Non-Anthropomorphic Pathworking Techniques: Touch

In my recent post on Pagansquare I shared six anthropomorphic assumptions (and possible solutions) that can show up in your magical work. If you don't want those anthropomorphic assumptions to show up you need to develop some type of technique that allows you to get around them. The technique I've been developing, at least for working with the microbial life in my body, has involved using tactile awareness as the means through which to communicate with the microbial life. Tactile awareness refers to the sense of touch and kinesthetic awareness of feeling your body.  Approaching non-anthropomorphic work in this way has been very useful because its cut spoken language out of the equation and focused instead on experiencing sensation and using the sensations as a guide for the interactions with the microbial life.

I've also used this technique with my latest round of communion with the neurotransmitters. Just as with the microbial life, I've found that using the sense of touch as the basis for the pathworking has lead me to experience altered states of consciousness consistent with earlier experiences I've had with neurotransmitters. What's most fascinating however is how the sensations nonetheless have become symbols. In other words, the feeling of the experience will replicate itself in specific ways each time I work with a given neurotransmitter and that pattern then becomes a symbol, which can be meditated upon and used to experience the physical sensation, provided the person understands how tactile pathworking works.

Learning Tactile pathworking involves conditioning yourself to be aware of both surface and internal kinesthetic sensations. you can do this in several ways. First, I recommend learning and practicing daily some type of breathing practice, which forces you to pay attention not just to your breath, but also to how your body responds to the breath. If this practice also involves working with your internal energy, then so much the better as it'll teach you how to pay closer attention to the kinesthetic awareness of your body. As you learn how to move your kinesthetic awareness in your body, you can also try directing it to a specific part of your body and maintaining awareness of that part. What you'll discover is that your body provides you a lot of information that you normally suppress. However, suppressing that information isn't always useful and by mastering kinesthetic awareness you can learn ho to process and experience that information without the need to suppress it.

I also recommend stillness practices. Stillness practice teaches you to be still. That stillness will help you become awareness of surface feelings on your skin. It'll also help you tap into your deeper kinisthetic awareness, especially if you focus on a sensation like breath or your heartbeat. In fact, your heartbeat can be an excellent teacher for kinesthetic awareness because its something you experience all the time, but its also something you learn to ignore. You actually have to consciously focus on it to be aware of it, but if you focus your awareness on it, you can use the heart beat to create a rhythm that leads you into a meditative experience with your body.

Another practice that's useful is movement practice. Movement practice can be as simple as being mindfully aware of your body and how it moves when you are doing something, or it can be as focused as doing specific movements in a sequence and maintaining awareness of your body while doing those movements. When doing these movements, you want to pay close attention to how your body moves and how it feels as you move. For example, how do your joints feel when you move them in specific ways? By focusing on those sensations, you'll learn a lot about your body and how it feels when you are doing this tactile pathworking.

As you practice these various techniques, focus on cultivating your tactile awareness, both inwardly and outwardly. Pay attention to what your skin feels or how your fingers feel when they touch a surface. Pay attention to how you carry your body and how that makes you feel internally. When you do breathing meditation and move your internal energy, focus your awareness on how your body responds. By learning to do that, you can then focus your kinisthetic awareness inward. Then when you work with your microbial life or neurotransmitters or whatever else you'll be able to use that sense of touch for that purpose. In a future post, I'll cover how you can also apply this concept to sound.

How to recognize when desires or habits are connected to internal blockages

In a recent post I discussed how you could use meditation practices to work through internal blockages showing up in relationships you have with other people. On the S.O.M.A. Facebook group, several people commented on the entry and their comments sparked some further realizations about internal work. We discussed what happens when you're doing meditation work and the unhealthy patterns you are working to dissolve seem to flare up because of the work you are doing. There's two schools of thoughts on why that occurs. The first school of thought argues that the unhealthy habit is fighting back to keep itself in existence. There's certainly some truth to that school of thought and I think that a person can end up struggling with such habits and the underlying emotions if they aren't prepared for it to flare up.

The second school of thought offers an intriguing approach to this flare up of desire or unhealthy habits. It argues that when such flare-ups occurs its because you are actually making progress, and what initially seems like a regression is really just an opportunity to work more intensely with the habit or desire you are feeling. In my own experiences, I've found that this can be the case. You are doing the internal work, dissolving the internal blockage, and as a result you are freeing up all the tension and emotions bound into that blockage. The release of that tension and emotion can be accompanied by memories or by desires, which can be seen in this case as an attachment. If they are indulged in, potentially what happens is that the blockage reforms, but if you are willing to do the work, be present with the memories, and enter into a dialogue that allows you to work with what's being released, then the regression ends up being temporary.

When I've done internal work around specific issues, I've had those issues seem to take over my life, occupying my thoughts. However by accepting that as an indicator that the work is actually happening, it's also helped me recognize and understand that such a preoccupation can actually be a healthy sign that something is happening. You aren't repressing the thought or emotion any longer. The challenge is to learn to be present with it, which means that you acknowledge it, but don't act on it. This is hard to do for many people, because we live in a society that values action, but if you recognize that the choice to be present with what you feel or think is a form of action, what you'll realize is that simply being present with it is allowing you to do something about it. Indeed being present with whatever is coming up teaches you how to understand it and experience it without letting it consume you, which is a useful skill to learn for any situation you find yourself.

Meditation isn't a quick fix for internal work. It's a long process that can take years, but the results that can it provide you, if you stay the course is that you get a lot of clarity about yourself, you work through whatever issues are part of you and you learn how to direct your internal energy. When you are doing meditation to work through internal issues I recommend working with a therapist as well, because you can get some perspective from a person who isn't directly involved and who nonetheless can keep you grounded by asking questions and listening to what you are working through. If nothing else, make sure the people in your life know what you are working through. They can be a support system for you, helping you work through whatever is coming up, because they will hopefully understand what you are working through. Additionally by letting them in and discussing what you are working though, you may find that it takes a lot of pressure off you because someone else knows. In such cases, it is useful to ask the person to be present and listening and indicate whether or not you want advice. You may not want advice and if you tell the person you are talking with that, it will help them focus on listening instead of trying to problem solve.

Book Review: The Fruitful Darkness by Joan Halifax

This is a semi-autobiography that also explores Buddhist and Shamanic practices. I found it to be an insightful read, with many statements that caused me to pause and ponder them in relationship to my own life and spiritual practice. I especially liker the author's thoughts on stillness and silence, and found them quite useful to consider during a time when I'm in a period of transition. This is a book you'll read again and discover new insights each time.

Book Review: The Philosopher's Secret Fire by Patrick Harpur

This book takes the concepts Harpur discussed in Daimonic Reality and extends them further, exaining how the other world intersects with everyday reality through myth, imagination, dream, and even popular culture. He also explores the intersection of these themes with identity and how identity is formed for a person. Harpur does a good job with this book, showing how imagination impacts memory and identity, while also exploring Jung's archetypal theory in mythology. what I find interesting is how he shows how the otherworld interacts with people across cultures in a consistent way. It's an intriguing book that'll help you appreciate imagination and its intersection with the otherworld.

How to work through Internal Blockages in Relationships

A lot of the focus on internal work is typically oriented toward the person working inward on whatever tensions, blockages, etc. come up. However I think it's also worthwhile to look at internal blockages as they show up in the relationships you have with people in your life. Internal blockages are bound to come up by the very fact that any relationship brings with it conflict. Such conflict can either become rooted within you, festering as resentment and anger, or it can be worked through with each side feeling acknowledged and honored. I prefer the latter approach, but I know the former approach all too well, as does most any other person. It is all too easy to let emotions fester within, especially when it relates to other people and if you are in a situation where it feels impossible to find resolution with the person, it often feels like there can be no closure at all. However, I think closure can come about, regardless of whether you have it with the person or without.

The way you recognize an internal blockage with a given person is quite simple. Think about the person. What is the emotional response that comes up when you think of the person? Do you feel you can express that emotion to the person? If you find that what you feel is negative and yet you also feel you can't easily communicate to that person what you are dealing with is an internal blockage which effects the relationship. That internal blockage will always be there until you work through it. It will show up more when you are interacting with the person, but it'll also show up when you think about the person or remember an experience. Such an internal blockage can cause you a lot of pain and create divisiveness in the relationship if you are still in touch with the person. If you aren't in touch with the person, it still gives that person power over you because of how they make you feel.

