The early years:

There's a reason why I've never use the by-products of living animals in any of my physical spells...

Many years ago, when I was first starting out in my Craft, I decided to make a poppet for this total jackass I knew. He was the type of person who was very charismatic, but also completely manipulative. For some reason, nobody could see through his bullshit, even after he'd use and hurt them. In the eyes of just about everyone, he could do no wrong.

Now, at the time, I was completely self taught. I didn't even have access to Occult books, or on-line. The only other Crafters I knew only became interested in magic after watching The Craft, which I didn't bother seeing until several years after it came out due to the staggering amount of converts it seemed to attract. The only reason I worked with Poppets so much is because of The Witches of Eastwick, and a scattering of "historical" books based around the Witch Hunts of the Inquisition. So my sources were questionable, but they seemed to work.

My plan was to make a "Liars Paste" in which to paint the Poppet with, while also stuffing the Poppet with foul materials meant to expose the target's true intentions, as well as cause him a bit of misfortune.

The ingredients for this paste were rather vile. I crushed up dead and dried cockroaches, flies, gnats and mosquitoes. I mixed this with the dried feces of various animals. Because he was a smoker, I was able to get ahold of his ashtray and mixed in the ashes from several of the cigarettes he smoked. Since my knowledge of herbs at the time was nonexistent, I went with what I knew, which was poison ivy and oak, dried and crushed into the mixture. I then took some rather putrid mud from a part of town rumored to be haunted. Since it was a favorite weekend hangout for junkies and he'd often visited there, I figured it would make for the perfect liquid so that my jar of bits and pieces could be turned into something I could paint my poppet with.

Like I said, this was a long time ago and many of my initial spells consisted of little more than mayhem and mudpies.

One of the issues I had with this spell was my concerns about using parts from animals which were still alive. The feces I collected belonged to mice, rats, and geese. I wondered if my spell could affect them in any way, as even though these were waste products, they were still possible taglines to the animals.

Now, at the time, there was an older woman who was knowledgeable about such things who set up at the local flea market. I often bought crystals from her, but we never spoke much about the Occult, as at the time, I was never really sure how I'd come off. I finally decided to ask about the possibility of causing harm to animals if I used any of their by-products in a spell, although I didn't include any actual details about what I was doing.

She gave me this very stern look and asked me pointblank if this spell was intended to cause any "harm". I quickly assured her that I would never do anything like that and sulked away. I never bothered to ask her anything relating to the Craft again, although a few years ago, after she learned I was pregnant with my younger son, she informed me that I was carrying the reincarnated soul of my recently deceased Father, which was probably one of the most revolting things she could have possibly told me, and confirmed my opinion that despite her age and experience, she was basically just Neo-Fluff and not really the type of person I needed to look towards as a possible mentor.

Because I never wanted to risk harming a living animal, I nixed the critter poop and went with something else instead.

The spell worked like a charm and Jackass suddenly found himself reviled by those who'd previously worshiped him like the second coming of Christ.