Excerpt 50

 

February 26th 2004

 

>Well Amoris I live in sydney iam 32 iam in good health
>i have psychic abilities like everyone does! I see
>spirits i can feel and hear spirits i see lots of
>colours in flashes infront of my eyes. I know who is
>on the phone before i pick it up i finish peoples
>sentences i say things to people and they come out on
>the spot. I feel things hear things and they are
>becaming more intense. I do little spells with white
>light and candles to keep my family safe. But i need
>to know what is giong on what is my calling what do i
>need do im so confused is this my calling???

I'd say it is ;)
Witches and mages are born, not made. If you're able to sense these things and if they have an objective reality (e.g. are real - not figments of your imagination), then sooner or later you're going to have to learn how to get control of this latent and emerging ability.


>I need
>guidence it sometimes get fustrating cause i dont know
>what to do where to go what i am what are my powers
>should i just give them up and be ordinary like
>everyone else??


Definitely NO. If you're having spontaneous objective spiritual experiences and if they're getting more intense, then I seriously doubt you would be able to give up your abilities even if you wanted to. In fact, there are some cases where trying to block them out could cause bad side effects in some people (depending on how their personal body energy systems work).

Here is a miscellaneous selection of some of my opinions and recommendations based on my own experience. I don't know how much you know so I won't assume any prior knowledge in my response:


You don't necessarily need to be a Wiccan to develop your skills. When I first started trying to explore and control my abilities, I thought I wanted to be a Thelemic ceremonial mage like Aleister Crowley. I've spent nearly a decade now in serious study and practice, and I can tell you that what I first thought I needed wasn't what I ended up doing anyway. Mostly I attribute this to education i.e. spending time working with people from many styles and doing lots of research. Essentially I am a Hermetic occultist with strong leanings toward Ceremonial magick and traditional Kabbalah. I am not a Wiccan, though I've worked with them quite a bit and have had many open/frank discussions with initiated practitioners of two traditions.

Regarding Wicca, I find its variations to be occasionally useful synthetic systems for those who don't plan on going very deep into magick or religion. But there are a lot of things about its adherents that I often find less than desirable. In many ways, many of its practitioners tend to use it as a substitute for Christianity, and most of the practitioners themselves tend to be people who consider themselves (whether consciously or unconsciously) to be social misfits. As a result, we now have many Wiccan covens/study groups full of cranks and weirdos who don't fit in anywhere else, but who have decided to band together into mentally/emotionally crippled support groups where their weirdness, immaturity, sexual deviancy (on the part of the males), and/or other social ineptness can be considered somehow appropriate and accepted. The general pagan and occult community itself is currently inundated with a wide range of parasitic and degenerative characters, many of whom would claim to be legitimate teachers of Witchcraft! You have to be really careful to whom you speak in this genre of religion/magick or you could find yourself in a lot of trouble. Generally it's not a good idea to openly advertise that you're looking for guidance or instruction - emotional manipulators and other users can smell a potential victim a mile away. (I'd like to think you're fortunate to have contacted me, rather than some of those people. While some of this info may be unpleasant to hear, it is at least honest.)

I don't mean to scare you off the track yet. I'm only being honest about my observances first-hand while rubbing elbows with these people for the past several years. I am admittedly slightly biased now, as a result of being burned on many occasions and having had ample time to see what general types of personalities are to be found within the pagan/magickal community. Even so, I still remain within the (international pagan) community because I think it has some merit and should be raised up to higher levels. (That's the Kabbalistic side of me speaking.)

One of the reasons why there is so much crud to sift through in Wicca and Ceremonial Magick today is that there is no central authority to act as a regulator of people's behaviour. Teachers are often self-proclaimed and less than fully prepared for what they'll need to deal with. Without any central organisation to prevent it, abuse (by teachers and practitioners) occurs far more regularly than it should. Contrary to what you may be thinking so far, there are actually some good, trustworthy people to practice with and learn from out there. They're harder to find but worth the search.

