Spell Casting and Ghosts: Researching The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts by K.C. Tansley

This week, I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for author K.C. Tansley’s new book The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts.  The book hooked me from the first page and took me on a whirlwind ride filled with ghosts, a gruesome murder and a terrible curse.  When K.C. told me that she’d learned how to cast spells in preparation for writing the book, I wanted to know more.  So, over to Kourtney:

When I decided to write a book about the supernatural, I didn’t want to wing it. I’d had some premonitions and some ghostly encounters, but I’d never cast a spell. Never tried to break a curse.

My writing process requires that I experience what my character is doing or come as close to it as I can before I write it. That’s just how I do it. So I did what any good writer would do. I started researching it. I read dozens of books on spell casting and witchcraft. They all started at the same point, meditation as a gateway to spell casting, but none of their explanations of meditation made sense to me.

I put them down and wondered how I was ever going to tell this story. If I couldn’t get meditating down, I couldn’t learn any of the way cooler stuff. And if I couldn’t experience it, how was I going to write it? I kept pushing onward, picking up one more book and hoping that this method would click. And it did.

Laurie Cabot’s Power of the Witch made sense to me. I finally learned how to meditate. Hurdle one was down. I powered through her book. It explained how belief fuels reality. If you believe something strongly enough you can bring it into being. So wishes come true because your mind is focused and clear in its request.

I learned how to cast a circle because for spell casting it’s important to be in a protected space. The ingredients for a spell are almost like a recipe for a meal. Combine the right elements and it all goes great. Don’t and you’ve got a dud. I learned about the energies of rocks, herbs, and oils just like Kat does in the book. Spells use different ingredients to help focus your mind and draw more energy to go into your spell.

Once I’d learned all I could from books I went to Salem, MA, and took workshops with Laurie Cabot. It was an incredible experience. We learned about the power of intent. Thoughts and words are very powerful. You have to be careful what you ask for and what you put out into the world because it can manifest. Send out hatred and it manifests. Send out love and it manifests.

We did a crystal gazing exercise where you asked a question and the other person had to look into the crystal and see something. They would let their mind relax and suddenly see something in the crystal. It could anything like a skull, a bird, or a star. Some image would take shape before their eyes. This was the response to your question.

We learned about how there are signs all around us if we just pay attention. And nudges. You know when you feel a nudge to do or not do something? Listen to it.

We did a meditation exercise where we were randomly partnered with someone we didn’t know in the group. I had privately written down the name and physical description of a friend with an ailment. I then counted my partner into a meditation and only gave him the person’s name and age and location. He had to visualize the person. My partner was remarkably accurate in his description of the person. My partner even picked up on ailments that we later discovered my friend had.

I can’t explain how my partner did it, but to say that there is some magic in this world.

Personally, I love thinking that the world we live in isn’t as ordinary as we think. That there is magic all around us, if we just pay attention. And that where my tagline came from: believing in the unbelievables.

Because I do. Do you?

About The Book

In The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts, prep school junior Kat Preston accidentally time travels to 1886 Connecticut, where she must share a body with a rebellious Victorian lady, prevent a gruesome wedding night murder, disprove a deadly family curse, and find a way back to her own time.

Bio

K.C. Tansley lives with her warrior lapdog, Emerson, on a hill somewhere in Connecticut. She tends to believe in the unbelievables—spells, ghosts, time travel—and writes about them.

Never one to say no to a road trip, she’s climbed the Great Wall twice, hopped on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and danced the night away in the dunes of Cape Hatteras. She loves the ocean and hates the sun, which makes for interesting beach days. The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is the first book in her YA time-travel murder mystery series.

As Kourtney Heintz, she also writes award winning cross-genre fiction for adults.

Social Media

Website: http://kctansley.comhttp://kctansley.com

Blog: http://kourtneyheintz.wordpress.com

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/kourtneyheintzwriter

Twitter: http://twitter.com/KourHei

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13530245.K_C_Tansley

Buy Links:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Ignored-Ghosts-Unbelievables-Book-ebook/dp/B00WZOJ028/ref=la_B00X369K3G_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434139756&sr=1-1