ndice

INTRODUCTION A call to end inaction........ ENERGY Matter and Energy........... Energy and Magick........... Energy Manipulation........ Energy Manipulation 2..... Grounding........ Shielding 1......... Shielding 2........ Empath Sickness....... Meditation and Trance...... Mood and Magick......

4 8 14 26 50 53 54 56 61 65

MAGICK Element Theory...... 66 Color Theory...... 74 Ritual Magick is superfluous..... 81 Altars........ 87 Magicasasasask Tools.... Robs.... 93 Pentacles.... 98 Candles .... 103 Incenses..... 115 Chalices.... 119 Knives.... 124 Wands..... 131 Of Shielding/Banishing 137 RITUALS 4 rituals...... Summoning Baal..... Contacting the divine.... Aresian Unbinding Spells.... Evocations..... Tarot.....

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Magick 101: Matter and Energy

October 24, 2009 Update: Ive added some additional entries to this list, so I bumped it back up on top. A short overview of the different types of matter and how they effect energy. Wood - Wood naturally absorbs nearby energy and tends to charge itself rather effectively. Wooden altars for spellwork are preferable in some traditions because the wood of the altar will absorb some of the energy from every working turning it into an enchanted object and energy battery that can aid in spellwork. For much the same reason, seance tables and spirit boards are most effective when theyre made out of wood. Wooden objects that are frequently present during spell and ritual work or are left on altars may end up enchanted and even sentient with no effort or even want on the part of the practitioner. Some practitioners and traditions prefer not to do ritual and spellwork over a hardwood floor because of the tendency of the wood to absorb the energy and become enchanted (many times it doesnt take much effort to throw away a working altar because its becoming a problem, but tearing apart your living room floor<). In the form of a magickal tool wood is best used to broadly manipulate energy in general ways, such as absorbing it, raising it, and moving it around. Different types of wood each have their own small nuances and abilities, and may also taint the energy or be more effective when working with specific types of energy. Additionally the nature of the tree or vine the wood originates from may have some effect on the metaphysical qualities of the wood. Metal - Metal is man made, and its very good at both sealing energy and manipulating it in finer more specific ways. Metal is very good at holding energy, even better than wood because much less energy dissipates from a metal object than a wooden one. However metal objects dont naturally absorb energy nearly as well as wooden objects do, and so it is often up to the practitioner to personally charge the item or create a method in which the item can be charged. This isnt to say that metal objects wont absorb energy on their own, they will, just not to the degree wood will. As a magickal tool metal makes a good battery holding an available charge for the practitioner (as previously discussed). Also it may be used in general energy manipulation, however metal is considerably weaker than wood in terms of broad applications of energy manipulation, such as pushing energy and raising it, so much so that metal is nearly useless in this regard so long as a wooden alternative is available. However metal excels at the finer acts of energy manipulation such as opening portals and pinpoint attacks. As an example, if a practitioner were faced with an energy wall, they could use a wooden staff to raise a large amount of energy and then direct it towards the wall hitting it hard enough to knock it down by sheer force, or they could use a metal knife and, utilizing a much smaller amount of energy, slice a hole in the wall the practitioner could act through. Also because of its ability to be sealed, metal is good as an enchanted magickal object, and also as an object into which an entity is sealed. Much like wood, the various types of metal each have their own nuances and abilities, however unlike wood individual pieces of metal tend not to have specific

personalities, at least not before theyve been charged or enchanted, so a practitioner is able to simply take a specific piece of metal off the shelf rather than looking for the particular one that calls out to them. Stone - Stones are energy manipulators. Theyre almost as good as metal as far as sealing energy in goes, and they too are very effective as a battery, as an enchanted object, or for sealing an entity inside of it. They also act as energy amplifiers making energy stronger as it passes through. They can self-absorb energy, although not to the degree wood can, and they also tend to produce a lot of energy on their own. Different types of stones have different qualities to them, however, and how effective a particular stone is at any of the above abilities varies based on its type. Also stones have a taint to their energy based on the type they are with different types of stones tainting energy in different ways. For example turquoise stones tend to be tainted with dream energy, which makes turquoise very effective when it is being used as an aid for such tasks as lucid dreaming, dreamwalking, or keeping nightmares away. Stones tend to have very distinct personalities which can effect their overall compatibility with a particular practitioner, and so some care should be taken in choosing the right stone. Quartz Crystal - Technically quartz crystal is classified as a type of stone, and it fits the above description of stone, but it has some unique qualities that make it preferable to any other stone in many situations. To start, quartz crystal is very good at amplifying energy, probably the very best stone at this particular task, and its also very good at effecting energy and moving it, once again probably the very best stone for this task. Theyre also very good at absorbing energy and okay for sealing purposes (which in combination with their amplification abilities makes them a very good battery). And quartz crystal does not taint energy, an ability which is unique to it. Theyre the blank page of stones. If a crystal has a significant taint to it, its because someone put something into it that made it like that. A crystal is only going to be what you make it. However, like other stones, crystals do have distinct personalities, and this can result in a small, although not very significant, taint, and so a practitioner should, as in other instances, take care in picking out the right quartz crystal. Water Water (and many water based liquids) have two very distinct and opposing qualities, it both absorbs and dissipates energy. As for its absorption quality, water will drain energy out of anything it comes into contact with, or even anything its near. Water is typically used in cleansings because of its ability to draw out energy, which may be negative energy or may simply be unwanted energy. Vampires typically have issues crossing bodies of water because of their hypersensitivity to vampiric like attacks and its strong draining ability. At the same time though water tends to shoot out the energy it collects on a constant. So even though water is used to cleanse, it can also be used for the exact opposite effect, to charge. One good way to do this is to have a container of water out during a ritual. The water will absorb the energy of the ritual, and afterwards an object can be put into the water in order for it to be charged with the rituals energy. Waters dissipation effect also means that large stagnant bodies of water can develop into paranormal hotspots because they are constantly absorbing and spitting out large amounts of energy (an example being the Devils Hole in Nevada). Water is also very good at pulling in emotional energy although it will lose the charge

very quickly. Because of its ability to both give and take water is also seen as a unifier and bonding agent that can bring two things together. Synthetics Various synthetic material such as cement, plastic, and man-made bricks do not hold a charge at all, and because of this can not really be used for any effect. Some practitioners and traditions prefer to do their rituals on a cement floor because the floor will not absorb the energy or become enchanted by the ritual. Although synthetics dont hold energy they dont block it either, and energy can pass through them as easily as it passes through air, and without acquiring any kind of taint. Synthetic tools are useless and offer the practitioner no benefit beyond their own natural ability. Some entities, given permission to do so, may be able to enter into and manipulate synthetic objects, although it isnt possible (at least not without great difficulty) to seal them into the object to prevent their escape, or to aid them in staying inside of it. Glass For most purposes, glass is a poor mans quartz crystal. Glass is very similar in its makeup to quartz crystal, and so it also shares a lot of the same qualities. Glass tends to be blank and without taint. It also tends to lack the distinct personalities of quartz crystals (which may be a benefit). It can hold some energy, thought not as well as quartz crystal, and it isnt really that great of an amplifier. With magickal work the major drawback of glass tools is that they are fragile, and they tend to break if you put too much energy through them. Glass is usually used to make crystal balls, mirrors, and candle-holders, and the last one tends to break quite a bit with stronger candle magick spells (which is why Id suggest using a metal holder). The one great, and somewhat unique, quality of glass is its reflective ability. To begin with, this obviously makes it good for scrying. The reflectiveness also makes it good for opening portals, banishing things from this world, and sealing entities into pocket dimensions. Bone or Ivory Bone and ivory are similar enough that they are almost exactly alike. Bone is unique because it is a piece of a dead animal, or even better a dead human if you can get one. Its usually the bone of a dead whatever, and so a lot of people tend to use bone magickaly in order to access and manipulate death energy. This works, but there are better ways of going about getting death energy, and bone has a much better use, it tends to generate life energy. This in turn makes bone very effective in holding, sealing, and manipulating the souls of the dead. Sometimes the soul of the dead person or animal will still be bound to the bones, making it instantly enchanted with a dead soul. A lot of the times even if the original soul isnt attached to the bones, there are ways to call it back into the bones. Bones also allow the dead greater power in performing actions on this plane. Cloth Cloth will absorb and hold energy. Its not great at doing this, but its unique in the way that it is typically used. We wear are clothes all day. We shed skin and hair and fluids into our clothes. Because of this our clothes are very connected to us. Wearing someones dirty clothes gives a very strong connection to them, especially to an empath. Washing helps, but it usually doesnt do enough. Cloth is also good at absorbing perfumes and incense and other smells, which in turn means cloth usually keeps a good memory of where its been. Its a good idea to throw clothes away rather

than giving them away or selling them, and its usually a good idea to buy all clothes new rather than used. The materials used in clothes are varied, and each is actually unique in its abilities, but most materials will also follow the general rules listed above. In my experiences Ive found that leather (real leather) in particular is very good at absorbing energy, holding it, amplifying it, and projecting it outward. Leather things make great enchanted objects.

Energy and Magick A Basic Treatise

November 27, 2011 The first myth about energy that must be dispelled is that it doesnt exist. A lot of people in the community have been saying this lately, and a few months back the blogosphere was stirred up with arguments over whether or not energy was actually a thing. Energy is a real thing, and any person who claims otherwise is not a magician. They may be an armchair magician coming up with unfounded theories on magic, and they may have done a few rituals by going through the motions, but they have never actually done magic. The vast majority of everything that is termed magic is tied into energy work. A basic understanding of energy is necessary to do any significant amount magic, especially in regards to developing magical techniques. Energy is also an essential component to logically explaining how and why magic works. To dismiss energy as a fiction is to admit to having no understanding of magic. It also needs to be pointed out that energy isnt a new concept. Its been called different things through out history, but the idea of energy has existed in various spiritual systems going almost as far back as recorded history. Energy is not an invention of New Agers or the New Thought camp or any other group that Pagans and Ceremonialists sometimes like to mock. It also isnt limited to just the older Eastern religions. The idea appears in the West too. Another thing to keep in mind, just because a particular magician didnt mention something in their written works doesnt mean they werent aware of its existence. This is especially true of metaphysical truths that should be obvious to actual practitioners. Energy definitely falls into this category, as does other things like the metaphysical qualities of stones. Ceremonial magic has produced a lot of literal magicians. These are the types who think that a magicians written works compromise the totality of his or her knowledge, and consider anything not discussed in the work to be at the very least beyond the scope of that magicians work, and in many cases believe it to be nothing more than New Age hokum. Many Ceremonialists, Pagans, and other Western magicians dismiss anything not discussed by major predecessors as unfounded and untrue, even when it is something so basic and simple it should be obvious to any practitioner. The second thing that needs to be discussed is why we call it energy, and most specifically if it should be called something else. Its been called other things in the past, such as aether, void, and spirit. Energy, when used metaphysically, also doesnt mean the same thing that it means when used scientifically. Some have said that we should really call it something else, since it isnt really energy. The problem is, language really isnt made to communicate metaphysical experien ces. Many of these experiences, like most things in life, can only be understood through comparison of our own life experiences. At this point in time, only a small percentage 5

of the worlds population has experienced a true metaphysical event, and an even smaller percentage have sought to study and analyze these experiences. There are simply not enough adepts in the world to warrant new words being added into the languages of the world to describe these experiences. One option is that we make up completely new words. The problem with doing this is, unless someone has a code book, they wont know which words are meant to be applied to which metaphysical experiences. If I say bonta, for instance, do I mean energy, or shielding, or grounding, or something else entirely? Unless youre familiar with the term, you wont know. What we do in magic, what weve always done (and what Ive noticed the gods also do sometimes when they need to communicate foreign ideas), is we steal similar words. We find something thats kind of like the metaphysical experience or magical operation were trying to describe, and then we call it that. This isnt a perfect system, but in this instance, at least, if we find another magician who has experienced the same thing, they can usually infer what were talking about by looking at the original definition of the word. For instance, the word shield is a piece of armor, usually carried in ones hand, and used to protect oneself. It is a universal symbol of protection. In magical terms, a shield is a barrier of energy used to protect oneself from unwanted magical attacks, among other things. In scientific terms, grounding refers to how electricity moves on a path towards the ground whenever possible. In magical terms it refers to pushing energy out of oneself and into the ground. Energy is another one of these words. Energy is an invisible force which does things, and on the physical level is usually the force that empowers the magical operation. It does other things too, like giving us the ability to continue living and sustain our physical bodies. For the most part, energy is a fairly obvious term to describe this force. It does other things too, which maybe arent so obvious with the term energy, like constructing the universe in a way that empathy is possible, but no term is going to be perfect. Of course we could call it something else, like communication as one person suggested. Except there really isnt a point to changing the name. Yes, communication would better describe its functions within empathy and telepathy, but it doesnt really describe how it empowers a spell. And just like energy, the term communication already describes something completely different. As of right now, everyone is used to using the term energy and understands what it means. Any other term is going to be just as flawed, so theres really no point to changing the name now. Before we can begin to understand something, we need to define it, so what is the definition of energy? The best definition I can come up with is that it is an invisible, yet

sensible and relatively quantifiable, force which can cause change and which can be manipulated and directed. So lets start by describing what a force is. A force is something that can cause some sort of change in the universe at some level. Heat is a force. When created, it will raise the temperature of the surrounding area. You can feel that temperature change. Electricity is a force. Electricity can do everything from turning on your TV to killing you. Even though you can hit me with it, your fist isnt a force. But the momentum of the punch and the calories your body expends to move your fist, those are forces. Metaphysical energy is also a force. On a very basic level it can be felt, and it can change your emotional state. Manipulated at a more finer level it can do everything from making you rich to killing your enemies to empowering your sperm, and at some levels it can even create life from nothingness (imaginary/artificial elementals). Energy is a force. Energy, like many things in the universe, is invisible. We normally cant see it with our eyes, although there are ways to train our mind into creating visual representations of energy. However energy doesnt reflect light, so these visions of energy are not being seen by our eyes, and can not be objectively viewed by just anyone. Energy is, however, sensible. We can feel energy around us. How much energy we need in order to feel it, and how accurately we interpret those feelings, is entirely dependent on how well weve trained our bodies. Energy is also relatively quantifiable. As long as Im adept enough at sensing energy, I can look at the energy is column A and the energy in column B and determine which column contains more energy. I can determine that one room contains a lot of energy, and that another room contains a little bit of energy. However I can not objectively measure the energy in an area. My measurements of energy are based on the reactions of my physical and spiritual bodies, neither of which are completely accurate tools for measurement. There are a large number of internal variables which can make me incapable of accurately measuring energy in the same way that a fever can render me incapable of accurately measuring the temperature in the room with just my body. These measurements are all relative too. I can say that column A has a lot of energy, or that it has more energy than column B. However I cant give you a number, like 95 degrees, so that you could understand how much energy is in column A. What I might consider to be a lot of energy, you might not consider to be much energy at all. Meanwhile without personal knowledge of column B, you have no idea what more energy than column B means. How I sense energy is also relative to where I am in my own spiritual path. What I thought was a lot of energy ten years ago doesnt seem like much energy at all to me now. Whats more, if I cannot recheck something now, I have no idea what my past

measurement means, since my concept of energy quantities has changed so dramatically. For instance my first teacher seemed to be extraordinarily powerful. More energy fell off her than I ever saw anywhere else. However its been many years since weve had any kind of contact. If we were to meet up today, its completely plausible that I may have surpassed her many times over, and now view her as having very little power. Its also completely plausible that shell seem just as powerful to me and beyond my capabilities today as she did then. Energy can also cause change, which, as we discussed earlier, is necessary for any force. Energy is typically the empowering force in a magical operation. Its what makes things happen and causes the desired change. Its also what connects things together. Lastly energy can be manipulated and directed. We can move energy. We can take energy from point A and bring it to point B. We can also change that energy. We can change it to another type of energy, or mold it into something else completely. We can make that energy do what we want it to do. These are all important things. Energy isnt some natural primal force, like a hurricane, which we can neither stop or control. Energy is something we have control over. We can move it, we can create it, and we can work with it. This is essential for magic to, well, work. That being said, energy is a physical thing. Energy is deeply tied to matter, and it seems to bare some relationship to it. Matter only exists within the physical realms, and the same is true of energy. We live in the physical planes. Earth is part of the physical realms. The physical realms have physical stuff. Earth isnt the entirety of the physical realms though. There are other worlds. There are also completely spiritual places within the physical realms which contain little or no matter. Where ghosts and spirits exist, the ones you see in this world anyways, is part of the physical realm. When you astrally project, where you go is almost always part of the physical realms. Beyond the physical realms we have the mental realms. There everything is based in thoughts and ideas and knowledge. There is no matter there, and there is no energy. Beyond that are the emotional realms, which lie on the other side of the abyss, and once again contain no energy. So magical operations done in the mental realms, so long as they are not intended to affect or utilize the physical realms, do not use energy. However magic done in a physical realm with the intention of affecting the mental or emotional realms will almost always use energy, since it is usually a necessary conduit (among other things). There are also different types of energy. Theres happy energy, and sad energy, and playful energy, and angry energy. For every kind of emotion that exists, there is a kind of energy.

Note that I said every emotion. There are many more emotions than exist in the normal human spectrum. In fact there are more emotions than exist in any humans spectrum. There are just too many emotions for anyone to be able to naturally feel all of them. Some more common emotions that fall outside the normal emotional spectrum are death, life, and violence (not to be confused with anger or rage). All of these things have specific energies that can be felt, and in turn can give you a concept of what the emotion feels like, but which are not naturally felt by most humans. So the question arises, where does energy come from? Within the physical realms, energy is a byproduct of emotion. Whenever an emotion occurs, energy is created as a result. So now we must define emotion as its meant in a metaphysical sense. An emotion is not the same thing as a feeling. A feeling is a kind of emotion, but there are also emotions which arent feelings. Feelings are also things that are created within us at some level. Either our bodies physiologies create them, or theyre created on some spiritual level, depending on what you want to believe, and they can be easily manipulated through the use of certain drugs. Emotions, however, dont begin with us. Emotions existed before there were people, before there were spirits, and they actually appear pretty close to the beginning of the universe. An emotion is a primal force created as a byproduct of an act. An act meanwhile is something that happened. The very first thing in the universe, at least as far back as were able to see, are acts. The first act occurred when the first part of the universe created itself. This in turn creates the very first emotion, creation, or creativity. As it turns out, the earlier an emotion appears in the creation of the universe, the more powerful it tends to be, and the more energy it tends to create on the physical realm. This is why sex magic can be so powerful. So an action occurs. That action causes a change. This action-change in turn creates an emotion specifically tied to it, and that emotion ripples across the universe in a wave. In the physical realm, this wave takes the form of energy. Going back though, these actions, which start the universe, create emotions, which form the emotional realm. You get a few of these emotions together and eventually they realize they exist. This is the first idea, and from this idea other thoughts and ideas start to spring forth, which in turn is knowledge, and all of this creates the mental planes. That initial creative emotion drops down and enters the mental planes, and you start having creativity and art and culture and invention and all sorts of other things. Eventually these things start to take form. Now theyre not just thoughts and ideas, but they start to gain substance. Enter the physical realms.

The physical realms started as nothing. Just this idea of a physical place where things could have substance, and this was caused by creation. Then emotion comes into the mix, and when it enters the physical realm, it creates energy. Energy will be the form that emotion takes when it enters the physical realm, because everything in the physical realm must have a form. Thoughts are now brainwaves, creation is now cells, and emotion is energy. This gooey energy starts to fill up the physical realm, and then Thought enters the mix. Empowered by Creation, Thought starts to come up with ideas which in turn molds this energy into different things. First completely spiritual realms are created. And then spirits are created which inhabit these realms. These spirits, in turn, are connected to higher entities made up entirely of thoughts, ideas, and knowledge. More emotions come in, the energy gets more diverse, more and more things are molded, and eventually from all of this matter is formed. Then we have physical worlds and later theyre inhabited by entirely physical beings. These beings in turn have a connection to a spiritual self, and to a mental self which is entirely thoughts and ideas. This is the creation of the universe, and how energy came into existence. NOTE: I understand this idea leaves a lot to be desired. The creation of the physical realms from the mental realms leaves a lot to be desired in this explanation, especially considering how smooth, and even inevitable, the creation of the mental realms from the emotional realms are. It was really a question of whether I wanted to spend weeks, maybe months, trying to sort out all of the small details, or whether I wanted to get an article posted right now. Hopefully Ill be able to clarify this process further in a future article or a future revision of this article. If not, feel free to do the work yourself.

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Energy Manipulation: Part 1

November 1, 2010

A lot of people have been asking me for advice on energy manipulation lately. Either they want instructions or they want books or systems that teach it. So Ive put together some exercises to help people who are just starting out. Ive called this part 1. What Ive posted here is far from a complete system, but right now there is no part 2. I might write more exercises in the future. If I do the new exercises will build upon these exercises. Ive put these exercises in the order youre supposed to do them (skipping 2 if its a cold time of year). The techniques in the different exercises build on each other. At the same time though they arent intended to be done once and before moving on to the next one. In fact it isnt even a system where you master one step and then move on to the next. What I suggest doing is to start with an exercise and keep doing it until you get a handle on it and youve achieved some noticable results. Then start working with the next exercise, but keep going back and doing the earlier exercises. The better you get at the earlier exercises the easier the later exercises will be. Also if youve done an exercise a lot and you have a good idea how it works and what its supposed to do, you should probably try to develop your own exercises to help train those same skills. These exercises were designed so that they could easily fit into most peoples lives, but theres also a chance that they might not easily fit into your life situation. Whats even more likely is that you have a lot of unique opportunities in your life to train your abilities, and because those opportunities are so specific to you, youre going to have to create your own exercises in order to take advantage of them. I also recommend continuing to do basic exercises even after you have a mastery of energy manipulation. A lot of magicians fall into a trap of gaining some ability with energy manipulation and then ignoring it as they explore other spiritual and magical pursuits instead of continuing to work more and more with very basic and simple energy manipulation exercises. When they do this their energy manipulation abilities stagnate. Energy manipulation being a very basic skill, they dont progress in other avenues of magi c as quickly or as far as they potentially could if their energy manipulation was stronger. Eventually theyll even start to regress and become less powerful. In order to do most of these exercises the only thing you really need is a quiet and private space to work. If you sleep alone, your bedroom should be perfect for this. If not youre going to have to figure out a time when you can have the bedroom to yourself or figure out a different place where you can work privately.

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A lot of these exercises are skyclad. Theres a few reasons I did this. First off all of the skyclad exercises are solitary. I dont recommend serious skyclad work for people who are going to be uncomfortable and nervous when theyre naked around other people. However this is solitary work by yourself so most people should be comfortable in that situation. Some of these rituals deal specifically with your sense of touch, and being skyclad gives a greater degree of control in that regard. On one hand your clothes limit your sense of touch because you cant fully feel things through your clothes. On the other hand when you dont want to feel anything, you can still sometimes feel your clothes on your body. Finally for a variety of reasons energy is easier to manipulate when youre naked. There is some debate about this in the magical community, but its true. Its easier to sense and manipulate energy without clothes on. Granted it can be done with your clothes on, and if youre experienced at manipulating energy there isnt much of a difference between doing it clothed or naked. However when youre first beginning to learn it helps a lot. These exercises are all very basic. They dont even technically deal with energy manipulation. They focus on increasing your awareness and your basic ability to sense and identify energy. Several of the early exercises are designed to train a couple of your basic senses, touch and smell. Training any of your five basic senses to make them more aware of whats going on around you will, in the long run, make you more adept at energy manipulation. I stayed away from sound because its a very hard one to write specific exercises for. I stayed away from taste because most people dont want to go around licking everything. And I stayed away from sight because training sight is a lot more complicated and actually helps with more advanced topics (like seeing spirits and auras). If I do write future posts dealing with these topics, theres a good chance Ill include some information on training sight. 1. The Sleeping Exercise This is a very easy magical exercise, probably the easiest one youll ever do, and also a very pleasant one too. I suggest you use nice linens for this exercise. Something like silk bed sheets or Egyptian cotton. I also suggest sleeping with just a bed sheet, a pillow case, and a cover sheet. If that isnt warm enough and you need a blanket, then put the blanket over the cover sheet so the cover sheet is against you (unless you have a really nice and comfy blanket). Wash all of your linens as close to bed time as possible so theyre clean and fresh when you start the exercise. Next right before bed take a long shower with hot water, about as hot as you can stand. The hot water is going to thin out your blood and pull your blood vessels closer to

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your skin, which is why you feel more sensual after a shower. It should go without saying that you need to completely dry yourself since you dont want to be damp when you go to bed. Of course do whatever else you need to do in order to get ready for bed. I suggest waiting until the very end to brush your teeth, because if your mouth feels all fresh and minty youll get even more out of the exercise. Thats the prep work. This is the actual exercise. Once youre ready for bed, take off any clothes (if you bothered to put any on after the shower), lay in the bed naked, and pull the cover sheet over yourself. This is an awesome exercise! Okay thats not the all of it. When youre laying in bed you want to pay particular attention to how everything feels. How does the fabric from the bed sheet and the bed itself feel against your skin? How does the fabric of the coversheet feel? How are they different? How does the pillowcase feel against your head? How does your body feel where it touches itself and how does your hair feel if its long enough to touch your back? But dont focus on one body part or sensation at a time. Try not to concentrate on individual parts of your body to see how each feels. The goal should be to feel every part of your body at once. If youre doing what you do most of the day, concentrating on the part of your body that interests you at the moment to see what it feels and ignoring the rest, youre missing the whole point of the exercise. Take everything in at once, every sensation from your head to your toes, and feel it all at the same time. Use your mind to sort out these different feelings, to figure out which body parts are feeling what, instead of concentrating on specific parts and processing only a single input of information at a time. The goal of the exercise, and most of these early exercises, is to get you used to feeling all parts of your body at once, and getting your brain used to processing all of that sensory input at once without having to block any out. In time this is going to make you more sensual and help to undull this particular sense. After youve spent a little bit of time seeing what things feel like, move around a bit. See what it feels like to have the sheets rubbing against you. Try different positions. See what it feels like to lay on your left side, your right side, your back, your stomach. Once youve spent some time taking all these sensations in and youve finished the exercise, Id really suggest not getting dressed if thats at all possible. Instead just lay in bed naked and relax taking in all of the sensations until you fall asleep. One of the really cool things about this ritual is that with some slight modifications its something that can easily be done every single day since its basically just going to bed. It may not be convenient to wash bedsheets every single night or even to shower every day just before bed, but unless you have young children that want to sleep with you, most people should be able to go to bed naked and go to sleep.

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2. Feeling the Wind This ritual is really good for when its warm out. Its not so great for when its cold out. Once again, taking a nice, long, hot shower before hand will help. Sit either on your bed, on the floor, or on a yoga mat. If its breezy out, you can open a window by where youre sitting, otherwise youre going to want to turn on a fan. If you can do it comfortably and with no pain, sitting lotus style may help. Otherwise just sit Indian style. And once again youre going to want to do this without clothes on. Basically just sit there, close your eyes, and feel the air blowing over your body. Like before you dont want to concentrate on a particular part of your body, but rather take in everything at once. If its really warm out you can even sleep like this laying in bed without a sheet or blanket and letting the air blow over you to cool off. Im actually tired right now. Notice how all of my exercises seem to involve sleep. If I wrote this just before lunch instead of just before bed youd probably be learning energy manipulation by eating a sandwich. 3. Feeling your Clothes. This is an easy exercise that you can do all day, every day. The whole point of this exercise is to spend as much of the day as you possibly can feeling your clothes. During any part of the day in which youre wearing clothes, parts of your body are touching fabric. Other parts of your body are exposed and not touching fabric, and if your clothes are baggy some clothed parts of your body arent touching fabric. Our bodies meanwhile are used to our clothes because we wear them all day, and at least after weve had them on for a bit we stop feeling them, unless theyre doing something abnormal, like chaffing. If youre reading this, and unless youre naked, youre probably noticing that Im wrong. Youre feeling at least some of your clothing right now. The thing is if you start to think about your clothing and feeling it, your body will stop blocking it out and youll start feeling it. You have a lot of control over whether or not youre feeling y our clothing. The goal of this exercise is to spend the entire day, the dressed parts of it anyways, being able to feel all of the clothes that you are wearing. You should be able to feel the fabric on any part of your body that is touching fabric at any moment. Once you get used to doing this, and on a day when youre wearing baggy clothes, every so often quiz yourself. As quick as you can figure out exactly which parts of your body are touching fabric and which parts arent.