Regarding teachers - you don't need a mentor/teacher per se. While it can be highly beneficial due to the natural process of transference that often occurs (and results in a mutual growth between student and teacher - see Jung and Psychology), it isn't absolutely necessary. If you have enough self-discipline and perseverance, you can ultimately learn just as much from studying with skilled friends without actually signing up as a formal student with someone. While I actually feel that learning from an experienced and trusted teacher is best overall due to the speed of learning possible and the safety through supervision, the problem with that setup today is that such trusted people are hard to find. Most of the local teachers I've met are charlatans, sleaze bags only looking to get into your pants, ego-maniacs looking for attention, or mentally/emotionally unstable types who are utter failures in their mundane lives (there are even a few outright delusional ones who probably should be on some medication). Many are, again, social misfits who usually have something wrong with them (anything from unsightly appearance to unusual medical conditions or sexual deviance, etc. etc.). Those types usually end up using magick/Wicca/Witchcraft as a way of overcompensating for their lack in some aspect of their mundane lives.

If you're still interested, I can point you to at least one good Wiccan teacher. She is not without fault (no one is perfect), but she's very experienced and very ethical in the teachings of her tradition. Unfortunately she may be moving away soon, but she might know a few people who are just as experienced as herself.

Update: Shortly after sending this email I asked a Gardnerian Wiccan high priestess about other local (to my area) initiated teachers of Wicca that could be trusted to recommend a potential student to. Her response was that she didn't know of any that she'd trust. There was one Alexandrian teacher who'd supposedly known Alex Sanders and who really knew her stuff, but I was warned against sending people her way due to her emotional instability.

Bottom line on teachers: Look for people (practitioners) who are well-adjusted, grounded (not spaced-out new-agers), and successful in their physical lives to hang out with and study/practice with on occasion. Friends like that are your best and safest teachers because you won't have to sell your soul or humiliate yourself for someone that you don't know very well. And if you start to act a bit unstable, in most cases your true friends will look out for you and let you know that you're acting a bit strange. (Yes it happens - mental and emotional stability can fluctuate during certain stages of growth. Ego problems are the most common to occur in any form of magickal practice.)

In my opinion, anyone who can't handle their own physical life should NOT practice or teach magick.

If you do find someone advertising their services as a spiritual teacher, you should make sure they are also well-adjusted, grounded, and successful in their physical lives. People who are up-front with what they ask of you and who don't demand 100% unquestioned obedience are possibly your best and safest choice. If someone claiming to be a teacher makes demands of unquestioned obedience and starts talking about having everyone do things like shave their heads or get tattoos as a sign of loyalty and commitment, then you should have alarm bells going off in your head. Get away quickly!

I spent some time with a group whose leader started talking like that (though feebly - he didn't have enough loyalty from the scant few members who were left to actually get anyone to take him seriously) - being an elderly man with rigid views, he didn't like my modern independent attitude. He'd ran the Order for nearly 30 years, though at times poorly, and was quite interesting to talk to when he could be steared onto the right topic. However, I got sick of dealing with the whole thing and went back to working on my own with far better results.

In the case of ceremonial occult lodges, check to see what the members of a prospective lodge are like. If a lodge is full of mentally unstable people and/or junkies and recreational drug users then you should look elsewhere. You don't need the sort of astral crud that such a place would attempt to innoculate you with. Another thing that annoys me are stories of people showing up for an initiation ceremony, only to find the temple officers showing up late with McDonalds wrappers in their hands or on the podiums prior to the ceremony. This actually happened to someone I met a couple years ago who was being initiated into a supposedly legit Order (in the U.S.) who practiced within the Golden Dawn system. In that same lodge a year or so later, another person I met also mentioned some funny goings-on e.g. when she showed up for a meeting, everyone was hanging out in a hot-tub rather than having serious discussions on magick, and invited her to join them. She declined.

Recommendation: a thorough study of human psychology in conjunction with magickal/psychic study and development. The first lesson is always to "Know Thyself." A thorough understanding of psychological processes and personality traits (and how they form) will or should result in expanded awareness of self and others. It will also help to hone your B.S. detector, which should be set to "100%" when delving into paganism, magick, or psychic development in any form.

