Wards - Protecting Yourself and Your Home

A ward is simply a protection or guardian. This post is in response to a question about household wards but it basically applies to everything.

What do wards protect you from?

1.      Your own fears: Most people that I know had some fear of attracting evil with their magick when they were first getting started. That fear in and off itself can stop your practice before it starts. Having some protection in place just may ease a person’s mind long enough to take a few steps along the magickal path.

2.      Random people: A decent household protection can ward off door-to-door salesman and criminals that have no reason to burglarize your particular home. The former doesn’t appear to be much of a problem any more but at one time salesman were an annoyance.  As for the later, the ward is basically a lock they cannot see. Your home may simply look less attractive to them or they just may make a random decision to keep moving.

3.      Random spirits: Spirits move about just like people. Often, they are not barred by locked doors and the like and will just pass through your home. Most of the time, they go unnoticed. Yet, in a magician’s home, they just may hang around for the ambient energy. Who likes uninvited unknown house guests?

4.      Magickal Attacks: I was taught that no one that knows how to attack you will because they are too spiritual to do so. Well well-meaning and something that can be taught to tamp down any suspicions within a group. This is likely the most harmful thing I was ever taught. Magick users are humans and so are you. Eventually, someone will get angry with you whether you deserve it or not. Sooner or later, someone will throw some negative magick in your direction. Such things can result in problems ranging from annoyance to the quite serious.

5.      Not-So-Random People: Some people have enemies that are willing to be criminally physical. A strong ward can deflect, distract or even harm these people before they get into your home. Such a word may also get the police there faster as well.

6.      Your Own Mistakes: Sometimes practitioners call a spirit and do not dismiss it correctly. Other times, something gets out of hand. Some wards can fight these things off for you or at least weaken their impact.

I am sure that is not an exhaustive list but that should be a good start.

There are several types of wards energetic, physical, natural, spirit and spiritual.

Energetic wards are by far the easiest to put up. Beginners simply use their active imagination and visualize energies at appropriate places in the home such as doors, windows, entry gates and the like. When I was at this stage, I preferred red crosses and spider web forms on the windows. Doors require a lot of maintenance because they get a lot of normal use. Very few people enter and leave their house through windows.

My problem is that I could not see my own work. So, I had friends that had the ability look for me. The were able to describe the shape of my wards to my satisfaction. Then they could tell me if they had been tampered with, broken or had weakened over time. Obviously, these did not protect me from things that broke through but likely did for random passersby.

While these can be the weakest form of protection do not underestimate their utility. This type of ward can easily discourage random spirits and people that have no real personal interest in you or your property. They can also be extremely effective against people that are very sensitive to energy, such as empaths.

Try this experiment. Go to a public place with a lot of foot traffic that has some sort of physical barrier like the image. Create an energy ward between two of the bollards. Then watch how many people choose to walk between the unguarded bollards and those you warded. Then, take down your wards and move them to the opposite space and see if the traffic flows differently. If you can change the traffic flow you are pretty good. If you completely stop it, you are damn good. If you do not have any effect, keep practicing. This is a skill that can be learned by almost anyone. Doing this exercise well will develop skills that can be used in a variety of magickal tasks that appear to have nothing in common with warding.

Physical wards at their non-magickal level are locks, closed doors, burglar alarms and the like. There are also other forms of wards with a physical basis. Perhaps you energies a sword you have hanging on a wall facing an entrance. Maybe it is a statue of your deity to which you have cared for, kept dust free and made offerings before. This can also be a talisman or other item created for the purpose. These types of things can become more sentient and active than a passive energy ward.

Natural wards are live plants, herbs, stones, minerals and crystals that have protective properties. These can simply be placed near doors and windows. You do not need to do much magick for these. I simply tell them what I want them to do but you may not even need that.

Spirit wards are defenses supplied by spirits one conjures or creates (servitors). These can be extremely strong against pretty much everything. Spirits from the Lesser Key of Solomon can be extremely effective. The problem is they can come off as a bit creepy as well. Their energy signature can be unpleasant. Angels and the like can enforce some pretty rigid thinking. So, you need a bit of experience to make these work effectively.

If you are up against strong practitioners, here is a little trick. Make several servitors. Instructions on how to do this are outside the scope of this post. Using creative instructions can confuse the heck out of your attackers. For example, Spirit A protects the home on odd calendar days, Spirit B on even days and Spirit C augments on Fridays and Saturdays when most people have the time to get up to no good. Since most people do not attack every day, each time they come to your home they get a different guardian. They may come prepared for the first one they encounter and find something else. Yikes!

Spirits can also advise you and unique techniques to ward your home. The most effective ward I ever made came from this sort of advice. This is one I keep in my secret bag of tricks not because I am all that secretive but when it comes to protection it is wise to have some surprises.

Spiritual wards are just that. A deity that you work with or worship consistently combined with a physical anchor can be very effective. Your soul, properly aligned and actively energized can be impenetrable. Again, how to do that is beyond the scope of this post.

See this post about my favorite protective strategy.

If you do magick, heck, even if you do not do magick, you need some warding. Hopefully, this post will get you started. 

 

 

 

Do Acts of Magick or Intuitions Attract Evil?

This is the last post in the series to my step daughter.*

Sometimes, people that are new to magickal practices come into the shop, buy a fixed candle or other item, and ask me if just doing something like that is dangerous. Will evil things find me? I always answer no. On the rare cases when I see a danger, I tell the person.

I am never comfortable with a yes or no answer to that question.

The short answer is no. A single act of magick is very unlikely to attract anything that isn’t already there. Sometimes, a single or frequent acts of magick can create the illusion of attracting something negative. The illusion is hard to explain without scaring the daylights out of people. They only hear the first few words and their fears drown out the rest. So, take a breath and relax.

An effective act of magick, at the very least, opens the veils between worlds a little bit. It is technically possible for some lower-level astral creature to take notice and get up to something. This is not the norm. More often than not, people become aware of something that has always existed and blame the magick for creating the problem. The problem was always there. Magick simply expanded the person’s awareness.

Hypothetical Example: A person does magick to get some money. Suddenly, they are in a car accident. The damage is less than their $1,000 deductible. Something happens at work and they lose a few hours a week causing a financial squeeze. People blame the magick for ‘bad luck’. In reality, they had a large deductible before they even thought about magick. Large deductibles can be a good financial move if you have the deductible amount in savings. As far as losing some hours at work, they were already financially on the edge. That is why they did magick in the first place. Sometimes, magick teaches us what we need to fix.

We could blame the magick or think that perhaps taking a weekend job for six month to put some money in savings which is a buffer against losing hours and the deductible. Magickal lessons are often life lessons. If you do those things and then realize you are less stressed. Perhaps you get the bug and start reading about money and how to handle it.

Hypothetical Example: A person does love magick to bolster their relationship. Suddenly, a series of arguments break out and the relationship ends. If the practitioner looks back, the subject of the arguments was nothing new. Years later, she may look back and realize she dodged a bullet when that man left. All that happened was the magick added passion to an already shaky situation. The emotions boiled over. Better sooner than later.

Hypothetical Example. The same scenario but now glimpses of a mean face are seen out the corner of the eyes. Some things go bump in the night. Holy cow! The magick opened the door to some dark force! Well, that cannot be eliminated. On the other hand, that force may be the reason the magick was needed in your love life in the first place. Perhaps, the mean man has been there for a lot longer than you realized. The magick revealed the problem. Isn’t that a good thing? Now, you know what you need to deal with.

It is possible for totally random ‘things’ to drop on you from the astral when you do magick. A regular practitioner does need protection from these things.  On a one-off act of magick, usually, that is not the case.

When it comes to intuitives there is a greater danger. Intuitives live between the worlds anyway. That is why their intuitions work. When you spend a lot of time between the worlds, the chances of negative forces attaching increase. Why? Because most of the time people live like this live just above the surface of this world. Which, is the bottom of the next world. Gravity still applies. Muck descends.

The best protection is to stay out of low-vibe places like bars, adult book stores, drug infested neighborhoods, and dance-clubs that are mostly meat markets.