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This exercise is a lot easier to do if youre doing exercise 1 and sleeping naked. Because youve gotten used to not wearing clothes through out the night, when you put clothes on in the morning youll really feel them. In fact if possible try to spend as much time awake without putting on any clothes as you can. Itd be ideal if you could wake up and go through your entire morning routine without getting dressed until youre ready to walk out the door. The longer you spend without clothes on the more youre going to notice them once you put them on. 4. Incense Exercise Once again, find your sitting place and sit Indian style or lotus style naked. This time though light some incense near you. Whatever kind of incense you want. And as the incense burns just sit with your eyes closed smelling it. Dont try to think about it or sense something or anything else. Just sit there quietly and breathe in the incense. Through out the exercise take a few deep breaths and let the incense fully fill up your lungs. Its best not to replace the incense in this exercise with something else, like a scented candle or a plug-in, unless you absolutely have to for some reason (like severe allergies). Incense is going to have a stronger odor for one. Its also thick, and smokey, and it gets in your eyes, and so it has a sensual quality to it. And it tends to scent things like your hair and your bedsheets. 5. Walking Barefoot This is a super easy exercise. All you have to do is take off your shoes and socks and start walking barefoot. When your feet hit the ground, try to pay attention to how it feels. Notice that different areas feel different. Grass is soft and cool. Cement is hot and hard. Carpets are smooshy, wood floors are flat, and tile is hard and cold. When you walk, pay attention to the feeling in your feet. With each step, try to notice your foot hitting the ground and how that feels. You should do this exercise as much as possible. Its an easy exercise because it doesnt require you to actually do anything. It requires you to not do something. Anytime you dont need to wear shoes or socks, dont. Work and public showers are the only times most people need to be wearing shoes. If youre like me, you may feel more comfortable driving in shoes, although it is perfectly legal to drive barefoot. Nowadays most companies dont have a no shoes, no service policy, although a few hold -outs still do require shoes. 6. Smelling Things Most of us go through most of our day completely ignoring our sense of smell. Unless something near us has a strong smell, be it pleasant or disgusting, we usually have forgotten the fact that we can smell at all. So the point of this exercise is to smell as many things during the day as we can.

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Now there are lots of little things you can do through out the day in order to smell things without coming off as too creepy or weird. When youre taking your shower in the morning, smell the soap and the shampoo and anything else youre going to use before it touches your body. Before you get dressed smell your clothes (hopefully not to see if their clean enough to wear). Before you eat or drink anything smell it. Get in the habit of smelling everything before you put it in your mouth. Any time you put your head on something, like a couch or a pillow, smell it. If a person gets close enough to you, you may be able to smell certain things like perfume or their cigarettes. If you hug some one you can actually smell them in three different places. You can smell their hair, their skin at their neck, and their clothes. But if youre not in a relationship with somone you have to be very subtle about smelling them like this or youre going to come off as really creepy. Im sure most of you can come up with other things to do through out the day without seeming too weird. The whole idea of the exercise is to get used to smelling things as much as you can. 7. The Sitting Exercise This is by far the most useful exercise I have. In ten years time its more likely youll still be doing either this exercise or some variation of it than any other exercise here. In fact a lot of the exercises I have are just variations of this exercise. You may not be able to do much with the exercise right now, but as you become more aware of energy and you learn energy manipulation tricks youll be able to do more and more with this exercise. To start, spend at least a couple of weeks doing the first five exercises before you move on to this one. Make sure youve spent enough time to where youre starting to master the above exercises and youre getting something out of them. You really want to have a couple of senses, especially the sense of touch, trained to an abnormal level before you attempt this. Okay, you need to go back to your sitting place. Youre going to want to do this at night so you have darkness. Turn off every light in the room that you can so its as dark as you can possibly get it. Youre also going to need it to be as quiet as you can get it. So you dont want any music on or the TV or people running around outside the room. The later at night you do this the less likely it is youre going to have to deal with noise from outside. Dont light any incense. And take off all of your clothes so you dont have to worry about feeling them or having them get in the way. When youve done all of this sit in your spot either in the lotus position or Indian style and close your eyes. Weve spent the last few weeks trying to increase your senses. If its been successful theyve been kicked into overdrive. Now were going to put them into a sensory deprivation environment and see what happens.

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Actually we havent just been training your senses with the first few exercises. Those exercises also work to train your awareness. In addition to having heightened senses you should also have a heightened awareness. So now that youve been deprived of your five basic senses the end result should be that a sixth sense, your ability to sense energy, takes over. To start just sit there for a while breathing and bringing yourself to a calm and relaxed state. Then think about this: What does the area outside of your body feel like? This is similar to when you were developing your sense of touch, except right now you shouldnt have anything on or around your body, so with the exception of the parts youre using for sitting, you shouldnt be feeling anything right now. So what are the parts of your body that shouldnt be feeling anything right now feeling? If you cant put it into words right now, thats okay. If you cant feel anything, you just need more practice. Now take a deep breath. Imagine that youre pulling everything in the room around you inside of you through your mouth and filling up your chest with it. If youre having trouble with this, remember the incense exercise. Imagine the air in the room is thicker, like the smoke from the incense, and thats what youre pulling into your lungs. If you felt something around you before, did you feel that same thing intensify inside of you when you did this? If you didnt feel something before, do you feel something now? As the final part of this exercise, spend some time letting all of what came before clear out of you. Let the energy you took in earlier dissipate and get used to the energy around you so you arent focusing on it. Once youve done that focus on the center of your chest. This is the area where we really feel our emotions. This is where that energy builds up from and emanates from. Right this moment you have to be feeling some sort of emotion. Even if its calm or boredom, youre feeling something. That emotion is creating energy which is coming out of your chest. There are a few other energies that are in there too, like energy thats tied into your personality, human energy, and the energy of living things. All of these different energies are kind of squished together in a ball in your chest, and from there theyre leaking out of your body into the room. This is the energy youre creating. Take some time to explore that. Feel your emotions and then try to feel the energy thats inside of you. The emotion and the energy are very much tied together and at some levels are the same thing. So give into the emotion and let it overtake you and then try and feel it inside of you. 8. Building a Reference The problem with exercise number seven is that when you try to feel the energy inside yourself, theres only a few different kinds of energy youre going to find. For most of us its going to be things like peace, calm, boredom, relaxation, ect. Once youve gotten

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to the point that you can feel that energy inside of you youre ready to start trying out exercise seven, which is about exploring new and different kinds of energy that occur inside of you. To do number eight you need to wait until you have some sort of emotion. It can be any emotion. You could think somethings hilarious, or you could be really excited or happy about something, or you could be very sad or angry. It doesnt really matter what the emotion is, but the stronger the emotion is the better. Also youre going to try to hold on to that emotion as long as you can. So dont try to calm yourself or relax yourself, just focus on holding the emotion. The first time you do this youre going to want to hold that emotion long enough to get yourself to your sitting place, undress, and close your eyes. From there just repeat what you did with exercise number six. Let the emotion overtake you and try to see if you can feel out the energy and explore it. As you get more and more used to doing this you should need less help in order to do it. After a while you should be able to do it while still dressed, and then wherever you might be. Youll just need to close your eyes and feel the energy out, and after a while you wont even have to close your eyes. This of course will make easier and easier and more convenient to do. After a while youll be able to feel out any emotional energy as it occurs. 9. Feeling Out Places The energy of a place is determined by a lot of different variables. It depends on the people in the place, their particular emotions and personalities, the fung shue of the place (how energy does or doesnt move through it), the location of the place, whats around it, what purpose the place serves, and if there are any altars or if anyone is performing magical rituals there. There are a lot of different factors and so each place is more or less unique. This exercise is about feeling out the energy of different places. Its more difficult to feel out the energy of familiar places because youre used to them. The most difficult place to feel energy is going to be your bedroom, especially if you sleep alone. A bedroom that you sleep in alone, barring some special circumstance (like very active altars), is going to be almost entirely made up of your own energy. Its going to feel an awful lot like you. Its like touching someones f orehead to see if they have a fever when you have a fever. So were going to concentrate this exercise on unfamiliar places. Pretty much public places youve never been to or the homes of people the first time youre invited in. You can also try this exercise in places youve only been a handful of times.

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When you first walk into a new place take a moment to figure out what it feels like. Close your eyes if you have to, and if you have to take a deep breath and imagine youre breathing in the incense. And then come up with a few words to describe how the room feels. If you happen to carry around a small pad of paper and a pen and can jot those words down, thats great. Otherwise youll just have to try to remember them. Whatever you do, dont over think this and dont try real hard to do this right. Only spend a couple of seconds, at most, figuring out what the room feels like. Go with your first instincts and leave it at that. If you do decide to spend a lot of time really delving into the energy of the room and figuring out what it feels like, second guessing yourself the whole way, youre going to come up with the wrong answer. If you went with your first instinct you mightve had the right answer, but if youre over thinking this youll never get the right one. Secondly youre going to completely ruin the exercise and it isnt going to do you any good. The exercise is not about being right or getting this perfect. Its about getting used to sensing the energy around you when you walk into a room, and eventually that will lead into being able to identify it correctly. But for now this is more about being able to feel it than correctly identify it. Once you have your words to describe the energy, look at them and see if you mightve come up with any of them for reasons that have nothing to do with the energy of the place. There are really two things you have to watch out for. The first are impressions that are tied into your sensory input. The second are preconceived notions about the place. a. Sensory input This is when you come up with an impression about the room not because of the energy of the room but because of something you saw, or heard, or felt, or smelled. Some of these are universal among people and fairly easy to figure out. For instance a lot of people will walk into the bedroom of a teenager who is into death metal and come out saying that it is a dark and evil place full of the energies of powerful satanic magics. In reality nine times out of ten that bedroom is going to be full of angsty horny teenage-esque energy and maybe a bit of negativity from the death metal with little, if any, magical power behind it. Theres just some dark and weird and maybe even Satanic death metal imagery through out the room and that, not the energy, is what the person is picking up on. Some are a lot more unique and harder to pinpoint though. For instance, when I was a kid my parents didnt drink coffee, nor did anyone I knew except my grandparents. My grandparents drank cheap Folgers coffee in the morning and I would stay with them in the summer time. Now whenever I smell freshly brewed cheap coffee it reminds me of my grandparents and also happy summer mornings from my childhood. I have to be careful with something like that because those feelings and impressions I get have nothing to do with energy, its just that my brain has been trained to associate certain things with the smell of instant coffee.

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b. Preconceived notions Sometimes we think a place feels a certain way because we expect it to feel that way. For instance if you go into the home of someone you know, you might expect their home to feel a certain way because of the way you feel about that person. You have to be careful of this one though, because sometimes your preconceived notions are right. A lot of times this is true of places that are commercial, or where a specific thing is done inside of them all of the time. Whatever is being done in the place is effecting the energy, so places that serve a similar purpose often times have similar energies. One example I can come up with are Catholic churches. Ive been in a lot of Catholic churches. I was raised Catholic. Most of those churches have a very specific energy to them. The best way I can describe it is that its a churchy kind of energy, because of course its an energy Ive been conditioned to associate with a church. It would be very easy for me, especially when I was new to energy manipulation, to think that there was no specific energy to Catholic churches. That instead Im entering these churches thinking there should be a specific churchy feeling to it because its a church and I expect it to have that energy. That isnt the case though, and I can sense energy well enough to know that isnt the case. For the record not all Catholic churches have that energy. I was actually surprised to find some that didnt have it at all. The one in Sedona, Arizona is a good example of a church that doesnt have that energy. Its also a very weird and atypical Catholic church for a lot of different reasons. 10. Make Mine Music When you create something, you leave a small creationary energy imprint in it. There is a creationary imprint in this post. If you leave me a comment, you will leave a creationary imprint in that comment. Now if you create something that youre emotionally tied to, or if youre very emotional when you create something, that imprint becomes a lot larger. Because of this artistic works, like books and poems and songs, tend to have very big energy imprints. For this exercise were going to try to tap one of those imprints, an imprint in a song. So the first thing you need to do is pick out a song. I suggest finding a song that you like, and better yet one you already feel a connection to. Try and stay away from songs that have major shifts partway through. For the purpose of this exercise, at least when youre starting out, pick a song that is consistent through out. Also youre going to want to put the song on repeat. Many songs are only two or three minutes long, and although that should be more than enough time, the first few times you do this it might take you a bit longer than that. Lastly when you do this try to focus on a single aspect of the song. Most people when they hear a song focus on the lyrical part of the song, so thats probably going to be the best part to focus on. However I do know that some

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musicians completely ignore the lyrical part of a song when they hear it and instead focus on a specific instrument. Whatevers easiest for you to focus on focus on that, just make it a single thing. What youre going for here is youre trying to feel the energy imprint of the song, to feel the emotions the artist tied into it. To do that go back to your sitting place. Turn on your music, take off your clothes, sit down, close your eyes, and listen. By this point you should have the drill down. The first thing you want to do is, with your eyes closed, visualize the song as having form. First mentally create the room youre sitting in in your head as best you can. Dont forget to create yourself in the spot youre sitting in. Now somewhere in the room theres the speaker that this music is coming from. That is going to be the source of the song, where it starts. But from there its going to move through different parts of the room, and at some point it has to at least come close to you, because you can hear it. Now what does this song look like, what exactly are you visualizing? I cant tell you that. You have to figure out, in your head, if a song had a form what would it look like? What do you think a song looks like? Some people might say a string of notes and others a dancing cloud of sound. It can be something very weird or something sick and twisted. I dont know how your mind works or how you associate formless things. Once you have your song though you now need to take it into you. The best way to practice is to imagine, in your visualization, an imaginary hand coming out of your chest, reaching to the song, grabbing part of it, and then pulling it into your chest. If you cant do that, if thats too difficult, you can use the incense trick again. You can imagine the song being like a cloud of smoke from the incense. And then you can take a deep breath and breathe it into your chest. Either way once you get it inside of you then you can feel the energy tied into that song. This is a little bit different than normal energy though. This energy came from a person, and it has a direct tie to that person. Not only does it have a bit of the emotion they were feeling when they wrote the song and even a bit of their life energy, it also has information about their destiny, their spiritual path, their personality, and their past. Every single aspect of their life and who they are is, in part, hidden somewhere in that energy. Also wherever they are right now, that energy is tied into them. It is a link to them, a way to find them, and a way to get to them magically. 11. The Singing Exercise This is a lot like exercise ten, except once you finish, sit there and sing the song. Sing it as loud as you can. If you want you can stand up, and you can even dance a bit.

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As youre doing this, youre putting energy into this little performance of yours just like the original artist did. Of course hopefully your performance isnt being recorded by someone. And as you sing youre projecting outward. So whats happening as you sing is that youre creating a relatively large amount of energy (relative to what you normally create) inside of you and then youre spewing it out. So what you want to do as youre singing is see if you can sense the energy pouring out of you. If you can take some time to watch what its doing and see how its leaving you. Oh, and to do this exercise you really need to get into the singing and just let yourself go with it. If you do it shyly or half-assed it wont work. If you try some or all of these exercises, and you feel okay talking about it, please post about your results. If youre having trouble with part of it or theres something you dont understand, Id be more than happy to help. Also, for future articles and possible revisions of this one, Id like to know how well people understand these exercises and how much success theyre having with them. Finally if anyone knows a PC term for sitting Indian style, please post it. It just seems like thered be a PC term for that by now.

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Energy Manipulation Part 2

August 5, 2011 Ive been giving a bit more thought to how I want to present these exercises. Part one dealt mainly with energy awareness, although there was some manipulation involved. Part two is mostly going to deal with internal manipulation, moving the energy around within yourself, and part three, when I get around to it, is going to deal more with moving energy around externally. Im only promising a part three right now, but Im thinking I might have to add a part four in order to explain energy balancing, and possibly even a part five or six to cover advanced techniques. First off, if you havent read part one yet, start there. Those exercises should keep you busy for a few weeks at least, but more likely a couple months. These exercises are designed to build on each other, so until youve started to see some success with those exercises, these will probably be too difficult to master. The first exercise should have been included as #5 in part one, but was omitted. In fact, Im adding this as #5 of part one right now, and pushing all of the other exer cises up a number. If youre already familiar with part one though, you may miss this one, so Im reposting it here. #5 ** Walking Barefoot ** This is actually a super simple exercise. All you have to do is take off your shoes and socks and start walking barefoot. When your feet hit the ground, try to pay attention to how it feels. Notice that different areas feel different. Grass is soft and cool. Cement is hot and hard. Carpets are smooshy, wood floors are flat, and tile is hard and cold. When you walk, pay attention to the feeling in your feet. With each step, try to notice your foot hitting the ground and how that feels. You should do this exercise as much as possible. Its an easy exercise because it doesnt require you to actually do anything. It requires you to not do something. Anytime you dont need to wear shoes or socks, dont. Work and public showers are the only times most people need to be wearing shoes. If youre like me, you may feel more comfortable driving in shoes, although it is perfectly legal to drive barefoot. Nowadays most companies dont have a no shoes, no service policy, although a few hold -outs still do require shoes. #12. Finding Your Chakras, pt 1 Lets talk about Chakras for a moment. This is a practical article, not an article on theory, so Im going to keep this as short as possible. Chakras are the parts of your body that allow for energy manipulation. They let you create energy, they let you take energy into your body, they let you push energy out of your body, they let you convert energy to a different type of energy, and they let you move energy around, both inside your body and out, in other words everything that energy manipulation entails. As you can guess, understanding your chakras is very important to energy manipulation. 23

The number of Chakras varies between different belief systems. Most systems work with seven major chakras, although Tibetan Buddhism uses ten. Those are just major chakras though. There are also minor chakras. Some systems list dozens of minor chakras. Even these though are just the largest and most important minor chakras in your body. There are actually tens of thousands of chakras that can be found through out your body. In fact, depending on how meticulously you want to count, there are actually millions, even billions, of chakras, but its sort of pointless to go looking for each and every one of those. The amount of chakras youre going to be able to find in your body is going to be limited by how small of a chakra youre willing to look for. Different chakras within your body do not have different duties, although some may be better at certain jobs. Any chakra in your body can perform any of the jobs that a chakra can perform. If you read up on chakras youll notice the seven major chakras are each given different duties and properties. For our purposes, the main difference that well acknowledge between the chakras is that some are far better at energy manipulation, and do it with much larger quantities of energy, than others. Some also naturally seem to work with certain types of energy, although any chakra can be made to work with any kind of energy. Now lets go find us some chakras. Weve already talked about an area in your chest where emotion and energy seems to come from. Thats one of the major chakra. If youve been doing the exercises from the first part, then you might have already noticed a couple others too. You might have noticed that theres a calmer type of energy coming from your head near your eyes, and you may have noticed other types of energy, mostly sexual or lustful energy, coming from around your genitals. These are also chakras. You might have also noticed that chakras dont exist on the front or back of your body, they go all the way through it. So a chakra position on the front of your body also corresponds to a chakra position on the back of your body. If you havent discovered any of this yet, dont worry, were going to find all the chakras right now. This exercise is going to be easiest to do on a bed, but youre going to need a little bit of room to spread out. Most people will probably need at least a full sized bed, although smaller people can get away with less. If you have a small bed, it might be easier to do this on the floor, but you have to be able to make yourself comfortable lying on the floor. To start, youre going to want to clear everything off your bed, like blankets, comforters, and extra pillows, so you have room to lay unhindered. If you need a pillow to be comfortable, you may keep one on the bed. Were going to use as much sensory deprivation as we can in this ritual, so dont burn incense or light candles. Try to make the room as dark and quiet as possible, and completely undress. Next lie down on the bed on your back. Put your arms down at your side so they arent touching your torso, and spread your legs a bit so they arent touching each other. Spend a few minutes relaxing yourself and, if you know how, you might want to try meditating a bit too.

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A. THE HEART CHAKRA First were going to look for the easiest chakra, the Heart Chakra. The Heart Chakra is located in the center of your chest slightly above your heart. When you feel most emotions, such as anger or joy, youll feel them strongest inside of your chest. That feeling is caused by your Heart chakra activating. If necessary, work yourself into an emotional state. Think of something that will make you happy or angry or make you cry or something, whatever it takes to get you feeling an emotion. Think about exactly where youre physically feeling that emotion in your body. Now pinpoint the center of that physical feeling, and that is your heart chakra. Now relax yourself, let the emotions start to fade away, but keep your eyes closed and think about that centerpoint in your chest and focus on it for a while. Get an idea of how it feels there, and how you interpret whats going on there. Also try to remember where this point is so that the next time you look for it you dont need to use emotion. B. THE BROW CHAKRA Now lets think about something. Math or literature, pick your position. If you prefer math, you need to do math which will be slightly difficult to do in your head. It has to take some effort on your part, but at the same time you dont want to mentally strain yourself. It could be multiplication, or division, or adding fractions, or multiplying them, or whatever. It really depends on how good you are at math. If you prefer literature, think of a story youre familiar with, either from a book or movie, and start dissecting the plot and symbolism as best you can. Spend a while, at least fifteen minutes, doing this, so that you get lost in your thinking. Then ask yourself, Where in my body am I? You should be feeling yourself strongest slightly above your eyes and directly in between them. This is your Brow chakra. You might also notice energy coming out of there. Its not as intense as the energy that came from your Heart Chakra. This is energy is energy that is associated with thought and other mental tasks. Stop thinking and take a moment to feel out this chakra and become familiar with it. Also, once again, try to remember where this one is so you dont have to go through this process again. C. THE THROAT CHAKRA If youre reading this article as youre doing the exercise, start reading out loud. Otherwise just start talking. You can do this whispering, and you can do this screaming, but doing so will make this exercise more difficult. Youre best off talking in a moderately loud voice, like if you were talking on the phone to someone who was using a cell phone outside. Thats a good volume level.

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If you pay really close attention, youll notice theres a very slight vibration in your throat. This vibration is what makes your voice work. Its also where your Throat Chakra is located. When you speak, a small amount of energy comes out of that chakra inside your throat and you may be able to notice it. Most of that energy will leave through your mouth though. The energy, like your voice, originates at your throat chakra, but youre pulling it up through your throat and spitting it out your mouth. Its important not to get confused and think you have a big chakra in your mouth. Its in your throat. Once again take a moment to feel the chakra out and get familiar with where its located. D. THE NAVEL CHAKRA [OR SOLAR PLEXUS CHAKRA] This ones normally a bit difficult to find. Theres only one easy way I know of to activate this thing if you dont already know how to activate your chakras. Its very stupid and cheesy, and youre probably going to feel stupid and cheesy for having done it, and before you do it you need to pray to whatever gods you worship that no one will catch you doing this. Its that bad. Okay. Get out of bed and stay naked, itll help. If theres a mirror you can see yourself in, thats a good thing. Spend some time admiring your awesome biceps and pectoral muscles. If you dont have awesome biceps and pectoral muscles, imagine you do and admire them. If you dont have a mirror, imagine you have one of those too. Look at yourself like your frickin Adonis, or Atalanta if youre a woman, or prefer to imagine yourself as one. Now stand up straight, legs slightly apart, arms at yours side, and fists clenched. You might want to even take a moment to bring your mighty fists up and shake them. Say RRRRGH as you do. Now as your doing this exercise, you have to mean everything you say. You have to believe it and feel it inside of yourself. And if, at any time, you break out laughing during this exercise, you have to start over from the very beginning. Also keep in mind the chakra were looking for is located between your rib cage and your bellybutton, so thats the area you want to pay the most attention to. Take a moment to relax and clear your mind. Meditate for a few minutes if you know how. Then take a deep breath in, and then a deep breath out. Let the air come in through your mouth, and your stomach expand, and then push it out and your stomach constricts. Continue to take a few more deep breaths. Say, I am a powerful warrior. Take 3-5 deep breaths. Say, I am strong. Strength and power flow through my body. Take 3-5 deep breaths.

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Say, Let the energy that envelops me come through me and empower my body. Take 3-5 deep breaths, but as you do so envision waves of energy coming into you as you breath in, vibrating through your entire body on the way down your esophagus, and coming to rest in your upper stomach. You might start to feel some energy in your chest around your heart chakra. If you do, you need to push that energy down your stomach as best you can and then ignore it. Were not looking for the heart chakra, and we dont want to get stuck focusing on that. Say, Let the power of my ancestors flow through my body. Take 3-5 deep breaths. Again let the waves of energy flow into you. Say, I am power and I am strength. Take 3-5 deep breaths. Again let the waves of energy flow into you. Say, I will crush my enemies on the battlefield. I will leave them broken and bloodied and their blood will quench my thirst. Take 3-5 deep breaths. Again let the waves of energy flow into you. Say, I am power. I am strength. I am a warrior. Now if you did it right, and you really got into it and believed all of these things you were saying, you should be feeling really pumped up right now. You should be feeling near invincible and ready to beat the crap out of someone or something. You should be punching yourself in the chest and stomach and making unintelligible grunting noises. You should be sort of wired with this empowering energy. Where is that empowering energy coming from? You might feel it all over your body, and you might feel it coming out of different chakras, but its flowing into your body from a single source which can be found between your belly button and ribs. Just go to the very center of where that energy is emanating from, where its the strongest, and that is your navel chakra. Relax a bit, explore your navel chakra, and try really hard to remember where it is. You dont want to have to do this again. E. THE SEX CHAKRA This chakra is a tough one. Its located between your belly button and your genitals. The chakra is associated with instincts and sometimes the subconscious, so its very hard to activate. Generally this would be where you feel fear from, and by fear I mean pure gut wrenching terror, not just nervousness or anxiety. Its also where you get your

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intuition (gut feeling), and its connected to precognition. Its also connected to sexual desire, actually horniness, but so is the next chakra. The least time consuming way to find this chakra is to go look at some porn (but dont masturbate, youll see why soon). It doesnt have to be porn, but you have to find something that will turn you on. This can be movies, pictures, fantasies, or romance novels. It really doesnt matter. If you feel anything in your genitals, ignore it, thats not what were looking for. Before you feel something in your genitals, you should hopefully feel something a bit above your genitals. Thats your sex chakra activating. If that method doesnt work, then you can try refraining from having sex or pleasuring yourself for a while. After a little while, anytime you start to see someone attractive or maybe see a little bit of skin, youll start to feel an urge in you. That would be your sex chakra activating. Once again, take a moment to explore this chakra and try to remember where it is. F. THE ROOT CHAKRA Remember how you werent supposed to masturbate before? This is why. Masturbate now. You dont have to really get into it, and it doesnt have to be really good, in fact its better if its not so good, but pay attention to the orgasm. Where do you feel it the most. Where is the pleasure sourced from. You might feel it in your stomach, and you might feel waves of pleasure across your body, and thats great, but it should be sourced from an area on your genitals. If you cant differentiate that, you need to masturbate in a less pleasurable and sensual way, so that you just feel it at your genitals. That point is your root chakra. When you have sex, and when you pleasure yourself, energy moves in and out of there. Take a moment to explore it (not making a sex joke here is killing me) and try to remember where it is. G. THE CROWN CHAKRA This is the last chakra were looking for because its the hardest to find. Its difficult to activate. Meditation sometimes works, but its still hard to find. To start this chakra isnt even located on your body. Its located just above your head. It could sort of be the top of a crown if your were wearing one, but I like to think of it as being kind of like a halo. Hopefully, after finding the previous six chakras, youve got an idea of what a chakra feels like and that should make finding this chakra easier. Sit cross legged on your bed (or in a lotus position if you can do so comfortably). Take a few moments to clear your mind and let it go blank. If you know how to meditate, start meditating, but meditate with the goal of clearing your mind completely.

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After a few minutes, start looking for your crown chakra. The meditation should have made the thing activate, and if youre lucky its pouring out enough energy to make it noticeable. It might not be noticeable though. If it isnt, thats okay, you just have to find it yourself. With your mind still blank and in a state of meditation, concentrate on various points in the area right above your head. Remember how the other six chakras felt when you explored them. If you need to, now that you know where they are, meditate on each of them and feel them out. Figure out the things that each of them have in common. Youre looking for something else thats similar to those chakras.. What youre going to be doing is mentally poking around right above your head and seeing if a certain area feels like one of your seven chakras. If it doesnt, move on to another area. Keep doing that and eventually youll hit your crown chakra. Once you do, spend some time exploring it and try to remember where it is. Congrats, youve found all seven chakras! This exercise will probably take a couple hours to do, so youre going to have to set some time aside for it. The good thing about this exercise is that you only ever need to do it once. So long as you remember where your chakras are, youll never need to use this exercise again. But if you do ever f orget where they are, you can always repeat the exercise. #13. Finding the Chakras, pt 2 Right after you finish exercise #12, you should probably do this exercise at least once. This is a much quicker exercise. The first few times you do it, it may take a few minutes to do. Eventually you should be able to do it in seconds. To start, a quick review, our seven major chakras in top to bottom orderCrown Chakra Right above the head Brow Chakra Slightly above and between the eyes Throat Chakra Center of the throat where we speak from Heart Chakra Slightly above the heart, center of the chest Naval Chakra Between the rib cage and the belly button, center chest Sex Chakra Between the belly button and the naughty bits, center stomach Base Chakra Naughty bits!!! Or, you know, the base of the spine. Now lay in bed naked and spread out a bit. Close your eyes. Take a moment to clear your mind and relax. Now feel each of your chakras from top to bottom. Feel your crown chakra first, then your brow chakra, and so on and so forth until you reach your base chakra. If you want, you can also activate each of the chakras when you feel them. If you dont know how to do that yet, thats okay. Just be aware of where the chakras are and how they feel. Once you finish the exercise, you can do it again if you wish.