There are a couple ways you can work with such blockages. If you are in contact with the person, what you can do is use meditation techniques that help you to be present with the emotions and dissolve the tension around those emotions. For example, I like to use the Taoist water breathing meditation, which dissolves blockages and tensions. As it dissolves those blockages and tensions, it release the emotions, which gives you a chance to work with the emotions. you might find that you enter into a dialogue or replay a memory, but do so in a manner where it provides a solution. Another technique, which can be useful is a variant of the Tibetan Chod technique, where you create a thought form that represents the blockage and ask it what it wants and needs. Then you feed it what it needs, in order to transform it into an ally. That ally can provide you useful information for resolving the conflict with the person.

In the case of the above techniques, you are still in touch with the person and have some type of relationship with them. To get optimal benefits from those techniques you should plan on having a conversation at some point with the person in order to discuss what came up as you did the dissolving work. It may not be an easy conversation, but it will be ideally a liberating one for both of you. But what do you in a situation where you can't contact the person you have issues with?

My suggestion is to do a banishing ritual. I've posted before about several types of such rituals you can do, where you banish the person from your life. The value of such rituals is that you create closure of yourself by destroying any remaining link between yourself and that person. After doing such rituals, I've found that I feel much better emotionally, because I no longer feel tied to that person in the way I did before. in fact, I don't feel an emotional response to the person. I know because I've actually run into a couple such people, after I did the banishing ritual, and instead of feeling the anger and hatred I'd feel before, I felt nothing. Indeed, if anything I felt empowered because I as no longer letting them have any control over me.

Regardless of what approach you take, its important to recognize and deal with the internal blockages that come up in context to the relationships you have. By recognizing and working through them you free yourself of unhealthy attachments that keep you and those relationships in a place of dysfunction. It is better to find closure than to continue to hold onto such blockages and the tensions they create.

Anthropomorphism and its affect on Perceptions of Reality

I'm in the midst of my research for Pop Culture Magic 2.0 (thankfully I'm almost finished with it). Part of that research has taken me to some interesting tangents in relationship to how people experience the otherworld and daimonic spirits. While most people wouldn't associate pop culture with daimonic spirits or the otherworld, I'm seeing a connection and it's also helping me understand the affect anthropomophism has had on people's encounter with spiritual beings. Patrick Harpur makes an intriguing point when he notes the following:

"It is to our discredit that in order to draw attention to their reality, the daimons have been compelled to become physical and fixed, like crop circles. By Masquerading as - by parodying- literal facts, they answer our modern requirement for quantifiable effects besides which everything else is deemed illusory. In other words, their way of presenting their own metaphorical, mythical reality is to appear not as literal, but as if they were literal" [Italics are his] - From Daimonic Reality

What I take away from this quote is that anthropormorphism is at the root of modern society's fixation on quantifiable reality. There are, of course, other disciplines and perspectives which also inform that fixation, but if we examine anthropomorphism carefully, what we find is that it seeks to recast experiences with Daimonic reality, and indeed with the universe at large, into human perspectives that label and categorize such experiences into neat little boxes. The resultant problem with this is that it creates a rather static experience of reality that always needs to be situated in what humans find meaningful to them, as opposed to really being open to how the experience might change their perspective of reality. This leads to the issue described above in the quote, wherein the Daimonic spirits need to appear in a specific context in order to connect and communicate with us. That specific context is filtered, sanitized, presented in a package that is ultimately limited because of the need to attribute human behaviors, meanings and values on the connection that has occurred.

This does open the floor to a question however: Why do these daimonic spirits want to connect with us so much that they are willing to limit the context of the experience to what fits us? I think there's two possible reasons. The first has to do with symbiosis, and the second has more to do with how we limit the experience and how they respond to those limitations. Lets explore both reasons in depth below.

The symbiosis reason essentially explores the possibility that daemonic entities have a symbiotic connection of sorts that requires a connection. I'd argue that the connection runs both ways. In other words, there are benefits conferred to both humans and Daemons by the nature of the connection. As a result its worth it to the daemons to continue to have contact with us, even if that contact is limited in ways that makes it more acceptable to humans. What's fascinating is that if this is the case, Daemons have nonetheless adapted quite well, and one possible theory for pop culture magic could be that what we're really connecting with are daemons that have taken on pop culture as one way to connect.

The second reason focuses on the limitations humans create in order to interact with Daemons. If we use anthropomorphism in its various forms to categorize our experiences into something that is comfortable for us, the challenge for Daemons then is how to respond to such a limitation and that may very well involve taking on the limitation and its context and using that to establish the connection and then afterwards challenging that limitation in whatever manner possible. Thus they may act as if they were literal and yet find a way to challenge that sense of literal reality by helping the person experience something that can't be categorically defined very easily.

Bringing all this back to anthropomorphism and its affect on the perceptions of reality, I think that what we'll discover is that anthropomorphism really does limit our experiences and contact with the otherworld and with the kinds of experiences we can have. It filters out what doesn't fit the comfortable human definition of reality, so that what is experienced spiritually or otherwise can be explained away and written off into convenient categories and labels that seem safe. The problem with this is that if it ultimately a filter that may cause us to miss experiences and information we need to have access to. The challenge then is to recognize anthropomorphic inclinations and determine how useful they really are for the spiritual work we are doing. Are we truly allowing ourselves the opportunity to have an experience or just turning it into a label that makes us feel safe for the sake of not challenging our perceptions of reality?

Seeking Submissions for an Anthology about Pagan Traditions

Megalithica Books, an imprint of Immanion Press (Stafford, U.K./Portland, OR, U.S.A) is seeking submissions.

We would like to hear from founders and leaders of as many different traditions and organizations, established and brand new, as possible.

Deadline for submissions is March 1, 2015.

By no means can we capture a portrait of every Pagan path. What we are trying to do is give aspiring and knowledgeable Pagans alike a springboard for proceeding with their studies, with information and stories from a wide selection of Pagan traditions.

We are looking specifically for articles and stories from tradition/organization leaders and founders as well as other leaders who have a wider view of the Pagan landscape.

Below are descriptions of the concepts we would like to appear in articles submitted for the anthology. This is generally academic, but personal stories within the pieces are highly encouraged.

To ensure thorough and accurate descriptions of your path, what you see below are not so much suggestions for essay topics as they are questions that we would like answered within essays, so that all pieces are validated in the eyes of the reader, and because consistency lends itself well to comprehension and comparison.

For the well-established tradition leader (Gardenerian, Vanatru, Alexandrian, Correllian, Asatru, eclectic Wicca, Helenist and Celtic Reconstruction, Stregheria, etc) we would like to know the basic structure of the tradition you come from. What types of magic you teach? What are some of the basic tenants and values of your tradition? How are groups structured? How study might differ for a solitary practitioner? How you have adapted the path based on your own experiences to fit your lifestyle? Try to come at it from a perspective of teaching students. Please give us a clear portrait of your path, and a little of your personal story so readers can relate. If you can, cite various in-depth texts at least twice in your work. This opens the door for further study by the readers.

We also want to hear from the young traditions/organizations being created as we speak. This is the place for founders wishing for future students. What inspired you to create a new Pagan path? From what cultures, religions, and traditions do you gather your concepts from? How do your morals and values play into the tradition? What would be the structure of a participant’s studies? What are rituals like and what types of magic are practiced?  Please try to cite various in-depth sources of your concepts at least twice in the piece, for validation of where you are coming from.

There are many leaders out there who lead groups that are not strictly based around one tradition or belief system, or are just well-known voices in Pagan forums. Give us your perspectives on some various topics such as: the rise and fall of Pagan traditions in modern times; the levels of dedication needed for truly embracing a Pagan tradition and the various emotional, spiritual, and mundane changes they bring with them; a sense of Pagan demographics. If you can cite texts for validity, please do.

–We would like to hear from a few people who practice two greatly divergent traditions as part of their path. This could be Alexandrian Wicca combined with Chemetism, or other such combinations. You are charged with showing a reader that taking a road like this may be challenging, but it can be done well. Some of the questions we would like answered in these pieces are: How do the tenets, magical practices, spiritual tasks, and forms of study from two different traditions mesh together? How did you choose a road like this, and what are the challenges you face? Please cite two in-depth sources within your work, at least one for each of the different traditions you follow.

 What we are not looking for:

–We are not looking for spiritual awakening stories or stories of how you found Paganism. We also are not after how you take what you learn from established traditions and alter it in solitary practice, unless you are forging a new branch of that tradition and have well-formed practices, values, and ways for people to learn in place and can discuss them with clarity.

–We are not looking for specific rituals or spells.

