Guest Authors – Page 30

Egyptian Magic and Alchemy

March 31, 2008October 14, 2011 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors, Religion

By Ramona Louise Wheeler

Enchantment, conjuring, mesmerism and levitation have their momentary charm. The most powerful magic has been and always will be the power of self-control. The hero of every story is the one who can rise to any occasion, however fantastical, unexpected or mundane — living fully in the moment, ready and able to do whatever must be done.

Yogis who can produce real oranges out of thin air will tell you that it is, by far, easier to buy oranges in a market. Real hero-magicians do not draw attention to themselves with love potions or levitation — the goose who lays golden eggs is slaughtered in pursuit of her internal wealth. That is not just a fairy tale; the metaphor is fully functional today.

If levitation, conjuring or love-charms are your goals, however, even these require first that you learn to control your own nervous system, your own psychic energy. Conscious control of your mental tools is the pre-requisite of every magical act.

“Who then is this? In Other Words:”
The roots of this requirement are deep, and reached their first and greatest flowering in the teachings of ancient Egypt. The surviving stories of the magician who could transform his wooden staff into a living serpent and back again are very old, some from the earliest dynasties. There are two important clues to the nature of Egyptian magic in those stories: the power of metaphor, and the metaphor of the serpent.

Egypt’s wealth may have been the gift of the Nile, but her powerful and long-lived civilization was the gift of metaphor. The average Egyptian was educated by metaphor. The higher the degree of education, the more eloquent and imaginative the use of metaphor. They used metaphor with endless delight and deliberate intention. They were the first culture to use illuminated texts to impart spiritual and psychological realities and patterns. Egyptians lived with the imagery and value of spiritual metaphors in every gesture of their culture and with every artifact of their lives. Every ritual and recitation was the conscious and intentional activation of the power and mystery that lie beyond the metaphor, that greater revelation toward which the metaphorical image is directed. The mystery of being, the mystery of divine essence toward which the Egyptians’ metaphors were directed was, however, quite different from our modern perceptions. Divine power was not separate from humanity in some distant, self-contained God. Osiris lives at the core of every being. The gods and goddesses are metaphors of the functions and powers of the immortal soul within. Re (earlier spelled Ra) is not the Sun up in the sky, but rather the divine light of consciousness which illuminates the inner dimension of the divine and immortal soul. “He is Re. In other words, he is Osiris.” (Hymn: The Awakening Of Osiris.) Magic comes from within. Identity is the source of divinity. When Egyptian magicians invoked the power of magic, they reached down within their innermost selves to find it. In the Egyptian worldview the most powerful force in the universe was a fully illuminated human being.

The Serpent Staff
A serpentine staff is a symbol of the magician. The ancient Egyptians perceived soul and consciousness to consist purely of light and energy. The link between this immaterial stuff and the substance of the body is the serpentine nature of the human nervous system. Living nerves burrow and writhe throughout our flesh just as snakes burrow within the Earth. The limbless snake moves by sheer willpower. Re-consciousness communicates with its biological container using the psychic energy which flows through the nervous system. The countless serpents which swarm through Egyptian religious iconography, from the mighty Apophis to the least ornamental detail of cobras in rows, are metaphors of the profound potential and power of the human nervous system. They are constant reminders of the necessity for conscious control. Just as the serpent is deadly if out of control, an out-of-control human being is dangerous, not only to him or herself but also to everyone around them.

There are hints everywhere in their writings and art of a specialized secret training, known as “The Coiling Pathway Of The Serpentine Embraced.” The imagery and language are to similar the disciplines of Yoga: meditation focusing on the flow of energy from consciousness through the spinal column, with the goal of gaining full control over biological existence. Hindus and Buddhists use the same serpent-metaphor to this day in teachings of the seven chakra. Contact between ancient Egypt and the Orient goes back as far as 1700 B.C., via the trade route known as “The Silk Road.” The primary symbol of the “Serpentine Embraced” is the origin of the caduceus symbol we use today to represent the healing arts. The wings at the top of the caduceus represent “winged thought,” by which consciousness communicates with its biological container. Self-healing through conscious stimulation of the immune system has even become an acknowledged, documented fact of our modern lives. “The light bulb has to want to change,” is more than a punch line.

Red-headed Egyptians
Among the many curious corollaries between Egyptian and Celtic magical iconography are the loop, the circle and the knot. String technology is very, very old. The Pyramids themselves were measured out by “string-stretchers,” the surveyors of Egypt. String technology is more than weaving, knitting, bowstrings, wicks, nets and measurements. The uses of string provided ancient metaphors for binding forces of every kind, physical, spiritual and emotional. DNA itself, the key that unlocks living identity, is a “magical string” with profound potential. The knots and loops and circles of DNA activate the creative forces of biological existence, binding our flesh and consciousness together. Scientists today, high priests of Thoth in the Twenty-first Century, theorize that the ultimate nature of reality is a structure of cosmic strings weaving and unweaving through multiple dimensions of being. The Egyptians would have agreed.

Egyptian priests and magicians used the sacred circle as the beginning of many rituals, from the start of a building project to the birth of a child, enclosing human actions within a sacred, sanctified space. Priestesses of Neith and Sashetta invoked their divine counterparts for the opening rituals, establishing sacred boundaries and recording the event for eternity. The magical knot of Isis was the “security code” that sealed up the magic circle, activating the power within. Many different rituals were sealed with such sacred knots. Priests and magicians functioned as partners rather than antagonists: priests defined and maintained the divine landscapes in which all humans lived and breathed together; magicians reached down into the private places of the individual soul and brought forth the heart’s desire.

Another symbol linking Egyptian and Celtic magic is the pentagram /pentacle. The ancient Egyptian form is the hieroglyph for a star — but with a very specific metaphorical intention: the Egyptian pentacle is a circle with a dot in the center, emblem of Re-consciousness, with five symmetrical limbs arranged equally around the center, and enclosed within a circle. This is an idealized abstraction of a conscious soul shining in the sky. The night sky was believed to be the visible portion of Duat, a place that was both heaven and the underworld, that place of eternity that was beyond every horizon, the goal of the deceased soul on its “great journey” to the next life. Duat was the partner dimension to waking reality, the “other shore” of the river of time. Thus the original intent of the pentacle symbol is to mark out a fully individualized luminary, a “Golden Horus” shining over the world. The Celtic use of the symbol to hold supernatural beings reflects this same concept, an idealized container for a being that is pure energy.

Just Wave Your Wand
Practitioners of the Serpentine Pathway used iron wands in the shape of a serpent, either in a long wave, or coiled. Other kinds of magicians used wands carved of white stone, from which dangled small carvings of sacred animals. Ivory wands, boomerang-shaped, were used by local magicians, engraved with figures of Bes and an individually chosen menagerie of animals, some real, some fantastical; frogs and snakes evoked the first stages of creation, when frog- and snake-headed deities divided the land from the waters. Also used were sacred birds, representing divine thoughts; giraffes and antelope with entwined necks were images from the earliest days of the Egyptian culture. These wands were used to create the ritual gestures that defined sacred spaces, and opened passageways between the two dimensions of reality. The animal theme invokes the natural forces of the landscape, drawing on their powers of magical protection. Surviving examples of these various wands suggest that the images on the wands were chosen by the individual magicians themselves, invoking their private muses and spirit-guides.

The Egyptians invented the concept of the written contract, and many magical formulae were, in effect, contracts between the magician, the client and the divine powers involved. Such contracts were sealed with magical knots, using materials that provided their own sympathetic magic.

Heka is the Egyptian for “magical speech.” It is reflected in the Roman goddess of magic, Hecate, and root of the word “hex” and related concepts. Egyptians had an even more powerful word than heka: hu, meaning the power of both royal and divine commands. The power of the spoken word and ritual chanting were essential to Egyptian magic; many rituals and charms involved forms of self- or auto-hypnosis — neurological self-control empowered by the spoken word. The counterpoint was the term monach, “chiseled in stone,” that had the power of eternity. Commands given by divine powers, such as Isis, were “chiseled in stone.” “Monument” is actually an Egyptian word; it means to be made permanent in stone. In the Im Duat, we encounter the image of the four stone stela, labeled the “Four Terms” of Osiris. On these are written: “To control Osiris, (Soul.) To control Tum, (Time.) To control Khopry, (Enlightenment.) To control Re, (Consciousness.)” In the Medieval text, Rosarium, we read: “Our stone is from the four elements.”

Religion and psychology are deeply entwined in Egyptian sacred writings and art because, in their world, divinity was securely planted within each human body: Osiris, the divine soul, lives at the core of each person. They did not turn outward to the divine, but inward. Thus every act and gesture of being human was part of a divine landscape.

Alchemy: Egypt’s Legacy To The Future
“The highest technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
~ Sir Arthur C. Clarke

“Egypt” is not an Egyptian word. It is, rather, the Romanization of the Greek word for the ancient empire of the Nile. Ta Mery, meaning both “Land Of Love” and “Beloved Land” was used, as well as “The Two Riverbanks,” and Khemmit, meaning “Black Land,” referring to the wealth of Nile mud that made the land so fertile. It is from Khemmit, via Arab scholars of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, that we have inherited the word and concepts of Alchemy.

One of the earliest and most influential works on the evolution of alchemy was the Hieroglyphica, written in the sixth century by a Greek monk, Horapollo, (Horus Apollo) on the island of Andros. The book was rediscovered in 1419, and eventually published in Venice in 1505. It subsequently went through many translations in the Sixteenth Century, and, despite its cryptic nature, was a major influence in the subsequent evolution of alchemy into modern science. One of the most famous, the Monas Hieroglyphica, was translated by the English astrologer and mathematician, John Dee, and published in 1564. This work made the Egyptian symbol, the ankh, sacred to Isis, important in alchemical circles. Many astrological symbols were evolved from the ankh in combination with the hieroglyphs for Re, for Thoth, for Earth and water. The Eye Of Horus, symbol of wholeness and integrity was later streamlined into Rx symbol for pharmaceuticals and health care.