The next level of protection is the wearing of certain stones, smudging oneself and the home and keeping cleansing stones and herbs around the house.

The last level is learning to do some basic defensive magick.

Magick can create some problems but those problems are usually already existing and thus simply revealed by magick. While not always the case, that is a better place to start looking than some scary evil force. Intuitives, often quite afraid of magick, need protective magick more than the occasional magick user

*She is actually my step-daughter. I even get undeserved but appreciated Father’s Day cards. Sometimes, I am just oblivious and think of things like being related by marriage as in in-law.

 

Is Being a Psychic or Intuitive Dangerous to Self or Other?

I may not be the most qualified person to write this. I cannot claim to being an empath or psychic. With rare exception, my psychic insights occur when I am focused on the person I am reading for. A couple months ago, I was able to describe a scene from my client’s childhood in great detail. Things like that are rarely a problem because I am seeking to have that experience and pass it on to another. I am not usually hit with an intuition or feel someone else’s emotions while walking down the street.  Empaths or Psychics are not asking. They just see, hear, feel or receive input that usually has deep emotional connections.

Simply receiving information cannot possibly harm another. That is the good news.

The biggest issues with psychics/intuitives doing harm falls into two categories, hurting themselves and others.

Psychics, especially new ones, often have a trouble distinguishing their intuition from their emotions. This turns an insecurity that could be dealt with to an externalized ‘fact’. The person on the other end of that fact has no chance of disproving the ‘intuition’. This can destroy relationships that otherwise would have worked out fine. Thus, harming both parties.

The way to prevent this is to follow the advice of the Oracle at Delphi, Know Thyself. Knowing what your insecurities are, how you normally feel and the like goes a long way to help judge between feelings and intuitions. If you are normally insecure when speaking while eating and you feel insecure on a dinner date, it may be best to chalk that up to yourself rather than an intuition about your date. If you do not normally feel that way and you suddenly do, chalk it up to intuition.

You are going to be wrong once in a while until you really figure things out. So, record your intuitions in writing along with the circumstances you were in when you felt them. Later go a back and figure out which intuitions were correct.

So, act on your own intuitions first. Carefully assess the results and slowly build confidence. Do not foist them on others until you have good reason to be confident in yourself.

You can harm others in the same way. By insisting your intuition is correct, you can cause people to break up, become medically paranoid or who knows what. Don’t share until you have a handle on it. When I pray, I pray that my teachings land light as a feather on the hearts and minds of others. Cultivate that attitude when revealing them.

I am amazed how willing people are to change their lives around when I give a psychic reading. I am equally amazed when the absolutely know I am right and others have told them the same thing and they refuse to change. Once you share an intuition you cannot own other people’s response. Let them live without your interference.

Intuitives/empaths and the like do have personal issues. They can feel other people’s emotions so strongly that it messes with their heads. I have walked by and felt a human predator once. The emotion and my response to it were disconcerting and it lasted for a day and a half. I feel for those that go through that on the regular.

The trick is to learn how to shield and psychically protect yourself. Even learning a little protection magick is a help. You cannot harm people with protection magick unless they are trying to harm you.  

People in this category at their worst are much less dangerous than magick users. So, I wouldn’t worry about doing harm overmuch but it is good to keep the above in mind. That last little bit out shielding and protecting is important. I highly recommend becoming proficient in those skills.

 

Safely Manifesting Magick

This is Part II of How Magick Manifests

I left the last post with two questions. What happens when there is no path of least resistance? And, does the fact that we cannot predict where magick will manifest make it dangerous?

The answer to these questions is it depends upon the operator but yes, magick is inherently dangerous. So is driving a car, owning a gun and the poisonous cleaners we have in our homes. All of these things are more of a danger in some people’s hands than others.

Manifesting safe magick is a matter of the skill, experience and humility of the operater. Skill is the ability to do the magick. Experience is just like anyone else’s. Though, the lessons have to be learned a bit faster when it comes to manifesting in a safe manner. Humility means recognizing things that could be done better and making no excuses for error. A humble magician does not repeat mistakes out of a need to prove she was right the first time if some unknown factor had not crept in to the working. If the practitioner was right the first time, the ‘mistake’ would not have happened.

There are several principles I employ to keep my magick safe

1.      Never heat a closed circuit

2.      Use the right tool for the job

3.      Use a proper approach

4.      Word spells properly

5.      Never magick a child or pregnant woman

Never Heat a Closed Circuit

This basic fact was taught in my 9^th grade Intro to Physical Science class. With a closed circuit the heat and gases have no place to go. This will cause your lab equipment to explode. The same is true with magick.

A closed circuit is a situation where magick has no place to go. This most likely time for this to occur is when attacking another person with magick but it can and does happen when the magick is intended to be helpful or benevolent.

A hypothetical example would be a man that wants to meet a girlfriend but is unemployed, rarely leaves his apartment, is not on social networking apps and does not have a wide circle of friends. This leaves the magick with no place to go. If he had no talent, he is likely fine. If he has some talent, nothing will happen. If he has a lot of talent, he will heat a closed circuit and the magick will explode. Perhaps, he falls down the stairs of his apartment complex and the rehab nurse takes a shine to him. I have related my real-life experience when I heated a closed circuit.

To prevent this, I make sure that the magick has someplace to go. In the example above, I would insist on applying for jobs, going to church and/or joining some sort of hobby club before I would do the magick. This way the magick not only has someplace to move but a wider path to success. So, even someone of some talent can get a result.

Using the Right Tool for the Job

There are spirits of the Lesser Key of Solomon that are said to heal. Those spirits are called demons by many. While that name can be debated, the term does aptly describe the danger of working with them. The very nature of these spirits seems to preclude healing. I would be very unlikely to use one except in situations where it is life and death and nothing else worked. Instead, I would use a spirit of Jupiter. Or, depending upon the illness, something related to the elements. I may use water for a blood ailment, for example.

In a similar fashion, if I needed a job, I would not call on a war deity like Mars. While I can definitely see some benefits, that may be like using a sledge hammer to drive a finishing nail. I can imagine Mars creating strife within a company to the point someone gets fired, leaving a job open. Yet, I wouldn’t want to work there if that happened. The strife would linger and the work environment would be war-torn.

Instead, I may call upon Hermes (for commerce and trade) or Hephestus (for trade craft). I may even approach a spirit of earth or the spirits of the Prince or King of Pentacles.

The point being is that there are many ways to get things done that will work but the practitioner must be smart enough to avoid creating a disaster by a poor choice of tools.

Use a Proper Approach

Sometimes magick takes precision and a lack thereof could result in disaster.

Imagine a marriage where there is a violent domestic situation. Two people must be separated for sake of the child. Magick could be done for outside intervention. The problem is that outside intervention may arrive as a concerned neighbor, another family member or a cop responding to a domestic violence call. That cop may have to shoot a parent in front of the child. Or, as leaving is the most dangerous part of such scenarios, the abuser ends up beating or otherwise harming the concerned neighbor.

Working internally to push the two apart where they have nothing but each other to blame, may reduce the chances of tragedy. Imagine if the abuser just gets totally bored with his victim or falls out of whatever kind of so-called ‘love’ held for the other. While still a dangerous situation, this approach is less dangerous.

An experienced magician can reduce the danger by being wise in her approach to a problem.

Word the Spells Properly

There is an old joke about a hungry man that finds a genie in a bottle. The genie grants him three wishes. The man says, “Make me a ham sandwich.” Poof! The man turns into a ham sandwich. There is a grain of truth here. I have known many a magician to get exactly what was asked for and been sorely disappointed.

I recall asking for something, seeing the spell work but not manifest correctly. I used a dictionary and looked up a word I used and the tertiary definition fit perfectly and meant something significantly different from the first two! From that point forward, I have made liberal use of the dictionary when crafting spells.  Imagine someone looking for a job and coming up with spell wording.

Manifest employment that lasts three years.

Manifest employment for me that lasts at least three years doing a job that I am neutral about or enjoy.