 

Re: Wiccan History, I highly recommend reading through this article:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/wiccahst.txt


Now, regarding how to practically deal with your emerging abilities, there are several books I will recommend. Fluffy ones that deal with spells and have titles like "Water Magick" "Night Magick" or "To ride a shallow money-trap" by authors with names that sound like SilverRavenBucks will not be included in the list ;)

Hands of Light : A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field- Barbara Ann Brennan. A very good book on working with energy as well as healing oneself and others.

Light Emerging : The Journey of Personal Healing- Barbara Ann Brennan. Another interesting read from the same author. Goes more in-depth on clairvoyantly observable auric structures. I found many parallels in my own observations before ever reading the book.

The Triumph of the Moon : A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft - Ronald Hutton.

 

For some of the best beginning info on the serious side of Wicca and neo-paganism I recommend:

A Witches' Bible - by Janet Farrar and Stewart Farrar. Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone are very cool, down-to-earth people. I had the pleasure of meeting them last year. They also set their B.S. detectors to "100%", and aren't afraid to sacrifice any sacred cows when necessary.

The Witches' Craft: The Roots of Witchcraft & Magical Transformation
by Raven Grimassi. While I don't agree with some of his conclusions and views, I will say that some of the information he points out such as the connections between early Mediterranean mystery cults and later 'witches' is very good reading. I also like the fact that he cites his sources.


For general Magick study (Hermetic bias):

Initiation into Hermetics - Franz Bardon. This is the hardcore stuff - not for the lazy. I often tell people that if they can only afford one book, they should get this one. The exercises in it can be applied to almost any system of magick or psychic development.

The Practice of Magical Evocation - Franz Bardon. The theory section is unbeatable, though evocation work should not be attempted by the inexperienced under any circumstances.

The Kybalion - anonymous. Explains the principles of Hermetic thought (also found echoed within Wicca) in layman's terms.


For learning about some of the source material of Wicca:

The Golden Dawn - Israel Regardie

The Tree of Life - Israel Regardie

The Middle Pillar - Israel Regardie

The Essential Golden Dawn: An Introduction to High Magic
by Chic Cicero, Sandra Tabatha Cicero - this one is written in layman's terms.

Dion Fortune's books are also very good, though often dated. "The Training and Work of an Initiate" and "Sane Occultism" are both excellent reads.

Robert Bruce (Australian/English author) has a couple great books that will prove useful at some point, one on Astral Projection (probably the only GOOD book on the topic available) and another on psychic self-defence (also one of the ONLY good books on the topic, consisting only of original and practical/proven material). I can't recommend his books enough!


If you'd like to read a whole lot of information for free, then you can join my e-group and download e-books from the Files section at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/realmagick/

There are a lot of experienced practitioners there from several traditions that can help to explain things to you if you ask.


While I might sound rather cynical or negative, I assure you I'm really quite easy-going and not that negative in person at all. I just wanted to make sure you got a good dose of honesty right from the beginning before you started poking too much around the wrong people and getting into any bad situations.

 


Amoris

 

February 27th 2004

 

> PS SOMEONE TOLD ME TO GET THE PENTEGRAM SILVER ONE
>WITH THE CIRCLE PUT IT IN SALT WATER AND THEN ON A
>FULL MOON FACE THE EAST AND LET THE MOON RAYS GO
>HTROUGH IT TO CLENSE IT AND THEN WERE IT IS THAT TRUE?

 

Ok - forget all that you've read or been told for a moment. Here's how magick really works:

All magickal practices are, at their essence, systems/techniques for working with Energy and Consciousness (both your own and that of other people/spirits). Any time you read a 'spell' or ritual, keep in mind that you DON'T always have to follow it verbatim in order to achieve results so long as you understand the HOWS and WHYS behind what you're doing.

Note: There are exceptions to this statement. Many older grimoires are complete systems in themselves consisting of methods and formalities for interacting with specific spiritual forces. Those should probably not be modified since the format was established by a practitioner or practitioners who were able to successfully achieve results by those means. Modification of methods or materials in that case could cause undesirable results or no results at all. Only an experienced practitioner would know what he/she can and can't change when reading something like that. For more ordinary forms of modern magickal work, my current opinion is that the following is still true.