Scholars of the Middle Ages may have had access to some now-unknown papyri of the sacred books of ancient Egypt, known collectively as Shat Im Duat, “Writings About Duat.” These were the very first illustrated manuscripts: books of breathing, the sky, days, and hours, all based on the story of the divine being making the journey through time and between dimensions of reality. Perhaps elements from the Egyptian texts survived in oral tradition provided by Coptic Christians and Arab Scholars. Egyptian books were destroyed in the early Fifth Century A.D. by the Catholic Church’s decree, yet their themes and images turn up in alchemical art as early as the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries:
· There are ladders to heaven, thresholds to pass over, divine gateways, and putrid matter that produces divine energy out of itself.
· In the alchemical works, Egyptian deities and divine figures are replaced with “philosophers,” and angels, arranged in groups of nine and twelve similarly to Im Duat texts.
· The procession of Re-If, “Body Of Re,” through the transformations of the hours is reflected in alchemical distillations and processes.
· The steps leading up to Osiris’ throne in eternity became the steps leading up to the ultimate secrets of alchemy.
· The creation of the Golden Horus, expressed in Egyptian hymns and poems as the goal of the journey to the Next Life, is the root of the metaphor of the creation of gold in the alchemical vessel. Both refer to the distillation of self-identity.
· Alchemists also recognized the necessity of “cutting up the body” of the base, material form in order to release the immortal energy at its core. Tapping this immortal energy source was the ultimate goal of the alchemical process. Becoming that immortal energy source was the goal of the ancient Egyptian sacred texts.
· The progression of the calendar was potent magic in ancient Egypt. They assigned individual divine guardians to the hours of the day and the night, and to the days of the month, and this practice was converted to alchemical sequences of angels. Just as the ancient Egyptian “horoscope” told what days and hours were best for ceremony, ritual and magic, the angels of the alchemical calendar told what magical activities were permitted in which hour, or day of the week. The basic concept of divine eternity interfacing with the progression of time remains in the alchemical metaphor.

Sir Isaac Newton, one of the fathers of the modern scientific method, was a secret alchemist, a fact only recently revealed. By the time of Newton, alchemy was an illegal art, and its practitioners risked prison and hanging. Much of their scientific research was couched in highly metaphorical terms for that reason, but the sources remained true to their Egyptian roots. Alchemists use altered vocabulary and purpose from the ancients, but at the core of alchemical work lies the same impulse that developed both the ancient Egyptian nation and modern science: the belief that the universe around us and within us is a “picture book” whose secrets are there to be unlocked by the human mind.

By Divine Decree: Go Ye Forth And Play The Game!
There is a modern corollary to both the sacred texts of ancient Egypt and the secret works of alchemy: the magical world of electronic games.

The storylines of most games run on a surprisingly similar path to the ancient texts of Egypt and of alchemy. The sense of solving puzzles and unlocking secrets is a powerful motivating force in both. Most work around a similar structure: a series of scenes, chambers or passageways which have to be mastered and traversed before moving on to the next level. Gateways, doors and dimensional thresholds must be passed. There are obstacles and adversaries, magical helpers, magical objects, divine protagonists, mysterious advice and poetry offering fabulous clues. Rewards draw the player along against every manner of opposition: the crowns of pharaoh and the Sun, the crowns of the royal elements, the crown of Middle Earth, and so on. Variations among the players and settings fit into similar patterns.

All three mythological systems — ancient Egypt, alchemy and electronic games — are structured on the same pattern, that of the universal human being evolving by means of the universal human nervous system through to a state of unique, conscious identity — the hero-magician. Electronic games allow each of us to be the hero of our own story, taking Egyptian magic full circle back to Osiris, the hero-magician of everyone’s soul.

There is a caveat: Ancient Egypt sustained an empire for five thousand years by knowing the difference between inner and outer reality, by knowing how to control both. Alchemy brought forth modern science by separating inner realities from outer realities, and focusing on control of the material world. Electronic games are only magical if they make you a better driver, a better pilot, a better listener, a better problem solver — an illuminated human being. You cannot win if you do not know when to turn off the game, and listen to life.

Resources:
Translations of the Hieroglyphica have been posted online. The John Dee translation, Monas Hieroglyphica is available at: http://www.netnik.com/emblemata/#Hiero. A wonderful book, with a wealth of alchemical art from the earliest days of alchemy, was recently published by Taschen Books: Alchemy & Mysticism by Alexander Roob. It is available at Barnes and Noble, $12.95. I highly recommend it, especially for the visual delights of medieval paintings that are rarely seen in art books. Translations of the Shat Im Duat are available in textbooks on Egyptian literature. (The most famous, known incorrectly as The Ancient Egyptian Book Of The Dead, was titled: Por Im Hru, which means “Emerging While Awake.”) My most recent translations are at: “Walk Like An Egyptian: http://hometown.aol.com/tokapu/ . Carl Jung’s writings on alchemy, Symbols Of Transformation and The Mysterium Coniunctionis, are in-depth explorations of the psychological values of alchemy. They are, however, densely written, requiring a scholarly and committed approach. Contemplation of the images themselves will always be the most effective and personal way of discovering the magical action they invoke.

About Ramona Louise Wheeler
Ramona Louise Wheeler is the author of Walk Like an Egyptian, My Daily Horus Scope, and more. Visit http://www.ramonalouisewheeler.com to learn more!

Magical Buffet Mythology: Otorongo

February 29, 2008June 14, 2009 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors, Mythology

by Matthew

“Otorongo is a fierce warrior who teaches us integrity–how to leap gracefully from life to life.”

I first met Otorongo in a trailer park somewhere near Ann Arbor, MI. The master shaman stood in her house, surveying her students, silently trembling as the spirits began to make themselves known. She closed her eyes while I was sitting in the corner watching the spectacle – people stalking around acting like jungle creatures. The woman’s eyes opened and I swear that for a second they turned yellow, like a cats eyes, and she beckoned “Matthew, come.”

I left my perch and took my place in front of her, for a few moments I thought she was my mother, but she took different power objects and began to blow through them and into my chakras; it felt very strange, like a cored out tunnel of wind extending from my head down to my feet. In each chakra was planted a seed, and with each seed came a jungle spirit, and each spirit wanted to dance. The first spirit to really make herself known was Otorongo, the Warrior Goddess. We danced what seems for hours that night. I don’t really remember much of what happened, it was very ecstatic; I do know that I was able to climb a tree and see in the dark though. What a wild night!

Otorongo is actually a set of twins: the Night Jaguar (black with purple spots) and the Day Jaguar (orange with black spots). In both aspects she is the purr-fect mother who grabs us by the scruff when needed but she will also rub up against you to let you know everything is going to be ok. She really is very sweet to her children.

The Night Jaguar is the spirit of death, she is the psychopomp who escorts souls from this world to the next, but she can also be fear incarnate. This aspect of Otorongo can be fierce and unpredictable, often her host (the invoking priest or priestess) will get blood shot red eyes, and in this case it’s best to see what can be done to alleviate her anger. The great dichotomy of the Night Jaguar is that she is also the great sex kitten, er, goddess too! Her powers of seduction are legendary and I only have one thing to say about this: ouch!

The Day Jaguar is much more mother like in her temperament; she protects and cleans us, she goes hunting and feeds us, she guides us throughout life and teaches us when we need to get out of what we are doing and leap into something new. She teaches us how to walk without leaving footprints, how to stealthily become invisible. The Day Jaguar has no dichotomy, she is who she is.

If you would like to work with Otorongo, but you can’t make it to Michigan for the Three Worlds Shamanism workshops, here is what you can do: get an orange cloth with black candles for Day Jaguar, or a black cloth with purple candles for Night Jaguar. When you are ready to enter ritual consciousness begin thumping a drum or shake a rattle – make it slow at first, then let it pick up tempo as you go along. Light the candles and begin calling her. She always comes to the voice of her children; but please, don’t be afraid when she comes. I’ve worked with hundreds of spirits and Otorongo always has the strongest presence. You can literally feel her rub up against you. Offer her some water when she comes and ask her to help you with whatever it is you need help with. When finished, thank her for her assistance and put out the candles. Otorongo might stick around the house for a few days to clean your energy and give you further instruction through dreams and visions.
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Matthew is a teacher, magical counselor and frequent visitor to the Magical Buffet (“yummy Pagan food?”).

Female Druids

February 29, 2008February 9, 2013 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors, Religion

By Ellen Evert Hopman, Druidess, Order of the Whiteoak (Ord na Darach Gile)

“Gaine daughter of pure Gumor,
Nurse of mead-loving Mide,
Surpassed all women though she was silent;
She was learned and a seer and a Druid”.

(From “The Metrical Dinsenchas” – a history of the places of Ireland, compiled by medieval monks)

Most modern Pagans are Wiccans or Witches, according to the few surveys that have been done; we Druids are still a tiny minority. Women of Celtic heritage have told me that they did not pursue the Druid path because “the Druids were all men”. But as more and more women study Celtic history, get degrees, do research, write books and teach in the colleges, the word is finally getting out that this is not so. But for millennia it has been a well kept secret.

Some of the blame for this misconception can be placed on the Roman historians who reported on Celtic culture, even as they decimated the Druids who were the intelligentsia. The Romans tended to ignore, downplay or overlook the true status of the women of the tribes.

The next groups to document Celtic society were male Christian monks who also tended to ignore and downplay the status of Celtic women while capturing the tales and oral histories in their scriptoria. Finally as modern archaeology and scholarship focused on Celtic artifacts and history, scholars until very recently were almost all men, who downplayed or ignored the role of powerful women in ancient Celtic times. But the evidence was always there for those who cared to find it.

The word “Druid” derives from the Indo-European “deru” which carries meanings such as truth, true, hard, enduring, resistant and tree. “Deru” evolved into the Greek word “drus” (oak) and referred over time to all trees as well as the words “truth” and “true”. “Id” comes from “wid”, “to know”, related to both “wisdom” and “vision”. A “Dru-id” is a truth-knower and a true-knower, one with solid and enduring wisdom, a tree-knower, and an expert.

The Proto-Indo-European word “dru” meant oak, and is related to “Druid”, so “Druid” also means “oak-knower”. Oaks are the most balanced of trees; their roots grow as deep as the tree is high. They give the hottest fire (excepting the ash tree) and provide medicine via their leaves and bark as well as food (acorns) for humans, pigs, and deer. They attract the attention of the Gods (via lightening) and survive to live up to a thousand years.

To be a Druid was and is to perform a tribal function. No king or queen could function without a Druid at their side, the ruler and Druid were described as “two kidneys” of a kingdom. It was the Druid who knew the laws and precedents without which a ruler could not pass judgment.

The Druids were poets and prophets, astrologers and astronomers, seers, magicians and diviners. They memorized the laws and kept the tribal histories and genealogies in their heads. They were ambassadors, lawyers, judges, herbalists, healers and practitioners of battle magic. They were sacrificers, satirists, sacred singers, story tellers, teachers of the children of the nobility, ritualists, astronomers and philosophers, skilled in natural science and mathematics. They specialized in one or several of these callings and spent twenty years or more in training. We know that Druids from all areas went to Britain, specifically to present day Wales, for regular gatherings and so their practices and beliefs must have been somewhat uniform.