 Essay requirements:

2500-5000 words, to ensure that there is sufficient knowledge and details presented.  If your piece falls outside these limits, come to us and we can discuss it.

• Citations for all quoted, paraphrased, or otherwise unoriginal material
• Bibliography of works cited
• Prefer the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/mla
• A way to contact your tradition or organization so those interested may do so (if applicable).
• Send the file in RTF format.

Compensation:

Accepted contributors will receive a free copy of the anthology when it is published and additional copies sold at 40% off the cover price to contributors. All contributors will be provided with a contract upon final acceptance of their essays.

Rights:

This anthology will take nonexclusive first world rights for 6 months.

 Deadline is March 1, 2015.

For submissions and questions, please contact CJ Blackwood (cjblackwood90@gmail.com).  Please put “Immanion anthology submissions” in the subject line.

 Editors: The anthology will be edited by CJ Blackwood and Tara “Masery” Miller:

CJ Blackwood is a contributor for the Staff of Asclepius blog on patheos.com.  She also authors another blog, Tales of a Feminist Elemental Witch on WordPress.  She has been teaching crystal workshops at Pagan Pride events in Illinois for two years and will be presenting an “Awakening the Goddess Within” ritual from her own feminist elemantal tradition this year at Central Illinois Pagan Pride Day.  She writes fiction and poetry, and enjoys crafts, fishing, traveling, and spending time with friends.  She graduated from Illinois State University with a major in journalism and a minor in English.  She contributed to “rooted in the Body, Seeking the Soul: Magic Practitioners Living With Disability, Addiction, and Illness” under the name Lady Cedar Nightsong.

Tara “Masery” Miller is a panentheist Gaian mage who has a deep relationship with the Goddess Gaia. I’ve been involved with Pagan Pride Day, the Pagan Leaders Recommended Reading list with Elizabeth Barrett, and other wonderful magic circles over the years. She graduated from Southeast Missouri State University with a degree in mass communications specifically media studies and research and a minor in religion. Part of her course work included an independent study of mysticism in Christian, Pagan, and Native American traditions and a paper on Witchcraft in Colonial America. She was the editor of “Rooted in the Body, Seeking the Soul: Magic Practitioners Living with Disabilities, Addiction, and Illness.” She is also the editor of the Staff of Asclepius blog. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/ Her personal website is http://taramaserymiller.com/

 Immanion Press is a small independent press based in the United Kingdom. Founded by author Storm Constantine, it expanded into occult nonfiction in 2004 with the publication of Taylor Ellwood’s Pop Culture Magick. Today, Immanion’s nonfiction line, under the Megalithica Books imprint, has a growing reputation for edgy, experimental texts on primarily intermediate and advanced pagan and occult topics. Find out more at http://www.immanion-press.com.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Movement Month 22: Balancing Act

7-24-14 The second day at Pathways, we took Bill Duvendack to lunch. Bill is a stand up guy, intelligent, and he shared some interesting insights on the international community. We also talked more about one of the books he's sending to Immanion, which I'm looking forward to editing myself. Afterwards I did some Tarot readings and then the manifesting wealth class, which was well received. We had a larger crowd that night then the previous one. Afterwards we went to dinner with River Higginbotham, who'd been kind enough to host us while in St. Louis. We had some good conversations around leadership and magic. He has some similar interests in space/time magic work, and also the Seth material.

On the 23rd, we arrived in Indianapolis. Actually we checked out the cahokia mounds. I'd never heard of them before. We walked among and wood henge. What I felt was a residual trace of the original people. After that we drove to Indianapolis and I arrived at Spiritual Gardens. At that shop there was one person there for the workshop and I put aside all expectations or anything else and gave a really good version of the Alchemy of Breath, which I'll use in the future. It also occurred to me that I should write a book on that topic specifically. I've written about breath work in Inner Alchemy, but this would be an expansion on what I wrote there. The person attending the class bouth three books and this is only significant for one reason, which I'll share shortly.

Kat and I took the bookstore owner and her son to dinner. It turns out that the patron of the owner and the store is Papa Legba, a loa of the crossroads. Kat and I do a lot of crossroads work, and I felt Legba's presence show up at dinner. The receipt for the meal, plus tip came out to the exact amount I was paid for the books, which I found interesting. The shop owner also told me that Legba likes people to be humble and I realized that the workshop at the bookstore and the dinner was part of encounter with Legba, a test of sorts. Kat and I ended up chatting for quite a while with the owner about the Indianapolis community and at some point Legba came through and the conversation shifted to changes in the owner's life. I feel we passed the test, but it made me appreciate how the movement we experience in life sometimes happens for very specific reasons that remind us of specific lesson we need to take into account. Certainly the entire experience here reminded me of the importance of being humble in the face of success, accepting it, but not letting it go to my head either.

7-26-14 I've been working with the Elohim, which are the angelic order for Netzach. They've shown up as multi-faceted beings with mirror like finishes that mediate specific forces and serve as middle men to connect those forces to people. They are also mirrors of the heart and soul of the person. Sometimes they've shown up with lots of eyes, offering a glimpse into something else.

I've also been at the 2nd international left hand path conference. There's been some good presentations on luciferianism, secret societies, magic etc. I've also been able to meet a couple of people I've long wanted to meet such as Laurelei Black and Michael Ford. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak and be at this event, and to meet the various people here.

7-29-14 Home at last. The 2nd international left hand path conference was excellent, with lots of good presenters. The trip home was uneventful, but the time away made me realize how much I value my time at home, how much I value PDX. It's great to move and to see further movement resulting as a result, but it's also good to savor hat you have and appreciate the space you are in. I feel the transition to Stillness starting.

7-31-14 Today I was working with Netzach and specifically the Archangel for Netzach, who is known as Auriel or Hanael. A while back in an R.J. Stewart workshop, I had an encounter with a being named Hanael, so when I did my meditation today it was the same being and it was fascinating because in the workshop the focus wasn't on connecting with archangelic powers. According to Gray this archangel directs energy from the athletic to artistic fields...he focuses people into a specific direction. We discussed that quite a bit today, in relationship to some of the changes occurring in my life. It helps me understand some of those choices as well as the benefits. I'll be curious to see what further work with him will bring about.

8-4-2014 It's horrible to tell someone that s/he is a disappointment. I heard that phrase far too often in my childhood. It shut me down. It told me I wasn't good enough. To hear it uttered about someone else always triggers a reaction within me.

8-5-2014 I'm reading The Fruitful Darkness by Joan Halifax. It's an autobiography of sorts about her work with Buddhism and shamanic practices. She makes an interesting statement, where she says there can only be a harvest when a person yields. It makes me think about the movement work and my recognition that sometimes to move, you need to allow yourself to be moved. Today I felt moved to stop by and visit Kat during her break. I told her how much I love her, how much she has moved me, how much she has helped me connect with parts of myself I had frozen and locked away. I don't always find it easy to express such things, but I felt a need to tell her how much she means to me, how much she moves me. So I let myself by moved by how she moves me and spoke my feelings to her, told her how much she means to me and how much she has helped me grow as a person.

8-9-14 I've been feeling the transition to stillness even more lately. It's a subtle transition, but nonetheless I feel that movement is morphing into stillness in my deep work and I'm ready for it. At the same time I feel that Eros will continue to be part of this work, which makes sense as I continue to develop a relationship with him. I haven't written about him much because the relationship has always been subtle, yet nonetheless I have felt him at work in the various experiences I've had and am having.

I've also wrapped up my work with Netzach today. Hanael actually assigned an angel of the Elohim order to me to help me with some specific internal work I'm doing. That angel is holding up a mirror for me...that is its function and yet that function is helping me to see what I need to do to take the internal work deeper.

Something I've been thinking about is leadership and how a good leader recognizes that s/he has feet of clay, or in other words recognizes the flaws s/he has. I definitely have some flaws and have made some choices over the years that were harmful to myself and to other people in my life. I have and continue to work on those flaws with the recognition that this work is a continuous journey. I also know I haven't always been a good leader. I've made some questionable choices that I look back on now and regret making. However what I can do with those choices is learn from them and make sure that I make better choices in my life and work.

8-15-14 I've been working with Tiphareth. I connected with the Malakim, which are the angels of balance. They seemed more abstract than the previous angelic orders, and told me that they were because their focus was on balancing the other Sephiroth and making sure that the right energies balanced each other. Meditating on this helped me appreciate anew the balance between movement and stillness, but also balance in and of itself as a principle of the world. I think I will explore balance as an element after Stillness, if balance calls to me.