Manifest employment for me that lasts as long as I want to work there, that I enjoy, and allows me to save $500 a month.

The first statement could result in signing a contract for a three-year temporary job that you hate and doesn’t pay well! The result would feel like a prison term. Risking misery fits my definition of unsafe magick.

Also, since ‘for me’ wasn’t included. My best friend may land the job while I am still unemployed.

The second is better in at least we will not be miserable. The job may last longer than three years as well. This is handy if a recession hits in year two. With the first spell you are definitely unemployed in three years. The second may let you hang on even in tough economic times.

The benefits of the last spell or obvious but with those restrictions the spell may have a harder time finding a way to manifest. You better be networking, have resume’s in the mail and improving yourself in any way you can.

Never Magick a Child or Pregnant Woman

Children and pregnant people have a natural magickal protection. You may as well try to curse a goddess. Good luck. The best you can expect is nothing happening. The worse is more than the full force of your magick landing in your lap. Boom!

The exception is healing magick but still care is needed. A pregnant woman’s defenses are formidable.

We started this with the question, is the fact that we cannot predict where magick will flow make it inherently dangerous? My answer is no. Magick can be dangerous. Mistakes can be made. And, the best of spells can go awry. That said, a great deal of danger can be nullified by wise practices. I can recall times in the last decade when my magick did not work. I cannot recall a single dangerous outcome over that time period.

Next time: Is just being psychic but not doing magick dangerous in and of itself?

Below is my real-life example of heating a closed circuit.

Example of Heating a Closed Circuit

One of my first successful spells was one to “give me a job that will keep me financially secure for life.” I am forever grateful that one worked. However, I had not yet applied for work, had no real marketable skills, nor education and my past jobs did not contain a seed of a financially successful future.

The magick found the one path open to it, a job I wasn’t hired for a year before. They needed more help and all three people at the company, all family, took credit for remembering that I was going to be hired before the fellow hired his son-in-law. The day after I did the magick I received a call and was hired. This was another dead-end job.

So the magick wasn’t done. To complete the spell, it had to break through all the negative inertia of my job history. There was no place to go. My magick exploded.  I severely injured my back on that job to the point that I had to take two-inch steps for two years. To force myself to walk and move, I bought one day of groceries at a time. It took an hour and half to walk through the grocery store in agony. The job didn’t wait for me.

As I began to heal, I volunteered for Ross Perot’s petition drive. From there, I ran the Fresno Clinton/Gore ground operation. There I met a soon to be state assemblyman. During his campaign, I met his best friend.

When I applied for real jobs no one would touch me with a wonky back. The County government would. I was offered a job by every department because I blew out the entry level test. I ended up working below the politician’s best friend. I was promoted several times. I left that department for the job I worked until I retired. The spell completed.

I was also left with a horrendous amount of unexplainable back pain for the rest of my life.

That happened because as a rookie, I generated enough power to create enough magickal kinetic energy to move things forward. If I didn’t have the talent to raise that much energy, the spell would have ended at that first job. That magick was dangerous because of my inexperience. If I had it to do over again, I would have applied for a lot more jobs before doing the magick or at least registered for college

How Magick Manifests

 Not long ago, I tested Spirit. I said, “Tell me something I do not know about some people I do know.”  I learned something about my friend Jenny’s cooking habits. And, I learned my daughter-in-law (DIL), is “consciously aware of a small fear of you.” I contacted them both and told them I needed an honest answer because I was confirming a new level of communication that I was experiencing. A magician that doesn’t test his sources is on the road to self-deception. Both women confirmed the facts I received.

Over a couple of weeks, it was hard to pin down my DIL’s fear. I inquired of spirit again, not to get a direct answer but, to learn a better way of communicating with her. I could have asked for a direct answer but I am also interested in relationship building and chose this direction. I was given a question to ask her. I asked, “Is your fear regarding magick that it is non-linear or do you fear that the source may be unholy?” She replied “Non-Linear”.  I am writing this in hopes of sharing with her how magick works.

In the West, we are trained to believe in the linear, logic, scientific assessment (unless it is vaccinations or climate change) and the like. We are comfortable with things having a reason for happening. If you pause long enough to look at it, we are imposing a world view upon a reality that does not correspond well with what we like to believe. While the universe can be seen as mechanical and perhaps is at times, magick and life are both a bit messier.

Mechanically, we can explain what happened to get that young boy killed by a train near Christmas Tree Lane a couple of days ago. His mother pulled forward thinking she was far enough off the tracks. She felt her vehicle move as if it had descended from the danger zone. She heard the frantic horn blasts but didn’t think it was for her. She misjudged by a foot. The train slammed into the car costing the young boy his life. Terrible. Mechanically that is a solid explanation.

What does it leave out? How did she misperceive the car’s position on the tracks? Why did her mind tell her the whistles could be ignored? How did it come to pass that the family chose that day and time to visit the attraction? Why was that boy in the backseat versus the other child? How did the train arrive at just that time?  We could probably find a mechanical answer for each question. Yet what happened was but one variation to an infinite number of scenarios where that event did not occur. Why did that event happen at all? And, at the time, it was so surprising, so unexpected, that it certainly felt non-linear to the poor mother driving the van. The boy’s father is going to have a reaction too. Will the marriage survive? Maybe or maybe not but, and here is the rub, whichever way it goes could be explained by a mechanical answer. Cause and effect. How can a mechanical answer be applied after the fact but not before? We should know what he is going to do before he does acts. If the universe behaved in a direct logical line, the future would be predictable in the short term.

The linear view is simply our own projection. That is not a description of how life really works.

Magick and life both work via the application of pressure moving a fluid through its natural course. In short, magick and life flow like water. This is easier to see with magick than with life so we will start there but first, simple fluid dynamics.

Think of a spilled glass of water on a dining room table. The pressure is the kinetic energy of the water moving in the direction the glass was tipped. From there, that natural flow of water is towards gravity along the path of least resistance. If the table is ever so slightly uneven leaning to the west, once the kinetic force dissipates the water will flow in a westerly direction. It will not, cannot ascend upward on the table. When it comes to the seam where the leaf could be inserted that crack becomes the path of least resistance. The liquid will not, cannot, hop over the crack and continue flowing west. Following its draw toward gravity and finding a new path of least resistance, flows down the crack and drops to the floor. If that area of the floor is ever so slightly uneven descending to the north, the water accumulates until it creates is own pressure and flows northward. The water cannot and will not go south.

Magick works exactly the same way.

If I do magick for a job that magick will follow its path to ground (manifest) along the path of least resistance. For simplicity’s sake, lets say that I have a lot of friends, three of them are in the industry I want to work in and I have put in twelve job applications so far. Most of the time I will predict that the magick will naturally flow to a place that a) has a job opening b) has my application in hand and c) a place where one of my friends has some influence in hiring. Rarely does it work out that way.

The influence of magick normally finds a weak point (path of least resistance) in ways we humans do not perceive until after the magick happens. In the case above, someone at my current job may have a friend that works in the industry. During a chat his friend mentions that he is looking for someone and knowing I am trying to change careers my coworker suggests me. No one else is even aware the job is open and no one else is interviewed. The magick influence one and only one conversation, the path of least resistance.

Magick appears to be non-linear but it follows the basic rules of fluid dynamics. Again, we just don’t know what that path is from our human perspective.

What happens when there is no path? Does our inability to spot the path of manifestation make magick dangerous?  Stay tuned for Part 2.

 

Mystical Memory

 I use the word communion. Not meditation. When I commune, I am engaging with the universe in a personal way, much like in real life. To my understanding, meditation is a different skill set.

I suppose two or three years have passed since I took Jason Miller’s outstanding course on Hekate. During that course, my communion skills increased to an annoying level. The annoyance was that I would get to a place with great visuals that was obviously communication with otherworldly spirits but the scene would change in an instant. This caused me to forget not only what I was just told but who was doing the telling, the context and location. This was much like waking up knowing you had an important dream but not remembering any part of the experience. Since that time, I have been working on a solution.

About six months ago, I hit on something important. Now, I have a tried and true system for resolving this problem. While this does take some practice, the process is simple to remember.