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If you arent very comfortable with your chakras yet, or you just want some more experience feeling them out, you should spend a little bit more time doing this exercise than normal. Spend a few minutes, at least, concentrating on each chakra after you find it. Pay attention to how it feels and what it feels like. Ask you feel each chakra, ask yourself, how is this unique when compared to the other six chakras? When you finish, ask yourself, in what ways are all seven chakras alike? Once you feel comfortable with your chakras, you can also do this exercise for speed. See how fast you can find all seven chakras. Its important that you actually feel all seven though, and not just name them. Its even better if y ou activate each one as you go. You should be able to eventually feel and activate all seven, in order, in a few second or less. Once you start to get good at this exercise, youll be able to do it several times in just a few minutes. This is a really good exercise to do every night before bed. Youre already laying in bed, youre already relaxed, and you only need to set aside a few extra minutes before going to sleep to do it. #14 Activating Chakras Once youre familiar with your chakras and where they are, its time to move on to activating them. All thats meant by activating a chakra is that its being used. Youre pulling energy into it, pushing energy out of it, or producing energy with it. Additionally you may be using it to convert energy or move it around. We actually activated each of the chakras in exercise #12, since we found a way to make them produce energy in order to find them. So if youve done #12, youve already completed this exercise. Congratulations! Just kidding. The activation in exercise #12 was largely uncontrolled. The point of this exercise is to learn how to activate the chakras in a much more controlled way. Were also going to do it in a way which is less time consuming and more universal. You can start this exercise with whatever chakra you feel the most comfortable using, however I recommend starting with the Brow Chakra. The Brow Chakra creates a calmer energy that feels less intense than certain other chakras, and its far easier to control when youre first starting out. If youre using the Brow Chakra, I suggest sitting up in your bed when you do this exercise. If youre using a different chakra though, you may get better results in a different position. Once you start to learn the exercise though, you should be able to do it with any chakra in any position. I also suggest doing this exercise skyclad the first few times because it does make it easier, however it isnt mandatory. The exercise will also be easiest in a quiet and dark room. To begin with, just find the chakra like you did in exercise #13. Doing this activates the chakra. Once youre aware of where the chakra is and you start thinking about it and concentrating on it, it will naturally produce a small amount of energy.

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To start, lets take energy into the chakra. If you remember the incense trick, were just going to do a variation on that. Like before, inhale, and visualize the energy coming into you as you inhale like its the thick smoke from the incense. Now inhale a second time, but instead of visualizing the energy coming in through your mouth, visualize it coming in through your Brow Chakra. Repeat this two or three more times. You should start to feel a rush of energy in your body around your head. This may just be a slight rush of energy, or it may be very intense experience. You might even get a bit of a buzz off of taking in the energy. You might also start to notice some of the spiritual things around you. These are side-effects of taking in more energy than what youre used too. If you dont feel these things though, dont worry about it. Most likely your chakra just isnt taking in enough energy to have an effect on you yet. Its like a muscle, and youll just have to practice more in order to build it up. Now that we have an energy high, lets try to push some of that energy out. As you breath, when you exhale, imagine the energy inside of you coming out of your mouth. Unless youre very good at maneuvering energy around your body, exhaling probably didnt have that much of an effect. Now activate your chakra and exhale again, but this time visualize the energy coming out of your chakra as you exhale. It should have a much more pronounced effect. Repeat two or three more times. If youre using your brow chakra, you probably noticed that you took in a bit more energy with every breath than you let out. This is because it is a lot easier to take in energy with the Brow Chakra than it is to push it out. You can of course equalize these abilities by training the chakra, but naturally, with the Brow Chakra, pulling in is a lot easier than pushing out. Finally we need to make the chakra produce energy. This isnt that hard. In fact weve already done this several times in this exercise. Concentrate on the chakra, and itll start creating energy. The stronger your concentration, the larger the amount of energy youll create. You can also try visualizing the chakra as a wheel. As the wheel spins, visualize energy building up around it. As it spins faster, it makes more energy. This visualization will do three things. First it will get you thinking about the chakra, which will make it produce energy. Secondly it will give you a visual aid to connect to chakra energy production, and you can imagine that visual aid at any time to make a chakra produce energy. Lastly, by controlling the speed of the imaginary wheel, it will give you a method to control how much energy is being produced by a chakra. Once youve succeeded in doing the exercise with the Brow Chakra, repeat the exercise with each of the six other chakras. Once you get used to this exercise, you can combine it with #13. As you go through each of the seven chakras, make them pull in energy, push out energy, or create energy. #15 Finding the Smaller Chakras pt 1

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Next were going to find a few of the smaller chakras so we know where they are for future exercises. There are billions of chakras through out your body, but we dont need to find all of them. Were going to concentrate on the most important chakras besides the seven main chakras, and those would be the strongest chakras in your hands and your feet. Unfortunately, unlike the major chakras, there arent any methods to activate these chakras that work most of the time. In order to find these chakras, youre going to have to look for them. Hopefully, from working with the major chakras in the previous exercises, youve become familiar with what a chakra feels like and how it works. Thats going to help you find these chakras, because the best I can do is tell you where they are and have you look for them. If youre having trouble finding them, go back to the earlier exercises and continue to work with the major chakras until you have a better handle on what a chakra feels like. A.HAND CHAKRAS There are three, arguably four, important sets of chakras in your hand. Most magicians tend to favor one of these three or four sets, and theyll usually use that particular set to do most of the energy work done with their hands. However there are advantages to using each of the different sets of chakras, and its a good idea to train all of them, even if you favor one, so that you can use any of them as needed. A1. WRIST CHAKRA The wrist chakra is technically located on the arm just below the wrist. Like all chakras it goes through the body, so youll also find it on the opposite side of your hand. Magicians who favor this chakra often do a Spider-Man pose when trying to manipulate energy or work magic. They turn their arm over and move their hand down, kind of like what Spider-Man does when he shoots a web. The main advantage of using this chakra is that its good for close -quarter spiritual, or spiritually-enhanced, combat. Magicians who favor this chakra are typically the ones who are more comfortable in a spiritual fight. The reason for this is, whether the palm is held flat or in a fist, its very easy to shoot energy from over or under the hand through this chakra. Its also useful to make a consistent blade of energy that comes out and extends over or under the hand. You can hit someone, or some spirit, with your fist or hand, and also hit them with energy at the same time. One other advantage to using this chakra is, by going through the backside, it can be done very inconspicuously. place your arm across your stomach, and youll notice the chakra can easily be pointed wherever you need to point it without it looking like youre pointing at something. A2. PALM CHAKRA

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Just below your fingers youll notice some mounds of bone (these are called carpals). Theres a small chakra on each mound. Directly below them there are s everal larger chakras. These chakras are almost always working together, and unless you try to really feel them out and separate them into individual chakras, they even feel like theyre one big chakra. After that there are again smaller chakras that exist through out the palm of the hand. All of these different chakras are usually used in unison, and most people regard them as a single chakra. As far as your hand chakras go, this one is the most powerful. As you can guess, if you want to move or manipulate energy with your hand, this is the best chakra to use. Its capable of doing more work than the other chakras in your hand. In combat, its often used by magicians who like to blast energy at a safe distance. Its also favored by magicians who like to cast curses and enchantments without getting too close to their victims. Even magicians who dont favor this chakra tend to use it a lot, because it has some other unique uses too. Its a chakra located in the palm of your hand, so if youre holding something in the palm of your hand, its really easy to put energy into that object or take energy from it. Its also the chakra that is usually used to enchant items. Going back to magical combat, it can be used to energize or otherwise enchant a weapon your holding. A3. FINGERTIP CHAKRA Just below the tip of each of your eight fingers there is a chakra. Theres also similar chakras on your thumbs, but these are weaker and thumbs are rather unwieldy, so these ones dont get used too often. Compared to other chakras in your hand, your fingertip chakras are fairly strong, but theyre usually used individually and not in unison with each other or any other chakras, so they end up being much weaker than the collective of chakras found in your palm. Most magicians tend to use the chakras in their index and middle fingers, because most people have difficulty moving their ring and pinky fingers individually, and the pinky chakra is a bit weaker than the others. Magicians who favor this chakra are usually like to point their fingers at things to manipulate energy or cast spells. Theyre also the types who like to tap or lay their hand on someones shoulder in order to curse or enchant them. The main advantage of this chakra is it allows you to easily draw energy from, or put energy into or otherwise enchant anything, or anyone, you touch with the tips of your fingers. Plus, for some magicians, the act of pointing is a strong ritual aid. A4. KNUCKLE CHAKRA Some magicians, especially those into martial arts, have favored the Knuckle Chakras. Some think that this is the best route to master shadow boxing. Unfortunately, when compared to other hand chakras, the Knuckle Chakras are very weak, and they also get used individually like the Fingertip Chakras instead of collectively. Its possible to train

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them to move substantial amounts of energy, but very difficult. The Wrist Chakras actually work much better as far as shadow boxing and martial arts combat goes. The Knuckle Chakras end up being weak and redundant, and theres no real advantage to using them over other chakras (and so I dont suggest spending much time working them). Most of the magicians who do try to train their Knuckle Chakras just havent realized that there are ways to move energy from their wrist chakras that would produce better results. B. FEET CHAKRAS We have four important chakras in our feet. Most people are going to favor one or two of these chakras, and just use those two. Usually the center chakras are favored, because theyre the strongest. Unlike your hand chakras, there isnt much point in training each and every one of your feet chakra. There just isnt that much of a difference between them, or any real advantage of using one over the other. The only exception would be if you were a martial artist who was really into kicking and wanted to incorporate energy work into your martial arts. B1. TOETIP CHAKRA These are really the equivalent of your fingertip chakras on your toes. Theyre a little bit further down the toe than the fingertip chakras are, and the strongest chakra is actually on the big toe. Individually these are going to be your weakest chakras. Theyre not really close enough to be used as a collective, like your Palm Chakra, but they can still be used in unison, in which case they do become stronger than your Heel Chakra. B2. UPPER-FOOT CHAKRA There is a chakra, sometimes regarded as a collective and sometimes regarded as a single chakra, on the bottom of the mounds of your foot just above where the arc starts. This is actually the strongest chakra on your foot. B3. ARC CHAKRA Starting at the Upper-Foot Chakra, about three quarters of the way down the arc of your foot is your Arc Chakra. If theyre equally trained, this Chakra can become almost as strong as the Upper-Foot Chakra. B4. HEEL CHAKRA Finally, a little ways from the center of your heel, going towards the back of your foot, is the Heel Chakra. This tends to be the weakest chakra in your foot, although it is more powerful than a single toetip chakra. However if you were the martial artist I described above, this would be a very useful chakra to train. #16. Finding the Smaller Chakras, Pt 2

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Once youve found all of the chakras on your hands and feet, they can be trained in the same way as the major chakras. You can perform exercises #13 & #14 substituting the minor chakras for the major chakra. #17. Moving Energy Around Just like with the earlier exercises, this one requires laying in bed with as much sensory deprivation as possible, and before starting you should take a few moments to relax. The goal of this exercise is to move energy around your body. Energy kind of works like a muscle. It moves around and changes according to what your brain wants it to do in the same way that your legs move for you when you want to walk. Energy will even move, as per your thoughts, when you dont want it to. For instance, your legs arent going to start moving you somewhere because you think about walking there. But if you think about moving your energy across the room, it will start to move in that direction. Your energy also moves and changes as per your emotions. Whatever you feel, your energy will try to do it. If youve ever gotten so angry you wanted to kill someone, your energy actually became aggressive and it literally attempted to kill the person. Luckily, unless you spent a lot of time training yourself in energy manipulation, youre not going to be able to kill someone just by wanting to. This is one of the reasons why emotional control is so important for very experienced magicians who routinely work with large amounts of energy and can easily mold it into an attack. The point is, youre energy is always moving and working as per your intent, your will, your thoughts, and your emotions. If we can manipulate these things, we can manipulate how our energy moves and behaves. For this exercise, all we want to do is move energy around a bit. Once youre in a calm and relaxed state, concentrate on your Heart Chakra and the energy you have there right now. This is the energy we want to move around. Unfortunately we wont be able to move all of it. Most likely, you arent yet skilled enough to move all of that energy at once without losing any. Even if can though, once you move the energy out your Heart Chakra is going to create some more. So if you notice that you just moved some of the energy and not all of it, dont be discouraged, thats supposed to happen. Visualize all of that energy in your chest rolled up into a ball. Now visualize that ball slowly moving to the right side of your chest and then towards your shoulder. Visualize that ball slowly moving all the way down your arm, through your upper arm, through your forearm, through your wrist, and finally into the palm of your hand. When you do this, your chest should feel emptier, as if a lot of energy and emotion has been removed from it (although as we discussed, it wont feel completely empty). Meanwhile you should now feel a lot more energy and emotion in the palm of your hand.

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If you can, slowly visualize that ball of energy moving from your right hand back up your arm, through your shoulder and into your chest, across your chest, into your left shoulder and down your left arm and into your left palm. Then move the ball back into your chest. If youre strong enough, see if you can get the ball of e nergy into each of your feet. When you first start doing this, this can be a very difficult exercise. Make sure you visualize the ball slowly moving and going at a snails pace. The easiest way to fail at this exercise is to become impatient and move the ball more quickly than what youre capable of handling. If this happens youll lose your focus on it altogether, and it will break apart and dissipate into your body. The exercise can also be very tiring when you first start doing it, meaning you may only be able to get the energy into your right hand before youre completely exhausted by it. As you do this exercise more and more though, you should be able to get better and better at it. Moving energy around will take less and less out of you, and youll be able to do it faster and faster. Once youre able to successfully move the energy into all of your hands and feet, start working on moving it faster and faster. Eventually you should be able to easily and effortlessly push almost all the energy in your body to one area in a split second just by thinking that you want it to go there. #18 Lifting and Dropping This exercise is meant to help you get used to moving large amounts of energy quickly. It also teaches some techniques that can be used later on to raise and ground energy. Unlike the previous exercise, the entire point here is speed, not accuracy. If you find that youre losing lots of energy, or that youre only moving a fraction of the energy in your body, thats okay for now. Youll get better at doing this exercise more accurately and efficiently by continuing to work on #17 and #19. The point of this exercise though is to increase your speed. To begin, stand up in a comfortable position and take a few seconds, or minutes if needed, to relax yourself and clear your mind. You may find it easier to perform this ritual skyclad, especially the first time, but the exercise can easily be performed clothed. Using the techniques you learned in the previous exercise, move as much energy as you can into your upper chest, and hold it there for a few moments. Do not roll this energy into a ball. We want to move it as a large unwieldy mass of energy. Now visualize that energy moving down your body and into your calves and/or feet, and hold it there for a few moments. Then visualize the energy moving back up your body and back into your upper chest, and hold it there for a few moments.

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Now move the energy into your feet or calves as quickly as you can. In order to do this, youre going to have to visualize all of the energy in your chest dropping down your body really fast. Now move the energy into your upper chest as quickly as you can. This time youre going to have to visualize the energy moving up your body really fast. Repeat these two steps, moving the energy up and down, several times or until you start to get exhausted. #19. Stoning This is a simple exercise Ive discussed before which involves moving energy in and out of stones. Its a great exercise that really helps a person learn how to manipulate energy, and it actually teaches a lot of different skills which are useful with energy work. To start youre going to need at least a few gemstones. You can buy gemstones for one or two dollars a piece at almost any occult store. Id suggest getting five to ten, all different kinds, to start with. You can also try asking more experienced magicians if they have any extra stones. Many will have stones they used when they were first learning energy manipulation which they no longer have any real use for. Pick any one of the stones and hold it in the palm of your hand. Make a loosely held fist around the stone. Now activate the Palm Chakra and pull energy in from it. If youve been practicing the earlier exercises, you may have already figured out a technique to do this. If not you can use the inhaling trick. Inhale and take energy into you. Now concentrate on the Palm Chakra, and move where youre taking energy in from as you inhale to that chakra specifically. Once youre comfortable taking energy in through the Palm Chakra, you should start to learn how to take in energy without inhaling. After you activate the Palm Chakra, visualize the Palm Chakra as active and pulling energy into it. At the same time start pulling energy out of your hand and forearm and into your chest area. This should start taking in energy from the Palm Chakra, and it will do it consistently as opposed to only while youre inhaling. Once you start pulling in energy through your Palm Chakra, start taking in energy specifically from the stone. To do this, as youre taking energy in from your Palm Chakra, change your intentions so that you only want energy from the stone, and not energy from the general area (often times when working with energy changing your intent is enough). At the same time visualize the energy being pulled in from your Palm Chakra as being pulled directly out of the stone. You should start to feel some energy from the stone coming into your body. This energy should have a unique feel to it, which would be the energy taint from the stone. This should give you an idea of what the stone feels like.

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Now that weve gotten energy out of the stone, the next step is to reverse the process. Again hold the stone in your fist. Now start moving the energy in your body up into your forearm and then into your hand. Activate your Palm Chakra (by identifying it and thinking about it), and keep pushing the energy forward so that it comes out through your Palm Chakra. Once youve done this, intend to push the energy into the stone, and visualize the energy coming out of your Palm Chakra and being forcefully pushed into the stone. Not all of the energy is going to end up in the stone. Some of its going to fall out into the general area around you. In fact, when you first start doing this exercise, a lot of the energy is going to fall out into the area around you. Thats perfectly normal. As you get better at it, less and less energy will be lost to the surrounding area, but youre still going to lose some. Once you have this down, you can repeat the exercise several times. Pull energy out of the stone, and then push energy back into the stone. You can also try the exercise with different stones. Different stones will have different taints, and the energy is going to feel different. Another variation you can try, once youve mastered energy conversion, is pushing a specific energy into the stone that is different than the energy you took out. In fact if you repeatedly alternate between doing this and pulling energy out of the stone, what youre doing is cleansing the stone. By keeping a couple of small gemstones in your pocket, you can easily practice this exercise any time you have a few moments of free times. Just put your hand in your pocket, make a fist around one of the stones, and start pushing and pulling energy out of it. It can also be done at the same time that youre doing a lot of other activities (like say having a conversation with someone or watching TV or reading my blog). In fact its good to practice exercises like this while doing other th ings, because it gives you practice in manipulating energy while your mind needs to be focused somewhere else. #20 Raising Energy pt 1 When we raise energy, it means that we bring energy into the area that wasnt already there. There are four ways we can raise energy. We can draw it from the earth, we can draw it from a divine source, we can draw it from a distant source, or we can create it ourselves. For this exercise, were going to work on drawing it from the earth. To begin stand up. Being barefoot or skyclad will both help, but it isnt necessary. What you want to do is activate some of your feet chakras and activate your base chakra (your base chakra is actually the most important one to activate, so if nothing else make sure you get that chakra). Then start pulling energy upward through these chakras and into yourself. Pull in as much as you possibly can. Make sure you intend to pull this energy directly from the Earth. Standing on dirt may help, but so long as you have an indirect connection to the Earth, the exercise should still work.

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Keep pulling as much as you can and drawing the energy into you, and if you need to release the energy through your upper chakras. You should feel a lot of energy coming into you. Some of that energy may be from the area surrounding your legs, but when youre taking in that much energy, you should deplete the energy around you fairly quickly and then start drawing from the Earth. Be careful doing this though in volatile areas. If the energy in the area feels bad to you, then raising energy like this will most likely draw a lot of that energy into you, which could be a bad thing. Since your chakras dont really need to be touching the ground, you might be wondering why you cant raise energy from the earth through your upper chakras, like the Heart or Brow chakra. You can. If you can figure out how to do it, you can try it. Id suggest trying it with your Crown chakra since thats the highest and will produce the strongest effect. If you succeed, youll probably notice that it feels very uncomfortable, and youll probably become a bit nauseous. Thats why most magicians will usually use their lower chakras to raise energy like this. #21. Raising Energy, pt 2 Now were going to raise energy from ourselves. Start by laying in bed naked. Spend a few seconds relaxing and clearing your mind. Now do exercise #13 and find all seven of your chakras. Then continue and find all of the chakras in your hands and feet, and any other smaller chakras you may be familiar with. After that, do exercise #14, and activate all of these chakras that you just found. Just do your best to produce energy from each one, and dont worry about drawing in or pushing out energy. Now try to think about and activate all of those chakras at once so they all produce energy. If its too much for you to focus on all of those chakras right now, then just focus on as many as you can (but in the future try to keep adding more chakras to that number). The most important chakras to activate are the seven major chakras, so eliminate those chakras last. Once youve activated these chakras, try to produce as much energy as you can from each. Youre now raising energy into the room, as much as you possibly can. Maybe you dont want this energy in the room though. Maybe you want this energy for yourself. Your chakras naturally push most of the energy they produce outward (this way your body doesnt hold excess energy, which for most people usually isnt a good thing, but its often necessary for magicians to do this). What you need to do is turn your chakras inward so the energy goes into your body instead of into the general area.

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To do this, as youre creating energy with a chakra, also pull energy through that chakra into yourself. Now the energy will go into you instead, and you should fill up with energy fairly quickly. You might not be able to both create energy and pull energy in with all of your chakras at once. You may have to limit yourself to even less chakras to do both acts at the same time. If youre having a lot of trouble, you can start by doing it with just one chakra at a time, and keep practicing it until you can do it with multiple chakras at once. Once you get a certain amount of energy into you, your body will naturally start pushing large amounts of energy out, because its not going to be able to hold that much energy. The more you do these exercises though, the more energy youll be able to do. A word of caution, carrying around large amounts of energy can cause problems. Once you feel like your bodys starting to push out large amounts of the energy that youre taking in, you should stop the exercise. You dont want to take too much energy in. At the same time its a good idea to ground out after doing this exercise. That technique is explained in the next exercise. #22. Grounding Out Grounding is the act of pushing energy out of your body and into the ground. Excess energy can be harmful and difficult to control, and grounding is a way to get rid of that energy. Grounding is also a way to get rid of energy that may be harmful to us or disruptive to whatever were currently trying to do, or energy that just isnt compatible with us. When we ground there is usually a backwash effect. Some energy from the Earth will come into us. Typically when a person grounds its because the energy in them is causing a problem, and so there is usually an energy imbalance. Getting rid of the offending energy helps to correct this imbalance, and the backwash of Earth energy helps balance them further. You do need to be careful though when the energy of an area feels off or yucky. When you ground in an area like that, theres a good chance some of that energy will flow through you from the backwash. Like raising energy, all you need is an indirect connection to the ground. You can even do this from the top of a skyscraper, because youre still touching something that ultimately connects back to the ground. You could theoretically even ground while flying in a plane or jumping through the air, but its much more difficult. When many magicians ground they touch the floor with their hand. This is unnecessary though. You can easily ground out through your feet, and I suggest learning how to do this. Standing still for a moment while you ground is a lot less conspicuous than bending down to touch the ground. Grounding may also be seen as a

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sign of weakness in some situations, and you may not always want to show that weakness. The reason why some magicians touch the ground is twofold. First off, many magicians find it easier to work with the chakras on their hands than the ones on their feet, mainly because they use the ones on their hands more often and havent taken the time to train their feet chakras. Secondly the ritual aspect of touching the ground helps them ground. It may be easier to learn how to ground by using your hands, but after some practice you should be able to easily move on to doing it with your feet. To begin, you need to fill your body with enough energy so youll have something to ground. The easiest way to get this energy is by performing exercise #21. If you havent perfected exercise #21 yet, then you can charge a stone for a few days for the same effect. To charge a stone you should push energy into the stone several times a day without ever taking energy out. Keep doing this for three or four days, and you should hopefully have accumulated a sizable amount of energy by then. Alternatively you can place the stone on an altar to a deity for a day or two and ask that deity to charge the stone for you. This method may not work though. Once you have the stone charged, pull the energy out and let it fill your body. To ground, place your hand on the floor. Next move as much of the energy in your body as you can into your forearm. Continue to push the energy into your hand. Activate one of the chakras on your hand. Your Palm Chakra is probably going to be the best one to use, but you can use whichever one you feel most comfortable with. Push the energy through your hand, through the chakra, and into the floor. When you push out the energy, make sure you do so with the intent that its going into the Earth and not just the floor. There will probably be some sort of backwash effect which will occur naturally. If you wish to increase this effect, after you finish grounding pull energy up from floor through your hand, with the intent that the energy is coming from the Earth. The ritual is done with your feet in almost the exact same way. The only difference is that the energy has to be moved down your body and into your legs, and you have to use your feet chakras to push the energy out. You dont have to be barefoot to ground out through your feet either. It may help, but your feet are touching your socks, which touch your shoes, which touch the floor. #23 Touch and Draw Remember the chakras that exist on your fingertips? Where going to start using those, and were pretty much going to do the exact same thing we did with the Palm Chakra when we drew energy out of the stone.

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Your fingertips contain little chakras, and those chakras can be used to draw energy out of things. Last time we used gemstones, which hold a fairly large amount of energy, and which have fairly strong and unique taints on their energy. Now were going to start doing this to other objects to see how they feel. Right now, place your fingertips on the wall next to you. Activate the chakras and draw energy through them, the same way you drew energy out the stone through your Palm Chakra. Dont just draw from the surrounding area, but intend to draw specifically from the wall. Use visualizations if you need to. The energy of a particular wall is going to vary due to a wide variety of factors. But your wall probably didnt have as much energy in it as a gemstone, and the energy was probably a bit harder to distinguish. As you get better at energy manipulation youll become more sensitive, and youll be able to better work with smaller amounts of energy, and better able to distinguish the more subtle differences of an energy. Now start walking around and touching things, and pulling energy out of them. What does your computer desk feel like? Your computer monitor? The door to your room? A piece of glass? A piece of plastic? The pavement outside? Get in the habit of touching things, and get in the habit of drawing energy out of everything you touch. This is an exercise you can always be doing as you go about your day, especially once you become proficient enough to quickly draw out energy and identify it. This method is fine on inanimate objects, but never use this method on living things like people, animals, or even house plants, and never use this method on spirits. Doing so is a kind of vampirism, and theres a lot of other crap that goes along with that. Plus it can be harmful to draw energy out of a living thing that way. There is a nonvampiric method to feel out the energy of something living or a spirit, and Im going to explain that in a future exercise. This exercise is going to do three things. First its going to get you used to drawing energy into your body through a chakra, and your going to become more and more proficient at doing that, especially when youre drawing in energy all day long. Secondly its going to train you how to identify different energies, and youre going to become more and more proficient at noticing those subtle differences. Lastly its going to expose you to a lot of different energies and youre going to start to get an idea of what a lot of different things feel like. Later on, when you feel an energy that is the same as or similar to an energy youve already felt, youll have a better idea of what that means. #24 Barefoot, Again This is a variation on #23, and its going to make use of the barefootedness weve had to endure because of exercise #5.

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What were going to do is start using the chakras in our feet to draw energy out of the ground as we walk. Were not going to draw energy out of the Earth, like we did when we were raising energy, but instead were going to start drawing energy out of whatever were walking on. Things like wood floors, carpet, cement, dirt, whatever. Start by standing up right now, and drawing in energy from the floor beneath you. This is done exactly like exercise #23, except youre using your feet chakras instead of your hand chakras. Activate the chakras, then pull in the energy directly beneath you. If you need to, visualize your feet chakras sucking in energy from the floor, kind of like a vacuum cleaner. Unlike the previous exercise, it really isnt that important to use a specific chakra. As was explained earlier, most people will be okay if they only ever train one or two chakras on their feet. The middle chakras are the strongest though, and will probably be the easiest ones for most people to use. Now walk into another room and repeat the exercise, and then into another room, and then outside. You should start by doing this exercise whenever possible when you walk into a new room. Once you get a little bit better, you can start doing it whenever you walk onto a different type of ground. Once you become really fast at it, you can start doing it with every step you take. You can even perform this exercise when you need to wear shoes, although it will be more difficult. This exercise will help teach you a few different things. First it will give you an idea of what all the things youre walking on feel like, energy wise. Secondly its going to specifically train the chakras in your feet, and get you used to using them and make them stronger. Lastly its going to give you even more experience working with energy in general. You may notice that your feet chakras seem weaker than your hand chakras. Actually these chakras are naturally more powerful, its just that most of us are used to using our hand chakras more often. It also doesnt help that most people will wr ap their feet up in layers of socks and shoes the majority of the time. Comparatively, outside of a few special occasions like playing in the snow or performing a prostate exam, our hands are usually left naked and were able to touch things with our skin. #25. Converting Energy pt 1 The goal of this exercise is to start learning how to convert energy. In order to begin this exercise, you need to be in an emotional state. You can either work yourself into an emotional state, or wait for one to occur naturally. It really doesnt matter what kind of emotional state youre in, but I do suggest a positive emotional state, if for no other reason then it will be more pleasant for you. The stronger the emotional state, the easier this exercise will be, so if youre having trouble with it try working yourself up more. Having a weaker emotional state will better work your abilities though.