8-17-14 The last few days have been pretty tough. I had a situation occur where I was essentially told I wasn't trusted. I got the situation resolved, or at least as resolved as it can be, but to have someone you respect tell you that they don't trust you or that they trust you in theory, but not in practice really hurts. At the same time I suppose what it also indicates is what the real nature of the relationship is. It saddens me, because I realize that whatever the relationship is or may be, this situation has changed it on both ends.

8-20-14 My continued work with Tiphareth has been interesting because of how much more abstract its been and how quickly its gone through. It really is a Sephiroth of balance, with the focus really being on mediating and directing the various energies of the other Sephiroth. It has made me think, as I've worked with it, about how important balance really is and how even though I've integrated into elemental balancing ritual, I haven't really worked with Balance in and of itself.

I've also been feeling a bit depressed. Ironically I've been a bit more creative or maybe I've just focused on that creativity as a channel for what I'm feeling. Regardless it is good to get things done and I like that I've made some progress on a couple of projects that had been proceeding at a very slow speed of progress. I suppose what it really comes right down to is figuring out how to take anything and find a way to use it if you can, including depression.

Silence and its place in Magical Work

In Western magic, one of the expressions is "to keep Silent." I never really cared for that expression, finding it to be antithetical to my craft as a writer and my desire to experiment with magic. But recently I've been reading several books and also doing a lot of work with stillness in relationship to movement and I've come to an appreciation of silence and its place in magical work. In Music Power Harmony, Stewart suggests that using silence in magic can become a foundation that realigns the consciousness and allows for deeper, more intensive internal work, while also shifting our understanding of music and the experience of it. Silence liberates us from habits because it causes us to examine and question them.

In The Fruitful Darkness by Joan Halifax, she states that stillness and silence is the foundation of our engagement with the world. It is an experience that allows us to interact with the world without necessarily acting on it. Yet what we get out of it is a different perspective and understanding of the world, based on experiencing it and becoming part of it without needing to change it. Something I've discovered over the years is that the need to act on the world diminishes as you learn how to experience the world directly. Stillness and silence teach you not to get so caught up in the drama, teach you to appreciate the nature of your connection to what's around you because you aren't so wrapped up in it, but can instead step back from all of it. We can get so caught up in the noise, so caught up in the distraction and diversion that we forget the connections, instead focusing on what will fill us up.

In the Dzogchen practice of Zhine, the person does stillness meditation, stilling everything and just being with the world, while not being attached to it. I've been doing this practice for a bit of time now and as I've done it, it's gotten easier to enter into that state of stillness and silence, though sometimes I still have challenges with it. What strikes me about doing Zhine is how much I end up hearing my own thoughts. I'm not doing anything, other than being still, so the thoughts come out, moreso for Zhine than other meditation practices I've done. Eventually all that mental noise dies down and what I'm left with is a state of being. I am here. Eventually even that fades and I just am, without attachment to space or time. In that stillness and silence I nonetheless find that I enter a state of connectedness that I'd never experienced until I did Zhine. The boundary between myself and the world around me thins, sometimes going away altogether, so that I enter a state of possibility, no longer caught up in conventional reality with all of its distractions.

I appreciate silence now because I understand its where inspiration and possibility are found. Allowing myself to be silent and still allows me to connect with the creative urge of the universe, Eros, in a way I couldn't before because I was so caught up in the noise. Now silence and stillness are part of my daily practice, part of my approach to magic and life. And through that experience the creative urge is mediated, experienced, and the heart of the world, the heart of the universe is entered. When the magician comes back from that experience, what is brought back is the impetus for meaningful change, both in the life of the magician and in the world, but done in a manner which is less about acting upon the world, and more about becoming the change you seek. By becoming that change, you change your relationship with the world and create the result you wanted to manifest instead of trying to force it into place.

Book Review: Music Power Harmony by R. J. Stewart

Music Power Harmony explores the connection between music and magic. The author also touches on concepts such as space/time magic, the power of words in shaping reality, the tree of life and its relationship to music and elemental calls of power. One thing I'd have liked to have seen more of in this book would be exercises that allowed the reader to implement the concepts. However, there is a lot of content that should inspire the magician, and this book will help you appreciate music and its relationship to magic because it is a fairly unique book in its focus. If you want to learn how to apply magic to music or learn more about the natural musical and magical abilities you have, this book will help you open that door.

Vowel Magic

In Music Power Harmony, R.J. Stewart makes an interesting observation about Vowels. He notes that the first sound that comes out of a person's mouth is always a vowel. You could say the letter Ks or Zs, but the sound of those letters is a vowel sound. The same actually applies to words. Say a given word and what you inevitably hear is a vowel sound. The vowel sound defines the rest of the words, connecting the consonants together in order to create the word. The vowel is at the heart of word magic, or as Burroughs might put it, its the nucleus of the word virus. The vowel is what we use to provide shape to the words, and in turn what gives the words the means to shape reality.

Stewart makes another intriguing point when he notes that we use sound to create a temporary pattern that expresses the fullness of the universe within the form of the word, attuning the word to universe and mediating the universe through the word. Burroughs made similar statement in some of his works on writing and the word. My own experiences with words has been one where I use words to start the path of manifesting a possibility into reality. A word turns a possibility into reality because it speaks that possibility into reality, makes it objective because it's not just in your head, but is a sound or is on paper. But the word is not just externalized. It is also internalized within the person, spoken within to align the person with the universe, even as it is sent out to the universe to align it with the person.

The sound of a word is not just a sound, but also a meaning. We invest the sound with meaning and articulate it for a variety of purposes that can ultimately be boiled down to one underlying purpose, namely the desire to change reality. Whether we are communicating, informing, educating, or expressing, what we are really seeking to do is create an experience with the words that changes something for us, both within and without. Recognizing this about words can help us appreciate their power and why we use them the way we do. The word speaks you. You speak the word. There is a relationship between the word and the person. That relationship is essential to the survival of both.

Words, by their formation, are a limitation of possibility. Words describe what reality could be, but also provide the necessary form to create that reality. For example, when I work with clients on their business, we put together a written business plan. The writing of the business plan focuses the client, turns the chaos of possibility into specific measurable actions, which in turn, lead to the manifestation of reality. I'd argue that words play the essential role of bridging possibility and reality. They provide form to possibility, while leaving enough possibility within them to let the person interpret and shape the meanings further before they become embodied into reality through the actions of the person. My own use of words is driven toward this kind of work, using them to forecast and shape the reality I'm stepping into, by providing enough focus that I can chart a path that then turns into action.

You might try the following experiment. Think of something you really want. Then write about it. Write about what you will do to achieve that result. Once the writing is done, seal it in envelope and put it away somewhere where you can find it, but don't open it until the the result manifests in your life. When it does manifest, look at the writing and compare what you wrote to what you actions you took. You'll probably find that the writing helped set the stage to manifest the desired result into reality.

Radio Interview: Go here to listen a live recording of my talk on Wealth Magic at the 2nd International Left Hand Path Conference.

Book Review: Fan CULTure: essays on Participatory Fandom in the 21st Century Edited by Kristin Barton and Jonathan Lampley

In this collection of essays, the authors share how fans interact with pop culture and corporations in order to keep their particular fan interests alive. There are three angles explored: Fan production, which shows how fans create content related to what love and how they get around potential corporate legal issues, the use of social media and how it effects fandom, and finally how fans influence the official content created by corporations. throughout all these essays, you'll get some fascinating insights into fan behavior and why fans do what they do as well as how it creates fan specific culture. Highly recommended if you are interested in pop culture studies or want to understand how fans effect pop culture production.

Deadline coming up soon: Pagan Leadership: An anthology on Group Dynamics, Healthy Boundaries, and Community Activism

E-mail for inquiries and submissions:  Shauna Aura Knight ; please put “Immanion Press Leadership Anthology Submission” in your subject line.

Megalithica Books, an imprint of Immanion Press (Stafford, U.K./Portland, OR, U.S.A) is seeking submissions for Pagan Leadership: An anthology on Group Dynamics, Healthy Boundaries, and Community Activism

Deadline for submissions: September 1 2014.

The words “Pagan Leadership” are often met with scorn and tales of failed groups and so-called Witch Wars. And yet, as our communities grow and mature, we find ourselves in dire need of healthy, ethical leaders. Anyone who has been in a group that said, “Let’s just not have any leaders or power issues,” has seen what doesn’t work. But what does?