What we know of the Druids comes to us from the written accounts of eye witnesses, from literary tradition and archaeology. Greek and Roman historians documented the Druids that they met; Julius Caesar, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Ammianus Marcellinus, Pliny, Diogenes Laertius, Suetonius, Pomponius Mela, Lucan, Tacitus, Dion Chrysostum, Lampridius, Vopiscus, Decimus Magnus, Ausonius and Hippolytus and others wrote their versions of Druid history.

Pliny gives us the only description of a Druid ritual that we have (the Druids preferred to keep their teachings in oral form, feeling they were too sacred to write down). He describes a white clad Druid climbing an oak tree on the “sixth day of the moon” to harvest mistletoe with a “golden sickle”. Of course gold is too soft to cut herbs with so any sickle would probably have been made of bronze, and we can only guess that the “sixth day of the moon” means six days after the first appearance of the new moon.

Tacitus gives us the vivid account of the slaughter of the Druids by Roman soldiers on the island of Mona (Angelsey) in Wales. He says there were cursing black clad women there defending the island. Since the island was the most sacred stronghold of the British Druids one can assume that these women were Ban-druid (female Druids) though since he does not say this outright we can never be sure.

Strabo describes a group of religious women living on an island at the mouth of Loir River but he does not call them Druids. In the Historia Augusta (a late Roman collection of biographies, in Latin, of the Roman Emperors from 117 to 284 CE) we learn that Diocletian and Aurelian consulted with female Druids as did Alexander Severus.

In Irish traditional accounts there are references to “bandruid” (female Druids) and “banfilid” (female poets). Fedelm is a female seer and Accuis, Col and Eraise are female Druids mentioned the Tain (The Cattle Raid of Cooley). Eirge, Eang, and Banbhuana are Druidesses mentioned in the Siege of Knocklong, and Dub and Gaine are mentioned in the Dinsenchas.

Fedelma was a woman in queen Medb of Connacht’s court who was a “banfili” (female poet) trained in Alba (Britain). The death of female poet Uallach daughter of Muinechán, who was the “woman poet of Ireland”, is mentioned in the Annals of Innisfallen for the year 934 and the Brehon Laws describe heavy penalties for illegal female satirists (whom they compare to female werewolves!). It is clear from these accounts that at least some women had attained the rank of Druid.

To shore up the evidence it will be helpful to look at the status of women in Celtic society before the Roman and Christian incursions and after. The marriage laws are an interesting place to start. The ancient Brehon Laws recognized nine types of marriage. In the first degree (the most desirable) both partners came to the union with equal wealth and status. In the second degree the husband came to the union with more wealth so he was in charge. In the third degree the wife came with more wealth so she was in charge. In all cases divorce was available to wives and in the first two degrees of marriage the husband had to pay a bride price to her father the first year and every year after that a large portion of the “coibche” went to the bride herself so that she could remain independent if the marriage failed. In the event of a divorce each spouse could claim any property they had brought to the union and the wife kept all the coibche she had accumulated. (Christian women would not see this kind of fair treatment again until very recent times).

Plutarch in “On the Virtues of Women” states that Celtic women participated in assemblies, mediated quarrels and negotiated treaties, for example one between Hannibal and the Volcae (this kind of ambassadorial work is a specifically Druidic function). Strabo says that Armorican priestesses (in modern day Brittany) were independent of their husbands.

We know that Celtic women wore trousers (the Celts invented trousers and there is a statue of a woman so dressed in the British museum). Gallic females went to war with their husbands and Irish Celtic women fought alongside their men. In some Roman reports they said the women were even fiercer than the men! (It took a series of laws issued over several centuries after the Christian missionaries arrived to wean Irish women away from weapons, indicating problems with compliance).

In the first century CE Tacitus wrote that “the Celts make no distinction between male and female rulers” and powerful Celtic women appear in the tales. By tradition Macha Mongruad founded Emain Macha (Navan Fort) in Ulster. The two most famous warriors in Irish history; Finn MacCumhail and Cú Chulainn, were both trained by women. Finn was raised by two females; a Druidess and a warrior woman who taught him the crafts of war and of hunting while Cú Chulainn learned the arts of war from Scáthach who had her own Martial Arts school.

Boudica was a Celtic queen who led the last British uprising against the Romans in 60 AD. She was a priestess of Andraste, Goddess of Victory. Saint Brighid of Kildare (Kil-Dara, Church of the Oak) had a different kind of power. She was the daughter of the Druid Dubhtach and according to the Rennes Dindsenchas was a “bandrui” (female Druid) before she converted to Christianity. She had both men and women in her religious community and she and her nuns kept a Fire Altar which was tended continuously until 1220 when an archbishop ordered it quenched. This Fire Altar mirrored the perpetual fire of the Ard-Drui (Arch-Druid) that had burned at Uisneach for centuries (thankfully the fire has been re-lit in modern times and is now being tended once again by nuns and lay folk in Kildare and all over the world).

Archaeology gives us more evidence for female Druids. An inscription was found in Metz, France, that was set up by a Druid priestess to honor the God Sylvanus and the local Nymphs of the area. It was found on the Rue de Récollets; “Silvano sacr(um) et Nymphis loci Arete Druis antistita somnio monita d(edit)” (Année Epigraphique 1983, 0711)

Two famous burials, the Vix burial and the Reinham burial point to very powerful women of their time. The Princess of Vix (who may have been a priestess) dates from the late sixth to fifth centuries BCE in present day Burgundy, France. She was a woman of wealth and authority whose rich grave goods came from as far away as the Mediterranean Sea. Her wood paneled chambered grave held a huge bronze “krater” (a large ornamental urn used to mix wine and water for banquets), elaborate jewelry of bronze, amber, diorite, and serpentine, and a golden torque (a neck ring), symbol of noble status. She had fibulae (brooches) inset with Italian coral.

Many other female burials have been discovered between the Rhine and the Moselle rivers, where the women are laid out on wagons with rich jewelry and more impressive grave goods than some of the warrior chieftains of the time. The Reinham burial dates to the fourth century BCE by the river Biles in Germany and was an oak lined chamber filled with precious objects and jewelry. The body was laid out on a chariot with food and drink provided for her Otherworld sojourn. She was also buried with a torque on her chest, symbolic of her noble status.

So what happened? Why did an indigenous culture that featured educated and powerful women devolve into a culture where women were demoted to the status of chattel?

By the first century CE in Britain the Romans were actively and deliberately suppressing the Druids who were the intellectual elite, the advisors to the nobility and the glue that held the kingdoms together. Roman propaganda campaigns claimed that the Druids were the perpetrators of “savage superstition” and of horrific human sacrifice (at the same time that the Roman Circuses were going on). Druidesses were described as seers who were working on their own, rather than as powerful royal advisors and clergy. A policy of deliberate extermination was carried out, brought to conclusion by the terrifying slaughter of the Druids at Angelsey.

The Romans never conquered Ireland and the worship of the Pagan Gods continued there officially until the death of king Diarmat in 565 CE. (Unofficially it goes on to this day). But as Christianity gained power in all areas Roman ideals of matronly behavior and womanhood took over, though in the few centuries that it was allowed to flourish the Celtic Church continued to exalt powerful priestesses such as Brighid of Kildare and Beaferlic of Northumbria. As the Roman Christian church gained ascendancy female Druids were labeled “evil Witches” and “sorcerers” as a way to smear their reputations and make people fear them. Religious orders founded by women were systematically dissolved upon their founder’s death, preventing continuity of female centered orders.

The Druids were demoted in the laws to figures of ridicule – mere magicians, stripped of their sacral function and status. Women in Celtic areas were forbidden to bear arms and their status dropped in most areas of life and society.

The current Druid revival of modern times began in the early eighteenth century, first in France and then in 1717 in England, the same year that the English Masons were established. The earliest English Druids of the current revival were all Masons and all men; the poet William Blake a prominent example. Gradually over the last few centuries, as more was understood about the actual Druids of history, the Druid Orders became more egalitarian in their membership until today most Orders are roughly half male and half female. Women in most Orders (the only exceptions being the old English based Orders with roots firmly in the eighteenth century) have the same opportunities to be leaders and clergy as men.
Female Druids of today most often look back to our status in ancient times. We view ourselves as the inheritors of a rich ancestral lineage, going back to the Iron Age. That does not mean we have an unbroken tradition, we are actively engaged in reconstructing the ancient indigenous European tribal religion (leaving out the nasty bits such as slavery, animal sacrifice, and head hunting of course!).
I took an informal poll of the women on the Whiteoak mailing list to see why they became Druids and what if any problems they have faced on this path. One said that she was thrilled to find a religious tradition that worships outside in daylight, as opposed to Wiccans who often circle at night and indoors.

All the women who responded said they were voracious readers who upon learning how much of Celtic history and tradition was still out there became absorbed in the topic. The women all reported being scholars of one degree or another; in common with the ancient Druids modern ones tend to be intellectuals (one of the worst insults you can hurl at a Druid is to call them a “fluffy bunny” meaning a dim wit!).

Several of them complained that in modern times Druids are very hard to find. Unless one lives in a large metropolitan area this is almost always the case. To put together a gathering of modern Druids you will have to send notice out to several states.

Some female Druids report that they are Pagans who were not attracted to Wicca, which was after all, invented in the 1930’s by Gerald Gardner (see Ronald Hutton’s excellent book “The Triumph of the Moon”). They wanted something that was more tied in to actual Celtic tradition.

Others had problems with Wiccan theology. Wicca is duo-theistic (it assumes that “all the Goddesses are one Goddess and all the Gods and one God so it hardly matter who you call on in a ritual). The Celts, and every other indigenous Pagan tradition that I am aware of, were and are polytheistic. They see their deities as separate personalities with different and distinct functions though some, for example the Hindu-Vedic religions, posit an ultimate Source for all the Gods and Goddesses and all creation, called the Atma in Vedic scripture. (Many Druids study Vedic texts because the Vedic peoples were the ancestors of the proto-Celts and Vedic ritual and Celtic ritual must have had many similarities. We know that they had many basic principles in common; triple deities, making offerings to sacred fire and sacred water, the primacy of cows, etc.).

Another problem with modern Wicca for some is the so-called “Wiccan rede” (“An it harm none do what you will”). This tenet has been used as an excuse to behave in self-centered ways that no tribal society would tolerate. Druids study the Brehon Laws and we know that the ancients expected strict codes of behavior from all levels of society.