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Okay, youre having an emotional state. Im assuming its one of those states associated with your Heart Chakra, so Im going to talk about putting energy into your chest. If its something associated with a different chakra, like say fear, youre going to have to move the energy to that chakra instead. Now go grab one of your stones. It doesnt matter which. The more energy thats in the stone the better, so a charged stone would be best. If you dont have a charged stone handy, you can still do the exercise. It just wont work your abilities as well. Youre going to have to do these next parts quickly, because youre only going to h ave a limited amount of time to do this. Hold the stone in the palm of your hand and start drawing energy out of it. Take this energy and start moving it into your chest where your emotional energy is. Now push the emotional energy inside of you into this new energy. Have the emotional energy envelope and surround it. It should now start changing it, and the new energy should start becoming like the emotional energy. With this exercise, at least at first, youre probably going to have a lot more emotional energy than what you take in from the stone. You dont need that much energy to convert though. Once you get the process down, you should be able to convert very large amounts of energy using only small amounts of energy. #26 Energy Conversion Pt 2 This time were going to do the same thing as exercise #25, except were going to reverse the process. First get a lot of energy inside yourself. You can either raise the energy and place the majority of it in your chest, or wait until youre in an emotional state. Now pick up a stone, and start pulling the stones energy into you and towards the other energy in your body. This time were going to have the stones energy envelope the energy already inside of us. Unless the stones particularly powerful, or youre producing relatively small amounts of energy (in which case you need to keep working on the earlier exercises), you should have a lot more energy inside of you than in the stone. So this exercise will be a bit more difficult, but its essentially the exact same process as the previous exercise. Bonus Exercise #1: Couplet Im listing this as a bonus exercise because not everyones going to be able to do it. If you cant its no big deal. You can continue on with the other exercises and still learn how to manipulate energy. There are no essential skills that youll learn from this exercise that Ill be incorporating into future exercises. If you are able to do this though, this is a very cool and sweet exercise you can perform with someone special.

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To begin you need a partner, and both of you should either be adept at energy manipulation, or learning it. Anyone whose made it through part 2 of this guide should be fine. I really suggest doing this with someone youre in a romantic relationship with. So long as both people are comfortable with the exercise, you can do it with a close friend or even an acquaintance. However the exercise is so personal that most people arent going to feel comfortable doing it with someone theyre not in a romantic relationship with. It also requires some degree of trust. To begin, both partners should undress and sit cross-legged on the floor across from each other, looking each other in the eyes. Both should extend their left hands out with their palms facing upwards. Now each should take their right hand and place it over their partners left forearm. Both should now start moving their energy into their right hand and then pushing it into their partners body. More experienced magicians may wish to pull energy into themselves from their partner with their left hand at the same time at the same time that theyre pushing energy out with the right. This will make the process easier. You need to be very careful if you do this though. If one person is stronger than the other, they can end up pulling in significantly more energy than theyre giving away and drain their partner. This can make their partner sick, and in extreme cases it can be fatal. However a magician who lacks so much control over energy that they might kill someone by draining them almost certainly wouldnt be strong enough to kill someone in this way. When you just push in, you have control over how much you give away, and you probably wont lose so much more than youre going to make yourself sick. When someone is pulling, they need to have enough awareness and control to make sure they arent taking more than theyre giving away, or their partner needs to be adept enough to control how much they can take. If youre doing this in order to build up your energy manipulation skills, its best to switch hands halfway through the exercise so that youre pushing with the left and receiving with the right. If youre just doing this to enjoy the other person though, theres no reason to switch hands. With this exercise, both participants are going to be giving their energy, and in a sense their essence, to the other person to feel them out, and at the same time theyre going to be feeling out their partner. For some the nudity will add an additional element of intimacy to the exercise. Even putting that aside though, the exercise is still very emotionally intimate. Each participant is allowing the other to feel them at a very deep emotional and spiritual level, and the energy of both participants is intermixing and running through both bodies. In a certain limited spiritual sense, the two are becoming as one, and theres no clear line between where one ends and the other begins. CONCLUSIONS

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I wanted to do a lot more with this section. I wanted to add more exercises dealing with energy conversion. I also wanted to add an exercise that dealt with how to feel out the energy of living things. To do that one though, Im first going to have to first add at least two more exercises, maybe more, to teach some techniques I havent gone through yet. This article has already gotten very long, and several of exercises I covered ended up being split into two exercises instead of one. So these things are going to have to wait until part 3, and there will be a part 3 for sure. Eventually anyways. The exercises in part 1 were fairly simple, and dealt a lot with energy sensing. Part two has dealt almost exclusively with internal energy manipulation. The exercises have become a lot more complex, but theyve been worked up to by building on what came before them. Exercise #24 or #26 shouldnt be any more complicated than exercise #1 if youve mastered everything that came before it. Its also gotten to the point where I dont have to explain every little thing. To someone who has gone through all 26 exercises, I can simply tell them to move energy to a particular part of their body, or put it into a stone, or draw it out of an item and into their hand. I no longer have to explain the techniques to do these things. Not only that, but people whove gotten to this point should be starting to figure out a lot of things about energy manipulation for themselves. Still Ill continue to give more exercises in part 3. That part will deal mostly with external energy manipulation. Now that you can move energy around inside your body, youll start to learn how to move it around outside your body. Im also going to have some more exercises on energy conversion, mainly because this article just didnt have room for them. These things take a lot of time and work to put up. Exercises are really hard to figure out and write up. The only thing worse are rituals. It took me almost a year to do part 2. I dont expect to wait as long before I finish part 3, but it might take me a while. Im not making any promises for future instalments past part three, mainly because I dont know how Ill feel about doing that much work. Right now I want to do five or six parts. Part four will deal with internal energy balancing, and part five will cover advanced techniques. Part six, if I even decide to do it, will have even more advanced techniques. Whether or not theres a part six will really depend on how many things I want to cover. As before, if youre doing these exercises feel free to let me know how its coming along. If something isnt easy to understand, or youre having trouble with one of them, let me know. It may just be a simple clarification. Or I may need to add a new exercise to work some ability I hadnt thought about. If you let me know about the issue I can not only fix the exercises for you, but I can fix it for everyone else as well.

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Magick 101: Grounding

January 17, 2008 I was looking at that really big site I dislike that shall remain nameless, and this week they have yet another article up about grounding, and the definition of the term is different than every other article theyve put up on grounding. So far Ive seen about eight different articles on that site about grounding, and not one has had the correct definition, granted I dont read it every week. The situation isnt entirely their fault though, I dont think Ive seen the correct definition for grounding anywhere on the Internet, ever. And its sad because grounding is one of the basic maneuvers of energy manipulation and an important form of defense. So, due to popular misconception, grounding defined. To begin with, the term grounding is not originally a magickal term. It was hijacked by the community because of similarities in what happens. Outside of magick, the terms grounding and grounded are references to the way in which electricity operates and moves. To be grounded means that there is either a direct or indirect connection between you and the Earth through which electricity can move. The thing about electricity is that it moves towards the ground, and unless you provide a clear path to the ground, it wont move through you. For example, if you jump in the air and touch an exposed electrical wire, nothing happens. But if you stand on the ground and touch the same wire, you get electrocuted. If youre not touching the ground, electricity wont move through you. This process is why birds can sit on power lines and not get fried. This is also true whether youre standing on dirt or at the top of a ten story building. You dont need to be directly touching the ground, you just need to have a connection to it for a pathway to form. Of course this pathway can be blocked by substances that conduct electricity poorly, such as rubber. Moving on to magickal grounding, although techniques differ and there are a few variations of the term with bastardizations of the word, the very basic definition of grounding is touching the ground and pushing energy out of yourself and into the Earth, in a sense very similar to how electricity would move through you into the ground. Much like the way in which electricity works, you dont have to be touching the physical ground in order to ground. You can just as easily do it from the tenth story of a building. Unlike electricity though, you dont need to be touching the ground at all to do it. You could, if you wanted to, ground while flying through the air. Although the term usually refers to putting energy into the Earth, it can also refer to putting energy into other things. When two people have sex, under normal circumstances, both participants forcefully push their energies into their partner who in turn receives them passively. This act, putting your energy into someone else like this, is often times referred to as grounding into them, for example.

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There are a few different reasons why a person would want to ground. If they had managed to acquire stronger energy then they were capable of managing, if they had absorbed energy that was incompatible with them or was otherwise harmful or imbalancing, if energy was having an undesired effect on mood, if something attacks by infecting the practitioner with energy their energy, ect. There are of course other methods a person could use for the same effects. They could cleanse themselves, they could bleed out unwanted energy, or they could convert energy. Each of these techniques are best used under certain circumstances, but at times grounding is the best method to use. One of the main advantages of grounding is its speed and ease of use. For those who are at least a little practiced at energy manipulation, touching their hand to the ground is enough of a ritual aid to effectively and quickly ground, although touching the ground is a superfluous act and grounding can be achieved without doing so. The other big advantage is that the energy goes into the Earth. Energy has to go somewhere, and energy can do things and attract things, and with grounding you have a safe place to put it. The Earth is a huge renewable source of energy that is quite capable of taking care of itself. Most likely theres nothing you can hold in your body that would be enough to hurt the planet or even pollute it for long, and even in the case of a reverse flow you most likely couldnt take enough energy into yourself to put a dent in Earths reserves. Finally, so long as a person isnt discriminatory, grounding can be used to push out large amounts of energy at near instantaneous speeds. For these reasons, grounding is usually the best course of action when the practitioner is being attacked with negativity or otherwise being manipulated by energy, or anytime the practitioner has absorbed energy which is immediately harming them. Even though it may be crude and a bit of overkill, because of its speed and ease its usually the best method when engaged in a fight. Bleeding is taking specific energy in the practitioners body and pushing it out from any point. Bleeding is a bit tougher to accomplish than grounding and generally takes much longer, especially when the practitioner is being very meticulous about what has to go out and what should stay in. Bleeding also just releases the energy and doesnt put it anywhere, although the method could be modified to release the energy into the Earth, but this makes bleeding even more difficult to accomplish and will make it take even longer. Bleeding is best used when the real danger isnt immediate and the practitioner has a lot of time to work with, not only because of the longer time it takes to bleed energy, but also so their is ample time to diffuse the energy without much build-up. Because a person cant ground out all of their energy, in cases where the offending energy is severe and deeply imbedded in the practitioner a bleed can effectively rid the practitioner of the energy where simple grounding cannot. Also in cases where the

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practitioner has managed to isolate the offending energy into one area of their body, bleeding will push the energy out at its position, where as grounding will use large amounts of energy to flush the offending energy through the practitioners body, using them as a conduit, and possibly infecting the entirety of their body with the energy. Cleansing, meanwhile, can remove energy, but at the same time the process was meant to do much more. Cleansing tends to be a bit more complicated than grounding, and many people are dependent on ritual aid in order to cleanse themselves. With practice cleansings can be done psionically and very quickly, but typically practitioners will still get better results via ritual, meaning these are essentially weak cleansings. Cleansing was meant to remove not only negative energy, but also outside energy and anything else that may have attached itself to the practitioner, while at the same time helping the practitioner rebalance themselves. Using cleansing to get rid of energy is like vacuuming tile. Itll clean it some, but youll do a better job with a broom and a mop. Cleansing, like bleeding, also just dumps the energy, although unlike bleeding it does it all at once, not giving it much of a chance to dissipate. This is why, if youre a practitioner, more likely than not your shower is haunted. Although cleansing and grounding overlap somewhat, each has specific purposes for which theyre best suited, and as a replacement to grounding cleansing does a worse job while requiring more of the practitioner. Finally theres energy conversions, in which energy is taken in and converted to whatever the practitioner wants it to be. Although this is, in many ways, superior to the other methods, its not without its problems. To begin with, an energy conversion will do nothing if the practitioner needs to ground because they have too much energy inside them. Secondly an energy conversion can be very complicated. Not only can it take a long time, but it can require a lot of a practitioner, especially when they are dealing with stronger energies or large amounts of energy. Even when an energy conversion may be the best option, there still may be a good chance that the practitioner isnt yet capable of doing it. And lastly, there are times when you may not want anything to do with the energy at all for various reasons. In the end a conversion is good for conserving large amounts of energy the practitioner may want to use, but at times its easiest just to throw it into the ground and be done with it.

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Shielding, Part I
June 7, 2006 Its now become typical that shielding is one of the first things taught to new practitioners. Shields can be used to defend against attacks, to keep harmful energy away from the practitioner, and to keep harmful entities from getting to the practitioner. It seems as if theres nothing shields cant do. Shielding is also one of the easiest forms of psionic magick to learn. In fact, humans tend to shield themselves naturally, and its very rare to find a person who naturally has no shields. We use shields to stop people from attaching to us emotionally, and to stop ourselves from attaching to people emotionally. We use shields to protect ourselves from the negative emotions being cast out by others. And we use shields to hide our true thoughts and emotions from those around us. As great as shields are, they cause to problems. First off, the protection granted by the shield is only an illusion. There is no such thing as animpenatrable shield. Any shield can be penatrated , as can any barrier or ward. The practitioner who has not developed adequate offensive skills because they believed their shield would be enough to protect them will be at a major disadvantage when their shield goes down, or when it ends up being used against them. The second problem with a shield is that it limits the practitioner. Sometimes a practitioner needs to feel out the energy around them, attach into the things around them,ect. A shield can make it impossible for a practitioner to perform very basic psionic magick . And the better the shield is, the more difficult it will be for the practitioner. The shield is the illusion of the barricade. What seems to be a protect the practitioner from everything outside is actually a prison from it. Power lies within versatility. A practitioner who can put up and take down their shield at will is far more powerful than one who cannot take down their shield. Learning how to take down ones shield is actually the difficult part. Once that is figured out, a person can usually figure out how to put the shield back up without much effort, and take it down again whenever it pleases them to do so. Moreso, putting up and taking down a shield is such a basic act that any competent practitioner should know how to do both. How to take down ones shield should be one of the very first things that is learned.

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Shielding, Part II
June 13, 2006 Let me apologize for the typos in part I. Ick. In the last part I had mentioned that the first thing a person should learn to do is take down their shields. So how do you do that? Heres a simple exercise. Get four very close friends of mixed genders. Now relax yourself and remain relaxed. Now take off all of your clothes, and without covering any part of you tell your friends every secret you have about yourself, everything you think and feel about them, and be absolutely honest about everything and make no effort not to share or hide anything. Dont be nervous or shy, be relaxed and let everything just go right through you. After youve done this, repeat the exercise with four strangers. Okay, thats a bit extreme, but if you did it and continued to live your life in that manner for a period of time, it would probably work. Realistically though most of us will choose a path that is a bit slower. But then again, some people are probably turned on by the idea of being naked in front of four strangers while telling all of their deepest, darkest secrets. But this method is the basics of what needs to be done. The barriers we have put up to hide behind need to be taken down. We need to expose ourselves completely and leave ourselves completely vulnerable, and let everything pass through us and come out as it develops. This is a state of being without any kind of defense. Not only do we have to work on taking down the shields that protect us from others, be we also need to work on taking down the shields that we use on ourselves. We need to be able to expose ourselves completely to ourselves. This means taking the time to look at exactly what we are, what are personality really is, and what our flaws are. And we need to be brutally honest about exactly what we are and not try to shy away from it, or justify it, or repress it, or hide behind something else, but rather admit to it. Until we know the truth about ourselves, we cant be honest about what we are to others. It also means being comfortable with ourselves, both physically and mentally. We shouldnt be ashamed of the type of person we are, nor should we be ashamed of our bodies. You dont have to be a saint, everyone has their issues. Likewise you dont have to look pretty, you can be completely hideous. But you need to be able to deal with that and accept that and be proud of what you are regardless of what that is. And of course, once youre completely comfortable with what you are, its going to be so much easier to stand naked in front of four strangers while telling them everything about yourself. Im not encouraging people to try the above exercise, even though it would probably work.

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The next step, once youve managed to be honest and comfortable with yourself, is to expose yourself to others (metaphorically!). Be honest with people. Tell them how you really feel. Let them know about you, the stuff you normally dont tell anyone. The problem here is that everyone is different. Some people have very light shields and are usually very honest. Other people have very thick shields and try to keep everyone out. You have to be self-aware and honest enough with yourself to identify what it is about you that you keep from others. It isnt enough to just be honest about the things youre willing to be honest about. You have to find the things you would neve r want the other person to know about you or see in you, and expose them to that. Try to have a more intimate relationship with most people. And I dont like mentioning nudity because of the reputation it has within the magick community, but this is an area where it can be very useful. With people who are very modest its almost necessary that they expose themselves sometime within this process. But even for most people, casual nudity is something that is generally regarded as very intimate and reserved for only a handful of people. Because of that it can really speed up the process and help with taking down ones shields. On the other hand, if a person is a nudist, it probably wont help them at all. But theyll probably want to do all of this naked anyways.

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Empath Sickness
May 27, 2011 Empath sickness is probably the most common problem found among practitioners of magic and naturally gifted psychics. It seems to be a problem among members of every single magical religion and spiritual group. If you havent yet suffered from it yourself, the odds are youve seen others talking about it online or within your own real life spiritual groups. Its a fairly large problem within the community. Its also a fixable problem. There are techniques to manage empath sickness that, if used correctly, are 100% effective. Unfortunately though many ritual magicians, among both Pagans and Ceremonialists, believe that every single magical problem can be fixed through shielding or banishing rituals. So the advice given to anyone suffering from empath sickness, usually by people who have never suffered from it, is that they need to shield better. Shielding is at best a temporary fix for empath sickness and it causes a crapload of other problems. Typically the person suffering from empath sickness will stop shielding even before it starts to become ineffective, because their ability to function is hindered even more from the shielding than from the empath sickness. Symptoms of Empath Sickness: The most common symptom of empath sickness is a fear of crowds, also known as agoraphobia. In the early stages of empath sickness, the empath will just be uncomfortable around crowds, and then later they will be noticeably agitated by them. As the agitation and discomfort get worse, the person may start actively trying to avoid crowded places, and this is the point where it really starts to affect their day to day life. At its worst a person may become terrified of crowds, and may be averse to any action that would put them into contact with a crowd. In the same way, an empath may eventually develop a fear of smaller groups. Usually an empath can manage everything okay if the group is small enough, but as their empath sickness gets worse, sometimes smaller groups can cause a problem too. A person suffering from empath sickness may also have issues dealing with individual people, especially if they are very emotional. This usually wont be an issue until the empath sickness has already progressed very far. At this point the empath may become a shut-in and start to avoid prolonged contact with anyone. Someone suffering from empath sickness may also have issues dealing with certain places. This can be anything from a small area, like a house, to an entire city. How bad this symptom will be depends partially on how strong the energy is in the area, how combative it is, and how compatible it is with the empath.

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What Causes Empath Sickness As we all know, when we want to work magic we manipulate energy and move it in different ways. Energy doesnt just appear when we do magic though. Energy is a force that exists through out the universe and which is in constant motion. Energy is always around us doing things. Energy is also tied into emotion, and energy carries emotions within it. A person feels a certain emotion, and their body emits that type of energy. That energy then exists in that place for, usually, a short period of time. If another person walks into that energy, they absorb some of it, and that initiates the emotion within them to some degree. This is how empathy works. And everybody does this, not just magicians and psychics and empaths. Every single person on this planet is able to do this empathy trick to some degree. Its how we intuit others feelings and it provides the basis for compassion. An empath is someone who is especially sensitive to this information. They feel it much stronger than most others do. A person may be born this sensitive, or they may train themselves to become this sensitive. Being sensitive comes with a lot of advantages. An empath is better able to identify the specific emotions of another, they are better able to identify who the emotions belong to, and they are better able to quantify the severity of the emotion. Being able to sense energy at that higher level also aids in energy manipulation, which is what magicians do. Part of the problem is that not all emotions are good. You may not want to feel someone elses heartbreak or rage. Another problem is that too many emotions become difficult to handle. With a group of say a hundred people, not everyone in that group is going to be feeling the same way. One person may be in love, another excited, another on the verge of suicide, and so on and so forth. At least a few of those people are probably going to have very intense emotions. An empath is going to take all of those different emotions in at once. Its a chaotic emotional experience where the empath is pulled in a lot of different directions at once and has no idea how to feel. Its a very uncomfortable feeling and after a while an empath is going to want to avoid it. A lot of times places will work a lot like people. Different places have certain energies to them, and different cities have different energy themes. These energies will hit an empath much harder than a normal person. If its an energy the empath is compatible with, there probably wont be much of a problem. However if they arent compatible with the energy, it can cause some degree of discomfort. How Empath Sickness Develops A person doesnt just get empath sickness from being an empath. At first theyre usually fine. Then they start to show minor symptoms, and left untreated these symptoms progress and get worse. So why does empath sickness get worse?

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Unless youre born naturally empathic, you have to train yourself to be sensitive. There are also techniques you can use to manage this sensitivity, and these techniques go hand in hand with developing your empathy. Usually a person who is disciplined enough to train their empathic sensitivity is going to be disciplined enough to train the techniques they need to manage it. Empathy however is something youre going to end up using hundreds of times a day. It doesnt have an on switch, its just always on. Every time you walk into a new place, or come near someone, your empathy is going to start up. The best way to train yourself in any magical practice is to practice it, and youre constantly going to be practicing empathy. Once you pass a certain threshold in developing your sensitivity, you dont have to train it anymore. Just by existing, youre going to get better and better and better at it. Its a magical ability that you dont have to do any work to develop. The problem is, those techniques that help you manage your sensitivity, they dont develop themselves once they hit a certain threshold. You need to train those techniques in order to get better at them, and you need to be better at them so that you can keep up with your ever expanding empathic abilities. Its sort of like a race where youre always trying to make sure your empathic abilities dont get ahead of your training. This is why empath sickness, as a serious problem, is more common in naturally born empaths. Many of them never learned some of the energy manipulation techniques they need to control the sensitivity, and theyve never had to show any discipline in developing those abilities. With people who have developed their empathic abilities, its still a problem, but those people usually figure out how to fix it after a while. Often times these types of people stop practicing magic all together, or life gets hectic and they dont have as much time to spend on their magical practice anymore. They stop training the techniques, and the empath sickness eventually hits them. Why Shielding Is A Bad Idea The answer I always see given for how to deal with empath sickness is that a person needs to learn better shielding. That is not a solution to the problem. Theres a problem in the magical community where a lot of people seem to think that shielding and banishing rituals are the best solution for every problem, regardless of what that problem is. Look on any message board where people talk about their magical problems, and every answer will be shielding or a banishing ritual. I can probably write a whole article on this issue, but the people who give these sorts of answers usually arent very good at magic, or even practice it much. Its the sor t of answer that requires very little thought and less first hand experience. The first issue with shielding is it cuts off your empathy. All of the cool advantages you get from being an empath go away, and now youre expending energy and using magic to be a mundane person. However people who suffer from empath sickness

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dont just start suffering from empath sickness. Many have been using empathy for years before this happens, and many were born with an empathic sensitivity. When a normal person interacts with another, there are certain signals that help them determine how that person feels right now. Things like tone of voice, body language, and even verbal clues hidden in what they say. Empathic people though have an extra advantage. Theyre able to sense their energy and get an idea of how the person feels. If a person starts talking to them and then starts pushing out sexual energy, that person probably has a crush on them. With such a huge advantage, empaths never have to bother to learn those normal signals and how regular people interact with one another, and many of them never do. Some used to be able to interact with others normally, but after years of being empathic theyve kind of forgotten how. If you take someone like that and cut off their empathic ability, they become unable to interact with other people. All of a sudden they dont know how they should be acting in a social situation. They cant tell if a person is flirting with them or just being polite. They cant tell when a person needs to be comforted, or when a person is angry at them. A lot of times not knowing what to do will make them nervous in social situations, and this issue will only become worse after a few awkward moments. Eventually they may not want to be around people at all because they develop a fear of social interaction. This is why many empaths who have some success with shielding eventually stop doing it. If youre a practicing magician, shielding will also severely limit your magical ability. Not only are you expending energy to sustain the shield, but the shield makes it difficult and even impossible to manipulate energy outside of yourself, or sense whats going on around you metaphysically. The worst thing any practicing magician can ever do is constantly shield. The other problem with shielding is that it doesnt stop a person from developing their sensitivity. Youre still going to become a better empath while shielding. This means your shield will be less effective, and the only way to fix this is to make your shield stronger. This means your shield is going to be pulling more and more energy off you, making you metaphysically weaker, and eventually it wont be able to compete with your empathic ability at all. So Whats The Solution To deal with empath sickness you need to develop two abilities. The first is the ability to balance energy. This takes energy which is intense and instead focuses it in a calm way. That way the emotion can still be felt, but it takes the edge off it. The second thing that needs to be developed is the ability to convert energy. You need to be able to take one kind of energy and turn it into another. In fact, eventually you should learn how to take dozens of kinds of energies and turn them into a single type.

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This is easily done with simple energy manipulation. Pull energy into yourself, change it to another type of energy, and push it out. Pull energy into yourself and calm it, then push it out. You can pick up twenty different kinds of gemstones from any occult shop for $20. Each of these gemstones is going to contain a different kind of energy you can pull out and play with to your hearts content. You can also just sit and meditate and mess with the energy inside yourself. It really doesnt take much time, it just takes constant practice. Ideally youd want to spend ten to fifteen consecutive minutes every day practicing. Realistically though, if you arent having any problems, fifteen minutes once a week should be enough to keep you well. If you are suffering from empath sickness, Id suggest doing ten minutes or more every day at least until youre feeling well.

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Magick 101: Meditation & Trance: An FAQ

February 14, 2009

What is meditation? Meditation is the act of actively calming your body and mind and bringing yourself to a state of rest and mental clarity, typically with the intention of achieving trance. How do I meditate? Most, especially the inexperienced, begin meditation by bringing their body to a relaxed state. If you are new to meditation, its best to begin during a time when youre already tired and relaxed. To start, sit or lay down in a comfortable relaxed position. Close your eyes, and let your body relax itself, but be careful not to fall asleep. Some find that incense, music, or calming white noise aids in relaxing themselves and clearing their mind. Next ones mind needs to be brought to a calm and relaxed state, which is more difficult than calming ones body. Tricks like counting ones breath or focusing on an unanswerable problem are counter-productive to achieving trance and should be avoided. Generally one should attempt to clear ones mind, or else to calmly focus on those things which will be dealt with during the meditation. All thought needs to flow without excitement or stress or anxiety, or any other emotion. The mind needs to slow itself down. During meditation one should be introspective, detail oriented, and analytical slowly spending however much time is needed on each thing. One should refrain from thinking quickly or covering many things in a short period and from thinking about things that illicit emotion. Once the mind begins to relax and some level of clarity is achieved, the practitioner should then allow the mind to wander where it may, to look at whatever comes up. What is the purpose of Meditation? Meditation provides many benefits to the practitioner over time. It helps to strengthen ones mental capacities including concentration and focus, and also allows one more control over the physical aspects of their body, and at the same time mediation becomes easier as one continues to practice it. However the typical purpose of a meditation session is to achieve trance. What is trance? Trance is an altered state of consciousness in which the mind is more finely attuned and working at a higher level. A person in a state of trance has a greater degree of focus, clarity, and concentration. Additionally almost all of their psychic abilities are working at a higher level, including psionic magick, channeling, energy manipulation,

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divination, past life regression, and remote viewing. A person in a trance state has greater access to their subconscious and untapped mental and magickal potential. A person in this state may experience changes in personality, regressions, and a higher intelligence. What does trance feel like? The best thing that it can be compared to is the state an exhausted person is in shortly before they fall asleep, where they are still awake and actively aware of their surroundings but their mind is wandering and creating images and dreams seem to be flooding in, except that one is wide awake, and the mind seems more focused. Beyond that, it can only be said that it must be experienced in order for it to be explained because it is not completely like anything else. What can be done with trance? Many things can be done in trance. Channeling, remote viewing, and speaking with entities and ghosts are all easier to do in trance. Energy manipulation, psionic magick, and spell and ritual work are all more powerful when done in a trance state. Many practitioners like to use meditation for past life regressions and to balance their energy (and sometimes its almost mandatory to balance energy). Puzzling over riddles and questions or general introspection are easier to do in trance, partly because of ones heightened mental state and access to their subconscious, but also because things like channeling, divination, and remote viewing are easier in this state and may lend new information to aid in solving the problem. Are there different degrees of trance? Yes. There are light trances in which the practitioners state of consciousness has barely been altered at all, all the way up to heavy trances where the practitioner may even appear to be asleep. Generally, the heavier the trance the more powerful the trance. One should note though that sometimes, while attempting to achieve trance, practitioners fall asleep, so it may just be that a practitioner has fallen asleep and has not achieved trance at all. Is meditation necessary to achieve trance? No. Trance can be achieved without meditation, especially by one who has spent time training themselves to achieve trance in meditation. Spell and ritual work and large amounts of raised energy may also trigger trance in an individual. What is the relationship between trance and spellwork/ritual? Trance amps up any spell or ritual work and makes the practitioner much more powerful. For any type of spell or ritual work the practitioner should, at some point during the working, achieve trance, at least lightly if not heavily. For powerful spells that require large amounts of energy, a trance state is pretty much mandatory for

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success. What is the relationship between trance and psionic magick? The same as that between trance and spellwork/ritual. Most who are, well, talented are able to pull off simple psionics without much effort or need for trance, but for greater feats trance becomes an invaluable aid, and in any case will increase the power and success rate of the practitioner. How should I position myself for meditation? The body should be in a relaxed state, either sitting or laying down. The practitioner should feel comfortable and in a position they could, under typical circumstances, fall asleep in. What should I wear for meditation? Meditation can be done wearing anything, or nothing at all, especially by a trained practitioner. If one is just beginning though its best to wear clothing that makes one feel comfortable, as if they are going to bed, and nothing that will make them selfconscious. Clothing that may physically irritate the practitioner and call the attention of their mind should be avoided, as should clothing that makes one too hot or cold (a blanket is fine if one is too cold). Holding or wearing magickally enchanted objects and ritual tools should be avoided during meditation unless they are the reason for the meditation. Is there any benefit to using yogic positions (ie the lotus position)? Certain yogic positions better align the body for energy movement and naturally raise large amounts of energy, both of which aid in meditation and trance, and a practitioner utilizing certain positions will generally have more success and more intense experiences. However in order for the yogic positions to be used one must be at a point in their yoga exercises that they feel completely at ease in the position and their is no pain or undo stress put on the muscles, otherwise the physical and mental strains the yoga positions will put on the practitioner will be more counterproductive to the meditation than helpful. Will drowsiness effect meditation? Typically drowsiness will aid in bringing ones body and mind to a relaxed state and may make meditation easier, the only downside being that one may end up falling asleep instead. Will energy effect meditation or trance? Large amounts of energy will aid the meditation and make achieving trance easier, and it will intensify the trance once it is achieved. The type of energy used, however, may

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taint process and could effect the direction in which the mind is drawn. How do I meditate on a question? Simply keep the question in your mind and ponder it during meditation, and hopefully it will still be your focus when you hit trance. Not only will you be more adept at answering the question in trance, but you may also be able to break free and channel other sources, remote view related things, divine into the future, and you may draw entities more knowledgable about the subject to you for conversation. How do I meditate on an object? Generally you should be holding or wearing the object during meditation, or have it close to you. You should focus and concentrate on the object during meditation, and hopefully take that focus into trance. Its almost exactly like meditating on a question.