The first step is paying attention to the location. Notice several objects in the scene. Last night, the objects were furnishings in my what a ceremonial magician would call his astral temple, a table, an object on that table, and the design of the carpet.

The second step is harder. Immediately when one realizes the scene has changed, focus on those objects until one is back in the original space. Do not try to return to the space. Instead, focus only on the objects. When you think of a place you are in that place. Once you have returned to the space, immediately recall everything that led up to the switch.

While I am not going to relate last night’s communion, that may go something like this. I arrived in the temple, the moon was obscured by clouds, a voice emanated from a rock that told me that my attitude regarding my family situation was incorrect. I was told to see only a few facts and then I would see my brother’s perspective. Then I encountered a wispy apparition that floated through the space saying, “See without your eyes, interpret without thoughts.”

I have found it more effective when I focus on repeating everything encountered up to the change in scene at least twice. When I do that, I find myself back in the same place I started and the communion stays on point. When I do not, the rest of the experience is like a dream, disjointed and easily forgotten.

When one is in the same place, the communication doesn’t pick up where it left off. The experience is more akin to leaving a conversation at a cocktail party and then returning. Sometimes, you have to direct things back to when you stepped out in order to catch up.

Last night, during an hour and half communion, I did this around five or six times, maybe more. When I came back to normal consciousness, I recalled four items of interest and immediately wrote them down. As I prepared for bed, I recalled one more that had been on the tip of my memory but I couldn’t quite bring the thought forward. Four of these items were of serious import, one was curious. Recalling four items of import that I could take away from the experience is a huge win.

By focusing on the location and the linear time line of events during the communion time, my memory of events that occur in alternate states of consciousness improves. I would love it if someone reading this that has the same problem would practice this technique and let me know if it worked for them.

 

Your Thoughts Matter

Mystics receive messages in many ways. Sometimes, it is by observing coincidences. Other times, it simply being self-aware enough to know you are missing something bigger and looking for it. We have dreams. Then again, there is the famous ‘download’ of information that psychics talk about that leads them to doing a specific technique. We have leaps of thought in mediation that lead us in various directions. Sometimes, we are plainly instructed by the powers themselves.

All of that falls under the heading of unverified personal gnosis. These leaps of intuition can rarely be linked to some known fact and when they can, no one takes the link seriously. That is likely a good thing. Such information is meant for the practitioner alone. Sometimes, a cool thing happens and several people get the same message. Sometimes, we are simply instructed.

The rarest thing of all are messages for other people. If a mystic just randomly tells you s/he has a message for you that you didn’t ask for, there is a 99% chance their ego is interfering. In this case, I believe I stumbled upon a truth that would be good for the world to hear. That may be my ego. That may be the truth.

I experienced a series of dreams that repeatedly demonstrated the same message. I was shown over and over again how holding onto a memory or perspective about someone else is the equivalent of putting them in a cage with themselves. The person cannot change or has a much more difficult time doing so because someone else deeply believes they are the person they have always been.

Another word for this cage is a shell. The term as taught to me included every ‘bad’ action one performed in life. Over time, I expanded this to include incorrect perceptions that colored my viewpoint. I have never seen anyone write that shells are also created and maintained by others.

Let us suppose you know someone that has stolen from their employer multiple times. Over the years, you have lost touch. If your memory of them includes the idea that they steal from their employer, it is that much harder for them to turn over a new leaf. If that memory contains a belief that those actions define the person, you add a layer of bars to their cage. If you think of someone as a manipulator, womanizer, mean-spirited, psycho, a bad driver, a push over or anything else the same thing happens.

I believe this is really what forgiveness is about. Forgiving isn’t about condoning the act but accepting that the event happened. The next step is releasing the person from one’s perception that the act defines them. This allows the person to redefine themselves. The embezzler may just become the most honest employee ever because s/he does not want to feel like a thief ever again.

The reverse is also true. If your ‘knowledge’ of someone is that they can overcome their weakness or have a special talent or anything else positive, that makes it easier for the person to open that door to great things.

So, it is incumbent upon myself to give up all thoughts of people I have not known for over a year.

How is this done? I plan on using what I recall as a Buddhist meditation where one ‘sees’ his own body decompose in death. My plan is to switch that up and see people I know from the past behaving according to my perceptions and then watching that image decompose until there is nothing left. That will free people from the cage I have built for them. This will give them a chance to walk out of the cage they created for themselves.

These cages do not have to be the same. Perceptions of others and the self are often incomplete and incorrect. Mine included. People build their own cages from guilt, insecurity, how others taught them to see themselves, life experiences etc. From this point forward, I am making an effort to release all the cages I have created for others.

Abandon the Gods!

When I was a baby Pagan circa 2001, most Pagans I knew claimed allegiance to one deity or another. Some said they had relationships with several deities but had one primary. Others, mostly Wiccans or witches, claimed a generic god and goddess. Now, or so I have read and experienced in the shop, a lot of younger Pagans eschew gods altogether. Those I have spoken to cite how horrible they have seen ‘religion’ manifest on other paths. For the most part, that means conservative Christianity. This is flawed and reactionary reasoning.

When I worked for local government, the paid time off structure was so good it was nearly European. In addition to that, if people had PTO to spare, they could donate it to newer employees who suddenly fell ill. A couple of painters abused that privilege by figuring out an angle to take advantage of the process. The reactionary thinking from the powers that be was to stop the donation process, cut the amount of PTO given and other draconian measures. That took no thinking and no effort. It may have been slightly more work to close the loophole that was exploited and deal with the scofflaws that scammed the system.  That work proved too much for those in charge. Depriving others because a small group of people took advantage is both lazy and demonstrates a lack of sympathy towards others. People who followed the rules were punished because of the actions of other parties. This is a flawed way to make decisions and such methods serve no one. The proper term is ‘a failure of leadership.’

Turning away from the gods because a completely different religion manifests in obviously problematic ways embodies that same easy out approach to life. That path leads to mastery of nothing and deprives the practitioner of enriching relationships. It amounts to a failure of personal sovereignty as one gives up something of value because of the failings of another.

The first thing we have to think on is the difference between exoteric religion and esoteric spirituality.  In the former, one is expected to believe in someone else’s esoteric experience having never so much as met the person in question. Once belief is instilled, a power structure is created and becomes socially enforced. In esoteric spiritual practices, the practitioner experiences the divine for herself. There is no power structure between the practitioner and the gods. Thus, the abuses and controlling behavior we see on other paths cannot occur.

Note, I am talking about an individual practitioner, not group work.

So what is a god? My perception of deity is that gods are wholly perfect unto themselves. They exist in a state of perfectly fulfilling their own nature. For example, Hermes is the god of movement. He is the patron of travelers, news, communication, commerce and thieves. He is able to move as well and does so anywhere He likes. Unlike most Greek deities He can travel to Olympus, this world, and Hades.  When he is in the Plutonic realms, you do not see him carrying off riches for his own use, the skulls of the dead etc. When he is in Olympus he does not declare a golden chair his own and cart it off to his dwelling. Those things do not move on their own.

The closest example I know in the human realm is a baseball player named Ichiro Suzuki. When he gets up in the morning he exercises. Then he eats. Then he reads about exercise and nutrition, then he practices baseball. When that is done, he does general fitness work and reads more about baseball, fitness and diet. Everything the man did revolved around being an athlete and specifically a baseball player. He had no other hobbies, interests, etc.

Encountering deity exposes one to similar purity at an intuitional level. This can lead one to the desire further purify oneself and allow one to be more willing to jettison that which does not align with the true nature of the person. Even if the practitioner only does that a couple of times, she is much further ahead of the game than the average person. There is value in approaching the gods.

If a person does not want to approach the gods, that is one thing. If they do not do so because of the fear of recreating the failures of a wildly differing path, then perhaps they may be seeing a reflection of themselves. That fear of being the abuser may be the first thing that must be rooted out. The source of that fear is unlikely what one thinks it may be. Often the core issue is only vaguely related to how it manifests.