This anthology will explore leadership for real Pagans and real groups. We’re looking for essays and articles that detail leadership success stories, best practices, and ways you have worked through challenges and obstacles. Our specific focus is on techniques to help Pagans build healthier, stronger, and more sustainable groups and communities. We’d like to see a combination of hands-on how-to, personally-inspired, and academic pieces that will offer readers tools they can use in their own groups.

What resources do you have now that you wish you’d had when you stepped into leadership? What problems have you faced and overcome? How have you faced the unique difficulties of grassroots Pagan leadership? What are tools and techniques that have worked? Essays and articles should be 1500-4,000 words.

We’re also looking for brief (500-1000 words) personal stories of what we might call leadership disasters—community blow-ups that you’ve personally witnessed or even mistakes you’ve made as a leader. With few exceptions, these would be published anonymously (not naming names/locations) in order to illustrate, through the personal voice of storytelling, the need for leadership education through the power of storytelling. These stories do not need to be formally written; they should simply tell a story about problems you experienced that caused a group to blow up. Note: We prefer shorter pieces for this, but up to 2,000 words might work.

What we are not looking for:

We are not looking for spells or rituals. We’d also prefer to not see generalized advice, like “leaders should delegate,” but rather, “Here’s how I learned to delegate in my group” or “here’s how a team I was part of successfully handled delegation.”

Here are some suggested topics to give you an idea of the focus of this anthology:

• Planning a successful Pagan event, or running a successful coven or circle, or—how those involve different leadership processes
• Skills to build community from the ground up, and skills to sustain a community long-term
• Organizational leadership techniques
• Transformational leadership and servant leadership
• Experiences with Pagan unity councils or other collaborative work between groups
• Dealing with local Pagan politics, including dealing with difficult, mentally ill, or abusive local leaders
• Dealing with difficult and disruptive group members, spotting predatory practices, red flags
• Gossip, bickering, rumors, and triangulation, ego and egotism, conflict resolution and personality conflicts
• Communication skills and techniques
• Personal work and self transformation required to be a leader, boundaries, dealing with personal burnout
• Administrative aspects of leadership, leadership structures like bylaws, mission statements
• Handling money in your group
• Ethics of leadership
• Delegation and dealing with volunteers dropping the ball
• Keeping people motivated, empowering group members and new leaders, passing on the reigns of leadership
• Creating a safe space
• Different leadership models (consensus, hierarchy, rotating leadership, democracy)
• Facing a leadership disaster/crisis

Submission Deadline is ____. Articles should be 1500-4000 words, although if your work falls outside those limits, do submit it – we can discuss this during the editing process. Personal experience essays should be 300-2,000 words. Drop us an email if you are unsure whether your idea fits into the content. The sooner you start the communication process the better, as after the deadline we won’t be considering additional ideas.

Do write in your voice! If you’re academically inclined or trained, feel free to be as intelligent and technical as you like, and writing in the first person is fine as well. These drafts will be edited in a back-and-forth process with the editor. If your essay is not accepted for the anthology, we will tell you after the first round of edits.

Essay requirements:

• Citations for all quoted, paraphrased, or otherwise unoriginal material
• Bibliography of works cited
• Prefer the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/mla
• Send the file in RTF format

Compensation:

Accepted contributors will receive a free copy of the anthology when it is published and additional copies sold at 40% off the cover price to contributors. All contributors will be provided with a contract upon final acceptance of their essays.

Rights:

This anthology will take nonexclusive first world rights for 6 months.

Editors: The anthology will be edited by Shauna Aura Knight and Taylor Ellwood:

Shauna Aura Knight is an artist, author, community leader, presenter, and spiritual seeker who travels nationally speaking on the transformative arts of ritual, community leadership, and personal growth. She is the author of several books including The Leader Within and Ritual Facilitation. She’s a columnist on ritual techniques for Circle Magazine and writes frequent articles and blogs on the topic of Pagan leadership, and her writing also appears in several Pagan anthologies. You can find her site at: http://www.shaunaauraknight.com/books  and her leadership blog at: http://shaunaaura.wordpress.com and her email address for this anthology is ShaunaAura@gmail.com

Taylor Ellwood is the author of Pop Culture Magick, Magical Identity, and other books on magic. He is also the managing non-fiction editor of Immanion Press. He can be found online at http://magicalexperiments.com

Immanion Press is a small independent press based in the United Kingdom. Founded by author Storm Constantine, it expanded into occult nonfiction in 2004 with the publication of Taylor Ellwood’s Pop Culture Magick. Today, Immanion’s nonfiction line, under the Megalithica Books imprint, has a growing reputation for edgy, experimental texts on primarily intermediate and advanced pagan and occult topics. Find out more at http://www.immanion-press.com.

How to Identify identity Work you need to do

One of the most important aspects of identity work is the identification of problematic identities that you want to change. Some of these identifications are ones you will want to change entirely, while others will involve a change in perception. You'll also find that some identities can't be changed entirely, because they are part of your experiences, but what can be changed is how you choose to relate to that identity. This means that you can have a traumatic event occur which becomes part of your identity. You can't change that the traumatic event occurred...it's part of you, but what you can change is how you interact with that event, how you use it shape your identity and your place in the world. As simple as that sounds, such work can be hard, but if you are willing to do the work, the resultant changes are worth it because of you become empowered.

The identification of needed identity work involves paying close attention to those aspects of identity you'd rather avoid, or where you have tension and emotional blockages. For example, in American culture, the body is usually an identity aspect that people need to work with. The majority of Americans have unhealthy relationships with their bodies, which are not always examined from a place of identity. When identity is brought into the picture, an exploration of the body becomes a history of how you've interacted with your body, as well as what comes up for you in relationship to your body and how you've tried to change your body. All of these issues play a role in shaping your identity around your body and they can only be changed when you confront them head on and recognize them for what they are: unneeded definitions about what your body ought to be according to mainstream culture. Once you've recognized those definitions, you can then create your own definitions which speak to the identity you want to establish with your body. This typically leads to healthier interactions because you are choosing the identity instead of having it foisted on you.

One of the ways I identify identity work is through meditation. Part of the meditation work focuses on the unresolved tensions I feel within myself. As I meditate, I allow the internal energy to flow around the tension I feel, gradually dissolving it, and in that process revealing whatever is at the core of the tension. I can then work with that core and relate it to my identity to determine how it contributes to the identity formation I have. Once I understand that, I can do the necessary work of changing that core tension into something which helps my identity and the desired reality I seek to create.

In your own identity work, look for those areas of your life that bring up feelings of stress and tension. Do you dread going into work or cringe when checking your balance? Do you feel like you are walking on eggshells around people in your home? Do you find yourself doing an activity that isn't good for you, but you can't stop it? Spend some time paying close attention to your daily routines and whatever comes up for you while doing those routines. What you discover will provide you the necessary direction you need to move in, in order to start doing identity work. Embrace those areas of tension and stress, no matter how uncomfortable they might be. You can do meditation or some other magical work, but the focus of the work should be on helping you to understand how the stress/tension contributes to your identity, as well as how you can change your identity by addressing the stress and tension you feel.

Book Review: Fan Cultures by Matt Hill

The author explores fandom as a culture from the lens of religion, cult enthusiasm, and psychology. He offers an alternative perspective to the works of other pop culture studies academics. I found his insights about pop culture fandom and religion to be particularly fascinating. This book will give you a lot to consider about how fandom engages pop culture and makes it part of their lives, as well as what can be learned by exploring fandom from disciplines outside the norms of cultural studies. What I also found insightful was hit detailed exploration of the hierarchy of fan culture, which was useful for understanding how fan communities work. If you are interested in pop culture studies or pop culture in general, this is a good book to read.

The Process of Magic Class Round Ten starts in one week!

 

Round Ten of the Process of Magic Class starts on August 6th.

Magic is a process that changes you and your relationship with the world, if you understand how the process works.

In this 24 lesson class, we will explore what the process of magic is and how it applies to you and your magical work. If you’re looking for a different perspective on magic that explores the underlying principles of how magic works, instead of focusing on the tools, ceremonies, and other optional features, this class is for you.Below is the syllabi for this course:

Lesson 1: An overview of the process of magic

Lesson 2: You and Definitions of Magic

Lesson 3: Results, Change, and their respective roles in magic

Lesson 4: The anatomy of the process of magic

Lesson 5: Culture, Ethics and Ideology

Lesson 6: What isn't essential to the process of magic

Lesson 7: Connection and its role in the magical process

Lesson 8: Intention, Attention, and Magic

Lesson 9: Inhibitory Actions and Magic

Lesson 10: Excitatory Actions and Magic

Lesson 11: Internal Work

Lesson 12: Spiritual allies and the magical process

Lesson 13: Invocation 1

Lesson 14: Invocation 2

Lesson 15: Evocation 1

Lesson 16: Evocation 2

Lesson 17: Divination

Lesson 18: Enchantment

Lesson 19: Astral Projection

Lesson 20: Banishing

Lesson 21: Attunement with the land

Lesson 22: The Role of Limitation in the Process of Magic

Lesson 23: The role of Transformation in the Process of Magic

Lesson 24: The role of Mundane actions in the Process of Magic

Plus Two Bonus Lessons!