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Mood And Magic

November 29, 2011

I had a really bad year once. I dont mean bad like I went goth or started listening to nothing but Supertramp, but I had about a year where I wasnt feeling very happy. It was just a jumble of events that kept occurring which were sad, or depressing, or stressful. It was a lot of things, and its not like I just broke down and had a nervous breakdown one day. But slowly, and very gradually, my mood shifted to being not so pleasant. During this time my spirituality started to change. I started seeing spirits less and less, and eventually not at all. I stopped hearing them when they talked too. My ability to sense energy started to diminish. I could still notice the energy movements directly around me, but it took effort, and I couldnt feel all that much. I could still gather up information, but I had to forcibly channel, and meditate, and concentrate. I could still speak with specific spirits, but I had to try really hard, and what I heard came in really weak. Magically, I could still do magic, I could still fall back on my favorite rituals, but it was much more difficult, and I was succeeding less and less. Psionic magic started to become very difficult. I used to sometimes accidently make things happen by just wanting them, and that spontaneous ability seemed to leave me. Everything seemed to be effected, including things like divination, astral projection, and glamours. I wasnt completely defenseless, and I wasnt completely stripped of my magical ability. I could still cast a spell or jump into a witch war if I had to, but that sort of stuff took a lot of effort, and I was far weaker than I remembered being. It happened so gradually, I didnt even notice it happening at first, and by the time I did start to notice, I had started to forget the way I used to be. And when that happened, it sparked some doubt in me. Maybe my spiritual beliefs were all fantasies or delusions. Maybe I am, or was, a seriously disturbed individual. All of these things I had memories of seeing and feeling, I wasnt feeling anymore, and I was starting to wonder if I ever really did. Then I had a really good day. It was actually a good week that culminated into a really good day. I remember visiting the park that night, and I felt everything. It was a large park, and I could feel every blade of grass and animal and insect in the place. And every person, including the girl I went with. And I knew everything each of them was

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feeling, and what they all felt like on the inside, spiritually speaking. In the same way, I could feel of the spirits there too. I could see them walking around, and I could talk to them if I wanted too. The entire park was a sensual overload. And my mind, my mind just opened up all of a sudden. I still knew things, but I didnt know how. There was a fogginess in my head, and stuff would just sort of come out of that. But now that fog was lifted, and it was like I suddenly had multiple minds that were hidden behind that fog, and now I could see how they were working and how everything was figured out logically. I felt like I had become some sort of genius. And thats when I remembered that this is what it should feel like to be me. I should be living in that sensory overload, able to feel the entire universe around me. And my mind should be working at that higher level. I shouldnt just know things, but I should be able to see how Im figuring them out. I should feel my higher connections. Energy should be pouring out of me. I should be seeing, and interacting, with dozens of spirits every day. And my life should be so spiritual that it seems normal to me, and I never have any reason to doubt its reality. I realized that something had been seriously wrong with me, and at the same time any spiritual doubt I may have had was wiped away. Im not telling this story to brag, or to try to gain sympathy for my plight, but to share the lesson of it all: The better your mood, the more spiritually adept you are. We have higher bodies. After our physical and astral bodies, both of which were already very connected to, we have our mental body, or Holy Guardian Angel. Our connection to this body still exists at birth, but its somewhat severed. We can rejoin with this body, as I have, but even if we dont our mood will still effect our magic. Our mental body is powerful. Its full of knowledge and ability. Magically and spiritually speaking, its the greatest source of power we have available to us. Its also a piece of who we are, and without it were all incomplete. Our mental body exists in a place called the heavenly planes, called that because its a seriously happy place. There are of course lots of different places in there, but all of them represent various versions of what some would term heaven. The lowest area of the mental planes is probably close to the theological Christian interpretation of heaven, being a place of perfect love and contentment. Like attracts like, and were drawn towards what is like us, and away from what is unlike us. When my mood started to diminish, I became unlike the heavenly planes, and unlike my mental body. Even though I fully reconnected myself to my mental body, once my mood shifted that connection became strained, and as my mood got worse so too did that connection. As things got worse, it was getting more and more difficult for me to connect to this part of myself.

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Even if I hadnt merged with my mental body and reconnected with it, my mood still wouldve had a negative affect on my magical ability. Just because someone hasnt yet gone through that process of reconnection doesnt mean that they dont have some sor t of connection to their higher self and that they arent gaining something from it. When I had my good day, I became more aligned with the mental planes, and I became more aligned with my mental body, and almost instantly my connection came back. I became whole again. When our mood is positive, we have a stronger connection to the higher planes, and to our higher bodies, and our spirituality and magical abilities are all strengthened. When our mood is negative, our connections to these higher bodies fade, and we become spiritually weaker. Of course it isnt realistic to always be happy or always be in a good mood. However if one wishes to be spiritual, and to be as strong as they can spiritually, then they need to stay away from long periods of negativity. We also need to adjust our mood for magical practice. Magic isnt something that is best practiced in a serious or somber mood, and its definitely not something that should be practiced while enraged, upset, or depressed. Moods such as happiness, joy, and love produce much better results. When we arent in a positive mood, and we need to perform a magical operation, we need to get into one of those moods. Each of us has our own different happy thoughts, and we need to use those to empower ourselves. I listen to punk music, and surround myself with toys and old video games, and think about tv shows and movies and comic books. These are some of my happy things. All the little pictures I put on the posts that are meant to be humorous, or reference some part of my childhood, all the little jokes I make, and all of the references I make to popculture arent just part of my personality, and they definitely arent a sign of immaturity. These are all a crucial part of my spiritual practice. I need these things. They make me stronger. Ive said before that Ive never met a magician that could actually do real magic, to any degree, who didnt also have a good sense of humor. Ive also never been in a successful group ritual that was entirely serious and where there was never a point where people broke out laughing. Theres a reason for that. These things arent distractions. They arent profane. Theyre empowerment. At the same time rage and depression make horrible fuels for a magical operation. Nothing ever seems to work when a magician tries to harness the power of those emotions (yes there are darker magics that can use these things, but Im not talking about those just now, and if youre trying to harness the power of your rage and depression but still doing magic like you normally would, youre not doing it right).

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Somber rituals meanwhile, where everyone goes through the motions and where everyone is afraid theyll ruin everything by adding some levity to the operation, are even worse. Theres no way to even harness that crap.

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Magick 101: Element Theory

May 12, 2010 Note: Im tired right now and I may not have expressed myself as clearly as possible, especially near the end. If I have time later this week I may revise this article to make it clearer. In the mean time though feel free to read what I have, but do so at your own risk. It is a complicated subject, so feel free to ask questions if there is something specific that I can clarify. Because Im currently working on individual articles dealing with the various elemental tools, I thought Id take some time to go over element theory, in other words what are they and where do they come from. Element theory is one of the key concepts in magical understanding, especially in regard to Ceremonial Magick and its derivatives, like Paganism. There is no practical information in this article. Im using the term element as an adjective as opposed to elemental because elemental theory could also imply theories surrounding the magical use of Elementals, which are naturally occurring entities which may also be evoked. Still the information here is very basic foundationary information, and its important if you want to understand spell work, ritual, or the creation of the universe. First the basic stuff. We have five elements. Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, and a fifth element referred to as Akasha, Void, or Spirit. This article will refer to it as Spirit since this is the standard in Western Magick. Spirit would be the equivalent to what magicians commonly refer to today as energy. It is a force in the universe which cannot be seen or measured with conventional methods, but nonetheless can be manipulated and quantified. Now its important to remember that when we say fire, or water, or air, or earth, or spirit, these are physical things which we symbolically associate with the actual element. The elements exist at every point in the universe. The universe is often split into several planes of existence. We have the physical plane, which is represented in the Kabalah by the bottom four Sepiroth. This is the only place in the universe (outside the Qlippoth), where fire, water, air, earth, and energy actually exist. All of these things are physical manifestations, and the first physical manifestations occur in the seventh sepiroth, Netzach. Prior to this, we have the mental planes, composed of the middle triad in the Kabalah. Here everything exists as thoughts, ideas, and intelligences, yet the mental planes are also where these things are created. Beyond the mental plane we have the first triad, and that which exists here are often called abstracts or ideals. There are no physicalities and there are no thoughts here, there isnt even space. There are two things that need to be said to describe the first triad, there is existence there, and everything exists as acts. As it is the thoughts and ideas and eventually intelligences that make up parts of the mental planes, it is action, the doing, that makes up the first triad. Its hard to understand because when we think of an action, we think that someone or something is doing that action, yet in the first triad there is no physicality

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and there is no intelligence, so there is nothing there to actually take an action. The act defines itself. Now, getting back to the point, fire, water, air, earth, and energy cannot exist at any point beyond the physical planes, because they are physicalities. Yet the elements exist on every plane. So when we talk about, say, the element of fire, we arent actually speaking about actual fire. Fire is something weve found in the physical world which, based on its form and how it acts, we feel is a good representation of one of the five elements. There is no word in any language spoken on Earth that describes the element of fire. Even if we made up a new word, say we called it fluffenfuf, we still would not have words in the English language to adequately define the new word it. Its a common habit in magick, and with dealing with interworld beings that may know completely foreign concepts created in languages from other worlds, that if we dont have a word for something, we substitute a word we do have that is used to describe something like it. So now that weve discussed what the elements are not, what exactly are they? A lot of people describe the elements as the basic building blocks of the universe. When we break things down, within the universe, into smaller and smaller parts, eventually we reach the smallest parts that make it up, and these smallest parts are the five elements. They are, in a lot of ways, to magical theory what atoms are to science. But we also know, in regards to science, that if we look deeper we can break atoms down into protons, neutrons, and electrons. And likewise we can break the elements down into their basic parts. There are actually five basic building blocks that precede the five elements, and these are creation, division, singularity, duality, and triplicity. These five things are the only five things that exist prior to the existence of the elements, and so they are the only five things in all the universe not made up of the elements. In the same way that a proton is not made up of atoms, creation is not made up of the five elements. So how did we get the elements? Everything in the universe is a direct extension of what came before it. To make a new thing we can combine two or more existing things, or we can divide an existing thing into two or more parts, or we can do a combination of dividing and combining various things. The point is, nothing is ever completely new. New things are created in the universe using the various parts that are already available. Since the divine spark the universe has become a varied and complex place, yet there is still no sixth element, and there never will be, because we cannot have a completely new thing. Everything needs a precedence. There are two exceptions to this rule. Two things in the universe occurred without prior precedence. In many systems these two acts are considered the beginning of the universe. This is not however the true beginning of the universe. This is just the place that we are labeling the beginning because we need a place to start are exploration at in order to get anywhere, and because we cant find the true beginning. Anyways, two things happened without precedence, a thing created itself, then it divided into two parts. We call this thing which created itself the divine spark. It is the

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very first thing to appear in the universe, and it is from the divine spark (and its division) that all things spring forth. In Kabalism it is defined as Kether. Remember the divine spark occurs at Kether, Kether exists in the first triad, and all things in the first triad are actions. So what is the divine spark? It is the act of creating itself. If you think about that too hard, your brain may explode. It created itself and what it is (and what it created) is the act of creating itself :) So the divine spark creates itself. There we have the first part, creation. After it creates itself, it is the only thing in creation. There is just one thing in all of creation, and it is different and separate from what came before, so now we also have singularity. So the divine spark exists, and anything that exists has to have a definition. It can be defined through everything else that also exists in the universe. Right now all that exists in the universe is the divine spark since it was created without precedence. We can say that the divine spark is itself (everything that exists in the universe), and it is not what isnt the divine spark (Nothing or that which doesnt exist). But wait, now we have two things that exist in our universe. You have the divine spark, and you have that which is not the divine spark, the nothing. But the divine spark is the entirety of the universe. It is the all. The existence of the divine spark doesnt just define itself, it also defines what it is not, the nothing is nothing more than everything the divine spark isnt. What Im getting at is the divine spark is the all of the universe, which encompasses both what defines it in the positive (what it is) and what defines it in the negative (what it is not). This create a contradiction. The divine spark cannot logically be both what it is and what it isnt. So what has to happen in order to solve the contradiction is the divine spark has to divide into two pieces. Going back to kabalistic representations Kether divides into two parts, Chockmah which is the purity of being when the divine spark existed alone, and Binah which is self-awareness through duality and thus represents the first corruption of purity and singularity. The actual first division itself is Thaumial, the highest sphere in the qlippoth. Now we have the divine spark, which is the act of creating itself. It needs to be defined by what it is and what it isnt. In order to do this, it divides. Some people may think the two aspects of the division solve the problem. Now Binah is Binah and not Chockmah, and Chockmah is Chockmah and not Binah, and Kether is Binah and Chockmah. But this isnt the case. Chockmah and Binah existing isnt what solves the problem. The division itself solves the problem. It is something which creation isnt. Kether is not Thaumial. The divine spark is not the first division. In fact it is the duality that exists between Kether and Thaumial that is the precedence for the duality of Chockmah and Binah which occur after the division. The precedence for the purity of being of Chockmah is from the divine spark existing by itself, and the precedence for the self awareness via duality of Binah is from Kether existing along with Thaumial. As a side note Id like to say something about Binah that proves an earlier point. Binah is the definition of self by comparing yourself to what you are not. It can be seen as the first instance of knowledge knowledge of self which is acquired through a comparison to what you are not. It is the corruption of purity, because it is based on there being something else in the universe besides oneself. Remember only acts can

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exist in the first triad. Binah is the act of definition. But definition implies knowledge, so now we have the existence of knowledge. Knowledge is an abstract thing. Its not quite an idea, but its definitely not an act. It can however exist in the first triad, but only in particular parts of Binah. But knowledge presents problems. Now theres something that must be known. So it must have a duality. There must be knowledge which is true and knowledge which is not true. Now we have truth, and truth is most definitely an idea. Not only that, you have self definition. Self definition leads directly into an idea. So do we have ideas in Binah, and thus in the first triad? No we do not. But ideas are occurring as the natural eventual conclusion to the act of Binah, so what happens to them? They begin to form the fourth Sepiroth, and thus the beginning of the third triad, the mental planes. Think of this process as a sentence. You begin speaking a sentence which forms Binah, but by the time you reach the conclusion of the sentence, youre already forming the fourth Sepiroth, Chesed. Note that the middle triad is created as a direct result of the creation of the first triad, it is its eventual conclusion. It is also made up of the things which came into being in the first triad, going back to the earlier rule in the universe nothing (except our two exceptions) are created without precedence. Now, going back to more relevant discussions, as weve said the first division occurs as a direct result of self creation. There for we could say that even the first division has precedence. It is a direct result of self creation, in the same way singularity is a direct result of self creation. Because of this its common say that there is one thing which started everything else, there was one event which occurred without precedence. But then why do I specifically say two events occurred without precedence? By my own logic either one event occurred without precedence, self creation, and division, singularity, duality, and triplicity followed as a byproduct, or I throw out the byproduct angle and just go with precedence, in which case five events occurred. But Ill go back to my original statement, two things occur without precedence in the universe, creation and division. The idea that creation came first and everything else is a byproduct of that creation is a matter of perspective. The idea that creation was first makes sense to us because we exist in the Sepiroth, which naturally flow from the act of self-creation. We have a perspective that is tainted by our location, and also by something akin to nationalism which sees are current location, the Sepiroth, as naturally superior and better than its counterpart, the Qlippoth. If we were, however, incarnated on the Qlippoth and trying to figure out these same ideas there, we would come to the conclusion that the first thing which occurred was the first division, and self creation occurred as a result of this division. The first division coming into being is what creates the act of self creation, and then it goes on from there. The thing is, its late right now, and thinking about this stuff from a Sepirothic perspective is making my head spin. Thinking about it from a Qlippothic perspective will no doubt cause my head to explode. In fact I can feel it about to burst right now. There are of course answers, and if you want to meditate on this and figure it out, it can be done. Im just not figuring out how to put those answers into words right now. I will say that Qlippothic perspectives are interesting things to have if you can handle them.

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Okay, so now we have four things. The divine spark (creation), the divine spark existing alone (singularity), the first division (division), and the existence of creation and division (duality). So where does triplicity come from? Well what was there prior to the divine spark? You could say nothing, but that would be wrong. In order for there to be a nothing there would have to be a something, and something is the divine spark, and that didnt exist prior to the divine spark coming into existence. So what was there? I dont have that answer. I never talked with anyone or anything that claimed to have it. Its possible some people, or some things have figured it out, but either they cant remember it or cant communicate it, at least in regards to our level of existence. So I dont know what was there, but I know, through logic, something came before creation and division. This something is a third thing. We have creation, division, and what came before creation and division. A triplicity. We now have our five building blocks. Note, we now have five things. That is everything we have. That is the most we can count to. Five. We have five elements. We dont have six elements because we cant count to six yet, and everything must have a precedence. Once we have five elements though we can count to ten. This is important to note because the universe didnt pick the number of elements through some arbitrary method. It simply took the largest number it could, thus doubling what we had to work with, and making the entirety of the universe far more complex. So how long did all of this stuff take to happen, from the time of the divine spark up until the creation of the elements? Billions of years, seven days, mere seconds? All of these answers are wrong. All of these things happen before time coming into existence. So does that mean it all happen at once? No, it didnt. In order for everything to have happened at once, time must exist, or at least the concept of it must exist. All of this stuff happened/is happening/happens. If Kether divides into Chockmah and Binah, shouldnt Kether cease to exist? If that were true Kether would exist prior to the division, and not exist after the division, but in order for that to happen, time would have to exist. So even though Chockmah and Binah exist as the division of Kether, Kether also still exists, because there was no time when this happened and time still doesnt exist where it happened. So at any moment, this division has occurred, it has not yet occurred, and it is currently occurring. Now we have five elements that can be defined by these five things. First we have singularity. Each element is a separate individual thing. Notice they just arent one big group called the elements. Next we have duality. We can say that fire isnt water, spirit, earth, or air. We can also split the elements into two separate groups. We refer to these groups as masculine and feminine, but remember the ideas of gender and masculinity and femininity havent yet been created. These are later creations that we use to try to describe the elements. We group them as such: Group A (Masculine Elements) consists of Spirit, Fire, and Air; Group B (Feminine Elements) consist of Spirit, Water, and Earth. We can also use duality to create opposite elements. Fire is opposite Water. Air is Opposite Earth.

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We also have creation and division. So some elements are creationary (Fire and Water), and some are divisionary (Air and Earth). Fire and Water join together in union (the creation), and the end result is Air and Earth (the division). We also split the elements into three groups. The divine element (Spirit), the creationary elements (Fire and Water) and the divisionary elements (Air and Earth). Fire and Water, and thus Air and Earth, are created by Spirit, and the union of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth together creates Spirit, so in a sense spirit creates itself, giving it a connection to the divine spark and the divine element. So a short review thus far: Spirit = Masculine and Feminine groups, creationary and divisionary, divine group. Fire = Masculine group, creationary, creationary group. Water = Feminine group, creationary, creationary group. Air = Masculine group, divisionary, divisionary group. Earth = Feminine group, divisionary, divisionary group. Now remember that all of these elements exist in the first triad. Only acts can exist in the first triad. So we know the five elements must be actions. So what actions are they? Spirit = The all of the universe (the act of not existing). Fire = The act of creation. Water = The act of division. Air = The act of action. Earth = The act of existence. But it gets a little bit more complicated. Fire is the act of creation, and so it is also the act of destruction. Remember the divine spark created itself, and whatever came before currently is not anymore, so creation is also destruction. Meanwhile when you divide something you can also now combine it back together, so the act of division also brings about the act of union, so both division and union are water. Also take these numbers; 1.Spirit, 2. Fire, 3. Water, 4. Air, and 5. Earth. Compare the element to the number it is assigned. Compare it to the Sepiroth that is also assigned to that number. Youll notice some interesting things. Such as water, which represents division, is number three, which is the same as Binah, which deals with duality. Air meanwhile is four, and air is generally associated with thoughts and ideas, and the fourth Sepiroth is the first Sepiroth of the mental planes. So why is Spirit non-existence? Spirit represents all things in the universe put together. What happens when you put everything together? You no longer have a duality. There is no self-definition. Were heading back to the universe encompassing both what it is and what it is not. Weve gone backwards. We no longer have existence. We now have what came before the divine spark. This is best described as non-existence, since it was what was before existence.

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Anyways, now we have our five little building blocks. And we pretty much build everything else out of those five things, along with the five pieces we used to build those (creation, division, singularity, duality, and triplicity). As we start building we notice a few things. First off, everything in the universe, beyond those ten things, contain all five elements to various degrees. Secondly that most everything in the universe contains more of some elements, and less of others. In practice we tend to define things by the element which has the greatest concentration. There are some rare exceptions where we feel the need to define something by two or more elements because of an equal or near equal concentration. Also although it may be possible to define very complicated things, like people, as a single element, youll also notice that these things may have many varied aspects, and these aspects may be defined as different elements. Its important to note that when we say things are made up of the five elements to various degrees, we dont just mean physical things and living things. We also mean thoughts and ideas. We mean abstracts like philosophies and religions. We mean completely imaginary things which dont exist. We mean concepts like the economy. We mean actions like punching or thinking. Pretty much anything in all of the universe, besides the original ten building blocks, is made up of the elements. Remember there is nothing without precedence, so everything comes forth from the divine spark/first division. A few steps up from that are the elements. A brief summary of some of the things the elements encompass: Spirit: Associated with the divine, sacred acts, magick, and that which came before the divine spark. It is the element of the highest spiritual attainment. It is both active and passive. It represents all things, and also nothing. Fire: Generally associated with passion in all of its forms. Fire comes on as strong and as forceful as it can, it burns like passion burns within you, and it eventually gives every bit of itself to reach its goal. It encompasses passion in the form of lust, and also passion in the form of creative endeavors, such as the fine arts, and also being passionate about specific things. It is associated with creation (by oneself) and destruction. It is also associated with absolute spiritual truth and the divine light of spiritual truth. It is associated with the day and is the great exposer. It is associated with the beginning of the first triad. Fire is an active force, being active by the very nature of its existing. It is the only element which does not have a passive form (if fire is not active, it cannot exist). Water: Water is generally associated with emotions, love, relationships, and unions. It is considered flexible and adaptive and ever changing, and it is often associated with the future because of this. Water is also associated with the power of creation through union. It is associated with the night, and along with that the great mysteries and everything that is hidden. Water is associated with the end of the first triad (Binah). Water is a passive force, passive because it meets the demands of its environment.

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Air: Air is largely associated with the mind. It has strong connections to intelligence, thought, ideas, imagination, and imaginary things. It is also the element associated with action and doing. It is adaptive and flexible like water, but remains an active force like fire. Unlike fire though air has a passive form. It is associated with the present, and also with the dawn (being associated with beginnings). Air is associated with the mental planes, especially the fourth Sepiroth. Earth: Earth is stagnant and endures. It is usually associated with physical things and the physical plane. Because of this it also represents things like wealth and money and that which is completely practical and mundane. It also is associated with things that are immortal and forever. Earth is the only element which does not have an active form. Earth is associated with the tenth Sepiroth Malkuth (and due to its nature, also Yesod). Because Earth is stagnant and unchanging, it is associated with the past which is writ in stone. Earth is also associated with the dusk, being associated with endings. The above brief summary of the elements is my attempt to define five things which are so abstract as to be undefinable in English. Even if I did have the words, each element has an infinite number of definitions and associations, meaning it would be impossible for me to list them all even if I spent eternity doing nothing but that. As a practitioner, you shouldnt be dependent on a list for your elemental associations (especially because a complete list would be impossible). Its better to have a deep understanding of the elements, to the degree that you can figure out the elemental associations of things as needed. Its a good exercise to get into the habit of thinking about things in terms of what elements they are. What element defines your computer? The processor inside your computer? The font on the computer screen? The electricity flowing through the power cable? The emotions youre currently feeling as you read this? So on and so forth. This is a simple thing that can easily be done as you go about your day. After a while though, youll start to come to a deep understanding of the different elements and how they work, and youll also, through practice, learn how to figure out elemental associations.