I do not believe that the only path to spirituality lies through contact with the gods. Only, that such contact is helpful to many that sincerely walk the path. I do advocate investigating the process without rejecting it out of hand.

Asking For Help Through Prayer

Assuming you understand something about yourself is not in alignment with your soul, praying to get rid of that trait is unlikely to work. Only the gods know how often I prayed to be relieved of my anger and the impact it had on others. There are a couple of reasons why I feel those prayers were not answered.

First of all, I asked the deities in question to do something for me. I put all the work on them. That is like asking for help cleaning your home before a big event and sipping tea while watching all your friends do the work, not wise behavior.

The second reason is a bit more subtle. My anger was not the problem but a symptom. Had the gods granted my petition, I’d still be saddled with the same problem in another form. Perhaps, that new form would be harder to identify.

A great deal of my problem was perspective or a lack thereof. To me, whatever issue I was going on about was obvious for all to see. While I never thought this, my attitude was that people were willfully doing wrong. After all, if you can see the problem, yet act to perpetuate the issue, you are twice as wrong!

Once my perspective changed to one where I believe most people are doing their best most of the time, my need to express my anger lessened a great deal. Instead, I was saddened, not enraged. Attacking my anger directly was precisely the wrong approach.

Had the gods granted my request and removed my anger, they would have removed my ability to see what is out of alignment with the divine flow. That would seriously harm my personal spiritual progress as noticing that allows me to remove that which interferes. It would also have harmed my ability to help people that ask for my assistance. “That is wrong,” is met with resistance. “How would you react to that if you were on the other side,” is met with contemplation. As is, “When you do that, what energy is manifesting?”

Solving the first issue is easy. When you pray, ask for help. Help me resolve my problem with anger, is much better than, take away my anger. The gods will give you clues to resolve the problem, that is the help. Your cooperation is spotting those clues and acting on them. You’d be surprise how easy it is to change when you follow the bread crumbs long enough to find the path. Change is as easy as putting one foot in front of the other.

Solving the second problem is just as easy. By not identifying precisely how you want the help to manifest, you leave room for the universe to provide you with the answer you need, not an answer you demand.

You may be given an extra boon. I have found that many of the things I and others have asked to be removed were simply misapplications of proper energy. For example, a person’s need to drink may be born of a need to relieve emotional pain, an understandable goal. Yet actually healing the wound resolves the problem in a much more substantive way.  The drinker applies the drive for healing in an improper way. The modality is the problem, not the need to feel better.

This is important so another example is warranted. The person that cheats on his spouse may be looking for acceptance from others, even though his spouse offers the same. The problem is that the person does not accept himself. No amount of acceptance from others will resolve that. Instead, he must learn that he is worthy of his own love. Seeking acceptance from others is an incorrect manifestation of the energy of love. Love sought directly from others is nearly always a slight miss. Love yourself fully and one has love to give. That love is joyfully returned.

Love yourself enough to ask for help. Love yourself enough to notice the universe’s reply. Love yourself enough to act on those messages. You will find the path.

Things Not to Do

Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, before most of us had heard the term global warming and cell phones were relatively new, I told a friend of mine that my Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) often arrived in dreams in the form of a police officer. My friend, a policeman, was taken aback and asked why. At the time, I interpreted his response as a negative but never asked for clarification.

When the officer appeared, the instructions were always the same. Stop doing that! This is obviously a major role of police officers. Jay walking? Stop. Robbing a house? Stop. Selling drugs to children? Stop. Stop in the name of the law!

Here the law in question is not civil or moral. The law in personal and natural. The law is unique to the way an individual’s soul needs to manifest and cannot be projected onto others, a classic mistake of exoteric religion. The process is also part of the natural unfolding of one’s spiritual nature. Following this law is required of all spiritual seekers that wish to ascend and embody a higher nature than has currently manifested.

I write this today because I have been reading The Complete Book of Ceremonial Magick, shockingly available at The Open Eye and came across this tidbit in the writings of Sam Webster. “Socrates claimed to be guided by his personal daemon, mostly being told what not to do.” Sam goes on to claim this is an obvious reference to the HGA. This struck me as true.

When I looked back at my life, my HGA consistently told me to stop a few things in life. The better I was at not doing those things, the more progress I made.

Jumping to the conclusion that the HGA is a moral compass and is the same as our conscience is understandable but misguided. Our conscience is largely a construct of what we have been taught is right and wrong. This teaching is of social value as it keeps society under some sense of order.

Keeping a family unit together is of obvious value to society as a whole and therefore an extra-marital affair is deemed immoral. Interestingly, the French, ever practical when it comes to human sexual behavior, enter marriage with the near expectation of an affair as long as it is not thrown in the spouse’s face or otherwise embarrasses him or her. Again, this is an obvious practical way of keeping the family unit together. Morals are societally dependent and not divinely commanded.

A lot of Pagans and other spiritual people struggle with the challenges of the bodily demand for sexual activity. I have seen the gamut from abstinence to promiscuity of truly impressive proportions and everything in between. Absolutely none of that actually matters. What matters is what interferes with the connection between soul and manifest personality. That harm can occur anywhere on the spectrum and is totally unique to the individual. So, one’s HGA may issue a stop order basically demanding an end of abstinence, multiple partners, a given type of partner or even a thought that is never acted upon. Again, these orders are simply to further align one spiritually, nor moral judgement is made or implied.

Back in the day I struggled with expressions of anger. Thankfully, acts of violence were not part of my problem. I realized today that my HGA never once instructed me to get over my anger as so many humans did. I was not even told to adjust my behavior as far as expressing my anger. While curbing my anger had beneficial social applications, it did nothing to aid or hinder my spiritual growth. In looking back, I am wondering if the things I was angry at were primarily lessons in what not to do myself. If I am angry with X for doing Y, then I ought not to do X. That sounds like a reasonable interpretation to me.

The problem there was that anger also manifested in conversations that had nothing to do any behavior I would engage in. Such anger was obviously damaging socially. My thought is that my HGA was not concerned with social relationships in the least.

So, what is the purpose of obeying these edicts of the HGA? Unlike the assumptions of those that have not had what is called Knowledge and Conversation of the HGA, the process of the Great Work does not end there. Instead, this is the beginning of work toward Knowledge and Conversation with the soul. Which again is a beginning for the Great Action, which is behaving in accordance with the union of personality and soul.

To this end, the HGA does not normally tell one what to do. The things one does that fall into alignment with the soul are already being done at some level and simply need refinement. Those actions, at least for me, moved from ham-fisted to elegant. When I am not elegant in my interactions, I am slightly off. This is easily recognizable within. That recognition is the only correction really necessary.

Elegant actions give birth to obvious results.

So, what are you not supposed to do? That which does not align with your soul. How do you know what those things are? Well now, that is why it is called the Great Work. Learning what is and what is not in alignment with your soul takes hard work, introspection and observation. There is a reason why the Oracle at Delphi’s famous entreaty is still famous. “Know Thyself”. Stay tuned to this space on how to find out what not to do.

 

The Secret is a True Lie

I encounter a lot of folks that have read The Secret. I am always hit with the same analogy. If you go to the mail box expecting nothing but bills, you will find nothing but bills. What you think, manifests. This is true but the example makes it a lie.

The reason it is a lie is the analogy is reduced to ease understanding to such a degree that the analogy is untrue. Allow me to complicate things a bit.

The reason you have bills in your mailbox is not because you think there will be bills in your mailbox. The reason is that bills are often delivered via the mail. One receives bills because one spends money. One receives an unreasonable amount of bills because one spends an unreasonable amount of money or one’s income is too low to sustain oneself.

In the first case, the manifesting thought isn’t the one expecting bills. The manifesting thought is something more akin to I need all this stuff or I am successful because I have stuff or I can spend all this money. There are a thousand variations. Those are the thoughts that lead to manifestation of unreasonable amounts of bills. Changing those to something like, I only spend on necessities or I buy financial security not objects will manifest a different reality and thus less bills.