To learn more and sign up, go here.

When Magic is only Mental

When I've taught the concepts of magical identity to different people, one of the questions that comes up is if magic is only mental in an ontological model. It's a fair question to ask, in the sense that the initial focus of the magical work involves becoming the magic. However the ontological model of magic isn't a psychological model, which means it goes much deeper than just a mental state. Becoming the magical act and result isn't just thinking about it. When I talk about directing the magic inward, as well as outward, what I'm really speaking to is a fundamental recognition that any magical act necessarily must change the practitioner as well as the world around the practitioner, in order to manifest a desired result. In other words, the magician must be willing to shift to a new state of being that allows for and embodies the desired result within as well as without. A purely mental model of magic wouldn't enable such work because it doesn't extend to the world around us, nor does it allow more than a surface level experience of the internalization of magic.

When magic is only mental, its not real. It's a thought, caught up in a swirl of other thoughts and emotions, transitory and illusive. And as a thought it's not even fully integrated with imagination, so much as it is caught up in the minutiae of the practitioner. I've never found a purely mental/psychological model of magic to be workable, because when its all in your head, it's solipsistic and self-obsessive. There is no real connection to the world and without that connection, magic becomes an act of deception and fantasy.

What makes magic work, in my experience, is the simultaneous crafting of the work inward within the magician and outward to the world. When the magic goes inward, it's not just effecting the mind of the magician, but connecting the magician to the inner contacts and spirit guides that are allies to the work the magician does. It is also going inward to the magician's connection with the universe, allowing the magician to change that connection. When the magic goes outward, it goes outward to the world around the magician, aligning the possibilities and variables into favorable outcomes that produce the desired result. By directing the magic inward, the magician becomes the desired result, while setting up the outside to create an environment that allows for the expression and full manifestation of that result.

Magic is lived...not just thought about. You live magic when you make it part of your life, part of who you are, as well as what you do. For me, what makes magic work is that I make it part of the expression of my life and recognize that the expression of my life is the extension of my being into this world. That extension allows me to interact with and change the world, even as in turn the world changes me through that interaction. When you live magic you become the change and its not mental, all in your head, but rather is lived through every layer of your being.

Book Review: Unseen Worlds and Practical Aspects of Spiritual Discernment by Anastacia Nutt

This book applies the concepts of spiritual discernment to psychic protection and shows the practitioner how to use spiritual discernment to recognize situations and people that aren't in alignment with the practitioner. The author provides some useful examples and exercises that the reader can use to apply spiritual discernment to their own practice. This is a useful book for beginning and advanced practitioners, as you will glean some gems of insight out of this text. The only downside to this text is that the author wrote it in two huge sections, instead of breaking it into chapters. However the various subheadings can be treated as mini-chapters for reading purposes. For any practitioner, the practices in this book will help them critically examine their relationships and spiritual practices with an eye toward discerning what is or isn't in alignment with them.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Movement Month 21: Responsibility

 6-20-14 When I was working with my spirit cord today, I felt it pulse and sync with my heart beat. It was quite an interesting experience and not something I'd previously felt in my work with the spirit cord. I also continued my work around regret. I dove in really deep today with that blockage that's by my navel, and I felt it continue to loosen up and as it did I experienced some memories and feelings about a couple of people and choices I'd made around those people. It was hard to feel those emotions, to be in those memories, but I let myself relax into them and as I did, I allowed myself to acknowledge and feel those emotions instead of avoiding them. I felt some sadness and a sense of responsibility that I had previously denied or tried to foist on someone else. Instead I chose to accept the responsibility. There's still work to do around it, but I felt taking that step was significant enough in its own right. 6-23-14 Regret is a form of fantasy, in some sense, and I find that as I delve into this work that some regrets turn into a sense of fantasy, a what if scenario. I realize such a scenario is a blockage, in and of itself, but it also an expression of the regret that can be worked through. So part of my dissolving work has involved working with the regret through the fantasy and using the fantasy to recognize certain realities that the regret doesn't factor in. One of the realizations I came away with is an awareness that I felt like I had to fit myself around another person and their issues and life as opposed to actively working on creating a true partnership. I felt this way multiple times with multiple people and that helped me look at the regret in a different light, because it showed me that the regret presented a filtered perspective. By doing the dissolving work it strips away the filter.

7-1-14 I've been continuing to meditate on regret and today I hit a realization about some of my choices earlier in my life that helped me understand that the reason I made those choices was because I was looking for something and fooling myself into thinking I could get it in the way I was pursuing it. Hindsight being 20-20 I eventually realized that my choices weren't providing me what I was looking for, but in meditating on those choices with the regret work, I was able to understand them in a different way that helped me find a sense of resolution about them I hadn't felt before. Working with regret in the way I've been working it has helped me see how the lack of closure creates regret but also how trying to meet a need can do the same. And when you do meet that need, you may still need to work with past issues in order to resolve those periods of time and occurrences in order to be fully present with the solution.

7-4-14 I'm feeling a bit frustrated lately. I'm having to change my event in Chicago into something else due to the lack of signups for the intensive. And it looks like my September event is encountering difficulties due to circumstances that originate with the place I'd be presenting at. What this continues to illustrate to me is that it may be more useful to invest in video and webinars for classes. While the initial cost might be high, the overall overhead would likely be low. After this month is over, I'm going to start doing some research into what other authors are doing...and this illustrates the importance of being adaptable, of being able to change movement as needed in order to go where you want to be.

7-8-14 I've been doing some work with Raphael, who is the Archangel of Hod. He's appeared to me as a doctor in a clinic, healing various people. He told me I needed to be open about my wounds if I wanted to find healing for them. Later on I talked with Kat and I admitted I was feeling depressed. A lot ended up coming out that helped me realize how much pressure I put on myself, but what really stood out to me was how hard it was for me to feel present with a part of myself that I identify myself as young boy. I think for men in general its hard to identify with the boy aspect of themselves. Part of this is because I think one of the immature images of men is men who never grow up, who essentially are still boys. However, I think that you can be a mature man and still connect with the boy within, but doing that easily...especially if that part of you has been so wounded...that's hard for me and sharing it with someone else is even harder.

7-12-14 I've been watching Neon Genesis Evangelion with Kat. It's been over 5 years since I last watched it. I've seen the series over 8 times. It's one of my favorite series and its also a cathartic series for me, because of the triggers and issues that come up in regards to my own relationship with my parents. However watching it this time around has been different. I've still felt some triggers and issues, but its different now, more muted. The internal work I've done has changed a lot of my reactions...its still a show that touches me, but it doesn't grab me in quite the same way. And I'm happy about that because as much as I like the show, it's good to know I've changed, that while it still touches me, it doesn't hit in quite the same way it did before.

7-15-14 I've come to a place with the regret work where I feel I've plumbed the depths as it were and gotten what I need from it. I'm glad I dedicated the time to it, but now I'll return to some other projects. I've also started work with Netzach, doing the initial phase of connection work, which I'll build on when the time is appropriate. It occurs to me that Netzach and Hod are mirrors to each other representing both the same and opposite principles, a union of opposites to create a composite realization, which would be Yesod, which when refined further becomes Malkuth. Of course the other Sephiroth also have something to add to that, but I'll get to those later.

7-20-14 I've started working with Netzach. Today I encountered the Elohim, which showed up as multi-faceted mirrors which mediated spiritual forces. They explained how they acted as connections between specific types of spiritual forces and the magician. Also Eros pointed something out today in my meditations, specifically noting how I've certain places in my life, certain relationships where the movement is stopped or blocked by how I let those relationships effect. Something to meditate on further. I'm in Chicago right now and visited the Life Force Arts center, as well as the Occult Bookstore. I liked the energy of the Occult bookstore and look forward to coming back some time and presenting again.