Wicca was revolutionary at its founding because it emphasized the role of the priestess in a way that had not been seen since ancient times. As a result many Wiccan and Witchcraft groups are led by women and composed of mostly women (or all women). Those who became female Druids found this to be unbalanced and not much different from male dominated patriarchal Christianity, Judaism or Islam. They sought a Pagan path with a healthier balance of males and females. Some report that they still have problems with sexism, even after they had attained the title of Arch-Druidess of their Grove (a Grove is the Druid equivalent of a Coven) there were male Druids who would challenge their decisions in a way that they would never challenge a male Arch-Druid. They would continue to nag the Arch-Druidess, figuring that if they did so long enough she would give in to their opinions.

None of these women came to Druidism out of rebellion against another religion. They came to it from a love for nature and the old European tribal ways. I can identify with these reasoning’s, they are all familiar to me and true.

Thanks to Stacey Weinberger (of RDNA), Sín Sionnach (a solitary Druid), and Athelia Nihtscada (of RDNA), for their input.
For an overview of ancient reports see “The Druid Sourcebook” by John Matthews, Blanford, London, 1996
For Brehon Laws and the laws of marriage see Fergus Kelly’s “Guide to Early Irish Law”, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin, 1991
To explore the status of ancient Celtic women;
http://www.unc.edu/celtic/catalogue/femdruids
For links to basic texts, modern Druid groups and Orders; http://www.whiteoakdruids.org

About Ellen Evert Hopman
Massechusetts resident Ellen Evert Hopman has been active in American Druidism since 1984. She is co-chief of the Order of the Whiteoak (Ord na Darach Gile), a popular author of Druidry-related titles, and a master herbalist. She teaches at the Grey School of Wizardry and has contributed to several Pagan journals.

www.elleneverthopman.com
http://www.whiteoakdruids.org
Info on A Druid’s Herbal of Sacred Tree Medicine Click Here
Info on Priestess of the Forest: A Druid Journey Click Here

An Abbreviated Introduction to Chaos Magic

January 31, 2008 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors, Magic/Occult

By Lupa

Chaos! Mayhem! Disorder!

Well, not quite.

Chaos, in this case, isn’t about being 100% destructive, or worshipping Tiamat, or being a Discordian. Rather, it hails back to the original Greek definition for the term–the pure potential that predated the ordered world that we know today. In my mind, Chaos is like a round ball of Play-doh sitting in its cup. Take it out, make something with it–that’s order. Smash whatever you’re made–that’s disorder. Roll the Play-doh back into a ball and pop it back into the cup–back to Chaos.

The roots of Chaos magic are several; Peter J. Carroll, the creator of Chaos magic, was inspired by everything from shamanism to the works of Austin Osman Spare, one of Aleister Crowley’s contemporaries. Rather than being a tradition in and of itself, it is a system that boils magic down to its bare-bones components, free of cultural trappings, to create a practical methodology. There are no set gods or spirits, and Chaos magic may work within any model of how magic works, from energetic to psychological and then some. Additionally, there are no central religious beliefs; for many, though not all, Chaos magicians, belief is a tool to be used as needed.

And that brings me to one of the hallmarks of Chaos magic: paradigmal piracy. This is the practice of taking effective, practical aspects of various paradigms (religions, magical systems, etc.) and using them to work effective magic. Unlike eclectic paganism, this is not done for primarily spiritual purposes, nor is it generally a permanent adoption. Joshua Wetzel references two types of piracy–buffet style, in which a magician takes a little of each of several paradigms, and immersion, where s/he may spend a certain amount of time working with a paradigm full-time to learn what s/he finds useful.

One goal of piracy may be to gain new methods of achieving gnosis. Gnosis, in Chaos magic terms, is different than what it is understood to be in ceremonial traditions. In Chaos, gnosis is an altered state of mind in which the mind is focused on a single point, object or other thing. There are several ways to achieve gnosis. Inhibitory methods include sensory deprivation, quiet meditation, and the “death posture”, a particular way of holding the body that induces trance. Excitatory methods range from dancing to the point of exhaustion, to taking entheogens, and even sex. Once gnosis is achieved, the magician may then move on to whatever magic s/he intended to work.

While a Chaos magician may work with just about any sort of magic, there are two in particular that are associated with Chaos magic, sigils and servitors. The sigil was derived from Spare’s work. Seeking an easier way to work magic than long, drawn-out ceremonies, Spare devised a method of creating a picture of one’s desire by writing out what the magician wanted out of a particular magical act. Certain letter would be removed from the sentence, and the remaining letters rearranged and overlapped or connected to create an abstract picture. The resulting sigil would then be charged.

Servitors are thought forms (or spirits, if you will) that are created by the magician to perform certain magical tasks. They may be created in a similar manner as sigils, with the purpose and name of the servitor turned into one or more sigils. Some magicians create physical representations of their servitors. While servitors are generally created to carry out single tasks and are then destroyed afterward, some magicians do create permanent servitors for multiple uses.

More generally speaking, some Chaos magicians use Carroll’s Eight Colors of Magick. Carroll uses different correspondences than Isaac Bonewits did in “Real Magic”, and assigns one color/type to each point of the eight-pointed chaostar. The correspondences are as follows:

Black: Death
Blue: Wealth
Green: Love
Yellow: Ego
Purple or Silver: Sex
Orange: Thinking
Red: War
Octarine: “Pure” Magic

Octarine is the name Terry Pratchett gave to the (humorous) theory regarding the eighth color of the spectrum.

As to the connection with Chaos theory in physics, Carroll dedicated the first chunk of “Liber Kaos” to the scientific exploration of how magic works. While a thorough understanding of physics isn’t necessary to be a Chaos magician, a basic grasp of Chaos theory is useful.

Additionally, Chaos magic is sometimes confused with Discordianism, a parody religion founded in the late 1950s with the publication of the Principia Discordia. While a number of Chaos magicians may draw on Discordianism, they are not one and the same.

This is an incredibly basic introduction to Chaos magic; my recommendation would be to do further research at the following websites, as well as the recommended reading list below.

http://www.chaosmatrix.org
http://www.spiralnature.com
http://www.irreality.net

Sources/Recommended Reading

Carroll, Peter J. (1987). Liber Null & Psychonaut. Boston: Weiser.
Cunningham, David, Taylor Ellwood and Amanda Wagner (2003). Creating Magical Entities. Ohio: Egregore Publishing.
Ellwood, Taylor (2004). Pop Culture Magick. Stafford: Immanion Press/Megalithica Books.
— (1992). Liber Kaos. Boston: Weiser.
Hawkins, Jaq D. (2001). Understanding Chaos Magic. Capall Bann.
— (2003). Chaos Monkey. Capall Bann.
Hine, Phil (1995). Condensed Chaos. Tempe: New Falcon.
— (1999). Prime Chaos. Tempe: New Falcon.
Wetzel, Joshua (2006). The Paradigmal Pirate. Stafford: Immanion Press/Megalithica Books.

Konton Magazine – Available through cafepress.com; no new issues have appeared for some time, but back issues are readily available for new Chaos International – Difficult to get in the United States, sporadically published in London, but worth it if you can get it

About Lupa
Lupa is a therioshaman (http://therioshamanism.com) living in Portland, OR with hir mate and fellow author, Taylor Ellwood, Sun Ce and Ember the cats, and too many books. S/he is the author of several books on pagan, occult and Otherkin related topics, to include Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic, A Field Guide to Otherkin, and Kink Magic: Sex Magic Beyond Vanilla (cowritten with Taylor). S/he may be found online at http://www.thegreenwolf.com.

Man of Clay

December 31, 2007 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors

by Darrell

We are all familiar with the old legend in which God forms the first man out of clay and breathes life into him through his nostrils. His name was “Adam”, from the Hebrew ‘Adamah’, meaning “of the earth”. Most of us have become familiar with this legend through reading the first chapters of the Old Testament. Though the text is Jewish, we know it by its Greek name: “Genesis” or “the beginning”.

Though we all know that this is an ancient tale, few of us realize how prevalent this belief actually was in the ancient world. While Hebrew scribes were writing their ‘man from clay’ legend in Israel, there was a similar legend being taught in nearby Sumeria (modern day Iraq). The Sumerians believed that mankind was created to ‘do work’ for the gods (an admittedly different belief than that of the Jews, who believed we were created to live blissfully in Eden). However, the Sumerian myth also states that the gods created man by mixing “blood and clay”. Of course, this “blood” is the “blood” of the gods, and serves the same function as the “breath of God” in the Hebrew legend, which is to animate the lifeless clay and give it life. When the population of mankind gets too large in the Sumerian version, a god named ‘Enlil’ asks the Elder Gods to send a flood to rid the earth of mankind. A man then builds an enormous ark and survives the flood, to later become the father of a new ‘cleansed’ mankind. If this sounds familiar, it is because this story not only appears later in the Old Testament as the story of Noah, it also appears in the Babylonian “Epic of Gilgamesh”, where his name is “Utnapishtim”, in Greek lore as a man named “Deucalion”, and in Hindu stories as a man named “Manu”.

In a seperate Sumerian myth, Ninhursag, the great Birth goddess created a beautiful garden called “Edinu” (later called “Eden” by the Jews). A god named Enki was put in charge of the animals of Edinu and told not to eat any of the plants. Enki ate the plants and this enraged Ninhursag. As punishment, she caused him to feel great pain in his rib. The Sumerian word for “rib” was “ti”, a word that also meant “life”. The other gods begged Ninhursag to cure Enki. She agreed and created a goddess from his rib to be his companion. The goddess was named “Ninti”, meaning “goddess of life” or “goddess of the rib”. This myth appears later in Hebrew lore, in which a woman named “Havah” or “Eve” (which means “life”) is created from the rib of “Adam”, the man “made from earth”. The name “Eve” can also mean “the beginning”, as in “the beginning of life”, becuase Adam and Eve are said to be responsible for the birth of mankind. It is important to note that the “Ninti” story predates the “Eve” story by thousands of years, proving that this myth was prevalent and well accepted by much of the ancient world.

The Sumerian myths seem to be much older than the Hebrew legend. In fact, the Sumerian myths seem to predate Judaism by thousands of years, and appears to be relatively as old as the nearby civilization of Ancient Egypt. In one Egyptian myth, Khnum, the ram-headed creator god crafts all men and women out of clay on a giant potter’s wheel. The ‘man from clay’ story can even be found as far as China, where the goddess of fertility and creation, Nu Gua, forms mankind out of wet clay from the bank of the Yellow River.