In the second case, there can be many reasons for poverty. Some of those are in a person’s control others are not. However, even those who have more control over poverty than they think tend to feel that they are victim of circumstance. Maybe a person makes just enough money to pay their necessary bills. They may think there are not any better jobs out there. This is obviously untrue as many people occupy those jobs. Maybe the thought should be changed to I will put in the effort to qualify for a better job. Maybe the thought is Weekends are mine. True enough but if that thought was changed to I will find a part time job that allows me to work Saturdays one may find such an opportunity. Since one is already paying one’s necessary expenses all that money can be saved for emergencies. That is a huge stress reducer, financial savings as you don’t have to borrow to cover an emergency and a step out of poverty. Maybe, saving that money leads to an educational opportunity that boosts one’s earning potential.

My point isn’t to bash people that are low-income. As I said, there can be a variety of reasons that one is in that position that are truly out of a person’s current ability to control or overcome. I am merely pointing out how a single change in thinking can manifest a different reality. This applies every area of life. 

Control your mind; control your life.

 

Power

 

Power is a strange thing. People often seek power while having no idea what power actually is. All they know is they are not satisfied with their life or some situation(s). The seek power over those problems but since they do not know spiritual power, they take a clue from mundane power.

Mundane power is the ability to control people and situations. For example, being in a position to hire and fire people, have access to money making opportunities that others do not or being in control of social perceptions or groups. While magickal power can be used in these ways, those are not examples of spiritual power. This is true even though spiritual forces, in the broadest sense of the term  (i.e. spirits themselves or life force energy), can be employed.

One can use a road opener spell to open a path to a new job, bind a stalker or open up communications. Those are examples of magickal power but not spiritual power as I define the terms. While you can open a path to a new job as a charity worker or mafia enforcer, intent does not factor into these definitions of power. Magickal power is the ability to impact the mundane world directly using non-mundane methods. To use it, one must make specific decisions. One must decide one wants a job or that a stalker must be stopped. There is nothing wrong with using magickal power in this way.

I have met practitioners of hoodoo that do not look at their practice as spiritual in anyway at all. I have met some say the traditional prayers that go with some hoodoo practices that do not really believe what they are saying. They simply acknowledge that a formula works. They do not claim any particular spiritual insight or self-improvement has resulted from working their tradition.

Spiritual power is different. There is nothing overtly to do once one possesses spiritual power. There is no one to control. There is no situation to manipulate. One simply lives within one’s own space.

Spiritual work is basically finding out what that space is, locating the center point and residing there. When I first began my magical track, my circle and home position within that circle look like this.

The circle encompassed all the events and interactions in my life. The red area indicates my then insecurities both valid and invalid. The black dot represents my home position at the time. Obviously, that is a very difficult place from which to navigate one’s life. Some people would choose to magically lash out at anyone who challenged this position. I did not do that. I did verbally argue my position and pushed people back. Yet, at the same time, I was constantly trying to fix myself. I believe refusing to do magick to control those past situations benefited me in the long term. In the short term, some people cleaned my clock!

As I began to have some healing abilities, I convinced myself I was operating from a new place. This new place was mercy and caregiving for those that “needed my help”. Not only is that a place of ego but again a recapitulation of insecurity in a different form. It was as if I was saying to myself, I must have improved because now I can help some people. There were times where I bought into that line of thinking. There were other times when I knew it was bull shit.

The image below shows a shift in my home position within my circle. I was still out of balance and operating from a place of ego, albeit a kinder one.

At this point, I was always taken aback when somebody I helped revealed themselves not to be my friend. I had conflated being kind and healing towards others with earning their friendship. That was an error on my part.

I could go through a lot of similar iterations moving both the point and perspective within that circle. Yet, the story would not change much. Life was always a struggle.

Only very rarely, when somebody was being particularly troublesome, did I use magic to push people outside of my circle. Some might call that controlling others. I called that creating a reasonable space within which I could work. I’m sure it is pretty easy to see both sides of that discussion.

My point is, that when working magic to exercise control (power), one pretty much stays in the same place. If that place is a position of insecurity, an emotional need to control and dominate others, an emotional need to help others or any other unbalanced place, working magic does the practitioner little good in the long term. In fact, it becomes a cement keeping one stuck in an out of balance or uncentered place.

The practice of spiritual magic or theurgy, is to keep moving out of imbalanced places until one finds the center point within one’s circle. At this point, the circle self-balances. So, people that seek to do you harm have a very difficult time doing so. Those little mistakes we make also are self-correcting before they become big mistakes. And the more we recognize things that need correcting or have self corrected for us the less mistakes we make.

Standing in that center point is such a strong place that one is nearly unassailable. Yes, it is possible for the random person to shoot you or rob you or for somebody else in your life to do nefarious things. If that happens while you are centered and balanced, at some level it becomes your own life lesson on a much larger scale than average. Or, it was simply your time to go. While dying might be agony, death really doesn’t matter.

When you are at that point of balance within your circle it looks like this.

If that looks like the symbol of the sun to you, in that you can find a clue to the first level of spiritual work. If that looks like an eye to you, that can be a hint for you about what it is like to be in this place.

When you are in a position like this, there is very little magic for you to do that has any impact on anybody else. Your sphere does that for you. Because those who enter that sphere very often automatically adjust themselves to a point where they either become participants, allow themselves to heal, or move elsewhere. The work at this point is simply expanding the boundaries of the circle.

Spiritual power is not exercising the need to control. Spiritual power is simply expansion.

Protecting Yourself from Magickal Attack

People that hang out with those that do magick, risk falling under magickal attack from time to time. I do not know if the risk is more or less if you don’t hang out with magick users. In a previous post, I mentioned smacking some people around that threatened my job. Those folks were not magick users. They still wound up on the other side of my magick.

So, how do you protect yourself. Stones? Herbs? Protective spells or spirits? Perhaps.

There is something else. Magickal attacks hit your weak points. If someone wants to steal your mate, their first magickal attack will be to create a rift in your relationship. To prevent that, treat your mate with respect. Help your partner as much as your partner helps you. Do not cheat. Communicate well. Keep your finances in order. There is no place for the attack to hit.

If someone wants to impact your job, that spell will seek out a weak point. If you have treated your bosses well, done your job to the best of your ability, have not stolen from your employer, been on time and treated coworkers and customers professionally, your job is pretty safe. In order for you to lose your job, the attack would have to take out your employer’s business.

Similarly, if you eat right, exercise, abstain from heavy drinking, drug use and the like, a spell that attacks your health is going to have to work pretty hard to find an avenue into your body.

In order to make this work, you have to take an honest self-inventory. Denial is a killer. You have to list every fault and everything above that you are doing that you shouldn’t be. Then, fix each problem. Some of these issues can be solved magickally. Others solutions are more mundane. Still like all such efforts, using magick and mundane methods together might yield the best results.

Obviously, these things must be done before the attack itself. Magickal defense is a life-style.

If you make a habit of self-assessing your weak points and fixing them, magick worked against you is unlikely to be effective. The upside is you are living a pretty nice life as well. There is another upside as well. When you make magick to improve your life, it has all sorts of positive ‘weak points’ to work through.

Need a raise? Well, you’ve been working hard, treating your bosses well, showing up on time, being professional with customers and coworkers. A little magick to push towards a raise will find a lot of help because of what you’ve built.

There is no need to go through the list but you get the idea. Living a positive life of self-examination goes a long way to protecting yourself from the negativity of others. And, it puts you in a position to realize even greater benefits through your magickal efforts.

Offerings

Offerings are an important but often neglected portion of magick and developing relationships with those that abide in the spiritual world. The Qabalists have a saying, “As above, so below.” In this world, we give gifts to show our appreciation to each other flowers to lovers or sick friends, small gifts to say thank you for some nicety and let us not forget exchanging gifts during winter celebrations. Things cement relationships, show love and respect. Those that abide in the lesser seen realms appreciate them in the same way and have the same effect.