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Color Theory
July 18, 2010 Color comes up a lot in magic ritual and theory. Candles are supposed to be a certain color. Youre supposed to wear a certain color. Tarot cards have to be colored a specific way. Parts of the Sepiroth are associated with different colors. Your aura is colored. But why is color important? The importance of color goes back to energy. In magic and metaphysics, energy is an invisible yet sensible force that is able to be quantified and manipulated. There are also different kinds of energy. And there are a lot of different kinds of energy. Sometimes the difference between two kinds of energy is very subtle, other times its a huge difference. Energy can also be changed into a different kind of energy. In fact, energy can be changed into almost any other kind of energy if you know how. Energy also naturally changes sometimes. But there are some problems with energy. First off, its invisible. We cant see it. In fact we cant really sense it with any of our five senses. But it is still sensible. We can feel energy. Most everybody can at least feel the emotional changes and stresses that occur when they come into contact with energy, although those of us who have trained ourselves can feel the energy around us and energy we are connected to in much finer ways. Energy also cant be measured, at least by any modern devices. Although we can sense and quantify energy ourselves, there is no objective device that we can bring into a room that will tell us how much energy is in there. In fact science doesnt even acknowledge the existence of energy. Lets step back for an instance and do an experiment. Imagine your favorite cologne or perfume. Now, assuming Ive never smelled any cologne or perfume before, describe to me what the cologne or perfume smells like so that I too can accurately imagine its smell. Its not very easy is it. There are only a few descriptive words for smells, like stinky and pleasant. Theres a chance you may be able to liken it to some common scents that I might know, like musk or rose or lavender. You might also use terms like pleasant, strong, sweet, and clean, but all of these are very subjective terms. I really cant tell for sure what you mean by sweet or clean. We have a lot of the same problems with energy. We have trouble describing it. Sometimes we can liken it to a particular emotion like anger energy or happy energy. This creates problems though. What is happy energy? There are actually dozens of different energies that can be classified by the happy energy. Are we talking about a calm bliss, or an excited joy, or the happiness of being in love, or a nervous happiness. All of these are very different energies. We can also liken it to a thing that its

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associated with, like death energy or sex energy. Again though, all of this is very subjective. Sometimes we can liken energy to its source. We do this with deities and different creatures that all have unique energy signatures. But then unless youve had contact with this deity or creature in the past, you have no idea what I mean when I describe an energy to you this way. There are also energies out there that cant be classified by an emotion, a thing, or a source. But there are some energies that are easily made objective because we have a common point of reference. For instance, if I tell you cat energy, its very easy for you to figure out what cat energy feels like. Just go find a cat and feel its energy. The problem with this method is that these objective energies all tend to be connected into this specific plane of existence. If you happen to notice cat energy, and dog energy, and rock energy, and water energy, you can be pretty sure youre on Earth or connecting into Earth, the planet we were born on. Granted this can be useful, but its going to be of a very limited use. Energy is very important to almost all aspects of magic. Not having a standard classification system makes it difficult to discuss energy with other magicians. Its even more difficult to communicate with magicians youll never meet, such as when writing a book or creating an oral tradition that is going to be passed down. Long ago magicians facing this communication problem found a solution. They noticed that different colors and different shades of colors tend to give off certain energies. Just as a cat was an energy reference in the example above, a color like red or blue could also be an energy reference. And unless you happen to be colorblind (no one ever thinks of the colorblind), the reference is always going to be the same for everybody. The color red is an objective term. What you think is red is going to be same thing that any other non-colorblind person will think is red, even if that person happens to be born five-hundred years from now Unlike cats and rocks, the energies associated with colors tend to connect into a lot of different realms. Although the color blue, and the energy associated with it, occurs on Earth, it also occurs in a lot of other worlds too. We also know that blue does occur in this world, and it occurs in a moderate amount. So now we know that if we see a world that is entirely blue, or a world that is mostly blue, or a world that has no blue at all, we know we are not on Earth. But now we do have some limitations when dealing with colors. Its far from a perfect classification system. First off this system was created long ago, before we started classifying colors with different numbers. Because of this we have a very limited number of colors that are used. Generally the colors youll see are the same ones youd get in a small box of crayons. Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Green, Brown, Violet or Purple, Pink, White, Gray, and Black. Every once in a while you might see Yellow-Green, but its rare.

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Not only do all of the colors have unique energies, but so do all of the different shades of the different colors. Fortunately a slight difference in shade results in a slight difference in energy. So although the energies of red and a slightly lighter shade of red are technically different, they are still closely related and in many ways similar, so they can easily be grouped together. Most people tend to use a system that incorporates between two and five different shades. The problem is the system is meant to be objective, and the more shades you introduce the more subjective it starts to become. The simplest system uses two shades, dark and light. We can all agree that there is a definite difference between dark red and light red. Some systems also incorporate a third shade, which is a medium, often times just referred to by the color name, as in red, dark red, and light red. This introduces some subjectivity, as with certain shades of red it can be argued that they may be classified as red and either as light or dark red. Finally some systems use very light and very dark. This starts to get very subjective, as my definition of the difference between dark red and very dark red may be very different from yours. With more than five shades it becomes impossible to keep any objectivity. Likewise not all colors have all of the shades. For instance, there really isnt such a thing as a light black. Now there are many, many, many different kinds of energy. However there are only, at most, twelve different colors that we use. Even assuming each has five different shades, thats still only sixty different types of classification. There are far more than sixty different kinds of energy. This is the first limitation of color classification. The colors are very broad classifications of energy, and each color groups together many different similar kinds of energy. Another limitation is that the only colors that occur in this world are colors that are associated with energy that also occurs in this world. There are energies that never naturally occur in this world, and there are no colors in this world associated with those energies. These energies would fall outside of our classification system. In fact there are even colors, and thus energies, that exist on this world that you cant see, such as the ultraviolet spectrum, and so there are energies that occur in this world which cant be classified in the color system. This is similar to the problem we have using a cat as a reference point. However youll notice that the energies associ ated with the different colors tend to exist on far more planes of existence than the energy associated with a cat. Also a color is a much broader energy classification than a cat. Light blue energy, for instance, refers to a wide variety of different yet similar energy, where as cat energy refers to a very specific type of energy. So our limitations are that the system is overly broad, the less broad we make it the more subjective it starts to become, there are only a limited number of energies that can be classified in this way, and the system becomes far less useful if youre colorblind. So what are some of the things that are done with color theory: -Color theory is used a lot when travelling to or viewing other worlds or planes of existence. More often than not one travels to other planes through astral projection or

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while dreaming. Our astral bodies see energy much better than a physical bodies do, and so it isnt uncommon for an area to be tinted a certain color, or to have area and objects in the area glow a certain color. Sometimes these tints and glows can also be seen while dreaming. The color can give us an idea of the general energy of the area, which in turn can give us an idea of where we might be. Even if you manage to physically walk into a different world(or even view it from afar), the various colors and shades that are and arent present, and the degree to which each appears, can give some clues to the exact area youve wandered into. -Some people use color theory with auras. A lot of people see auras as different colors. These colors describe the different energy that a person is currently giving off. However not everyone sees auras as colors. Whats happening is that the person is able to feel the energy given off by different colors, so subconsciously, if not consciously, the person begins associating certain energies with certain colors. When they feel energy coming off a person they naturally associate it with a color that gives off the same or similar energy, and this is how their brain interprets the information. Other people interpret the information as shapes or figures that they associate with the energy. Still others simply feel the energy from the aura. -Color theory is used with tarot, and with other magical symbols. The goal of most esoteric tarot decks is to create images that connect into different energies and places. One way to do that is to color the cards colors that give off the kind of energies youre trying to connect into, or colors that are prevalent in the place you want to connect into. -Color theory is used with candles. There are actually several reasons why colors can make candles more effective. First off having and working with a colored candle while doing your spell will help you focus on and raise the kind of energy associated with that color. Also any energy put into the candle will be affected by the candles color. The color of the candle will put a tinge on that energy if not outright convert it to energy that is associated with the candles color. Burning the candle will of course release the candle and everything in it into the universe and the spirit realm and what not, and that includes the color of the candle and the energies associated with it. Youll also release the color of the candle into the room of the ritual, which will in turn affect all the energy in the room, including the ritual energy. -Color theory is also sometimes used in choosing the colors of ritual clothing. This is done to associate a person with the proper energies for a particular ritual, or to associate them with energies that are considered best for someone of their rank within the group. Color Meanings (keep in mind Im colorblind so Im pretty much winging this as best I can) First off there are some general things about colors and where they are associated (which should also give you an idea of what they can do).

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The lower realms (the areas considered directly beneath us) tend to be made up of dark places. These places tend to have lots of black and grays. The colors are bland and dull and although dark are not usually deep. Other colors do exist here though, and they become more prevalent the deeper you get in. Dark violet, in particular, is rather common at the deepest parts. The hell planes are far more vibrant with a much wider color pallette. The colors here are a still a bit dark, but they also tend to be very deep. Red and brown (or maybe green) are very prevalent here, but black and gray are still fairly common. Whites tend to either be dirty or very dark and deep. Lighter colors meanwhile tend to be associated with higher planes. As a general rule, as the colors become lighter youre ascending into other planes. The heavenly planes tend to be made up of a lot of light blues (especially in the lower parts) with a good amount of whites, although other colors do exist there. Light reds become more common near the highest parts. The higher planes are also known for having more varied color, although the colors tend to lack depth, and are even commonly transparent within the heavenly planes. Of course these color associations will help you if you want to figure out where you are or what youre looking at. But theyll also help you in choosing and tweaking the colors for your rituals. Remember lighter colors with less depth are associative with higher planes and the energies of higher planes. Darker colors are generally lower realm colors, where as bland colors are associated with the lower realms specifically, and deeper colors are associated with the hell realms. There are some exceptions though. Dark blues and yellows still tend to be associative with higher realms, with only the darkest shades drifting into the lower realms. Meanwhile brown is the exact opposite, with lighter shades still being lower realm associative. White - White is often seen as the pure color. It actually connects to higher planes than any other color youll find on Earth, so it is often seen as a divine color. Its also super compatible, meaning it can go with just about any other energy in the universe. It should be noted that because it does go with just about anything you can find still find pure whites in very low planes, so white doesnt necessary mean youre on a higher plane. In practice it mostly just amplifies whatever is put into it. This makes it a good all-purpose color for candle magic and the like. It also tends to be an okay color for exorcisms and cleansings depending on how you do them. Black Black is the color of absence and void. In candle magic it typically does not affect the energy put into it at all making it a good all purpose color. Black is also associated both with hiding and the things which are hidden. This makes black a good color for magic that is meant to conceal something, and magic in which you wish to (and I say this only because I cannot adequately describe it) become one with secrets. Black is associative with the lower realms, specifically the higher parts of it that are closest to our world, and so its associative with all of the things present in those realms. Its also associative with some of the dark and evil things that are hidden, and so its used in a lot of magick that is meant to work with those creatures or use their

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power. Finally it is sometimes associated with death and used in magic that is meant or work with the dead or death energy or magic that is meant to cause death. Death energy is technically not classified in the color black, although black is the closest color to death energy that we have available in our visible spectrum. Gray - Gray is generally a purifier (especially when it is very bright) and to nullify. Darker shades are connected with the upper part of the lower realms, and with some of the things that exist there. Darker shades are also good for depowerment spells (like drains not bindings. For bindings use purple). Green - Green is the color of desire and fertility. It is often used in spells meant to bring about prosperity and material wealth. Because of its control over desire, its also good for love spells (both spells to bring lovers to you and to make others love you) and glamors. Id also suggest using it with fae magic. Fertility wise it helps both with conceiving a child and carrying the child to term. It also helps with the fertility of plants and animals, such as helping a garden to grow or increasing your crops. Purple Purple is a color of order, stability, boundaries, and the laws of the universe, and with deeper shades physical creation. Its a good color for restoring order, closing portals, putting up barriers, creating stability, and as a general counter-magic. Lighter shades are also useful for spells that are meant to control the flow of time. Red Red is the color of passion and violence. Its used to bring forth strength in battle and war, to incite violence, and also to incite passions, including passions of love and lust among others. Its often times used in love spells, mainly for its ability to incite passions, and its also a common color for attack magic. It is a very strong and all consuming color in its nature. It should also be noted that red can incite passions which are very dark and twisted. Pink - Pink is similar to red, but its much less intense in its nature. Its often seen as the color of friendship. With candle magic its good for spells that are meant to cr eate friendships and spells that are meant to bring about peace, love, understanding, and end feuds and squabbles. Some also prefer to use pink in love spells because of its ability to incite things they see as beneficial to a long term relationship. Orange - Orange is a color of power and success. Yellow - Yellow is the anti-deceiver. It exposes things and brings them out into the open. It also is associated with energy that is fairly high up and, much like white, tends to amplify energy that is put into it. Yellow, especially dark yellow, is often used to bring about good fortune, peace, and material gain, all things which yellow promotes. Lighter shades generally promote mental abilities and happiness. Blue - Blue is a higher realm color, especially in regards to the lighter shades which are prevalent through out the lower part of the heavenly realms. Blue, especially light blue, is a color of balance, peacefulness, and bliss. The darker shades are often seen as associated with positive growth and expansion.

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Brown - Brown is a lower realm color, although very light browns may exist in very limited quantities in higher realms. Browns are generally seen as connected into the Earth and the physical plane. Because of this brown is good for spells meant to affect this world, also its sometimes used for spells meant to bring about material gain or a physical manifestation. Brown is also connected into lower realms too, especially the darker shades. Brown is a dirty color and a color of corruption. In the lower realms it is sometimes blended into whites and grays. In any case it is often the color of things which are corrupted, impure, or otherwise dirty, and can be used to connected into these things. Magenta - I included Magenta here because its a good example of a special color. Magenta was discovered about a hundred and fifty years ago. It technically doesnt exist as a single color wavelength, but as a combination of multiple wavelengths. It actually is associated with energies which naturally occur in this world but, up until less than a hundred and fifty years ago, couldnt be classified under any existing color. When doing candle magic, remember there are two different perspectives. On one hand burning a colored candle releases that energy into the world, the universe, and the spirit world in order to do your will. But on the other hand youre destroying that color and releasing it from this world and sending it to the spirit world when you burn the candle. Therefor every color can be burned as its own anti-thesis. Green can be burned in order to make someone desire you. But if the person you like happens to have a crush on someone else, Green can be burned in order to remove their desire. The best color to burn in order to remove any spell is the same color you would burn in order to cast that spell.

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Ritual Magick is Superfluous

October 15, 2010 Years ago I wrote a ritual for myself. A few days ago I was rewriting the ritual so it could be understood and used by someone else. This is a ritual Ive used for years and one that Ive done at least a couple hundred times. As I was writing the ritual I noticed that over half the steps, which I was writing down and explaining so someone else to do them, I no longer performed when I did the ritual. The ritual is as strong and as effective as its ever been. I dont need those extra steps, and I dont usually do them because it saves time. However I still included the steps in the ritual and explained them for the benefit of another. I dont do this to deny someone else my experience or for the sake of completion, but because those steps are important, and it goes back to the nature of ritual magic. Ritual magic is always superfluous. For those who may not know exactly what ritual magic is, its a broad term which refers to magical acts which require some sort of physical action. This can be as simple as saying a word or phrase that announces your intent or waving your hand, or something very complex that can take multiple people hours to perform and can require days, weeks, months, and even years of prep time. The opposite of ritual magic is psionic magic, which is magic that is performed without any physical action, in other words entirely through the power of ones mind. There is no magical act that can be done ritually which cannot also be performed psionically. There are also no magical tools which are required to perform any kind of magical act (other than your body, mind, and spirit of course). The actual ritual parts of ritual magic are all unnecessary. Any ritual can be pared down to psionic magic. Of course there are a lot of advantages to psionic magic. Its very fast. It requires zero prep time. This also makes it very versatile. It also makes it very efficient. Plus youll save money on tools. So why would anyone prefer ritual magic? There are actually a lot of reasons to use ritual magic, and the exact reasons are going to be a bit dependent on the practitioner and what their focus is. Ill go more in depth into some of those reasons in a moment, but Id like to take a step back and discuss what all of this means for the practitioner. As a practitioner of magic, any ritual you do is less efficient than it could be. The fact that it is a ritual means theres still something in there that doesnt need to be there. And so with any ritual theres always something for you to improve. As you do rituals again and again and again you should strive to understand how and why the ritual works. As you do this you should become more and more aware of aspects of the ritual that you no longer need, and you should take them out. You should pare down the ritual until it no longer exists, and at that point you can cast the spell just by wanting it to happen.

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Ideally this is the end goal of learning any ritual. It also means that if youve been frequently doing a ritual for years, and its still as long and as involved as it was when you first started, youre not reaching youre full potential. Youre not working to understand and improve the ritual until you really get it, youre just following instructions. As someone who is trying to transmit or teach a ritual to someone else, you really have to not give people the benefit of your experience. The fact that youve cut out large parts of the ritual and it still works has nothing to do with those parts being unnecessary and everything to do with your personal magical progression. When you give someone else a ritual you frequently use, at the very least you should give them everything you needed to perform the ritual the first time. You may even need to add in additional parts, because they may not be as adept as you were. This means when youre teaching or rewriting a ritual, or writing it down for the first time because youre lazy like me, you have to sort of forget everything youve learned and any ability youve gained and try to remember what it was like before you ever tried to do this ritual. Psionic vs Ritual Just about any spell or ritual you find is going to have at least some minor psionic component to it. Sometimes this is explicitly stated, but more often than not the psionic component is implied and its expected that the practitioner will be able to figure it out. Its typical that a bit of psionic magic is necessary in a ritual to tie the spell together. However usually psionic aspects are needed in a spell because the ritual writer gave up trying to translate them. Simple psionics, things like raising small amounts of energy and lowering your shield, can be translated and written into ritual form. It would take a bit of work to do it and you would end up with a complicated ritual to do a simple psionic trick. Meanwhile its generally assumed that most magical practitioners will be able to do these simple psionic tricks. Theyre not difficult to learn, theyre universal, and really if you want to have any success at magic you need to be able to do this sort of stuff. A good ritual writer is going to keep going through the ritual, taking out psionic aspects, and translating them into ritual aspects. At some point though theyre going to be breaking down very simple psionics and theyll throw their hands up in the air and say, If they cant do this, I cant help them. Granted there are some spells that can work without any psionic act on the part of the practitioner. There is a variety of reasons why a spell might work, to many to really go through in the scope of this article, but it all really breaks down to spells that work despite the practitioner. Of course this wont be true of every spell, only certain spells.

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Why Use Ritual You need to know psionics to do magic. Psionic magic is faster, more efficient, and cheaper. So why bother with ritual? Ritual magic actually has a lot of advantages over psionic magic. The specific advantages of a specific ritual are going to be largely dependent on the ritual writer, their understanding of ritual, and what advantages they prefer to exploit. Ive listed some of the advantages below, however this list is far from inclusive. You cant explain psionics: It is impossible, at least as far as I can tell, to adequately explain to someone else how to do a spell psionically. For instance, this a common psionic prosperity spell. What you need to do is draw money that already exists towards you. Theres your spell, go cast it and youll be rich for the rest of your life. I can give you exercises to help you with awareness, energy manipulation, mental clarity, emotional control, and the like. These things are the basic tools of psionics. I can also teach you metaphysical theory so you understand how magic operates. But I cannot give you specific instructions to do a psionic spell. All I can do is tell you what you have to do, and if you dont already know how to do that and cant figure it out, theres nothing else I can do for you. Also if you bought a book from me filled with nothing but ideas for psionic spells, I think youd be pretty pissed off. And remember, if youre asking someone for a spell, its probably because you dont know how to do it and cant figure it out. The solution is to translate psionic magic into ritual magic, usually with the expectation that the practitioner who receives the ritual will eventually translate it back into psionic magic after performing it enough times. Of course to do this you need to have a fairly good understanding of both psionic magic and ritual magic and how both operate. Part of this is knowing magical theory, but a good portion of that is insight gained through practical work, mainly breaking rituals down into psionic magic and eventually experimenting with your own rituals so you can understand the relationship between the two. After that you just have to break the spell down into various psionic aspects and then find a ritual equivalent for each aspect. Rituals provide better focus: Properly written rituals can help the practitioner achieve better states of mental focus, mental clarity, and intent. For instance the simple act of announcing what it is you want to do can greatly improve the chances of success for your spell. It focuses you on your goal, which is now clearly expressed, and it gives you a clear direction. This is just one example of something very simple that can be added to a ritual. There are of course many things that can be added to a ritual to increase focus, and in doing so increase success, some which are fairly complicated. It makes magic more real: Magical success is somewhat dependent on faith. Not faith in a deity or religion, but faith in yourself, in your abilities, and in the fact that your spells will work as you intend them to.

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When you have doubt, when you doubt your magical abilities, or even worse when you doubt that magic is even real at all and start to believe that this is all some fantasy in your head, it has a negative effect on your magical work. And from there it will spiral. The more doubt you have the less success youll have, until eventually nothing works and you believe that magic is just another spiritual fantasy practiced by impressionable teenagers. Ive gotten a little off track, but for most of us its far easier to believe in ritual magic than psionic magic. Ritual magic involves doing certain and specific physical acts to produce a specific intended result, the validity of which is backed by metaphysical theory. We understand this because this basically how we have been taught the universe works. Certain physical acts produce certain results. Psionic magic on the other hand involves focusing on things, thinking things, feeling things, and possibly manipulating things at an unseen spiritual level, but it doesnt involve any real action. You can be standing still and apparently doing magic. The people around you wont even realize youre doing it. And it becomes very easy to start convincing yourself that all of this is in your head. That youve allowed yourself to become impressionable and believe things which arent true. That your success is just coincidence. And its easier to do this with psionic magic because there is no physical aspect. Its also easier to doubt your own success with psionic magic. With ritual magic there is generally a belief that the ritual should work. That the ritual is going to pick up the slack and do a lot of the work. That if you follow the ritual it will succeed. It doesnt feel so much as if the weight is on you as it is on the ritual. With psionic magic though the weight is entirely on you. You succeed and fail on your own ability, and if you dont believe youre strong enough to succeed, you wont. Living Spells: Im assuming that all of my readers know what the term thought form means. Its a fairly common term in magic that everyone should be familiar with. The basic theory is that expending energy on thinking something causes a spiritual manifestation of that something to appear. Typically this manifestation is brief as it quickly goes through the energy that compromises it. Although things that are thought of a lot, that a lot of energy is expended on, can end up existing for far longer periods of time. They can exist for years, even decades, after it is last thought about. Usually at that point there are many people expending energy on this same thought in order to sustain it for such a long time. Of course, as with all metaphysics, if you understand the concept well enough you can develop ways to manipulate it to produce the results you want. You can make thought forms of whatever you want, you can give them an above average longevity, and you can even make them far more powerful than normal. Thought forms can even be made sentient (and this happens naturally too). At this point the thought form is thinking for itself, has unlimited potential for development, growth, and learning, and has a soul and connection to higher planes. At that point it ceases to be a thought form and becomes a spirit.

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Many magicians read rituals, and then will spend inordinate amounts of times thinking about them, deconstructing them, and generally trying to determine how they work. Rituals are unique from other things we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about though, because we also actually perform rituals, and on top of that when most of us perform rituals were usually working with very large amounts of energy. This means that quite often powerful thought forms are created from rituals. With ritual that are very popular, like well published rituals that are hundreds of years old or the basic standard rituals of a relatively large religion, these generally have very powerful thought forms out there. In some instances these thought forms have become sentient spirits. So with a popular ritual somewhere in the universe there is a strong thought form or even spirit of that ritual out there. When you do the ritual and feed energy into it, this spirit or thought form is activated and drawn towards the ritual. It will often times do a lot of the ritual work, which means you end up with a powerful ritual whose success is independent of the practitioner. Some of the most powerful rituals out there will work even though the practitioner has no magical ability or skill because of this. In fact some dont even need you to perform the entire ritual. Often times doing just part of the ritual will be enough to trigger the entire process. This is why youre not supposed to read grimoires out loud. If you happen to stumble upon one of these living spells in there and start speaking it, you can actually trigger the entire spell even though you have no intent to do so, have done no other part of the ritual, and even if you lack the magical ability to do this on your own. Symbolism: Much of the power of ritual is tied into symbolism. Theres actually a lot of basic magical theory you have to go through and learn in order to understand the power behind symbolism and why it works. It deals a lot with like attracting like, as above so below, thought form theory, and many other things. Theres so much depth to it, its far beyond the scope of this article to fully explain it. But think of this. Plastic has no metaphysical quality. Actually its metaphysical quality is that it lacks a metaphysical quality. It doesnt hold energy at all. Energy tends to pass right through it. It doesnt taint energy which passes through it. It doesnt really produce energy. Metaphysically it doesnt really feel like anything. Why is this? The common answer is that it is man made and not naturally occurring (the plastic were talking about is anyways). That seems like a good idea, except that steel is also man made and doesnt occur in nature, and steel has metaphysical qualities. In fact it has some very strong and specific metaphysical qualities and we use them quite a bit in magic. Knives and swords are common magical tools that are typically made of steel.

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Theres one huge difference between plastic and steel though. Man made plastic was invented about 150 years ago. Steel is so old we dont know for sure when it was invented, but weve found a 4000 year old piece of steel. For at least four millenia people have been thinking about steel. Theyve been using it, and working with it, and finding uses for it. Theyve been ascribing qualities and attributes to it. Theyve been associating it with things. Theyve written poems and songs about it. Theyve used it as symbolism in books and plays. Its found its way into mythology and folklore and religions all over the world. This has been going on with plastic for a mere 150 years. Im not going to go into a full explanation, but if you take what you know about thought form theory and like attracting like you should start to get a picture of how various magical attributions came into being, and you can probably start to form a picture that shows why something old like steel has certain magical qualities and attributions behind it and something new like plastic doesnt. And in ritual symbolism works in the same way. We are able to illicit a spiritual response from a common symbolic act which in turn can be changed into a physical effect. Showmanship: A lot of people want the show. If youre doing a spell for someone elses benefit, they probably want a show. If youre charging them, theyll most likely insist on it. In a perfect world people would only be concerned with results. But in our world people want a show. They want to know youre doing something. They want it to be something mystical. If youre charging them, they want to know youre doing work for the money you gave them. Psionic magic is horrible for this purpose. If someone pays you $50 for a prosperity spell, and you just stand still for a second and then say done, theyre going to want their money back. Even if as theyre asking for their money back they notice a hundred dollar bill on the ground, theyll still want their money back. Ritual however is something physical they can see. A lot of times even that isnt enough though. So a lot of ritual is actually there just to look cool or mystical. A lot of it is nothing more than showmanship, usually just added in there for the benefit of an audience. It sometimes also helps with my earlier point of making magic more real.

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Magick 101: Altars An FAQ

July 28, 2008 What is an Altar? An altar is a space that we dedicate to a specific entity or entities. What is the purpose of an altar? By putting up an altar were inviting the entity or entities into the structure (be it a home or otherwise) or general area and putting forth a sort of beacon to summon them into that spot. At the same time were giving the entity or entities a place within the structure or area that is their own to inhabit. What can an altar be made to? In western magick altars are most often made to specific deities. In Eastern cultures altars to dead spirits are also common, a practice which is also still practiced in Mexico on the day of the dead as a hold-over from pre-Christian Mexican beliefs. Additionally though altars can be made to just about anything. Sometimes altars are made to a general type of entity, such as fae or dragons, rather than something specific in order to summon them forth. Other times altars are made to specific angels, daemons/demons, or primal entities. What do I need to make an altar? To create an altar you only need two things, a space to dedicate and a representation. Sometimes a specific piece of furniture is purchased for the altar, either a small table, a pillar, or a ledge that attaches to the wall (good for areas with limited space). However just about any flat surface will do, including counter-tops, end tables, cabinets, and the tops of bookshelves, entertainment centers, and computer desks. Generally you dont want altars on the floor because of the tendency for them to be disturbed by people and animals tripping over them, and also for safety reasons when candles are lit on them, but this isnt an issue with very large statuary (although these tend to be out of the price range most can afford). As for a representation, statuary is the most common. Plaster statues are very affordable with statues selling for less than $10 a foot, although theres a somewhat limited selection with plaster. Higher quality statues made of bronze or with a marble finish are also available, many of which are over a foot in height and can be purchased for under $100, and there is a much wider selection available, especially in regards to the Greek and Roman traditions. Wooden statues are also available and a bit cheaper and offer an even wider variety in the Nordic and Eastern pantheons. For things like fae and dragons there are a wide variety of statuesque options available. Custom statues can also be made, although this can get pricey.

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Vases and urns also make good, though less common, representations. There are a wide variety of recreations available for the Greek pantheon. Urns with ashes (of the specific dead person) in them are also good for altars devoted to a dead spirit. Vases tend to be a bit more expensive though so arent used as much. Sometimes a representative item may also be used on an altar. For instance Saturn is associated with the scythe, and so an altar to Saturn may include a scythe on it as Saturns representation. Pictures may also be used as representation, and can provide a low cost method to making an altar when money is tight. All you need to do is find a picture of a statue or a drawing of what you want to represent, print it out, and put it in a picture frame (which can be bought for a few dollars if you look around). If you have some artistic ability, you may even draw the picture yourself, and this could have a much greater connection and significance to anything you could buy in a store. Also, if space is getting tight, you could use wall reliefs or paintings as altars. What is an active altar and how do I activate my altar? An active altar is an altar in which whatever it is dedicated to is currently present. Many altars, when properly dedicated, will immediately become active. Often times lighting a candle on an altar as an offering is enough to activate the altar and make whatever it is dedicated to aware that you wish its presence, but if the candle doesnt finish burning before being put out care should be taken to make sure the candle is only ever used as an offering to that specific altar and not used for other spellwork or on another altar. Incense, particluarly a type that is associated with what your altar is dedicated to, can work in much the same way. You can also try communicating with what the altar is dedicated to in order to activate it. At times altars will activate on their own, sometimes when the practitioner is in desperate need of it. It should be noted that as long as an altar remains up, whatever it is dedicated to rightfully owns the altar space, not the practitioner, and the altar may become active at any time. How do I charge an item at an altar? There is a general practice of charging an item on an active altar. Magical tools (such as knives and swords) and candles are the most common items. Typically the item is put upon the altar and left there for a period of time to soak up the energy. Care should be taken to make sure whatever the altar is dedicated to is okay with charging the item. The practitioner may wish to light candles, communicate, and perform rituals in order to activate the altar during the charging process. What about putting other things on the altar? Besides your representation and your surface you dont need anything else for your altar. As discussed above you may wish to light candles or incense on your altar, and you may wish to charge objects on it. Its fairly common to add specific candle holders

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or incense burners to an altar to be used only on that altar, although this isnt necessary. You may also wish to add items that are either owned by or made as an offering to what the altar is dedicated to. You may also add magickal items that are associated with the altar and what its dedicated to. Other items may also be added to the altar to dress it up or for storage, but do see the next item. What shouldnt I put on my altar? Care should be taken to make sure that anything added to an altar is approved by what the altar is dedicated to and isnt offensive. Sometimes other deities can be added to one deitys altar, other times this is strictly prohibited. Other times things just dont mesh very well in ways that are hard to perceive without direct knowledge of the situation. For example, dragon imagery (unless its very silly or mocking) would be offensive and render a fae altar useless since dragons and fae dont get along very well and dont care too much for each other. Also you need to remember that an altar is both a beacon and invitation for things to enter your house. Putting a representation on an altar, even if the altar is not dedicated to that representation, may draw it into your home. True story, a friend of mine acquired a stuffed animal of the Mothman and put it on an altar in his living room. Various negative Mothman-esque entities ended up being drawn to his home until the stuffed animal was removed from the altar. What about dual purpose altars? Its typically easiest to have altars dedicated to one specific entity. Sometimes you can get away with a dual altar, the most common being an altar dedicated to two deities that are known as consorts of each other. Some deities will allow this, and even allow altars dedicated specifically to them to be used to commune with a consort. Other deities are very particular about this, and even though they may allow statuary that features another deity on their altar, wont allow it to be used to commune with that deity. What about a temporary altar? Temporary makeshift altars are common and are useful when you want an altar set-up for just a specific spell or to aid in communion with a particular deity or entity, but dont want to invest in something more permenant because of space or money concerns, or because the energy is unbecoming of the practitioner. There are two easy ways to make such an altar. The first is using a computer monitor. Go online and find a picture to act as a representation, then download the pic and maximize it on the screen. On many desks theres even enough space to light some candles in front of the monitor if you wish. This method is good if you just want to commune with something, although it may provide some distance and spatial issues if you need the altar for spellwork.