What are these myths telling us? Why is man made of clay or dirt, and why is it said that the gods (or God) animated us with breath or blood? It appears that deep within the symbolism of these disparate myths lies a grain of universal truth. As humans, we share a common feeling. It relates to the old saying: “feet on the ground and head in the clouds”. We all know that we are material beings of earthly matter, yet there is more to us than meets the eye… Our ability to imagine, to dream, to create… our soul shines through our “earthly exterior” as something otherworldly, or perhaps something Divine. This spirit/matter duality, this ethereal/material duality of the human condition is what is being expressed in these ancient tales. It may be for this very reason… our ability to simultaneously exist in this earthly realm and a realm beyond (whether real or imaginary), that it has been said that we are made “in the image of god(s)”, for it was and still is believed by many that God is omnipresent. Obviously, it is our ability to imagine, to create, and to speak and to transmit ideas through symbols that make Humans unique within the animal kingdom. Though I feel a kinship with all creatures great and small (I haven’t eaten one in over a decade), I must admit that we are certainly ‘different’ in the above mentioned respects.

By transcribing these legends religiously for thousands of years, not only to illustrate our dual nature of “one part earth” and “one part Eden”, but also to showcase the very tools of writing and imagination that have been bestowed upon us… perhaps the reason for the existence of these ancient tales is simply to remind us of how extraordinary our humanity truly is.

Let’s see. I’m 23. I live with my girlfriend and our son in the historic Stockade area of Schenectady, NY. I’m vegetarian. I’m equally obsessed with logic/math/science and mythology/occultism/magik. Pretty much everything interests me. I prefer documentaries and textbooks to movies and novels, though I do love Star Wars and cartoons (NERD!).

I’ve been studying myth and magik for over ten years as a hobby/obsession. My website: www.christos-mythos.com is something I’ve been slowly building over the last 3 or 4 years. It’s basically a compilation of information that I think people should know. It’s filled with answers to questions everyone asks, but never bother to look up. These include questions like: “What does the Easter Bunny have to do with the resurrection of Jesus?”, “Why do we carve pumpkins every October?” or “Why is the word ‘Wednesday’ spelled so funny?”

I personally NEED to know these kinds of things. So I’ve spent my life reading books on EVERYTHING to quench my infinite thirst for understanding, and in the process, I’ve acquired facts up the wazoo, so I figured I’d put them out there for people to peruse at their leisure.

Eventually, I realized that there was actually one central theme that encompassed all of the seemingly random information on the site (www.christos-mythos.com). The main theme or central idea is this: that all things stem from some unknown source, and the understanding of ANYTHING brings us closer to that source. The more we know, the closer we are. Of course, with the Divine source being omnipresent and infinite in its nature, we can never learn EVERYTHING. But since all things are from the One source, all things are therefore related.

This is my central philosophy now. Though I didn’t come to this understanding until well AFTER I started the website. It really just started out as just a bunch of random info…

But the Universe works in mysterious ways.

– Darrell,
Christ Myth
Christos Mythos website: http://www.christos-mythos.com
Christ Myth MySpace: http://myspace.com/christmyth

Case Study: Metroplex Paranormal Investigations

November 30, 2007 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors, Paranormal

August 04, 2007
Private Residence
Gainesville, TX.

We decided to invite a new group in North Texas along with us on the investigation. This group was PRINT from Greensville, TX.

Investigators present:
Gordon Joswiak, Jr.
Mary Leigh
Robert Isaacks
Terri Schyner
Cynthia Rice
Johnny Snyder
Wayne Kenemore
Vicki Isaacks
Rob Martin
Shawn Newton
Pam Gardner
Rita Louise (psychic)
Cody Bertrand (psychic)
Chad, Nez and Wendy from PRINT

Equipment used by Metroplex:
Dr. Gauss EMF meters
Trifield meter
ELF meter
SPER Scientific meter
Cell sensors
Minolta Freedom zoom 115 camera (35mm)
Olympus FE-100 4.0 megapixel Digital Camera
Kodak Digital Camera EasyShare DX4900
Sony SLR Camera
Nikon D80 Digital camera
Canon D440 6mp Digital Camera
CEM DT-8810 Infrared Thermometer
Raytek ST20 XB thermometer
Radioshack IR thermometer
Dual infrared non contact thermometer with air probe
GE 3-5027 Shoebox audio recorder/player
Sony ICD B-300 digital voice recorder
Sony ICD P320 Digital Recorder
Olympus Digital Voice Recorder VN-2000
Olympus DS-330 digital voice recorder
RCA 64M digital voice recorder
Sherrill Digital Compass
Bushnell NightHawk Infrared Viewer
QuadCAM DVR Clover Standalone 4Channel w/17″ Monitor
2 IR-0 LUX Cameras Lorex Model SG6117
2 IR-0 LUX Cameras CCTV
2 Wireless Cameras
1 Pinhole (Unobtrusive) Camera
1 9V LG Housing Camera
Assorted Sony nightshot camcorders

Investigation:
Arrived at property at approx. 7pm. Met with homeowners and PRINT paranormal. Took tour of house and outside property.
Took baseline EMF and temperature readings
Psychics did a walk through
Took digital and analog still photos inside and out
Unpacked stationary equipment and set it up to run.
Turned on stationary equipment and swept location with EMF meters and thermometers throughout the night. Also continued taking still photographs. Started recorders for EVP.
Left property at approx.7am.

Conclusion:
After approximately 3 weeks, all still photographs have been re-viewed with no results.
All video has been reviewed and we may possibly have an orb in motion which is moving quickly enough to leave a contrail. Although this has been sent to homeowner, we have not validated this piece of evidence yet. It does not appear to be a bug. It is moving very
quickly and seems to have a flight pattern. It is not dust due to the lack of air circulation in the house.
There were no unusual EMF or temperature readings.
Based on the piece of video from us and the photograph and EVP’s recorded by PRINT, we feel that this location does have paranormal activity.

About Metroplex Paranormal Investigations

Metroplex Paranormal Investigations was formed in June, 2001 to investigate claims of paranormal activity. We are a group of open-minded professionals who seek to either confirm the existence of paranormal activity or explain it through research and analysis by collecting scientific data.

Our primary focus is to attempt to validate or explain the experiences that you have had. We do not specialize on getting rid of the activity but we can connect you with those that can, should you request that.

Located in the Dallas, Texas area, we offer professional no fee investigations for private homes and businesses and we also investigate the occasional urban legend.

To learn more visit: www.metroplexparanormalinvestigations.com

Using Popular Culture as a New Approach to Chaos Magic

October 31, 2007September 6, 2009 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors, Magic/Occult

by Taylor Ellwood

Over the last couple of years I’ve noted that few magicians capitalize on using popular culture as a method of working magic. Inevitably this seems to occur because of an ingrained belief that magic systems must come from a recognized lineage or old tradition. There’s an almost childish dislike of the idea of using popular culture as a means of working magic and this has sadly taken many mages away from the cutting edge of magical experimentation. Yet popular culture can provide the means and method of working magic. The purpose of this article is to introduce how popular culture can be used effectively.

Popular culture can be considered to be culture that deviates from the comfortable mainstream in a manner that opposes that mainstream or represents an alternative lifestyle/culture. A good example of popular culture is Buffy the Vampire slayer, seen on televisions the world over. Buffy slays vampires, has friends who practice magic and are lesbians, and lives a lifestyle that only links up to the mainstream culture tangentially. In short, Buffy is popular culture because what she represents goes against the safe and comfortable reality that mainstream cultures prefer. With popular culture you usually have a segment of society that is highly interested in the television show, pop star, or phenomena. These people can be considered cultish in the fanatical devotion and zeal they show a particular program, pop star, or whatever else.

Mainstream culture tolerates popular culture, but also in some manner or another either seeks to absorb the popular culture into itself or seeks to disparage it. That some magicians I know balk at the idea of using popular culture as a method of magic shows how successful mainstream culture is at influencing people. Mainstream culture may not always successfully absorb pop culture into it, but it seems to always successfully manipulate the perceptions of the majority of people in regards to pop culture.

Let’s put theory aside, however, and focus on the larger issue. There are a variety of ways to use pop culture in your workings, but I’m going to focus only on one. I direct interested readers to my book Pop Culture Magick, which focuses on some of the other methods of working with pp culture. Alternatively I hope you’ll be inspired to be creative with your approach toward magic and pop culture.

Harry Potter seems a fine example to use. He’s definitely part of the pop culture phenomena and he practices magic in his fantasy world. HP as we’ll call him from here out is part of pop culture when you consider how parts of the mainstream such as fundamentalist Christianity condemn and hate HP, seeing him as a threat to Christianity and its precious brainwashed masses. He’s a threat to Christianity and a boon to magic, if only because he represents magic to so many people. Children and adults read about his adventures and they want to be just like him. It doesn’t matter that the books or movie aren’t wholly accurate about the practice of magic. What matters is that HP represents, for the children and the adults who read him, access to the world of magic and all of its wonders. That in turn is a threat to any fundamentalist religion precisely because magic offers a way out of the dogmatic mindset of religion.

Around the time the first HP movie came out, David Cunningham and I came up with a pop culture working that revolved around HP. We’d both noted how upset many Christians were about HP, so much so that they were even burning the HP books. We’d also noticed with interest how many adults as well as children were reading the HP series. So we decided to do a working with HP entity, one that was mischievous and fun and would last a good long time.

The focus of the working centered around the idea of using the negativity the Christians focused toward HP in such a manner that the negative energy actually empowered HP to help realize the worst fear of the Christians, that people who read HP would show an interest in really learning about the occult. To do this we needed to construct a visualization that showed that worst fear. David and I did a lot of online searching for images of HP as well as some other images that we felt would be useful. We took the Hogwarts School of Magic that was used in movie poster and put it in the background of the image we were creating. Next we put a hoard of people rushing toward that same castle, eager to study the secrets of the occult. Then we placed an image of ruined church and an angry HP standing on the rubble, calling down energy. We placed a studious HP beside that image. He was reading a book and pouring potions into a black cauldron. We placed half of an image of a catholic priest in the cauldron. At the top of the image we had the phrase “Couldn’t we all use a little magic?” We then sent the image through email to other mages who were interested in our project so they could charge up the entities. Another thing I did was to print out the image and then place it in public areas. It would serve to either draw peoples’ attention to magic or it would get torn down by a disgruntled Christian or other kind of fundamentalist and in the process that would charge the entity up a bit.