That said, this is a portion of practice I have long neglected but with reason. I am a hard core theurgist. I have made offerings to the gods in front of human witnesses. The deities in question have glanced at them and paid them no mind. What I hear during these moments, is ‘your work is your offering’. I believe that is because most of the deities I have reached out to are known, in at least one of their aspects, to be theurgic by nature. Therefore, they respected the work I was doing and viewed that which I was giving up, the part of me that infers with full manifestation of my soul, as my offering to them.

The offerings that I have made successfully of a more substantial nature have been a quid pro quo. I give you this, so you will do that. Those have worked or at the very least, not been viewed with indifference. Many such beings understand the concept of payment for service rendered. Some, like any good merchant, will try to cultivate a relationship.

My late friend Chris Greenwood had a saying, “Know who you are hanging out with because it is the innocent by stander that gets shot!” He was right. Some of these beings you do not want to hang out with. And, just like any commercial relationship, you can close the door on the salesman trying to sell you something you do not need.

Last night, my angel or my intuition kept pestering me to read Jason Miller’s fine book The Elements of Spell Crafting. At first, I couldn’t find it and gave up. Prompted again, I looked and still nothing. One more time and my eyes went straight to it. When I saw page 80 with the title, Embrace the Power of Offerings, I knew why I was there.

During the day, I had been asking a new deity that has proved immediately useful how to form a better relationship with him. Offerings. So, I followed the instructions in Jason’s book this morning. I didn’t just offer to that deity but all the classes of beings and used Jason’s formula with a slight personal alteration.

When this ended, I turned as advised and looked around my backyard. I saw something that I didn’t see that said thank you. He introduced himself by a common name and said that he had never lived in my home but was attracted by the offering. He felt friendly. I also noticed that one of the swings on our broken swing set was moving. This was not a subtle thing. The chain lone chain and the board that hung from it were not just moving in a slight breeze. The movement was significant. There was no breeze.

I felt different. I felt as if the universe responded in more ways that I was aware of. This practice will continue.

Doing Negative Magick

Doing negative magic has always been controversial in the neopagan community. In other communities it is viewed as the norm. My views on the topic have changed over time.

I do not follow the rule of three. If you take that rule literally, that would mean that someone who shop lifts would have items stolen from them three times for every time they stole something from somebody else. Or, they would lose something three times the value. I have never seen any such literal mathematically precise result of magic. Even taken metaphorically or with some concept of karma I’m not sure the rule of three can be accurately applied. I do believe in what the concept is trying to teach.

Before I retired, I was a hothead at work. Having engaged in this behavior for many years it is understandable that some people were afraid to see me coming. Their resistance to my suggestions or activities came in large part from my behavior. Though I have to admit that people much nicer than myself also received this resistance but the response from people was always kinder. Basically, I created a flow of negativity that did impact my enjoyment of my work life. In one way because I allowed myself to get upset and in another way because my being upset created negative feelings towards me that were acted upon.

I feel the same way about doing negative magic. When the habit is to do negative magic towards everybody that causes some offense, trespasses upon one’s life, or that one simply doesn’t like, the practitioner walks into a flow of negativity within his or her own life. Living within that current is literally bathing in your own negativity, the negativity of others and one’s own false perceptions of negativity. Pretty soon the magick users is at war with everyone and everything. I have never seen this work out well. Normally, these people are cranky, speak negatively about everyone around them are usually unhappy with themselves.

That said, I do believe in doing the occasional negative magic. In a prior post, I mentioned doing some magic in the workplace to defend myself from people who wanted to fire me. That was quite easy for me to do because they had no legitimate reason for doing so. If they tried to fire me for being cranky, it would’ve been harder for me to do because I would’ve agreed with them. I also feel negative magic is necessary when you are encountering a particularly nasty sort of person. For example, a stalker, thief, or someone that continually creates unnecessary mischief because they are mean.

Such things should be relatively rare. If they are not, one should stop and ask oneself what one is doing in order to attract that sort of negativity on a continual basis. Chances are inner work is more necessary than tossing about a lot of negative magic. That inner work will heal you in the long term and make your life much more enjoyable

 

Mars, A Higher Use

Mars, along with Saturn, is traditionally referred to as a malefic planet. Given that is associated with war and the strife that brings, this association makes sense. Accordingly, many magicians use the powers of the planet to thwart their enemies in one way or another. Given Mars association with all surgeries, people use this force to cut people out of their lives, cut ties to unbearable relatives and the like. Even when a direct appeal is never made or the magic is done by those who only do sublunar work, the energy to do such things is generally classified as martial.

Mars can also be used to take one to victory in any conflict or endeavor. More often than not, applying this sort of force will result in an equal and opposite negative reaction from others. One can win the war but the civilians with bombed out houses are unlikely to be happy with the victor. Those that use this force well, use it while working with other forces to heal the wounds left behind. Those that know history will see some of this in the Marshall Plan after World War II and take note that Germany became an ally of the United States. 

The importance of expanding the metaphor cannot be overstated no matter what force or spirit you are working with. Forces that bring wealth are not just associated with money. Wealth can mean health, mental acuity, deep friendships and being within the light of God.  Mars in no exception.

The higher use of Mars is to cut away all things that interfere with your ability to hear the voice of God and your courage (another trait associated with the planet) to transmit those words as best you can. When the ‘as best you can’ part is cut away and one becomes the courage through unassailable faith, the powers of Mars are compelled to protect you.

This is not advocating the rabid martial insanity of a street preachers and modern day pharisees. Those folks understand the law of the Abrahamic god but nothing else. Their courage to speak comes not from this sort of faith but its shadow.

Jupiter’s Golden Rule

The cool thing about theurgy is the constantly amazing learning curve. The universe is vast and infinite nature is well reflected in the mind of man.

During one meditation my angel told me that the Golden Rule must be reversed in the West. Instead of, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, the rule should be, do unto yourself as you would do unto others.

Many of us would counsel our friends to stick up for themselves, exercise more, eat right, explore the things you love. Good friends not only say these things but help in anyway they can. When it comes to ourselves, we still have the thought but lack the action. The inverse Golden Rule says to put effort into yourself the same way you would put effort into the lives of those you love.

Last night, I communed with the forces of Jupiter. As I have stated before, each planet has its own intelligence. My view, up until the last week or so, was that the intelligence was the environment of the force. Now, I am beginning to see the intelligence as being of the planet that is a helper to understanding. In order to accomplish that goal, the being creates the environment and assists your immersion into that space.

As part of that meditation, I gleaned this. Everyone is just as important as you are. Like many revelations this sounds obvious in multiple ways but the thought really felt new. My belief is that our higher self knows these truths but our lower self does not. That is why these things are obvious and stunningly surprising at the same time. One is left with thoughts like why didn’t I think of this before and have I ever lived this truth?  

For me, the answer to both questions is you have. Often, we do not realize we partially live truths before they are revealed to us.

When this information struck me, I felt the emotion of the state of mind necessary to hold this as a living truth. I brought forth the image of a woman that I like but do not know well. As the emotion of that truth became solidified, I watched something expand. Describing this vision and feeling is difficult. Imagine one degree of a sphere becoming larger than before. Was that the universe, my perception of the universe, my mind or simply a sign in response to me getting something correct? Maybe, the vision was a combination of some or all of these. At this point, this musing doesn’t matter. I love the idea.

Everyone is just as important as you are.

What would be the result if humankind adopted this thought? I do not know. Making this real in my universe feels important. We will see what change this brings to myself and those around me.

Magick in the Workplace

 Now that my career in government is over, I can reveal some magical successes and failures in my workplace. I would venture to say that the vast majority of magic I have done has been purely personal and theurgical. Nowadays, I would say my efforts are becoming a more even mix between the personal theurgical (spiritual) and the healing of others. The workplace has been the only area where I have done magic without the permission of my target.

When I began working in a particular department, I was immediately introduced to a very problematic coworker. I described that meeting as, “Hate at first sight”. Her look of disdain towards myself was so pronounced I asked if we had ever met or spoken before. She said no. Over the next year or two, she accused me of being racist, a thief, and to being incompetent. She would go out of her way to make my job more difficult. This came to the point of writing mass emails accusing me of all sorts of horrors that included not only my superiors but supervisory staff that were not in my chain of command.