7-21-14 Left Chicago today. It's been years since I was there and what struck me the most about the city is the manic, frenetic energy. It's a good place to visit, but I don't know if I could live around that many people all the time. Feeling the movement of the city, both in terms of traffic and people was interesting. It has its own rhythm, made up of all the people, the traffic, events and everything else. And I could see how a person could tap into the energy to fuel their workings, though I think it would be dangerous. You'd have to be careful with how you were connecting and what you were connecting with.

And we arrived in St. Louis. The shop Pathways is wonderful, one of the best stocked occult bookshops I've seen, with hard to find works. The community is friendly and welcoming. I also felt the spirit of the original proprietor connect with me and welcome me to the shop. The workshop I offered was well received and I could tell it helped people come to some good realizations for themselves. More than anything I want my workshops to provide that kind of experience to the people who take them.

Are Magical Tools just Props?

The other night, at the magical experiments meetup, I got into an interesting conversation with Victoria and Sara (Two of our regular members) about whether magical tools are essential, in and of themselves, or if they are just props. Sara made an interesting point that when people argue that magical tools are just props or window dressings, they are being dismissive of them, instead of recognizing the important role they can play in a practitioners work. I have, on occasion, argued that magical tools, herbs, crystals, etc., are props or window dressings, so when Sara made that point, I listened. When I've used that phrase that magical tools are props/window dressing, I've used it to make a point, namely that what makes those tools effective has more to do with the magician and his/her need of those tools as a means of working with the forces those tools represent. In other words, I treat magical tools as symbolic, and feel that once a magician understands what the tools represents, s/he can work with the underlying principles directly instead of continuing to use the tools.

Sara's argument is that magical tools have something inherent to them, which isn't symbolic. And she has a point. For example, the effects that herbs can have on a person aren't symbolic. So there is something to be said for working with certain types of magical tools and recognizing that those tools have something to them that goes beyond symbolic. An additional point to consider is that some magical tools are used across traditions and have a history of specific uses and purpose that, for people within those traditions, and that specific use can't be replicated by the magician alone.  Something else I've considered is that the tools create the atmosphere, set up the space that people work in. A lit candle, incense burning, chants, and ritual tools, all of it creates a space people can work in.

With all that said, what I really came away with from Sara's conversation had more to do with being aware that how some people treat magical tools and their importance is going to be different then how other people treat them. The question is can someone like my respect that difference. And the answer is yes. I can respect that the importance and meaning a magical tool has differs from person to person. At the same time, I also know my own view on magical tools, which is that they have their uses, up and until the magician no longer needs them. For some people, no longer needing a tool may never be an option and this doesn't make that person less of a magician. It just means that person works within a specific system where those tools are essential. On the other hand, a person who can work with a tool and then at some point no longer need the tool because of how they understand the principles the tool embodies also isn't less of a magician because they don't perceive magical tools in the same way that the other magician does.

Each magician has to decide what the relevance of magical tools are, in relationship to their practice. I can tell you what the relevance of those tools are to me, but that doesn't really matter. Whether you consider magical tools essential or you consider them to be props doesn't change that magical tools serve some type of role in the practice of a magician. I use magical tools in my practice. Over time, some of those tools are no longer used because I've embodied those principles. But at one time I did use them and even now what they represented, the principles they embodied are still relevant to my practice. Magical tools have relevance and importance. The degree varies from person to person, but that doesn't change that they fulfill a specific purpose and function.

The Process of Magic Round 10 starts in 3 weeks!

Round 10 of the the Process of Magic course starts in 3 weeks on August 6th. Magic is a process that changes you and your relationship with the world, if you understand how the process works. Whether you are just learning about magic or have been practicing for years the Process of Magic course focuses on what really matters: Learning how to use magic to proactively improve your life. 

In this class you'll learn:

• Develop your own definition of magic and why its important to have your own definition.
• Use a process approach to magic to understand how it works and what you change.
• Personalize your magical system to improve its efficacy in your life.
• Understand how to fix mistakes in your magical workings.
• Achieve a new understanding of magic and its place in your life and work.

To RSVP or for more information go here.

How to Become the Result you want to Manifest

In Magical Identity, I wrote about how my approach to magic shifted to an ontological model, which recognized identity as a principle of magic. One of the key realizations I had about magic is that a lot of it is reactive, done to solve a problem. The problem with a reactive approach is that you are waiting for things to happen to you before you do something. Another problem is that the focus of the magician is on the world to the exclusion of recognizing the role the magician plays as well. A shift to identity recognizes that the internal work the magician does has as much value as any other magical work being done. More importantly it recognizes that to manifest the result in the world around you, first you need to become the result.

When I do magical work, one of the key parts of the process is that I take the result and internalize it, making it part of my identity. I live as if the result is a reality in my life. It may not be a manifested reality in the world around me, but within my internal reality it is. In doing this I align my identity with the result and make it part of my life. By making the result part of my life, I live it. Living it makes the mundane actions I do bring the possibility into reality because it's something that is part of the actions. The actions come from my identity, are an extension of my identity, a proactive change of reality, instead of a reaction to whatever is happening.

I sometimes hear that magician struggle with results and what I usually discover is that they haven't made the result part of their reality. They aren't living the result and they haven't made sure that the result aligns with their internal values. If the result they want doesn't align with the identity of the magician, the magician will find a way to sabotage it. They may not be consciously aware of the sabotage (often they aren't) but it will happen nonetheless. The sabotage is a blind spot that occurs because the magician isn't integrating identity into the magical process.

I've often said that the problems a person has in their life has one thing in common: The person. The same is true of the results in your life. You, more than anything else, define the success or lack thereof of your magical work. When you look at a magical working and you aren't satisfied with how it worked, then look to yourself first and ask yourself how your identity does or doesn't align with the working. The majority of the time you'll find its a sabotage within you, because you haven't created the necessary agreement with your identity and the result you want to manifest. The rest of the time, it's a problem with the process and you need to take that apart in order to figure out what didn't work and then get it fixed.

When you don't have agreement between your identity and your result, you need to examine why that is and either determine if you can create alignment between your identity and the result or if you need to drop the result. The way I handle it is by making the result part of my life, turning it into a reality within me, which is manifested in the world around me through the actions I take. And I pay close attention to whatever comes up that feels resistant and make sure to address the resistance before doing anything else. Taking this approach has consistently yielded results because I've made sure that what I want to manifest is in alignment with my identity, instead of working against it.

Round Ten of The Process of Magic starts August 6th

 

Round Ten of the Process of Magic starts August 6th!

Magic is a process that changes you and your relationship with the world, if you understand how the process works.

In this 24 lesson class, we will explore what the process of magic is and how it applies to you and your magical work. If you’re looking for a different perspective on magic that explores the underlying principles of how magic works, instead of focusing on the tools, ceremonies, and other optional features, this class is for you. You will learn how to:

• Develop your own definition of magic and why its important to have your own definition.
• Use a process approach to magic to understand how it works and what you change.
• Personalize your magical system to improve its efficacy in your life.
• Understand how to fix mistakes in your magical workings.
• Achieve a new understanding of magic and its place in your life and work.

Here's what several students of the class have said about their experience:

I have been reading and experimenting with magic and the occult for over five years and it seemed like I was going off in too many directions, without a map to guide me. I felt like I was spinning my wheels. This course helped me focus, without tying me into any particular Religion or belief system. If you are looking for a course that builds a foundation for your understanding and practice of Magic, this is the one!

Testimonial from G. Marlett

By describing the process of magic(k) rituals, Taylor Ellwood taught me how to enhance my work. He taught me how to analyze and improve some rituals I had made, how to apply proved techniques to experimental rituals for internal magic and how pop culture can also be useful for creating pantheons more in relation to oneself. After this class my rituals have been really effective, and I started to think of magic as a means for transforming myself to get the best out of my environment. Highly recommendable class, I’m really happy I took it.

Testimonial from Ivan Marquez

Want to learn more or sign up for the class? Go here.

Why you need patience when doing the work

Over the last month and change I've been doing a lot of internal work around the feeling of regret and how it shows up in my life. I've also recently started working on the Quabala, doing pathworking with the Sephiroth. With both of these workings, its been essential for me not to rush the working. What that means is that I can't focus on the results and what I think they should be. I need to be present with the experience and allow it to happen in the way it occurs. This means that I need to allow the work to occur at the pace it happens instead of trying to put it on a schedule.

For example, I was recently doing some work with Hod, with the Angelic order of it. The first day I worked with them, the impressions I got didn't make much sense. I recorded them and then redid the working the next day and the day after, and so on and so forth. The working wasn't going to happen in one day and I knew that, but I also knew that I needed to take my time and be open to the working taking multiple days to occur, as needed. I needed to be patient with the work and not force something to happen because I was establishing a relationship with that Angelic order as well as with Hod.