The idea of the image was that HP’s school of magic and the people rushing toward that school to learn more about magic represented what we were seeking. HP standing over the church and boiling the Christian priest reflects the ultimate fear of Christianity, namely that HP will draw people from Christianity and thus destroy it. Those images were picked so as to emphasize that negativity and accordingly draw on the energy that Christians were focusing on HP. The overall result we are seeking with this working is one wherein that energy the Christians focus on HP will be used to help realize their worst fear, namely that people would become interested in learning about the occult. Note that I mention interest in learning, but not necessarily converting. We both felt it would go a little too far if we had the spell focus on converting people to the occult as opposed to instead learning about it because they suddenly found an interest in the idea of wielding magic themselves. A willing decision to practice magic is far better than an unwilling decision.

By having HP stir up the interest of the reader in the occult we don’t infringe on the free will of that person; rather we seek to stimulate the person. There’s obviously no guarantee that the person will start practicing magic, but even if he or she becomes interested enough to consider reading a book on the subject other than HP the goal has been accomplished in the sense that it is a start.

One thing David and I both noted with interest was the dynamic energy of the HP entity. I suspect this is due to the amount of attention and belief that goes into HP. Attention and belief are forms of energy and as such that energy can bring to life anything, including a character out of a fantasy series. If a magician chooses to believe in the reality of the pop culture entity s/he is able to access the energy of such an entity. This is remarkably similar to working with god forms, but it has the added benefit of having much more energy directed toward it. A pop culture entity such as HP has much more energy directed toward it because it’s in the media so much. The old god form may get some attention from people who choose to work with it, but it doesn’t have the ready supply of a large group of believers at its beck and call in contemporary times. The lack of attention and belief don’t destroy a god, but that lack does take away from the available resources it has.

Working with any pop culture entity has its benefits. While what I’ve listed above is one example of a working with the HP entity, it’s not the only way you can work with it. For instance, I’ve done pathworking (A form of meditation) with the HP entity to get answers for particular situations in my life. The HP entity could also be worked with as a teacher of magic. The possibilities are endless. The creativity and will of the mage determines how well the HP entity or any other entity will work for hir.
Of course the best way to work with a pop culture entity is to study it carefully. In working with HP, I first read all the books and saw the movies. I paid close attention to how fans and Christians talked about HP, as the attitudes would in part determine the attributes I assigned HP. Once I had all the data I needed I put that data into my visualization of HP. When David and I did the ritual we also empowered the HP visualization with some sex magic and then burned the image we had to release our intentions to the HP entity and set it on its task. We noted that for the next few months a sharp increase in anti HP rhetoric occurred, which rather pleased both of us because it meant the HP entity was drawing on the negative energy to start its task. We also noted an interesting occurrence when one of the magicians charged up the sigil/image.

This mage enjoyed charging up her spells by jogging and the one day she decided whimsically to listen to Christmas carols while charging up the HP image. The batteries in her walk man stopped half way through her jog and when she got back from her jog she felt ill. The next day her walk man worked fine and she no longer felt ill. What she hadn’t realized was that in listening to Christmas carols, which are associated with Christians, she’d instructed the HP entity to first drawing energy from the walk man and second from her self. The lesson to be learned is to always be careful when charging entities up, pop culture or otherwise, unless of course you want to become the entity’s dinner.

I’ve noted with a lot of interest the success of the HP entity with its task of stimulating interest in the occult. The Gray School run by Oberon Zell Ravenheart started up a couple years after the working with the entity. The school is modeled off of the school of the HP universe and has gotten a lot people interested in magic. I’ve also noted that both children and adults often talk about wanting to be like HP, casting magic, and that’s an encouraging sign.

I hope I’ve demonstrated that pop culture can be an effective tool of magic. There are endless possibilities within whatever you consider pop culture to be. The exploration of those possibilities is an opportunity for all of us to experiment with magic, in new directions.

Author’s Acknowledgment
I’d like to thank David Cunningham who co-created the initial working with the Harry Potter entity as well as doing most of the work in constructing the image we used to visualize HP. I’d also like to thank members of the Chaos-l list and the Geist project list for participating in the experiment.
Author Bio
Taylor Ellwood is the author of Pop Culture Magic, Space/Time Magic, Inner Alchemy, Multi-Media Magic (Forthcoming) and co-author of Kink Magic: Beyond Vanilla Sex Magic. He is also the non-fiction editor of Megalithica Books. For more information about him and his latest projects please visit http://www.thegreenwolf.com and http://teriel.livejournal.com

Luck

September 30, 2007September 6, 2009 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors, Magic/Occult

Magic can be defined as the intentional manipulation of the force which most people term “luck”, by means of the deliberate cultivation of the faculty which most people term “intuition”. Luck is not a subjective state, but rather is a force out there in the world at large. As is the case also with vitality and physical strength, some people are just born with lots of luck (make the choice to be lucky in this incarnation), whereas others are born with very little luck. However, there are things we can do to increase our luck, since ultimately luck – albeit an outside force – is controlled by our attitude.

Luck has nothing to do with morality, or how nice we are. If a selfish, nasty, manipulative S.O.B. believes that he is lucky, he’ll be lucky. It’s the belief that we are lucky that makes us lucky, not how virtuous we are. If we expect luck to happen, it will tend to happen; whereas if we expect failure, that’s what we’ll get. People who tend to be lucky also tend to expect luck to happen; and the reverse. So the state of being lucky or unlucky tends to perpetuate itself.

Luck is not the same thing as getting what we think we want. How often has it happened that there was something that we desperately wanted; and we didn’t get it and were disappointed; and later on we discovered that it was a darn good thing we didn’t get it – it was lucky we didn’t get it – because if we had gotten it we would have been sorry, or else we wouldn’t have gotten this better thing instead; but at the time of our disappointment we considered ourselves unlucky.

What luck is, is the sense that the world is sustaining, protecting, and nourishing us. It’s the feeling that we are being taken care of and provided for, that the impersonal forces of the universe are watching out for us and helping us. Although luck is not the same thing as getting what we think we want, it nonetheless leads to it: getting what we want is a byproduct of the attitude that we are being helped and cared for; that we are deserving and worthy of happiness.

Luck operates as quick little flashes every now and again. Lucky people (those with a lucky attitude) are attuned to their lucky chances when they occur. They have the patience to wait before acting until the moment is ripe; and then, when a lucky chance pops up, they see it and grab it. Conversely, when a lucky chance pops up before unlucky people, they reject it automatically. They don’t see or understand that that opportunity was their lucky chance, so either they don’t notice it at all, or else they notice it but reject it.

Thus there’s the same amount of luck going on for everybody all the time, but lucky people, by their attitude, are positioned to make use of it, whereas unlucky people aren’t. They are too hung up in their own preconceived expectations of what they think they want; they’re like spoiled children trying to order the Spirit around. Instead of receiving gratefully what the Spirit chooses to give them, they angrily reject the Spirit’s gifts because they don’t conform to their precise images of what they think they want. As an example, more than once I’ve seen the Spirit bring a person a true soul mate when they were on the rebound from a break-up, and still too filled with self-pity to see that this person they met “accidentally” was the one they were praying for all along. How many times have I seen the Spirit bring someone their true heart’s desire on a silver platter, yet the person rejected it because they still had too much self-hatred to permit themselves to feel happiness. What keeps us from seeing and grasping the Spirit’s gifts is our own self-pity, which blinds us to everything except how much we’re suffering

Luck and doubt work inversely – each one serves to vanquish the other. The absence of doubt is responsible for the phenomenon known as “beginner’s luck”. Beginners don’t have doubts about what they are doing – it looks easy, so they try it and find that it is easy. They don’t know enough to grasp all the pitfalls and complexities in what they are doing instinctively (by intuition).

Therefore, to increase luck, it is necessary to banish doubt. The hard part is, that just as it takes money to make money, it takes luck to believe that we are lucky. That’s what makes it so hard to break out of a bad luck streak. The reason why people get into bad luck streaks in the first place is because our society encourages doubt, not luck. Society wants people to believe that their best chance for luck is to play the game by society’s rules, rather than to follow their own dreams and feelings and hunches. Those who try to strike on their own are met with great resistance and doubt by their fellows: by banks, government and business institutions, their own family and friends.

Therefore, a truly lucky attitude also requires being close-mouthed about oneself and one’s affairs, so as not to become a target for other people’s jealousy, which is the same thing as their doubt, which they can hurl to arouse one’s own doubt.

What unlucky people are really striving for – which unlucky people must learn to see within themselves if they are to change their luck – is self-pity. And unlucky people get it. They are as lucky at getting what they want (excuses to pity themselves) as lucky people are at getting what they want. Self-pity is a drain on the energy needed to bring luck. We each have only a finite amount of energy, which we can spend on either luck or self-pity, but not both. It is our society which teaches us to pity ourselves – which stands to gain from our collective self-pity and “helplessness”.

Changing from an unlucky to a lucky attitude is hard to do – no bones about it. Although there is indeed a Law of Abundance, to make that one work requires the utmost will and discipline. To arbitrarily adopt an attitude of carefree abundance when we’re flat broke and being pressed by creditors; or an attitude of radiant good health when we’re dying of AIDS; isn’t easy to do. The only motivation we have is that there is no choice – it’s either change, or self-pity. It’s a true triumph of the will to be able to arrive at an attitude of being nourished and protected even though nothing is going right. True luck is being able to maintain our equanimity, our cool, our belief that we’re in good shape, even in the midst of a maelstrom.

So now we come down to the question of how we can change our luck. Astrology (propitious times to act or not act), charms, talismans, etc. can help us to focus our energy on our intent to become lucky. They work to the extent that we have faith in them and believe that they work. They are vehicles of intent, not the important thing, although they can be useful, just as a car can be useful to take us to our destination once we decide where we want to go. But the important thing is the decision, the irrevocable decision, to change our luck – not the vehicle we use to implement it.

Changing our luck basically involves two things: visualization and appreciation. Much has been written about visualization (see e.g. Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization), so only a few points will be mentioned here. Visualization is similar to normal daydreaming, except the latter is done with thinking, and the former is done with feeling. Daydreaming is done in the third person and the future tense, whereas visualization is done in the first person and the present tense. In visualization you imagine yourself to be actually in the middle of the scene as if it were unfolding around you here and now; and you let yourself feel all the joy you would feel if that scene were actually happening. The secret of visualization is to convince yourself that what you are wishing for is already true, and to allow yourself to feel the feelings you would feel if that were in fact the case. When we are depressed, our tendency is to dwell upon our unhappiness, and to play that tape over and over in our heads all day long. The idea of creative visualization is to create a space for happiness to exist in the midst of our suffering; to dethrone the preeminence our self-pity; and then to slowly expand that feeling until it becomes dominant.