I am loath to do magic just because I am irritated with someone. You never really know if your irritation is just a personal quirk or truly and deeply justified. So, I did a spell in which I glued two shiny hematites on either side of a crystal associated with her birth sign. I used the mirrored surface of the hematite and worded my spell like this. “May her intents towards me be reflected back to her three times over be they for good or ill.” Two days later, she was transferred to another department. That department was the one area of the agency she despised. She had declared that if she was ever transferred there she would quit. She was true to her word and resigned within a couple of days.

The second time was similar but not personal. There was a high-ranking member of the department that was absolutely evil human being, at least as you can describe evil and a boss-like sense. She once fired two of her assistants in public during an official public government meeting without cause or preparing these folks in advance. She also called my then boss at 11 PM at night and demanded that a report be presented to her by 8 o’clock in the morning. My boss responded by saying it would take her all night to do that and she needed to get her five-year-old to school. This woman was unrelenting. The next morning, my boss went in and handed this person the report. She looked my boss in the eye and said, “I do not need this,” and through the report in the trash.

As time went on, this woman decimated the long-term staff in the department depriving it of crucial institutional knowledge. She would then relentlessly pick on others forcing them to quit. I knew the time would come for my turn in the barrel. The first time, I simply worked my way through her crazy demands and showed no angst or anxiety that she could see. She got bored and moved on to somebody else. The second time she came for me I was done.

I did a brief psychic investigation and found the most likely route of her travel would be North. I prepared some hot foot powder and charged the substance with words I can no longer recall to quote. However, the spell included some words the effect of “go away immediately” and North. At the time, this woman had her own office far away from the rest of us in a different part of town. Around one or two in the morning, dressed in a way that was significantly different than how anybody would see me at work and wearing a large hat I found in the back of a closet, I walked by her office door and blew the powder in that direction. I expected the stuff to spray up and gently coat the door and doormat. Instead, a large chunk of the powder arced through the air and landed directly in the keyhole of the door. Two days later, she was gone. She had accepted a job working in the state capital and that did not last too long.

The last time, I was dealing with a boss who was quite the hard worker and quite intelligent. Unfortunately, she was the type that would immediately complete assignments presented to her by her supervisors and do them extraordinarily well. Unfortunately for her subordinate staff, she did not care what happened below her. She would not get involved whatsoever in helping us resolve long-term intractable problems with other areas of the department. After a decade or so, this got quite old.

I did a spell intended to allow her to feel the mental stress she was causing those below her. It bounced back on me and I ended up going out on a stress leave for about two months. That turned out to be a great thing for myself, as it did prepare me for retirement. A good effect does not make good magick in this case. Not only was it unpleasant but the result was certainly not the intent of the spell.

The reason the first two worked is because the targets had serious weak points. Namely, that they had each angered a great many people. My second target also had a strong point that was also a weak point. She was quite attractive, had a way of networking and executive smooth for lack of a better word. Many people in high position enjoyed being with her. So, when my magic worked, it hit her weak point. That got her out of town. Her strong point gave her someplace to go in a hurry. Had she not had that ‘strong point’ she may have stayed longer and done more damage before finding someplace to go. The last one didn’t work because this woman has no workplace weak points. She is very pleasant and does everything her bosses direct her to do quickly and efficiently and she does not care if it is nonsense work at all. That is why it flashed back into my face. My magic had no place to go and my weak point was I was already stressed in that situation anyway. 

Two out of three isn’t bad.

My rule for this sort of thing was that if you went after my livelihood, you were fair game. Other stuff, I let go. Had I not had that rule, I would have magicked a lot of folks. Maybe the agency would have been better for it but I doubt that. When I did the magick that bounced back, I broke my pre-made rules for doing magick at work. That may be another reason why it smacked me upside the head, literally.

My rules for doing such things have expanded. If someone goes after my loved ones, my relationship with my wife, dear friends, my shop and a few other areas of import that are not as obvious, I am willing to smack that person around. Otherwise, no matter what people do, I am a live and let live sort of fellow. 

My next workplace magic post will be on magic I should’ve done but didn’t.

The Moon is Associated with Air, Not Water

 

This post makes a technical point about the qabala. You may find it irrelevant, if you are not a qabalist. Or, you may find the glimpse into my mentally interesting, amusing or frightening. Who knows?

Each path and sephira of the tree of life is associated with an element. Air makes up the middle pillar. Fire and water alternate upon the pillars of mercy and severity. The image shows the pattern with red representing fire with yellow and blue showing air and water respectively. This arrangement looks neat and tidy. The image is completely balanced in an intellectually satisfying way.

There are those that say when things fit this neatly they are not natural. Others have pointed out beautiful symmetries in the glyph and qabalistic thought and see therein divine inspiration. In my opinion, these statements are both correct. When something is forced into a pattern it isn’t likely to be representative of a deep truth. Of course, neither is a complete mess. Nature does have its order.

On the tree of life, the 9^th sephira, Yesod, is associated with air and the moon. In my internet travels, I came across the statement that this is obviously false. The moon is water*. In looking to the natural world, this would seem confirmed. The moon effects the tides and is associated with the cool night. From this point of view the system is too neat and just may be forced into place.  

In this case, the perspective is incorrect, not the tree. Nothing is being forced. The tree of life is not meant to reflect the natural world in that way. The pattern shown is a fractal or repeating pattern of creation and a path to return to the godhead. The combination of Luna and the element of air creates something called the pure and clear intelligence. This is the mindset of the sephira.

The moon is ever changing but locked in a fixed pattern. The self-observant may recognize this as reflective of their own minds. Whatever the full scope of one’s thoughts, topics repeat and often associated thoughts simply regurgitate one’s own perspective and opinions. Air is associated with thoughts, not cycles. Combining the cyclical but mutable nature of the moon with an influx of new thought creates a mindset close to the pure and clear intelligence when new enter the picture.

The final step is the to multiply one’s thoughts by negative one.

Thoughts are things. Buckminster Fuller laid out these ideas beautifully. If you want a fun fictional read on this topic try the book, Poker Without Cards.

Thoughts being things gives them certain properties. Namely, that one thought is capable of hitching to another and that to another etcetera.  For example, my late father once said of Michael Jackson, “How good can he be if he has to dress up like a doorman to get attention?” That thought-memory is always attached to Michael Jackson in my mind. It also attaches to any flashy-dressed performer. Along with it comes the thought that I disagree with my father’s statement. Jackson was quite talented. Attached to that is the thought of how my father’s political views were always well-thought out and interesting before he started to listen to Rush Limbaugh. After that, he just repeated absurdities with little of his trademark thoughtfulness. This is literally my train of thought, one thought hitched to another. Each of those thoughts makes a living by linking up with the previous thought like a little energetic parasite. You can see how this limits my thinking on Michael Jackson. When I hear his name, I do thing of him at all, but instead, thoughts of my father fire off in my consciousness.

In Yesod, one must be in the state of mind or ‘the intelligence’ of the pure and clear. This state allows you to multiply each thought by -1. All thought associations disappear. All that is left is the idea of Michael Jackson. I can even burn away the pedophilia accusations and the fact that he was singer. I am left with nothing but the visual image of the man.

This same process works for all our inner self-perceptions, emotional ties and the like. By going through this process I have become a much more gentle communicator. Why? Because I have burned of a thought that change that led almost all communication to led to anger.

So, sometime the obvious associations, such as the moon is linked to water, are incorrect trains of thoughts. Sometimes, you have to burn these associations off in order to heal, learn or grow. This is one part of The Great Work.

Parenthetical Note: The sephiroth are more than their associations. I am more than willing to entertain the idea that the sephira Yesod is airy and a water associated moon exists within that sphere.

Another Parenthetical Note: This post is about Qabala and makes no reference to other world views outside of Qabala. It is entirely possible that the moon is totally water using another philosophical map of reality.

*I came across this statement just before I started blogging but I have not been able to find that quote again. Trust me, those words are out there somewhere.

Image: The base image has full public use rites. The color modifications are my own.