Patience is important in magical work. You've got to be patient with what you are doing. When you try to force a result, you lose something in the process. When you stick with the work and do it with the purpose of allowing it to happen as it needs to, you get not just a result, but also the experience of the journey. That journey transforms you, shapes you, and allows you to make meaningful change in your life through the connections you make in doing the work. Patience is needed because whether you are doing internal work or connecting with the spirit world or doing something else altogether, what you are really doing isn't something that always speaks to easy and obvious results. Magic isn't always about manifesting a possibility into the world, though it can be sometimes. Even in that case, I've found that magic is still a process of patience, because you are aligning the variables into your favor in order to manifest the possibility into reality.

So what's the point of all this? Don't be in a rush to achieve a result. Welcome the process for what it is and be patient with what you are doing. Allow yourself to go deep into the work you are doing and let it transform you as it also transforms the world. Let yourself be moved and discover in that movement the transcendent glory of magic as it changes your life. When you do that, you'll know what magic is and you'll appreciate why patience is important.

Spiritual Discernment in Pop Culture Magic

 

In Unseen Worlds and Practical Aspects of Spiritual Discernment, Anastacia Nutt argues that its important for people to be careful about what kind of media they expose themselves to. She argues that modern media can pollute the imagination of the practitioner. R. J. Stewart makes a similar argument in his book, and they have a point, although I don't entirely agree with them on their perspective on modern media. It is true that modern media can capture the imagination, and as a result become something which distracts the practitioner's mind. For example, you can probably think of incidents where you got the theme song of a commercial or show stuck in your head. Your monkey mind replayed that theme song endlessly, and it may have been something you weren't consciously aware of. When this occurs, it can be an example of your mind getting fixated on the media, to the point that your imagination can't focus as easily on other topics, or for that matter on your spiritual work.

One of the reasons Stewart and Nutt make the argument they do about modern media is because they are part of a spiritual tradition which has specific imagery that is used in the imagination as part of the work a person does within that tradition. Thus it makes sense that they would make the argument they make because they are using specific imagery which has an effect on the imagination and it's important to preserve the focus of the imagination in context to the workings the practitioners are doing. With that said, I also think that modern media can be useful in magical work, provided you aren't working in a specific magical tradition.

I'm not working in a specific magical tradition and I find modern media to be a useful tool for my magical work. However, even in that work, I still need to be careful about what media I expose myself too. I don't expose myself to just any media, but am very careful about what media I draw on, because of the effect it can have on my imagination. For example, I don't watch horror shows. The reason I don't watch horror shows is because I don't want that type of imagery in my imagination. I feel it would adversely effect my ability to connect with the spirits because of how the spirits are portrayed in those movies. This standard may differ from person to person, but I think it's important to use spiritual discernment to recognize what type of media you'll watch and work with. If you know watching or playing something will influence your imagination you need to ask yourself how it will effect your imagination. If it's something where your imagination becomes fixated on the pop culture and you aren't going to use that pop culture in magical work, then you might consider whether its really the pop culture you want to focus on.

There's also something to be said for the fact that sometimes you can cultivate an unhealthy interest in a pop culture character. For example, a few years back the character of Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7 was really popular, so much so that a number of fans claimed they were married to Sephiroth. They would share how they'd married him on the astral plane. Seemingly harmless right? But consider the mythology of Final Fantasy 7. In that game, Sephiroth is an insane character, with a mommy fixation and a desire to destroy the world. For all intents and purposes Sephiroth is a psychic vampire. The fixation on Sephiroth is an occupation of the imagination, on a entity that may not have the best interests of the people interested in him.

With pop culture, as with any kind of cultural tradition, its important to be selective about what you work with. Utilizing discernment is taking the time to do the research and determine what you'll work with and why.  It's recognizing that what you choose to work with is important because of how it shapes your imagination. I work with pop culture media but I choose the media carefully with a recognition of how it could effect my imagination. As my imagination is a powerful magical tool, I want to use it effectively in order to achieve the best possible outcome, so I'm going to choose what I feed my imagination carefully to make sure that what I'm putting into is something I can work with magically if I need to, as well as enjoy, without getting so fixated on it that I'm unable to remove it from my imagination if needed. Remember that what you choose to focus on does have an effect on your imagination. When you are working magic, choose what you draw on with an awareness of your imagination so that you can use it effectively when you need to.

I do feel that pop culture is the modern mythology of times and that working with it is useful. There is no reason not to consider working with pop culture, unless you are working in a specific spiritual path or tradition where there would be a conflict of interest. The principles of magic can be used to work with pop culture, and you can develop a spiritual tradition from that work. The system of Dehara, for example, which is based off Wraeththu is an example of such a system which people work with for both practical and spiritual purposes and it works for them because they have established a genuine spiritual connection with the Dehara. It's a modern mythology which nonetheless works because there is something there that is deeper that people connect to and work with.

I was interviewed by Lucian Pharoe. You can listen to it here.

Book Review: Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins

In this book, Jenkins explores how old and new media converge and shape pop culture as well as interactions people with have pop culture. It's a fascinating book which shows how fans are increasingly shaping the production of pop culture and how companies are reacting to that change. This book also shows the rots of social media and how the changing technology will continue to shape how media is produced. What is particularly important about this book is that it helps you understand how more than ever people have a role in pop culture and how the creation of pop culture is the creation of the modern mythology of our times. The author provides a variety of case studies that show how different mediums of technology are being used in the production of pop culture mythology. this is a must read book for culture studies, but also for anyone fascinated with how pop culture is shaping our time.

The Value of Spiritual Discernment

In Unseen Worlds and Practical Aspects of Spiritual Discernment by Anastacia Nutt, the author makes the point that it is useful to cultivate discernment and the ability to filter out negative energies/entities while inviting in beneficial energies/entities. I agree with her approach and have employed in my daily meditations since I started practicing magic. In a of modern occult works the emphasis on protection focuses on creating a sterile environment from which to work magic, but creating such an environment weakens our ability to work magic, because we are excluding everything, as opposed to only filtering out what isn't needed.

I've always found filtering to be quite useful and in establishing a space from which to work magic or simply doing magic on the fly, I've always focused on creating a system of filters that admits the right energy, while taking anything that doesn't fit and distributing it back into the space outside of the magical working. In this way I'm not so much excluding energy as redistributing it where it is needed, while also bringing exactly what I need.

I think the focus on magical protection has emphasized a more martial aspect to such work in part because people buy into the idea that there is a hostile spiritual environment and entities just waiting to attack. My own take on it is not so much that there is a hostile environment or entities, so much as there are environments and entities that are anathemic to us and don't fit in, but nonetheless have a space they do fit into. So if the magician sets up the space right, what happens is the right energy/entities are brought in, while the rest is filtered out and redistributed to where it does belong.

In my opinion spiritual discernment is really a cultivation of awareness about what you are doing and what fits with what you are doing. It's a recognition that what you bring into any magical work and for that matter into your everyday life is determined by your awareness of what fits and works vs what doesn't fit and will get in the way of what you are trying to do. Spiritual discernment, as a result, examines the chaos and harmony in a person's life to evaluate what needs to be filtered out and what needs to be kept. If we approach protection from that perspective we can appreciate and recognize that everything has its place, but where that place is, in respect to ourselves, will depend on what we are doing and what we need to draw upon. Thus we set up a system of protection that integrates what's needed, inviting it into the place it is needed, while keeping what isn't needed in its proper place, honored but nonetheless not invited because it isn't needed. It's an admittedly a different approach to protection, but it's always worked for me and over the years has helped me filter out a lot of chaos.

When you combine this concept with internal work, it is also useful, because it helps you filter out the chaotic aspects of your life and dissolve then, redistributing the energy and people that are unhealthy into their respective places outside of your life, while keeping in the people and energy that are healthy for you. A lot of my internal work has involved coming to recognize what is chaotic and dissolving it and letting go of attachments that would keep it in my space, while also cultivating awareness about who and what really fits into my life and why. Spiritual discernment, used in the capacity, allows a person to acknowledge that each person has their place, but again also acknowledges that such a place may not fit with your life. Not surprisingly doing dissolving work has a tendency to cause some changes in your life as you look at situations and people differently through the work you do and let go of the unhealthy attachments you were holding on to before.

I've had an article published in Silverstar magazine on Redefining Pop Culture Magic.

I was interviewed by Jeremy Crow about the upcoming Left Hand Path Conference, Manifesting Wealth and Magical Identity.