Also, visualization should not be overly specific. For example, “winning the lottery” is a silly thing to wish for or to visualize. It’s too specific, too confining to the Spirit – as if one were trying to dictate to it. “Wealth” or better yet, “Freedom from money worries” is a better thing to visualize because it gives the Spirit more free play, more liberty to send us suggestions on how to achieve wealth. Similarly, to wish that Mary or John would fall in love with us is too specific, and verges on black magic. It’s better to just visualize love from some unnamed person, since if all we want specifically is John’s love or Mary’s love, then we’ll reject Sam’s love or Judy’s love when it is offered to us – perfectly good love, but not our specific image of what we thought we wanted. In other words, the chief difference between normal daydreaming and visualization is that the former is pegged to specific expectations, whereas the latter is pinned to a feeling of general happiness and well-being.

Luck means letting the Spirit bring us what we want in its own way, in its own time. This doesn’t mean we sit on our hands and vegetate; it just means keeping open to different possibilities as they arise, rather than clinging to some specific payoff (image of what we think it is we want).
The other thing we need to change our luck is appreciation, which means appreciating what we already have – considering ourselves to be already lucky, rather than already unlucky. This isn’t too hard to do: we live in a beautiful world, in a wealthy country, in a time of relative peace and prosperity; we have enough to eat, we are educated and have millions of opportunities at hand. If we don’t already consider ourselves to be damned lucky, then we ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

What we are aiming for in both visualization and in appreciating what we already have is a joyous, optimistic, expectant attitude. Although it takes a good attitude to have a good attitude, it doesn’t necessarily take a good attitude to want a good attitude. When our desire to have a good attitude, no matter what is happening to us, exceeds our desire for some certain thing to happen, THEN our luck will start to change.

If we just keep plugging away, at a certain point we come to realize that what we really want isn’t health or wealth or love from other people, but rather happiness, contentment in our own hearts. We come to understand that the health or wealth or love is only a symbol for what we really want, which is to be joyous unto ourselves for no particular reason at all. The health or wealth or love we visualized so intensely for so long doesn’t have anything to do with it except as sort of a mnemonic device, like the beads on a rosary. We find we can be joyous in our visualizations and in our appreciation of what we already have – we don’t even need the visualizations to come true in order to be happy. It’s at this point that our luck will start to change, and the visualizations will come true.

About the Author
Bob Makransky is a systems analyst, programmer, and professional astrologer. For the past 30 years he has lived on a farm in highland Guatemala where he is a Mayan priest and is head of the local blueberry growers association. His website is http://www.dearbrutus.com. To subscribe to Bob’s free monthly astro-magical ezine, just send an e-mail to: MagicalAlmanac-subscribe@yahoogroups.com).

Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats’ channeled masterpiece “A Vision” explains the true nature of reincarnation – what it really is and how it really works. Starting with the December issue of Magical Almanac, Bob Makransky’s free monthly ezine of astrology and magic, will be presenting a six-article series which explains the theory of reincarnation as described in “A Vision”. This series includes complete instructions for safe and easy techniques you can use on your own to run past life regressions and probable reality progressions; and to recapitulate memories from your present lifetime (thereby releasing the pent-up emotions which you have invested in your memories).

North-Eastern Alabama Paranormal Society Case #0256

August 31, 2007August 26, 2009 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors, Organizations, Paranormal

By Deborah Collard

Home of:
John and Jane Ghost
111 Ghost Town Drive,
GhostTown, Anywhere, USA

NAPS was contacted on June 15 in relation to a possible haunting at the above listed location by the homeowner Jane. Jane states that she is feeling a presence, very strongly in certain areas of her home. She states she would like for NAPS to investigate and see if she is only imagining things or IF there is a presence there. Jane reports no danger, only things that are giving her “roller-coaster” emotions at times and the feeling that she is not alone. Jane states that she and her husband will be on vacation for the next week and to please follow up as soon as we can. NAPS staff Ricci, Christy and Bob went over to the Ghost’s home the following week after their vacation for baseline studies and initial interviewing.

Initial Interview: June 23, 2007
The clients were made aware that there is a certain protocol for NAPS to investigate. Forms are required to be filled out unless the client declines. For example: North-Eastern Alabama Paranormal Society Advice Waiver, NAPS Confidentiality Form, Release and Waiver of Liability Form, Permission Form and others as deemed necessary.

NAPS Interview Sheet:
What exactly is occurring in your home?
Response: Well I feel like my daddy is here. I can smell him and feel his presence.

When did these occurrences begin and how often do they occur:
They have been going on for several years but seem to be getting stronger and more frequent.

Could you please give me a brief history of this property?
Well my parents owned this home until their death and then my husband and I bought it following their deaths.

Could you please give me the exact locations of the activity?
I feel it heavier in the back yard around the grape vines that daddy planted, also in the kitchen and the family den where they entertained.

Would you like for NAPS to investigate these occurrences?
Yes, please.

Notes: The Client seems very concerned about the presence of the spiritual activity. It appears the family is in a decision making process that could affect the home and it staying within the family. During initial walk-thru one can sense the presence of energy, especially in certain areas. Asked client to please journal any unusual occurrences both location and times until we return. Home is in good repair, very elegant and clean.

Investigation: June 29, 2007
NAPS STAFF Present: Deborah, Nathan, Ricci, Brandy, Larry, Robert, Christy and Bob
The team of NAPS met at the investigation point at 7PM. NAPS was greeting warmly by homeowners. Equipment was unloaded and placed in Family Den for disbursement to necessary locations of use. At 7:16pm NAPS staff determined the first place to investigate was the backyard area where the father had spent countless hours working. Lawns manicured with fountains, various statues and woodwork present. EVP’s, Photos and sensory feelings noted at this location. NAPS note the weather to be very hot, overcast as if storm or rain approaching. Baseline temperature reading while exiting to lawn area was 86 degrees then dropped immediately to 82 degrees. Pictures revealed some orbs present during the daylight hours, these could be associated with the mugginess and the ponds located in the backyard. While in the backyard temperature variances of 86-90 degrees based on location. EVP’s no evidence revealed.

At 7:37pm the Family Living Room had a baseline reading of 68 degrees. At this same time wireless cameras were being set up in the Family Den, also the original bedroom of the parents. HI 8 was set up in Family Den directed in the location of the Father’s private Bath.

At 7:40 EMF reading spiked in the Father’s private bath from 15 to 90. Determined bad fuse in bathroom. Homeowner replaced.

At 7:55 Living room baseline reading 68-69 degrees. Living room video being monitored by NAPS staff member. Noted various orbs and slight movement of chair in LR. Homeowner states this was her mother’s favorite chair.

From 8:00 until 9:00 NAPS staff member into Living Room sitting in the dark observing. Determined it would be time to bring in dousing rods. Client opens closet door and distinctly smells her father’s scent. Worked with dousing rods questioning whether or not spirit present. Yes responses recorded. Client pulled out two fur coats. Client asked me to determine with the dousing rods which coat the father liked the best on her mother. Dousing rods made determination, correct.

Around 9 pm NAPS staff members to the basement area. The deceased father’s belt was still hanging where it had been since death. Daughter had not removed. NAPS Deborah held the belt and feelings overcame her of a rapid heart rate and pain to the left side of her face. So Noted. Battery drainage noted on camera by Deborah . NAPS Ricci had a feeling of nausea. Note: There were chemicals located next to each other that would create a headache or stomach upset to someone sensitive to these things. Ricci and Nathan debunked.

At 9:06 Bob, Ricci and Larry to Master Bedroom to find it very peaceful but as they were leaving the EMF meter spiked. Unknown cause.

At 9:14 Guest Bedroom #1 had feeling of energy in the room. K-2 Spikes on bed. Found that bed was grandparents of client’s husband.

At 9:49 return to basement, Ricci at this time started having a headache. It was definitely determined because of chemicals in basement.

Around 10PM Larry is in the kitchen/DR area while monitoring video feels someone touch his neck. It made him jerk, due to startling. It was determined later that this dining room table was removed from a “supposed” Haunted Estate many years before.

NAPS staff continued to monitor the home with technical equipment for the next couple of hours. EVP’s continued to be taken throughout the home. Photo’s as well.

Deborah decided to meditate and see if anything would come to her in this altered state of consciousness. She could see a woman with short hair, brown hair with gray streaking wearing a snap housecoat. The housecoat appears green in color with some type of florals, material very soft and puff sleeves noted. The housecoat comes down below the knees slightly and the woman is wearing slippers with some type of bow on the top. A little dog, appears old, dog is black and white. The lady has pierced ears but no earrings. She is wearing two wedding bands, one wide and one thin. She has very thin hands. The woman was slender, not heavy. Someone touched her face and she stopped feeling and seeing. Ricci sat down with Deborah and said she keeps seeing a heart locket or necklace with a thin chain.

REVEAL: July 1, 2007 @ 1:30PM
NAPS STAFF Present for Reveal: Deborah, Ricci, Brandy and Bob
Both Homeowners present

NAPS Staff was welcomed warmly to the residence. We brought along the laptop for evidence reveal. We explained to clients that there was no significant photo’s and that video did not reveal any anomalies. One EVP we were unable to debunk, a female voice calling out the name of the female homeowner. After listening to the EVP, client stated that it sounded like her mother calling her. We noted that the high EMF spikes in the bathroom and at one electrical outlet were something that the homeowner should follow up on with an electrician. We concluded that the homeowner should store chemicals, pesticides and other things of this nature in a more appropriate manner as not to risk headaches or illness.

With this noted on the hard science side we continued to the soft science side of the evidence.
We concluded that Staff member Larry had indeed been touched by something of an unknown nature while in the kitchen/DR area. I expressed to the home owner that I had questions related to my meditative state whereas certain things were coming through to me. They were as follows and response from homeowner noted.

1. A woman with short hair, brown hair with gray streaking wearing a snap housecoat. The housecoat appears green in color with some type of florals, material very soft and puff sleeves noted. The housecoat comes down below the knees slightly and the woman is wearing slippers with some type of bow on the top. A little dog, appears old, dog is black and white. The lady has pierced ears but no earrings. She is wearing two wedding bands, one wide and one thin. She has very thin hands. The woman was slender, not heavy.

2. Response from female homeowner: My mother wore the snap housecoats; they were her favorites for lounging around the house. She wore the floral ones. Mother did have slippers with bows on the top, like house shoes she wore with her housecoat. Mother and Daddy did have a cocker spaniel and it lived a very long life. She continues to state that her mother had pierced ears but could not wear earrings; she was allergic to some of the metals in them. Finally she stated that her mother did wear both a wide band and thin band on her 4th finger. She states she loved her jewelry.