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The second way is to print out a picture to act as a representation, put it in a frame, and place on a flat surface, any flat surface, and dedicate the space normally. My Altars, for example:

Here are my altars to Ares (left) and Saturn (right) positioned on top of my entertainment center. The mirror in the middle is a sentient magickal item that needs a good central point and isnt associated with either altar. Note that in addition to movies I store working tools beneath the altars, including my sword, candles, candleholders, ect.

This is a close-up of the Aresian altar. I have two statues of Ares put up, one of Ares with Aphrodite which correctly associates him as a god of love, and one of Ares alone (when I have more space Im going to split this into two altars). The candle I used as an offering to Ares is still at his altar so it isnt used elsewhere by mistake.

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Heres a close-up of the Saturian altar. Since Saturn depictions are so very hard to find Ive blown up a picture of Saturn to use as his representation and put it in a frame. It isnt the best drawing, but it is a correct interpretation. Behind the picture is a clock, one of Saturns symbols.

Heres my altar to Persephone, atop the bookshelf. The small statue is a reproduction of a Grecian tomb piece and probably the only good interpretation Ive seen of Persephone for sale, although I have some issues with the company that makes it. The larger statue is the rape of Persephone, and an okay interpretation, but far from my favorite (though easily obtainable). The candlestick is a sentient piece given to me by a friend who acquired it at a thrift store. As far as we can tell, she initially came from a Persephonic altar, and she seems happy to be on one again. She also likes to have taper candles in her.

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This is Fortunas altar on the left side of the computer desk. The candles are not Fortunas, they just ended up there after some recent ritual work. The luck frog and his coin have both been personally enchanted by me and Fortuna agreed to let them be put upon her altar when I needed a safe place for them. I actually had a vision of a similar looking prosperity Buddha in that spot so I went out and bought the closest thing I could find to put there. At times during spellwork Buddha gets removed to make room for candleholders or whatever else I may need up there.

Heres my Venitian altar on the right side of the computer desk. The larger statue is a plaster statue purchased at the flea market for $15 and was my very first altar piece. I picked up the smaller marble statue when I had more money. My dragon incense burner is also there. The smoke comes out of his nostrils. Its very cool and fae like. There are also two pieces of emerald on the altar that have been blessed by Venus.

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Tools Sacred Robes

April 6, 2011 Im not a big fan of robes. I dont own any magical robes. If Im doing magic, Im either doing it in my street clothes or doing it skyclad. Im the guy showing up to rituals wearing blue jeans and a Darkwing Duck t-shirt that says Lets Get Dangerous. There are some advantages and disadvantages to working with robes, and Id like to spend some time going over them. Spiritually speaking, robes dont give much of an advantage over working skyclad, which from a purely spiritual standpoint is always going to be the better option. However for various reasons, such as being in public, the comfort level of the group, and the weather, working skyclad is not always a practical option. 1. The Advantages of Wearing Robes Entering Rituals Clean One of the big advantages of having specific ritual clothing is to better control the energy you take into a ritual. Through out the day our clothing soaks in a lot of energy, most of which comes from ourselves but some also comes from our environment. Some of this is lost when clothes are washed, after all washing clothes is a sort of cleansing ritual, however even when clothes are washed not all of the energy is removed from the clothing. This is especially true when the intent was just to get the clothes clean and not to specifically spiritually cleanse them. Over time the energy inside of clothes builds up, and so clothing that has been owned for a long time and worn a lot tends to have a good amount of energy soaked into it. When one tries to enter into a ritual presenting a certain type of energy, or when one tries to enter into a ritual completely clean, this can be inhibited by clothing. And if you do cleansing rituals prior to magical work, such as taking a special ritual bath, wearing your everyday clothes negates the benefits of the cleansing ritual. The only way to completely eliminate the issue of energy charged into clothing during your magical work is to either practice skyclad or wear completely new clothes at every ritual. However special ritual clothing does help to mitigate these effects. Magical robes are not things youre supposed to wear around the house or when you go to renfair. Theyre special clothes that are only supposed to be worn during ritual. Energy is still going to get soaked into the robes, but there are two advantages to using special ritual clothing. First off the energy being soaked into the robes is usually going to be the energy you typically take into or work with while doing magical rituals. Secondly if you are always doing cleansing rituals prior to rituals in which you wear the robes, in order to do away with unwanted energy, then the energy soaked into magical robes will be minimal.

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Charging Robes Any time we bring a tool to a ritual it will become charged by it, although unless the ritual was specifically designed to charge something that charge will probably be slight. However when we consistently take the same item to ritual after ritual it becomes more and more charged. Eventually, without any real effort, we have a strongly charged magical item. Clothes are no different. The clothes we bring to a ritual usually get a slight charge to them. However if we usually wear our street clothes, we probably arent going to be wearing the same clothes to every ritual. Also our street clothes are getting charged with other energy through out the day and this other energy is going to drown out a lot of what is going to be taken in during a ritual. Unless you practice a philosophy like Kitchen Witchery it would be very rare to use a magical tool for a non-magical purpose. If you were using a magical tool in your day to day life for mundane purposes it would still be charged from the rituals you were using it in, but that charge would be less than if you were only using it for ritual purposes (note: certain magical practices, like the aforementioned Kitchen Witchery, use an alternate theory on tools and an alternate method of charging those tools, and tools properly maintained according to those practices can be just as powerful, or even more powerful, than magical tools used exclusively in ritual. I understand the theories of Kitchen Witchery and how they work, and agree they do work, however its not what Im talking about right now). When we use special ritual clothing, like robes, ultimately we end up with a specially charged magical tool for magical practice. We can even take special precautions when washing our robes so that we minimize the amount of energy we use while cleansing it. We can even take this one step further and specifically charge our robes so they are an even more powerful ritual tool, and in the same way we can add stones or sigils on to our robes to further empower them. Magical Mood One of the strongest arguments for robes, one Im going to counter in a point further down, is also a common argument that is made for skyclad practices. By wearing special ritual clothing, in this case robes, we help facilitate a transformation from our mundane selves into our magical selves. By constantly reinforcing, in our heads, that when we are wearing our robes we are doing our magical work, putting on robes can instantly take us to a state where we are psychologically ready to perform magic. The robes act as a mental trigger that changes us from whatever we physically are most of the time into a spiritual being capable of performing magic. Especially with novice practitioners, robes used in this way will help a person gain a great deal more focus and will also help them mentally prepare themselves to do rituals much faster. Its also going to set a certain ambiance and make the practitioner

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feel more like a magician and make the magical acts feel more real. After all when we wear robes were no longer some guy in blue jeans and a t-shirt that makes some cultural reference to our childhood, were now like something out of the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, and our beliefs and how we feel strongly affects our magic and how successful it is. Not to mention that this idea that we are a magician helps us to tap into power reserves and knowledge we may not even know we possess. 2. Issues With Robes Over Robes I have to mention that most of the benefits of wearing robes only apply if robes are the only thing youre wearing. Ive seen a lot of groups where robes are simply put on over regular clothing, which negates most of the benefits of wearing robes. Even underwear shouldnt be worn, unless you have special underwear you only wear during rituals. Meet-Up Robes Something I brought up before is that the benefits of robes are lost when robes are not kept as special clothing that is only worn for rituals. Luckily theres only a handful of really silly folk who wear their robes everywhere. Unfortunately though Ive noticed a lot of folks wear robes for non-magical spiritual purposes, and the people who do this the most often are the high priests and priestesses and group leaders, people who should know better. These are people who wear ritual robes to discussion groups, to meet-and-greets, and to classes they teach. These are technically spiritual meet-ups, and the robes are acceptable garments for the situation, but no magical ritual is taking place, and when robes are worn in a non-ritual setting they become less useful in a ritual setting. Many of these group leaders do so to set a tone, to look and act like a real practitioner, or to sell their spiritual beliefs. In these instances the robes arent reall y a magical tool but rather just a costume being worn. 3. Arguments Against Robes Energy Issues Are Negligible If you want to come into a ritual completely clean and have a completely controlled environment, the only way to do that is to do the ritual skyclad. If however that isnt possible, the next best option is to wear robes. However the amount of energy contained within your normal clothing isnt going to be a huge issue. Its a minor factor that should be easily corrected by an experienced magician. This is especially true because the vast majority of the energy in your clothing is your energy, and you should be more or less compatible with it. The one exception would be clothing that isnt yours or clothing someone else has worn. That sort of clothing can be tainted with energy that is very incompatible with you, and although the situation is still correctable by an experienced magician, it puts a greater strain on the practitioner.

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Amateur Issues If youve noticed, many of the ways in which robes help a magician are meant to help novice practitioners, not experienced practitioners. Experienced practitioners should be beyond any of the help that robes can offer, making robes useless for them. Meanwhile the benefits that novice practitioners receive from using robes may actually be hurting them in the long run. Some practitioners will use the robes as a crutch early on and never learn how to operate without them. Theyll never learn how to compensate for or change the energy in their clothes, or how to mentally prepare their mind for ritual work without the robes. Its like putting training wheels on a bike instead of learning how to ride it. Everyday Magic The best argument against robes is one that rests largely on personal spiritual beliefs. As a tool, robes are different from something like a wand or a sword. A wand is a tool that we use when we need it. When our wand serves a purpose within our ritual we take it out and use it, but when a wand doesnt serve a specific purpose in our ritual, we work magic without one. Robes, however, are something that we are always supposed to wear into ritual. Robes are not a tool that we only need some of the time. After all one of the key purposes of wearing robes is that they help us transition from our everyday mundane self into our magical and spiritual selves. Robes push us from the normal, physical world into the spiritual world where magic is real. This concept, however, creates a separation between the physical world, where we spend most of our lives, and the spiritual world, and in doing so it restricts our spiritual activities, or at least a greater part of our spiritual activities, to a specific time of the day or specific day of the week. This is fine if you believe that magical practice should be kept separate from the rest of our lives. In fact an argument that they should be kept separate was made by some of the early Ceremonial Magicians who were instrumental in promoting robed practice and making it as popular as it is today. In fact a lot of other modern magical practices, such as using the LBRP, are based on the foundation that our magical practice should just be one segment of our lives kept separate from the rest of it. However the theory of spiritual separation is not universally held, and many magicians completely dismiss this idea. Personally my spirituality is not something that occurs for a few hours a week. I am a spiritual person every hour of every day. Every choice I make and action I take, every thought I have, and even my morality are all affected by my spiritual beliefs. In the same way I dont practice magic just some of the time, and Im not a magician for part of the week. Even on a typical day where I attend no group functions and perform no ritual magic, I cant even begin to count all of the different magic that I perform. I start my day by hitting the snooze button and

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magically slowing down time outside of my bed to 1/4th speed so I can get more sleep, and I end it by doing my nightly meditations, and theres going to be dozens if not hundreds of other magical acts in between, not to mention the fact that Im probably going to be doing stuff in my sleep too. My magical practice is not separated from the rest of my life, and I dont want it to be. In fact I could argue that constant practice produces stronger magicians. There are of course downsides, mainly that you have to allow magic and spirituality and everything that comes with it to intrude upon every aspect of your life. Robes are a Fire Hazard Finally I have to add that robes, like any loose fitting clothing, are a fire hazard. Members of the magical community are well known for not following proper fire safety precautions, and robes, along with other ritual wear like capes and cloaks, contribute to our collective poor fire safety. Anytime a ritual uses candles or you have an outdoor ritual around a fire, robes become a fire hazard, and every year lots of practitioners accidentally set their robes, and themselves, on fire. In fact one of the best arguments I can make for skyclad practice is that if everyone practiced skyclad wed start a few less accidental fires every year.

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Tools: Sigils, Pentacles, and Jewelry

September 8, 2010 This is the fifth and final part of the series dealing with elemental tools. Earth, like water, is a feminine and thus passive elemental. Even worse though Earth doesnt have an active form (although water does). When I talked about water element tools I talked about how they were rarely used in ritual because they were passive tools. Earth tools get used a bit more often though, and theres two main reasons for it. First off, and most importantly, they act as a bridge to the physical world. Secondly we can do things to Earth element tools. What Are the Earth Element Tools There is some confusion over what constitutes Earth element tools. We know the classic tools are Sword, Wand, Chalice, Lantern (or Lamp) and something else to represent Earth. Ive noticed a lot of magicians have just stuck something in there so that they have a fifth tool (to represent the fifth element). Actually every single physical tool you use has an Earth association. Your wand, your sword, your chalice, your lantern, all of these are technically Earth associated tools. In the case of your wand, for instance, it is fire associative, but it is also a physical object and thus has an Earth association. Some magic is entirely spiritual in nature, but the point of a lot of magic is to somehow affect physical reality. Spells meant to bring you money, to bring love into your life, to help you find a book, and to strike your enemies dead are all meant to ultimately affect the physical world. The point of all this magic is to take something entirely spiritual, like an idea or energy or spirit, and somehow transform that into a physical force. Our tools aid us in that endeavor by acting as a bridge between the spiritual world and the physical world. Your wand represents the element of fire, an element which is a spiritual force. Your wand however is something that is physical (and Earth associative), and so it acts as a conduit to turn this spiritual thing into a physical thing. Earth element tools are really the exact opposite of Spirit element tools. If you remember the actual spirit element tool isnt the lantern or the candle, its the flame. And that flame, like our tools, acts as a bridge between the spiritual world and the physical world. Its a bridge that goes the other way though. If we burn a candle, or a piece of paper, or some kind of offering, the point is to take something that is physical and turn it into something purely spiritual. Our other tools however take something that is purely spiritual and give it some sort of physicality. Rather then go on and on about every type of physical tool imaginable, Im going to look at three tools which are usually considered Earth element tools and a few different ways they can be used. Namely sigils, pentacles, and jewelry. Sigils

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There are a few different ways to make sigils. You can copy them from a book. You can channel them. You can derive them from magical squares. And you can even create and then empower your own. Peter Carol created a method to do just that for his system of Chaos Magick that is very popular. All a sigil is is just a symbol drawn on to some sort of physical object (like a piece of paper). Small children scribble on paper all the time. These scribbles rarely bring them great wealth or open the gates to hell or whatever else people usually do with magic. So what makes the symbols that make a sigil powerful? The symbols of a sigil (however theyre made, so long as they are made correctly) connect to something. This may be an energy, or spirit, or idea, or place, or magician. It can really be anything. But the whole point of the sigil is that it forms a connection between something and that piece of paper, and quite possibly anyone who works with or even looks at the symbol on that piece of paper. Suppose you have a spirit youve evoked. You want this spirit to do something for you, like bring you treasure or make somebody fall in love with you, it really doesnt matter what. Some spirits may be very powerful. They may be powerful enough to manifest on their own and do your bidding or whatever. Other spirits though arent going to be that powerful. These spirits are entirely spiritual beings, and how the hell is a spiritual being going to drag treasure to your house? Its like a ghost that moves around and you can see and even talk to, but it isnt going to be able to pick stuff up and throw it at you. So you take a symbol that this spirit is somehow connected to and write it on a piece of paper. Youve now given the spirit a connection to that piece of paper. It can now utilize that piece of paper as a tool, and utilize some of that papers qualities, mainly that the piece of paper physically exists in this world and is allowed to physically effect this world. Now the spirit is capable of acting in this world. Of course a piece of paper is a weak and flimsy thing. Paper isnt well known for being forceful or powerful. Just like some spirits can manifest on their own some can do an awful lot with just a piece of paper. Others not so much. You could of course put your sigil on to other things though, like for instance you can carve a sigil into wood, or a metal like iron, or even into gold. And in any of these cases the spirit will be able to make use of the qualities of whatever you carve its symbol into. And wood and iron and gold all have a much greater physical mass, are much more durable, and much more powerful than paper. Pentacles Im only including this one to clear up some confusion. A pentacle is not the same thing as a pentagram. These are two different words and, as such, they mean two different things. Some of the confusion stems from the fact that on several popular tarots (including the Rider-Waite) the pentacles depicted on the cards are of pentagrams.

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A pentacle refers to a talisman of some sort. It is basically something with a symbol on it, like a piece of paper or a piece of metal. It sounds a lot like what I just said a sigil was. The main difference is that technically sigil refers to the symbol itself, where as pentacle refers to the entirety of the tool, both the symbol and the material it is drawn on. And yes sometimes that symbol may be a pentagram, but that isnt always (or even mostly) the case. Jewelry I think we all know what jewelry is. Its rings, necklaces, bracelets, talismans, amulets, tiaras, piercings, and just about anything else made of metal or a gemstone that can be worn on your person. We arent counting plastic jewelry, mainly due to the limited metaphysical properties of plastic as talked about in a previous article. That article also discusses the properties of metal and gemstones, which well be making use of with magic jewelry. When making magical jewelry we have four basic methods of enchanting jewelry. 1. Add specific energy to the piece This is the most basic type of jewelry enchantment. Of course jewelry enchanted this way can be used as a simple battery or reserve of energy. It can also be used as a very simple type of spell. Basically the jewelry will push off large amounts of a specific energy into the surrounding area, and this energy will in turn have some effect on people in the surrounding area. Its the same sort of an idea as a projection. A lot of the glamour rings (rings that make people more attracted to you/fall in love with you) Ive seen, well the ones that arent entirely scams, use this type of magic to work. 2. Place a spell in the piece - This method is a bit more complicated and a bit more fancy, but far more versatile. To do this we find a spell or ritual, any spell or ritual at all. We then break down its physical components so it is entirely psionic. And lastly we place it into the object with the intent that the object will cast the spell on its own. There are a few different ways to go about doing this. The method that has always seemed easiest to me is to actually perform the entire spell and while doing this to pull the energy and ritual aspects from each part as the spell is being performed and place it into the object. Doing this means the spell youre casting wont do anything at all (because you yanked everything into the object), but then all of those acts and energies will be placed in the object and can be activated just by charging the object. 3. Connecting the object to a spirit - Another method to enchant an object is to connect the object to a particular spirit. This can be a demon, a ghost, an angel, whatever. Likewise the spirit may live inside or even be trapped inside the object. Alternatively the object may simply connect to a particular spirit that resides outside the object (in this case the object is sort of like a telephone that calls the spirit). In this case any energy put into the object is meant only to either empower the spirit or make a connection with the spirit. Whatever the object is meant to do is actually done by the spirit which resides in the object.

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4. Making the object sentient - Finally you can make an object sentient. This is a lot like connecting it to a spirit. The difference is that instead of taking an already existing spirit and connecting it to the object, we make a new spirit which is the object. In other words we are making this object intelligent and giving it a soul. Each of these four methods has various advantages and disadvantages. Method #1 is by far the easiest method, but it is also very limited and wastes a lot of energy. Method #2 is a bit more complicated but at the same time a lot more versatile in what it can do. Method #3 might not even require an energy source and you may be working with a very powerful spirit, but on the downside you need to find a willing outside spirit to connect into the jewelry and you also have to deal with that spirit. Method #4 requires you to know specific skills (how to make sentient objects), but eliminates the need to find an outside spirit and allows you to design the intelligence of the object to specifically fit you needs. On the downside the power of the object will be somewhat limited by your own power (unlike when using an outside spirit) and you will still have to deal with a sentient being (granted one you specifically designed though. Sources of Energy However you decide to make your jewelry youll still have to have an energy source for it. In order for the object to do anything it needs to expend energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere. Given time even an inanimate object will replenish the energy it expends. Gemstones are actually really good at replenishing energy, but this is still a slow process. Also these inanimate objects tend to naturally hold very small amounts of energy, and when they replenish themselves they will only replenish this very small amount. Usually that wont be enough to do the sort of magic you want. There are several different ways to empower an enchanted object. 1. Take it from the wearer - This is by far the easiest and most common method. A piece of jewelry is designed so that it will draw energy off the person wearing it. There are of course several disadvantages to this method. First off you have to expend energy to use the object. Depending on how much energy the object needs it may exhaust you. And how effective the object is is going to be directly tied into how powerful the person wearing it is. A piece of jewelry that may work great for an adept may completely drain an inexperienced magician without having any effect. 2. Draw it from an infinite source Basically the object is going to be tied into some source of infinite or near infinite energy. Usually an object like this is tied into a particular god who empowers it. The object may also be tied into a very powerful spirit. Another common thing to tie these objects into is the Earth. Alternatively a specific infinite place may be used, such as tying the object to one of the Sepiroth. The main disadvantage of this method is that the energy is going to be specific to what its being drawn off of, and that youre going to need permission to take the energy from a god or spirit. 3. Tie the object into an energy cycle - You can also tie the object into a cycle or frequent occurrence and creates large amounts of excess energy in its wake. The most

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common cycle to tie an object into is the cycle of the moon. Once a month, when the cycle completes, the object will be completely charged. I personally like tying objects into lightning storms (there is a lot of excess energy floating around from the lightning during these storms). So every time a lightning storm happens these objects recharge. The main disadvantage of this method is that you cant instantly recharge your objects and you may have to wait for some particular event to occur in order to use them. 4. Steal energy from the surrounding area - This type of object essentially operates like a psionic vampire. It looks around the area for anything besides the wearer that may have energy and drains it so that it can operate. The disadvantage to this method is that it is immoral and just as unethical as being a psionic vampire, and most magicians will regard this as a direct attack. 5. Receive energy from a sentient source Finally you can get energy from a sentient source. This means that you either made the object sentient or you tied a spirit into the object. Both a spirit and a sentient object are going to have souls and they are going to naturally replenish energy. The sentient object or spirit may be powerful enough to completely empower the object.

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Tools: Candles and Lanterns

May 15, 2010

Candles and Lanterns are the tools of the element of spirit, or akasha, or void (whatever you want to call it). It is that which flows through all things, that from which all things come forth, and that which is composed of all elements. It is a hermaphroditic element, being both completely male and female. Fires physical representation is the flame. Earths physical representation is the dirt in the ground. The physical representation of spirit is what we call in modern magical practice energy. Energy is invisible, but it is still sensible and quantifiable. Energy is what makes up your aura, your shield, it makes up the majority of your astral body and a good deal of your physical body. Energy manipulation is one of the basic magical abilities, and the vast majority of magic is dependent upon it. The element of spirit is both active and passive at the same time, which also means that it is also neither active nor passive at the same time. It is a hermaphroditic element, being both masculine and feminine (and being both completely masculine and feminine). Spirit is seen as the first of the five elements, and Fire and Water spring forth from it (with Air and Earth coming forth from Fire and Water). Spirit is seen as the divine force. The element of spirit is also associated with our connection into the spiritual realm. Spirit is what connects us to what lies beyond our physicality. It also connects us to the divine source. And it connects us into every other thing in the universe. It is actually the flame upon the candle or lantern that is representative of the element of spirit. This can get confusing because common sense would dictate that we should use a flame to represent fire, so candles and lanterns should be elemental tools of fire. However in practice a flame represents spirit. Unfortunately energy, which is the manifestation that we attribute to spirit, is not recognized by the mundane world. Although energy can be sensed, manipulated, identified, and quantified by an experienced practitioner, the average person can only sense energy and only in a very limited way. Although energy can be quantified, it can not be quantified in an empirically quantified. There is no purely objective way to sense, identify, and categorize different energies. Because of this it is very difficult to find something which can be associated with spirit. We use a flame because a flame seems to exist halfway between the two worlds (like energy), being as much physical as it is spiritual. A flame has no weight. When we light a torch, it doesnt become heavier. It doesnt have a physicality. We can pass our hand right through a flame. In this sense, a flame seems to be completely spiritual. Yet even the uninitiated with no ability to see spirits can see a flame. And if we touch a flame, it hurts. In this sense a flame is a very physical thing. This is very important to how we use flames in magic. Flames bridge the gap between physical actions and

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spiritual effects. Also if we burn something, it ceases to have a physically and instead ascends into a spiritual form. Also of interest is that flames cast light. Since spirit is connected to the divine, this light is often associated with divine light and spiritual truth. Using candles in magic Candles are by far one of the most powerful and versatile magical tools. In fact it would be beyond the scope of a single blog post to completely explore the many uses and nuances of candle magic. Others have tried to condense the subject into large books and have still failed. If youre looking for a book that goes over the basics of candle magic, I highly recommend The Magic Candle by Charmaine Day. If youre already adept at candle magic, dont expect to learn anything new from the book. It covers very basic theories and ideas that are key to understanding how to use candles in spellwork and ritual. Its important to remember that in ritual candles, particularly their flames, represent several things. They are a connection between the physical and the spiritual. They are a source of energy. They can also represent fire. Another very important attribute of candles is that they burn. If you were to put something, like say energy, into a candle and then burn the candle, what was put into the candle would be released into the universe. If you were to carve a word or sigil into a candle, that word or sigil would go out into the universe once it burned. Some Cool Things You Can Do With Candles (Far From All Inclusive) Release a thought or idea into the universe: You can put a thought or idea into a candle. There are a couple of ways to do this. The simplest is to put energy into the candle containing the thought. Alternatively you can concentrate on the candle and try to push the thought into it. Then once the candle is lit and burns it will release the thought into the universe. So how is this useful? As an example suppose you wanted someone you liked to ask you out. You would take a thought that would promote this, like Rob is so hot or Rob would make such a great boyfriend; or even something more direct like I should ask Rob out or If I asked Rob out, Im sure hed say yes. You concentrate on this thought and you concentrate on the person you want this thought to go to. Then you burn the candle and the thought will hopefully pop into their head. Now suppose you didnt concentrate on a person. Suppose you just put the thought Rob would make such a great boyfriend into the candle. Then you could take the candle to a crowded place, like a party, and light it. Now the thought might go into the heads of several different party guests.

