of abusing children during “black magic rituals” – Julie was reluctant to tell people she believed in witchcraft.
But she says: “One day, my grown-up daughter said, ‘Mum, you don’t have to hide any more, you know’.”
From that point on, Julie started talking more publicly about being a witch.
She claims to have an ability to “make things happen”.
Julie says: “If I liked someone, I could make them like me. If I needed money, something would happen within a day, like a job or I would win something.”
At her home, Julie now has a special spell room where she conducts rituals that coincide with the seasons and lunar cycles, such as Ostara (Easter) and Yule, the celebration of the Winter Solstice.
She also has a summer house in her garden that acts as her “herb room”. It is packed with hundreds of bottles of herbs alongside a bulging folder of recipes for various potions and tinctures.
Julie says: “Spells and potions can be for anything from healing to abundance. One time I went to hospital with a broken foot. By the time I had waited to be seen, I had healed it myself. An X-ray showed it
If I want something, I can normally make it
happen
was broken and I would need six to eight weeks without walking on it, but I walked out of hospital and was back walking my dogs an hour later.”
Julie’s home is also the meeting place for the Coven of Gaia, which she formed three years ago.
The coven has 16 members – both men and women – from different backgrounds, such as teaching, computer programming and finance.
They meet to carry out rituals in the evenings and overnight, donning their cloaks and lighting a sea of candles around an altar in Julie’s garden for the occasion.
They have helped “cleanse” houses and tried to assist people in poor health.
Julie, from Fillongley, Warks, also uses her witchcraft to bring her success at work.
She hangs a broomstick over her front door that she and her staff touch when they need to.
Julie says: “It’s happened so many times where something’s happened like we’ve lost a contract, then I’ve touched the broom and we’ve won a new one the very next day.”
It’s not often that she uses witchcraft negatively but Julie does have a few tools up her sleeve, including an effective “freezer spell” that is made in a jar then put in the freezer – effectively freezing a particular person out of your life.
She says: “I do spells two or three times a week for various things.
“But having a spell isn’t just about sitting on your backside waiting… you have to be doing what you can to help make it happen too.”