3. Ricci asked her if her mother had a ‘heart’ locket or necklace on a thin necklace. The homeowner smiled and said yes she did, it’s in the safety deposit box.

4. Deborah had the pain on the left side of her face and racing heart while holding the belt of the homeowners father while down in the basement. The homeowner states that her father had been killed at the intersection just at the end of the street. That he died instantly. That he had a bad heart and that he was struck on his left side.
We concluded our reveal and lovely conversation with the clients. The clients were thrilled with the kind and heartfelt service of NAPS Staff. The homeowner asked if we would come back again at a later date when we had time. The homeowners requested that we form a circle and hold hands while the male homeowner led us in prayer in a most gracious manner. NAPS Staff departed with the decision that although not haunted that the presence of the deceased parent’s spirits are still present in a good way.

About the Author
Deborah Collard
Founder, North-Eastern Alabama Paranormal Society
Haunted Southern Nights
Director of the Paranormal OmegaCon

Deborah again finds herself looking up in amazement at a beautiful monument located in Shiloh National Military Park. This is so what she enjoys doing. Exploring the past! Deborah, who is Cherokee by blood, enjoys reaching back into the past to connect her with the spiritual world. The way she celebrates this passion is through her studies of the paranormal. Deborah considers herself an ‘oldie’ in this venue, knowing that 30 years ago the only tools she used to investigate with were her flashlight and whomever she could drag along with her to see if she could find answers to the many questions that wandered through her mind. Did the spirits of those who had passed still have a grasp on the earth via earthbound spirits? Was there truly a form of life after death? Were there those who chose not to leave for reasons unknown? Today she enjoys her life as a wife, mother, and even a Nana! Her quest for answers has never ceased. As technology progressed so did she and many years later has a very solid team of paranormal investigators. The Team is NAPS – North-Eastern Alabama Paranormal Society. NAPS was officially formed and being sought out to do investigations in 2004. If asked she will tell you NAPS is her family. Deborah teaches workshops, does lectures and panels on the paranormal. It is important to her that ghost hunters know just what they are doing and the proper way to do it!

In January 2007 Deborah and NAPS became a viable part of OmegaCon. OmegaCon promises to be the greatest sci/fi, fantasy and paranormal convention to ever come to the State of Alabama. OmegaCon will be held in Birmingham, Alabama on March 14-16, 2008.

Now NAPS is taking it one step further with the guidance of OmegaCon Productions. Haunted Southern Nights was always a dream to Deborah but OmegaCon Productions is making it a reality. Starting in July, NAPS will begin filming a series of paranormal investigations in some of the hottest locations in the South.

Deborah hosts NAPS Live Radio “Haunted Southern Nights” along with her friend and colleague Nathan Levan, NAPS investigator and VP of OmegaCon. Tuesday nights are very much looked forward to. Deborah seems to never meet a stranger or a ghost she can’t be friends with.

AS TIME PASSES, SO DO LIVES………………………………………………………..

The Mechanism of Magickal Energy

July 31, 2007August 26, 2009 by Administrator, posted in Guest Authors, Magic/Occult

By Colleen Deatsman and Paul Bowersox

Everybody knows that the manipulation of quantifiable energy to yield repeatedly consistent results is called science. These scientific results can be achieved independent of the operator. We pagans know that the manipulation of unquantifiable energy to produce anecdotal results is called magick. Often times, these magickal results seem operator dependent. That doesn’t mean that consistent results aren’t achieved with magick, it just means that those who manipulate energy through magickal practice need to approach their work understanding the mechanism driving the process. That mechanism, once understood, can operate independent of the magickal operator to produce consistent results. This basic mechanism will be discussed here.

So, what form does your pagan practice take? Are you strictly into the Goddess? Maybe the Goddess and God together? Perhaps the formless non-dual? Whatever your orientation, your pagan magickal practice boils down to three universal elements. These three elements are the same for us as they are for the Buddhists, the Hindus, or the Judeo-Christians. They are the holy trinity of spiritual discipline, and when properly employed, these three comprise the key to the kingdom. They are:

INTENT FOCUS ENERGY

Any spiritual practice can be broken down into these three components. This implies then that no matter what we may embrace as our beliefs, or in what circumstances we may find ourselves, we will always be able to recognize and embrace these common threads, finding joy, solace, and magick, no matter what.

In my books Inner Power and Energy For Life (Llewellyn), I detail the many ways to utilize intent, focus and energy for self-healing and as a means to enhance awareness. These components are also particularly applicable for use in magickal ritual and manifestation.

Intent can be viewed as the goal, the purpose, or the meaning of the practice. Shamans set their intent before they journey in trance to non-ordinary reality. Without proper intent, they may as well be daydreaming about unicorns and fairy dust. This might be fun, but it doesn’t amount to much as spiritual discipline. Intent binds the shaman to the task and enables Helping Spirit energies to effectively interact with them. Candle magick is another practice completely anchored in intent. The witch who performs candle magick has a specific outcome in mind before the candle is ritually lit.
Every ritual, in fact, has an intention, the goal being understood and the meaning clear as the ritual is performed. Clarity of intent is essential if the energies of the universe are to be manipulated magickally for our use. The old computer adage, “garbage in, garbage out” can just as easily be applied to any spiritual practice where intent is utilized. As I said, that’s EVERY spiritual practice.
The tricky part of intent is that we first need to know what we want. We need to fully understand what we are really after before we can make anything happen. In my private counseling practice, I get people all the time who have no idea what they want, or why they want it. It’s common for people to say they want more money. I always ask them why. Invariably, their answer, their actual goal, is something completely different. That’s why understanding and addressing one’s intent is so very important. How can anyone expect any degree of productive outcome from magickal practice with inaccurate, conflicted, or undirected intent about what is desired?

Do you want a new love interest? To what end? If you are going to draw someone into your life through the magickal manipulation of energy, what are you planning to do once they appear? Will you employ the same behaviors in the same way that contributed to your ending up alone in the first place? This is something that must be addressed with intent. Do you want inner peace, spiritual insight, or to gaze upon the face of the Goddess? Okay, but what then? What do you plan to do with that peace, that perspective? Intent demands not only that you know what you want, but that you fully understand the purpose of your desire, what it means to you, and the shift within you that will allow your manifested intent to be integrated into your life. Without this, we might as well just play mumble-de-peg with our athames and call it a day. Nothing will come of magickal work without proper intent.

The second element is focus. Focus is the means, the discipline, and the pointed action we take to set our intent in motion. During ritual, energy is gathered, built, and concentrated through the action of focus. For a Zen Buddhist, the practice of sitting in meditation is the focus. Meditation itself isn’t the intent of the practice, nor does it generate any energy on its own. What meditation does is focus. The actions performed in ritual; the calling of the quarters, the invocations and banishings, are all performed as acts of focus. We cast the circle to pinpoint the area of activity. We banish to dispel any influences that may draw energy away from our intent. We invoke in order to specify the energies we wish to manifest. All of this is focus.

This is extremely important to keep in mind if you are someone who designs rituals for your group or for your individual Book of Shadows. Keep it simple. Keep it focused. The idea is to concentrate all of the energy on the intent. Unfortunately, in the attempt to make ritual “interesting”, elements are sometimes added for dramatic effect that dissipate the energy instead. We must always remember that what we focus on, we give energy to, and what we give energy to, we give life to. Every time you direct the focus away from the desired intent, you spend some of the energy you have raised on that digression. That might be fine for high holidays or feast days when part of the intent is to spread the energy throughout the community, but it is counterproductive when one is trying to co-create a new reality. Focus is the mechanism we employ to deliver the energy we have raised to the intent we have specified.

The third element is energy. Energy is everything. Energy is eternal and energy is everywhere, all the time. The universe hangs on an energetic web. This web exists just outside our everyday perception, and it is the ubiquitous undercurrent that we draw on by setting our intent and performing our acts of focus. Energy is the fuel, the currency of the universe, and the spirit’s stock in trade. We have to realize that everything in the physical and spiritual worlds is comprised of energy. Each of these things or beings has its own energetic character, to be sure, but it is energy nonetheless. We use energy to accomplish a particular task, or we direct energy in order to encourage an energetic response from a particular source.

When you come right down to it, all magick is the exercise of energetic sourcing. Source-ery, if you will. We draw on that source energy, focusing it and concentrating it until we can release it as high-octane fuel to power our specific intent. If we have done our job properly, that energy will be enough to usher our imagined desire from the ethereal plane of concept into the physical world. Voila! We have now manifested our desire through the application of intent, focus, and energy.

When participating in the magickal manipulation of energy, it is important to remember that the universe is sentient. All matter is densified high-vibration universal energy, and all high-vibration universal energy is intelligent. No matter what you might think of our current President, even he is comprised entirely of intelligent universal energy. For this reason, we must always exercise responsibility when employing the triumvirate of intent, focus, and energy. We must keep in mind that every component of the universe is interrelated. When we co-create reality, we are changing the shape of the universe by redirecting and reforming the currents of intelligent energy within the web. That great power demands great responsibility. Part of that awareness of our responsibility requires being accountable for what we do. Just because we know how to manipulate and focus energy, doesn’t mean we must feel compelled to use it compulsively. It’s been said that if you carry around a hammer in your hand, everything starts to look like a nail. That self-centered view is what has brought our world to the brink. Energy, being intelligent, also has memory. When we magickally manipulate and direct energy in the service of our intent, we leave our mark upon it, like psychic fingerprints. That action is tied to us. Because of this, we can never perform magick anonymously, or create a reality without accountability.

As members of a spiritual path that reveres our Mother Earth, we must employ our energetic expertise with discretion, wisdom and responsibility. In this way, we will forever be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, no matter what our specific beliefs or practices might be.

Blessed Be.

Colleen Deatsman, MA, LPC. Author of Energy For Life: Connect with the Source (Llewellyn 2006) and Inner Power: Six Techniques for Increased Energy and Self-Healing (Llewellyn 2005), is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Registered Social Worker, Reiki Master, Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Certified Alternative Healing Consultant, and Shamanic Practitioner. She has a Masters degree and owns a private practice in counseling and alternative healing services in Michigan. www.colleendeatsman.com

Paul Bowersox is a writing coach, editor and contributing writer for a number of authors and publications including Inner Power: Six Techniques for Increased Energy and Self-Healing and Energy For Life: Connect with the Source (Llewellyn). He is always interested in new projects and can be e-mailed at wordmaster4you@aol.com. Paul currently lives, writes, and works in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania.

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