Energy = the battery or power source for any magickal working.

Spells = poems used to evoke emotional energy and guide the intellectual focus WHILE you're raising and directing energy through other means (i.e. running in place, circumambulating, singing/dancing, or even engaging in sexual activity).

Rituals = guides for raising and directing energy in a focused and specific manner.

Without Energy to power it, no spell or ritual will be very effective. And without visualizing a specific goal (and including emotional and kinaesthetic senses), no spell or ritual will be very effective. You have to be specific in your magickal work - vague wishes get vague results.

With this in mind, let's take a look at the pentagram cleansing you mentioned. If you look at the rudiments, they consist of 1 pentagram (silver), salt-water (or salt + water), a full moon, and the act of facing East. What do all of these things mean?

Silver = the traditional metal associated with the moon. Read this article for more scholarly info on the properties of Silver: http://levity.com/alchemy/kollerstrom_moon.html

Pentagram = a symbol representing the 4 terrestrial elements brought and held into harmony under the rulership of the 5th element of Spirit. Technically a pentagram within a circle should be called a pentacle, but I won't get into that at this time.

Water = See info on the collective unconscious, motherhood, primal soup from which we all came (as described in many ancient mythologies), Emotional energies/fluids (see connection with the moon and moods as well as physiological changes), femininity, receptivity (in the sense that it moulds itself to any vessel), a connection with blood (water being the main ingredient), and think about the fact that our bodies are 60% water and you'll see even more symbolism.

Salt = sometimes representative of Earth (the coalescing force). There's a ton of symbolism associated with Salt. Often represents the body/physical aspect of something (See info on the 3 alchemical principles). Salt has also been used in ages past as a cleansing agent - over 100 years ago, some people used to mix up salt and water to mop their floors with!

Adding salt to water is a way of symbolically (and physically) mixing the principles of astral energy with the condensing/coalescing principle of elemental Earth. It's also a way of literally cleansing the water, and the connection between the ocean (a type of Great Mother in itself, which the primal aspects of our minds may remember) should also be apparent.


East = a solar direction traditionally (though if the moon is full, then it would have to be opposite the sun, or located in the Eastern portion of the sky while the sun is setting in the West). Usually the East is associated with the element of Air and the sun. Air is an intellectual principle, so the sun rising in the east is kind of like knowledge/wisdom literally 'dawning' on your consciousness and assisting in enlightenment. Facing toward the east is a common action found in more Hermetic/ceremonial workings, since those are often more aligned with solar energies (the sun being the centre of the universe and a lesser manifestation or representative of Divinity). Aleister Crowley once made the comment that all the world's major religions are, in essence, forms of solar worship. Think about this in relation to the East and things that people do while facing that direction.

Full Moon = self-explanatory. What isn't self-explanatory is that during various phases of the moon, certain scientifically measurable energies are raised and released - namely microwaves and infra-red light/heat. I won't go into depth here, but to quickly summarize, during the full moon, manifesting energy is released. All the ritual/spell work you did leading up to the time of the full moon is also released at that time. This is almost like 'loading' or charging the moon and then letting it discharge your magick into our atmosphere.

So what this method is really suggesting is an alignment with lunar energies via the metal silver and using the moon's rays (assisted by the salt + water) to cleanse the pentagram in question and further align the object, and ultimately the wearer, with the moon (and more specifically with a lunar goddess e.g. Diana ala Charles Leland's "The Gospel of Aradia" - much of which was borrowed by Gerald Gardner for the creation of modern Wiccan mythology). That's a fine idea, and there's nothing wrong with it, though there are hundreds of other ways you could accomplish a similar result. The only time I would personally find anything wrong with any method like this one would be if the practitioner believed that he/she MUST follow the steps exactly as they're written in order to achieve any results. Most people without training mistakenly believe that the words they find in spell books have power in themselves. They also believe that by blindly following the steps of a magickal working in recipe fashion they'll achieve results. They usually get upset when results don't occur.

It should be kept in mind that some spells and ritual books may have been written in a form of short-hand notation for whomever worked out of them at the time. If it was understood that whoever would be reading and practicing from the text would already know certain details of the operation and had certain prerequisite skills already built up, then it would've been thought unnecessary to write those details down in the text itself. This may not aways be true, but it is helpful to have a discriminating intellect when perusing older magickal literature.

Spells are usually either chants to be used in mantra fashion and/or focus-inducing and emotion evoking poems (and are usually most effective when written by yourself). Songs that evoke specific emotional states within you would work just as well, and for that matter I find words set to music to be more effective than words on their own.

Magick is a psychic activity at its core in the sense of being a technology for perceiving, raising, and manipulating energy and consciousness.

Anyway, I'm getting slightly off-track here. When you get all done using the moon/salt/water method you described, you'd have a type of charged talisman. A talisman is something created and imbued with energy/force for the purpose of attracting or repelling other specific types of force or forces. An Amulet is something that is already an attractor or repeller of forces naturally i.e. a gemstone, a feather, a crystal etc., whereas a Talisman is something that is created and usually contains complicated sigils and names representing (or linking to) forces/power-sources.

The act of wearing this charged talisman will tend to attract or repel certain forces, depending on what forces were used to impregnate the talisman, and in the case of a pentagram, it being a symbol of balanced force (much like a cross in that respect) may tend to have a subconscious effect on the mind of the wearer (usually only IF he/she understands the nature of the symbol - magick performed without understanding how/what/why it's being performed is often just meaningless play-acting with few results).

A way of accomplishing a similar result could be to leave the object in the sun for a few days. Solar energy has the observable effect of scattering/disintegrating etheric energies - that's why spirits of a lower/simple nature don't come out during the day. Or, alternatively, you could tie it to a rock and leave it suspended in a running stream for a while (look into the effects of running water regarding electro-magnetism and negative ions). Either way, any past magnetism from previous owners or makers will be removed in this manner. Some people like to leave items to be cleansed in a bowl of salt - the salt would hypothetically draw out any unwanted energies. But, if you were really in a hurry and were particularly industrious, you could just as easily cut an onion in half and slip the pentagram in there for an hour or so, and then throw the onion away (preferably without touching it). It's a well known fact that onions absorb odours/tastes from the air (miners have always been warned not to take onions with them down into the mine for their lunch because they'll taste like the mine within a few hours). It's also been my observation that they absorb energies as well, which is why you'll often see folk magick recommendations for leaving half an onion in a room to absorb any negative energies from it.

Another way to cleanse an item would be to put a few drops of vibrational medicine (i.e. homeopathic or flower essence) in a spray bottle with 3 parts pure water and up to 1 part brandy (as a preservative) and then mist the object with it. A few drops each of Fringed Violet, Angelsword, Boab, and Lichen combined together will do the job nicely (these are Australian Flower Essences), and are also good for cleansing your working environment. I don't always like to get any Fringed Violet on me though - it can tend to dull certain spiritual links that I prefer to keep open. It's nice once in a while though.

If you've developed your abilities to a sufficient degree, then you don't actually need to do any of those things. You just hold the object in your hand, quiet your mind, and spontaneously remove any unwanted energies from it (partly through visualization and partly through an ability to kinaesthetically sense and manipulate energy directly - this is easier said than done for most people who have very little experience/training) and align it with whatever you wanted to align it to by sheer force of will. This ability is not usually available to anyone who hasn't practiced magick for a number of years and/or wasn't born with naturally potent abilities. There's a big difference between mentally visualizing something and actually touching an object with your mind in a more objective manner. Visualization helps direct the ability to touch the object, but the actual contact is done through a more body-like sense of energy while quieting all activity within the mind/consciousness so as not to confuse events occurring from within your mind with events that are occurring outside of your own mind. This is where people often make mistakes and become delusional - they aren't able to tell the difference between the things happening inside and the things happening outside of their own minds.