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As an offering to activate an altar: Candles are commonly used on altars. The main reason we do this is to attract the attention of whatever the altar is made to and activate the altar. For example if the altar were to a god, then we would be requesting the presence of that god and their energy in the room. Most of the time when a candle is lit on a deitys altar the deity will show up. The candle can be put out before it finishes burning if needed, but if the candle is put out be careful to remember that the candle was used as an offering and who or what it was used as an offering too. The candle can be reused, but only as an offering to the same entity. If the candle was made as an offering to a deity I would highly recommend that it be reused until it is finished instead of throwing it away. Summon a fire elemental into it: A candle has a flame on top of it so we can summon a fire elemental into it. In fact this is one of the best and easiest places to evoke a fire elemental. Fire elementals are very useful and theres quite a lot that can be done with them. Energize a seance: Candles provide a source of energy. This energy can be taken and used by spirits to manifest in different ways and perform different tasks. We see this done a lot in seances. Dead spirits are typically very weak and the candles provide a source of energy they can drain in order to materialize into this world to various degrees. Sense some entities: One trick to discover certain kinds of spirits is to turn off all the lights at night and light a single candle. Move from room to room carrying the candle. If you notice the flame dramatically decrease to almost nothing you have a spirit in the room. This is an old trick, and it only works with certain kinds of spirits. Once again this goes back to the energy in the flame. The spirit is trying to eat the energy, or in some cases trying to eat the light, and this causes the flame to go down. The energy trick: The energy trick was actually taught to me as a party trick, but it can be used in other ways. Basically you can push energy into a candle to charge it. You can also leave it on an altar to charge it. In either case, the candle will fill with specific energy. Later you can burn the candle to release the energy. With this method a candle can be charged over a long period of time and release very large amounts of energy when it is burned. The first time I saw this done was by a fellow who charged and dressed a candle every day for three months on top of a Martian altar (the candle was also left on top of the altar wrapped in cloth when he wasnt charging it). After the three months he took the candle to a party and lit it. The effect was cool to say the least. Burn on top of a symbol: One trick is to burn a candle on top of a symbol, the idea being that the energy from the symbol will be released upward as the candle burns. One of my favorite things to use for this is tarot cards. You can find certain decks (including the Rider-Waite) online. You can print the card out on to paper, cut them

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out of the paper, then use them in this ritual. You can use any symbol you feel comfortable with though. You can even write a word or phrase on a piece of paper and burn that. When doing a spell like this, its helpful to empower the piece of paper containing the symbol prior to burning the candle on top of it. Charge the symbol with the proper energy. Meditate on the symbol. Concentrate on the symbol and its meaning. Trap a spirit into it: This is a fairly basic attack. You can push spirits into things to trap them. You can push a spirit into a candle and trap it inside. Then you can burn the candle with the intent of causing pain to the spirit as the candle burns. Once the candle finishes burning the spirit will be freed, albeit harmed (this is important for me because I consider it unethical to permanently imprison things and recommend not doing it except in extreme circumstances). You can grab a spirits energy and directly push it into a candle. An easier method though is to first pull the spirit into yourself, then push it out of yourself into the candle. The disadvantage of this method is that it leaves you very vulnerable to both attack and possession. You have to be able to overpower the spirit and keep control of your person once the spirit is inside of you. Once you push the spirit into yourself, retaining complete control over the spirit is the only defense youll have against it. Wax divination: After a spell is performed you can divinate into the candle wax. Look into the wax and see if you see any shapes or forms. Often times these shapes will be related to the target of the spell, what has happened with the spell, and how successful it may or may not have been. Unfortunately wax divination isnt always possible due to many modern candles being designed to burn evenly so they leave little to no wax when used properly. Some Common Types of Candles Pillar: Pillar candles are the most common types of candles for spellwork. Theyre easy to find, they come in a variety of colors, theyre tall enough to dress, and theyre usually big enough to carve words and symbols into. They also lie flat on a surface which is good if you want to burn a symbol under them. Taper: Tapers are almost as common as pillars, but theyre a bit less useful. Tapers need special candle holders designed specifically for taper candles. Tapers cant stand up on their own, so you cant burn them on top of symbols. Lastly its difficult to carve words and symbols into tappers because of how thin they are. Tea Lights: Tea lights have very limited use in ritual and spellwork. Theyre small, they burn out quickly, and theyre in those little metal cases so you cant carve into them. Image: Image candles are candles in the shape of a person (either a man or woman). They are one of the more useful candles out there. If you want to cast a spell on

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someone or a spell that will affect someone, even yourself, image candles can help make the spell stronger. The idea being that we connect the candle to a specific person, then we either physically do to the candle, or enchant the candle, in the way we want to affect that person, then we light the candle and let it burn until it finishes. 7-Knob: Seven knob candles are candles that have seven different parts, the idea being that you light the candle at seven different times, each time burning off a different part. Knob candles are typically used for week long spells. Part of the ritual is performed every day over a seven day period and the candle is lit and one knob is burned. At the end of the seventh day the ritual is complete. Typically this extra attention will make spells much stronger and much more successful. Black Candles: If candle color is important to you, black candles can be very hard to get. Magic stores are the only places that stock them year round, and they often charge more for their black candles, meanwhile their normal candles are already over-priced. From late August through the end of October is the only time of year that normal stores stock black candles, so its a good idea to stock up for the entire year during these two months. Its also a good time to buy orange candles (which are also usually difficult to find). Other things to get for your candles Lighter: I recommend getting one of the long plastic lighters that are used for lighting grills. Theyre cheap and easy to find and are great for lighting candles. Cigarette lighters dont work very well because theyre made to be lit for only a short period of time and to be held upright. Many times a candles wick can take a while to light, and a disposable cigarette lighter will heat up pretty fast, burning your hand. Likewise a cigarette lighter is meant to be held upright. When you go to light a candle with it usually youll need to hold the lighter at a downward angle. This causes the flame to come up and burn your hand. I do not recommend using matches in spellwork and ritual. The reason being, if you work with fire elementals they can hide in an unlit match and lay dormant for a very long time. You probably wont even notice theyre hiding in there until you light the match. With a fire elemental inside the entire match can become engulfed within the flame and burn your finger almost as soon as it is lit. Then you panic and try to blow out the flame, but the flames too strong and blowing on it wont put it out. But the bottom part of the match, which is on fire too, is weaker than it should be and weaker than the top part, and when you blow on it you can snap the top half of the match off from the bottom. Now you have a ball of fire hurling across the room until it hits the wall and lands behind the very heavy entertainment center. Then you have to frantically pull things off the entertainment center and move it so you can put out the fire behind it before it does too much damage. If you think this is too specific to be hypothetical, youre right. Im speaking from experience. Matches are a bad idea. Candle Holder: Metal and wood candle holders are best. Which you choose is really a matter of personal taste. Metal holds energy better but wood will absorb it better. If

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youd like to get a better idea of the specific properties of metal and wood I talk about them in greater detail in the articles dealing with Knives and Swords and Wands and Staves. However glass candle holders are not the best choice. Glass is very fragile, and when you put lots of energy into it, it can vibrate a bit. When a glass candle holder is regularly used, sooner or later a spell is cast that is so powerful it breaks the candle holder. Candle Snuffer: Basic candle safety rules suggest using a candle snuffer. Blowing out a candle causes it to burn unevenly when it is relit. When working magic a candle snuffer becomes even more important. Magical spells can do weird things to flames. Lots of practitioners develop the ability to manipulate fire, at least to a small degree, and make flames do things they shouldnt. Lastly fire elementals can cause flames to get very high or move and jump in strange ways. In all of these cases its not the brightest idea to put your face close to the flame to blow it out. In some of the worst cases practitioners have had fire elementals force the flame into their mouth while they were trying to blow out the candle. Of course its very rare that anyone suffers any kind of injury from blowing out candles. Most of the time nothing bad happens. Still candle snuffers are cheap and easy to use, and many practitioners (myself included) consider it a worthwhile fire safety practice. Hurricane Glass: Hurricane glass is a piece of glass, usually shaped like an upside down vase, that you put a candle inside. You use hurricane glass when you want to light a candle inside of a draft, either from your air vents or a fan or an open window. Dressing Cloth: A dressing cloth is a piece of cloth you use to dress a candle with oil. Generally you can use each corner to dress four different candles with one cloth, but the cloth needs to be washed after every use. These things end up being a pain to clean all the time. Most of the time I usually just use paper towel. Dressing Oils: If you use unscented candles, you can buy oils to dress your candle with. Generally we use oils that are either associated with the type of spell we are casting, or we use oils that are associated with specific elements or gods. As a general rule, the associations for the various oils are the same as the associations for the various incenses. Just about any scent of oil can be found as an incense, and vice-versa. Remember that essential oils are pure oils, and they need to be diluted before use. Also be careful because some disreputable companies sell already diluted fragrance oils with brand names that include the word essential, so make sure you read the small print on the bottle. Herbs: You can make your own oil out of herbs. I plan to go into more detail on how to do this in a future post (its quite simple actually). Whenever you burn herbs, even as

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an oil around a candle, you need to be sure that you know everything about the herb youre burning, what its effects on people are, and specifically what effect it may have on you or anyone else in your home. Even if a particular herb is normally safe, you can still have a potentially fatal allergic reaction to it. Dressing a Candle Dressing a candle is rubbing oil (or some other substance, like say blood) on the candle with a cloth. A lot of people prefer to charge a candle with energy while they are dressing it (for most people this makes charging the candle easier), but not everybody does this. You take your cloth and dab oil on to it. If you plan to use the cloth for more than one candle, then you would dab only one corner of the cloth. You either start at the top or the bottom, and you move the cloth around the candle in a spiral motion. Typically if youre going down you go clockwise, if youre going up you go counterclockwise. Dressing a candle downward symbolizes putting something into the candle, like charging it with energy. Dressing a candle upward symbolizes something coming out of the candle (typically when it will be burned later in the ritual), like the energy the candle has been charged with being released into the room. You can also dress a candle downward, and then dress it upward, in order to symbolize something going into the candle and then coming out later on. Candle Energy Manipulation Tips and Tricks -One commonly used candle charging trick is to put your hand over a candle and push energy out of your fingertips into the top of the candle. While doing this move your hand in a clockwise motion over the candle. Moving your hand in a counter-clockwise motion meanwhile will discharge the energy. Remember when you work with screws that have normal threads on them, screwing it clockwise will make it go into the hole, and screwing it counter-clockwise will make it come out. Its a process that seeps into our brains (unless your the sort of person who routinely uses screws with left-handed threads) and we associate clockwise with going in and counter-clockwise with coming out. Also because theyre opposite motions, most of us will subconsciously come to the logical conclusion that they should have opposite effects and one should undo what the other one does. -A lot of practitioners use specifically colored candles to help with energy manipulation. Im going to go into more detail about this later with a post on the relationship between color and energy. Its not as important to candle magic as some people make it out to be. Cheap candle dyes are a relatively recent invention, as is the popularity of color coded candle magic. If there is any doubt about color, white candles will work with just about any spell. White is a blank color. All it will do is magnify the power of the spell and help push whatever is within it outward into the universe.

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Candle Safety Many magicians are very bad with fire safety. You should probably buy a fire extinguisher prior to doing any candle magic, because if you practice magic theres a 95% chance youre the kind of person who will set their home on fire once a month or more. Sometimes because of magical practices we have to do things which go against general candle safety rules. We might have to let a candle burn for many hours, and we wont be available to watch it for this entire period. We might have to light two candles right next to each other. We may put nails or other objects into the candles (note that I am not suggesting anyone do these things. These are all unsafe candle practices that no one should do. Do them at your own risk, you may burn down your home). A lot of magic fires are due to a lack of common sense though. Dont light candles near walls or curtains. Always use candle holders. Dont light a dozen or more candles right next to each other. Dont light candles in the middle of a breeze or draft. Keep flammable liquids (including Bacardi 151) away from candles. Dont wear loose fitting clothing or robes to ritual, or if you do keep a good distance between yourself and all lit candles. Only use stable candle holders that wont fall down when lightly tapped. If youre saying duh to all of these suggestions, congratulations, youre in the top 20th percentile of all magical practitioners. Id also like to reiterate my other suggestions, which are specifically in regard to magical candles. Dont use matches (because fire elementals can hide in them) and buy a candle snuffer. This is far from an all inclusive candle fire safety list. Id suggest extensive online and offline reading on the subject before working with candles. Granted most people in the world, by the time their parents let them use a match or lighter, know enough about candle fire safety to light a candle. However since you practice magic, Im assuming (based on general trends) that you are not one of these people, and have no clue how to light a candle without setting yourself and home on fire. Lanterns Finally we get to lanterns, and by lanterns I mean oil based lanterns that have a flame. Electric lanterns, like electric candles, arent all that useful in ritual work. Lanterns are cool magical tools, but most people dont use them. In a lot of ways they serve the same purpose as candles. The main advantage to using a lantern is that a candle is disposable and lanterns are reusable. Every time we use a magical tool, it becomes more powerful and stronger. Candles we only get to use once. Likewise if we invest the time and energy into charging and enchanting a candle, once the spell is over with the candle is gone. But if we do this with a lantern, after the spell we still have a charged and enchanted lantern.

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The main disadvantage to lanterns is that they arent disposable. One of the reasons why candles are so useful in ritual work is because the burn up. The candle, and anything weve put inside of it, goes out into the spiritual realm of the universe. If we put a thought into our lantern (using the same method we would with a candle), we now have to set our lantern on fire in order to send that thought into the universe (at which point we no longer have a lantern, and they cost more money than candles). So what a lantern can do is actually quite limited, which is why so few people use them. Lanterns can be used as sources of energy during a ritual. The flame provides a constant source of energy. Meanwhile most lanterns are metal, and metal is very good at holding a charge. If there is glass on the lantern, that can be used to amplify the energy. As the lantern is used more it becomes more powerful, and it can send out more energy when lit. A good lantern, when lit, can fill a room with strong energy. You could, if you wanted to, enchant the lantern so that produces a specific type of energy when lit. The lantern needs to be compatible with the type of energy you want it to produce. If you continually charged the lantern with that kind of energy again and again, eventually it should naturally produce only that kind of energy. If youre a little more advanced with energy manipulation, while youre charging the lantern you can go into it and change its bias so it only produces that specific type of energy. This is just a quicker method of doing the same thing. Some reasons why you might want to enchant a lantern like this: You can give the lantern a generally favorable energy, like joy or love or calm, and you can light it when you have company in order to promote a better ambience and mood. If theres a specific energy you prefer working with when you do your rituals you can set up your lantern to produce this type of energy for your rituals. You can also make the lantern more active. If the lantern had an aggressive and purifying energy, for instance, it could then be lit as an attack when cleaning a house of unwanted spirits. Theres actually quite a bit you can do with a lantern by modifying its energy. You could also enchant the lantern with a thought or message so that every time it is lit, it blasts that thought into the minds of everyone near by. This really isnt all that useful though, mainly because the message would be so specific that the lantern would probably be useless most of the time.

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How to Make Candle Oils (Cheap and Easy)

September 3, 2010 This is going to be a quick guide on how to easily and affordably make your own candle oil blends from herbs. If youre familiar with candle magic and your familiar with herbalism, no doubt you can see the possibilities of combining the two in your spellwork. Unfortunately most of the commercially available oils are rather limited. Making your own oil is not only cheaper, but it also lets you experiment with a wider variety of herbs and even lets you create your own blend. Imagine being able to make an oil out of lavender, rose, and jasmine the next time you want to do a love spell? You can even throw in a dab of dragons blood to strengthen it. The next time youre lighting a candle to do scrying, or any other type of divination, try an oil blend of mugwort and nutmeg. You can also add eyebright or even marijuana (if its legal where you live), and of course dragons blood will make the oil more powerful. Unfortunately many people have not been trained in how to brew their own oils at home. These same people go on the Internet and chat about how you need thousands of dollars worth of equipment to make your own oil. Most of us dont have that kind of money to spend on the equipment. Fortunately all you really need is about $20 plus the herbs and you can make your own oils. And people will be in awe when you tell them you have the equipment to make your own oils as needed. Im not going to teach you how to make commercial quality oil. This isnt going to be something you can sell in a store, and I dont recommend putting it on your skin. This oil is meant to be put on your candles and burned, and this oil will be perfect for that job and youll only need $20 worth of equipment. This isnt a new technique either. Someone taught this to me a while back and magicians have been doing this for a very long time. Unfortunately it isnt getting taught enough and a lot of people believe they need to spend a lot of money to make their own oils. Steps: 1. First off, get your stuff together. Figure out the exact type of blend you want to make. Then you need to get three things, your herbs, a mortar & pestle, and a base oil. I. Your Herbs How much the herbs cost are going to vary quite a bit based on quantity, quality, type, and where you shop. Never, ever buy herbs from a magic shop unless you absolutely have to. The best place to get herbs from is a New Age Herbal shop. I literally have a New Age Herbal shop and a magic store right next to each other near my home. The New Age Herbal shop has fresher herbs, theyre better taken care of, they literally cost about ten times less, and the shop is staffed only with hot girls in their early twenties (which doesnt effect the quality of the herbs, but enriches my shopping experience). The only downside to an Herbal store is there are certain 112

herbs they usually dont carry (like Osiris Root and Dragons Blood). I would say order online before you order from a magic shop. Magic shops give you low quality herbs at super high prices. WARNING: Before burning any herbs, even in an oil, you should have educated yourself on what those herbs do. Many herbs, even those sold for consumption in herbal shops, can be poisonous and potentially fatal. You should also be aware of what effect the herbs may have on you, since a severe allergy to an herb that youve burned can also be fatal. Its best to only burn candles with oils in well ventilated areas when you are awake until you are sure about what affect the herbs will have on you. II. Mortar & Pestle These can be found in magic shops, herbal stores, and pharmacies. The price will vary based on quality and size (probably between $10-$80). I have a very large high quality Mortar & Pestle. I dont suggest buying one like I did. It is so heavy I cant put in on a table or shelf because it will warp the wood. Its a pain to clean. And Ive never had to grind so many herbs at once that I needed a Mortar and Pestle tha t big. Generally one that costs between $15-$25 will be adequate for candle oils. Remember that youre more than likely going to pay an inflated price if you buy it from a magic shop. III. Base Oil This is the last thing you need and you have a few different options. The best and cheapest way to go is to use cooking oil. Use either corn oil or olive oil as your base oil. For a couple of dollars you can get a big bottle of the stuff, and that will last you a very long time so long as you arent also using it to cook with. If you want to be really fancy, you can buy a half ounce bottle of an appropriately scented fragrant oil for about $5. Expect to use at least half the bottle if not more. This can start to get pretty expensive, and personally Ive never felt like this added all that much to the spell. 2. Place your herbs in the Mortar & Pestle. This is an easy part. Take the different herbs you want for your blend. Place them in the proper quantities inside of the bowl part of the Mortar and Pestle. 3. Grind. Now take the stick part of the Mortar and Pestle, and grind the herbs in the bowl. To do this just push down hard and move the stick around. You want to keep doing this until you have the herbs ground down into a fine powder. 4. Once you have a powder, add some oil into the Mortar and Pestle. How much oil you add really depends on how many herbs youve used. You want the oil to be full of herb powder, and Id say that you always want the mixture to be at least 50% herb powder. Id say not to add any more oil than you have to (remember the oil is just the base so we can apply the herbs to the candle, its the herbs that have the magical qualities). 5. Grind again. Grind the powder into the oil to get it good and mixed up.

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6. At this point youre finished. The only thing left to do is apply the oil to the candle with a cloth. I dont suggest saving the oil (especially since it is so easy to make more) and recommend washing any excess oil out of the Mortar & Pestle after the spell.

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16 Common Incenses and Their Uses

March 22, 2010 Incense is one of the more common magical tools. Many practitioners use incense for nearly every magical act, from simple meditations to elaborate rituals. Its not that its a very powerful or versatile tool, but it is a fairly useful one. Incense utilizes our sense of smell to help align both the practitioner and the area in which it is burned with a desired mood and energy. Some common uses for incense include: -In spellwork and ritual incense is often burned to help raise energy, adjust the energy of the area, and/or aid the practitioner in achieving trance. -In meditation incense is burned to help the practitioner achieve states of clarity, focus, and/or calm. -Incense is often used as an aid to achieve astral projection and lucid dreaming. -In cleansings and exorcisms incense is burned to purify or sanctify an area. -Preferable incense can be burned to attract certain types of entities to an area, where as deplorable incense can be burned to repel certain types of entities from an area. -When contacting a deity, incense which is associated with the deity is often burned both as an offering and show of respect for the deity and also to help the practitioner make a connection with the deity. -Since incense is burned, a fire elemental can be summoned into it and held for spellwork. -Incense can also help us connect into the ideas and energies it is associated with. There are literally thousands of types of incense out there. Even discounting the weird blends they sell, there are still hundreds of different types of incense that can be bought, some of which are only slight variations of each other, if youre lucky enough to have a good store nearby. If not, for instance if youre buying your incense at the grocery store, youll have a much more limited selection. Ive put together attributions for sixteen scents which are fairly common and Ive seen most of these in stick form at the grocery store. Most everyone should be able to find at least ten of these, if not all sixteen. These sixteen are also some of the more useful types youll find too. 16 Common Incenses Amber - Represents both knowledge and history. Amber is good for meditations in which youre seeking to discover information. Its also very good for past life regressions and divinations into the past. Air associative. 115

Cedarwood - Cedar, like all wood incenses, is fire associative. Its also generally seen as an incense denoting strength or power. Its proper to burn this incense in a fort or castle, within an army prior to battle, or in a newly built or dedicated temple to announce ones strength and to push this strength outward into the world. Its also a good incense for spells meant to increase virility in men. Cinnamon Cinnamon is by far the most useful incense and also one of the easiest to find. To start, cinnamon is fire associative, which makes it a good choice when dealing with fire elementals and also useful for communing with fire associative deities (like Mars). Its also associated with passion, lust, and sexual desire, which makes it good for lust spells, aphrodisiac spells, and a good choice to burn during sex. But the thing that really sets it apart is cinnamon is really good at raising energy. If youre trying to raise energy, cinnamon is the incense you want to burn. If you want to do a very powerful spell or ritual, its good to burn cinnamon to help get the energy youll need to pull it off. Because more energy isnt going to hurt a spell, cinnamon is a good standard incense for any spellwork or ritual. About the only time you wouldnt want to use cinnamon is when either the fire attribute or the lust attribute would be undesirable in a given spell (such as when evoking a water elemental or when casting certain types of love spells). Frankincense - Frankincense promotes calm and peace. Its commonly used to relieve stress and anxiety. However it is also useful in ending conflicts and arguments, reestablishing a friendship that has ended due to conflicts (as opposed to neglect), bringing peace and resolution to enemies, and bringing peace and resolution to warring factions. It also alleviates the tension of a tense situation. In all instances, the purpose of frankincense is to end any conflict or tension and bring about a state of peace and calm. Because of its nature frankincense is often used as both a general incense for religious rituals and as an aid for meditation. Frankincense is also believed to have many healing properties, and these are related to relieving conflicts and stresses within ones body which lead to illness. Ginger Ginger is fire associative. Its good for spells which incite desire or lust. Jasmine - Jasmine is both night and love associative. Although Jasmine is associated with love, it is not associated with sex or sex appeal, although it is associated with beauty. This is where Jasmine starts to differentiate itself from Rose. In love spells, where Rose tends to utilize the entire spectrum of romance, Jasmine is more concerned with the mental and emotional connections, and although Jasmine can bring forth someone who is beautiful, this beauty is often an inner-beauty, a beauty of character, in other words someone who you would find beautiful. This also makes Jasmine a very good incense for spells which are meant to promote friendship. Lavender - Lavender promotes beauty. Its a good incense for glamours and lures, and also a good incense for magick intended to actually make one more attractive. It also works well for love spells, spells meant to attract a mate, and it is a good incense to burn during romantic situations. Water associative.

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Lotus - Generally associated with mental clarity, increased focus, and heightened intelligence. Because of these properties Lotus is often seen as ideal for meditation. Air associative. Musk Musk is Earth associative. Its a good incense for restoring balance and order, realigning ones energies, sealing portals, creating barriers and protections, and removing the influences of negative magick. Its also a good incense to burn to Saturn. Musk is also associated with chthonic deities and the underworld. Its more concerned with underworld energies and accessing the underworld than bringing forth the dead. Its a good incense to burn for certain underworld entities. Myrrh - More than anything Myrrh is sun associative. It is often also seen as having a heavenly attribute or being of the gods. It was traditionally used as a funerary incense, but this is derived from its use to elevate one to the heavens or to curry favor with the gods, or to promote a renewal into ones next life as the sun renews itself each day, not because of a chthonic association. Because of its divine attribution, myrrh is often seen as an incense of purification and exorcism, although this has been embellished quite a bit by its prominence in Christian ritual. More than anything Myrrh acts as an amplifier for whatever spell is being performed because of its sun association. It should be noted that due to its divine association, Myrrh is a poor choice for amplifying magic which is done against the will of the gods. Myrrh is a good incense to burn to sun associative gods such as Helios, Apollo, or Ra. Nag Champa - Nag Champa is a sacred incense (its a blend which consists partly of Sandalwood). Nag Champa can be burned for many of the same reasons as Sandalwood. It can be used to sanctify or purify an area. Its also a good general purpose incense for spiritual matters. This includes acts like meditation and seeking spiritual enlightenment or evolution. Opium - Opium is dream associative. Opium is a good incense to burn for any spell involving dreaming or sleep in any way, including spells meant to induce lucid dreaming or prophetic dreams. Its also a good incense to burn to dream and sleep associative deities such as Morpheus. Patchouli - The strong smell of patchouli makes it ideal for masking the smell of pot, which is its primary usage. Its considered happy or joy associative, and it tends to attract fae creatures. Rose Rose is associative with love, sex, and desire. Its a good incense to burn to deities that are associated with love, like Venus and Aphrodite. Its also a good incense for love spells, spells concerned with inciting desire like lures and glamours, and spells that are meant to bring forth your desires. Sandalwood - Sandalwood is fire and water associative along with being seen as the divine wood. Because of this Sandalwood is a good incense to burn for any deity, and its also a good incense to use to purify or sanctify an area.

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Vanilla - Vanilla is air associative, and its a good general incense to burn to represent the element of air. Specifically vanilla associates with mental thought, intelligence, and all abilities conferred by these things. The incense is a good choice to burn for deities that are typically looked upon as being concerned with intelligence, like Hermes or Thoth. Incenses and their Elemental attributions Amber > Air Cedarwood > Fire Cinnamon > Fire Frankincense > Water Ginger > Fire Jasmine > Water, to a lesser extent earth. Lavender > Water Lotus > Air Musk > Earth Myrrh > Spirit (Akasha) Nag Champa > All Five Elements* Opium > Air Patchouli > Fire & Earth, probably water too. Rose > Water, To a lesser extent fire** Sandalwood > Fire & Water*** Vanilla > Air *Is spirit associative, in the sense that it encompasses all of the four other elements. **This refers to general or red rose incense. White rose differs in attribution. ***Also seen as spirit associative, in the sense that it is equally water and fire.

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Tools: Chalices, Cauldrons, and the Properties of Water and Other Liquids.
February 13, 2010

Chalices and cauldrons are magical elemental tools associated with the element of water. This is because theyre used to hold liquid. You can literally put liquid in them for your ritual. Youll notice Ive been going through each of the five elemental tools one by one. To understand how chalices and cauldrons work, I need to review how water works and what it does. Water is a feminine element, and because of this it is a passive element. Water is passive in its flexibility, it takes on the shape of its container, unlike earth which is passive in its stagnation. Because it doesnt hold a shape water is in a constant state of flux, it can change completely moment from moment. Because of this we associate water with the future, which is ever changing, and anything else that may be associated with a state of constant change. For many of the same reasons we associate water with emotion. Emotions, like water, are constantly changing. Emotions are passive. They are a direct result of the environment, the container a person is put within if you will. Water also has unique properties in regard to holding emotional energy, or any energy for that matter, which well discuss in a bit. Suppose I have two jars of water, each containing one liter (you can do this experiment yourself at home if you wish, there is no danger with it). If I take both jars and pour them into one bucket, what happens? I have my two liters of water, but theyve combined together seamlessly. You can no longer tell which parts of the water came from jar one and which came from jar two. You cant tell where one begins or the other ends. You can take this one step further and say there are no longer two separate liters of water. You could say that those two liters came together, and in their union created something new, a bit of water that is now two liters in volume. This experiment shows where water gets a lot of its properties from. It is the element of unions. Its the element of two things coming together. The obvious meaning is a romantic relationship, and this can be extended to make water the element of not just relationships, but also love, marriage, and sex. But its also the element of all other unions too, be it platonic relationships like friendship or companies merging together, or even symbiotic relationships shared by different entities. We also said that we could take the experiment a step further, and see the two liters merging into one new entity. This is sexual union and the act of procreation, which is also associated with water. Both fire and water are elements of creation, however fire represents the masculine creative force, the act of singular creation, where as water represents the act of creation via a union of two.

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Lastly we need to look at the properties of water concerning energy. Water is sort of weird because it does two completely opposite things. First off, it acts like a sponge. It will take in any energy that is around it. It will even forcefully suck it out of something. The more water you have, the more dramatic this will be. Crossing large bodies of water, especially running water, can be very draining because of this property of water. The second thing that water does is that it gives off the energy that it takes. Water is not so great at hanging on to energy. Meaning that once water takes energy from something, you can put an item into that water in order to charge it. Because of these properties, water in motion, running water, is generally clean and without energy, and is good for cleaning the energy from something or someone. For this reason cleansing rituals are best done in the shower. However between when the water hits your body and takes some energy from it and when it hits the drain it loses quite a bit of that energy, and so showers tend to be one of the most haunted places in a home, with spirits conjugating there and things going in and out of portals that have been created. The other really haunted place is over a bed that is slept in. Your entire life is a peep show for spiritual beings :) Where as running water is clean and constantly giving up energy, stagnant water holds it a bit better, and is thus dirty and will charge you with whatever water is in it. In the same way if youre in the woods youre supposed to drink running water from a stream or the rain, not stagnant water like from a puddle. Buying Chalices and Cauldrons The majority of chalices and cauldrons will be metal. Sometimes you may find one made out of stone (and this is fine) or even something more exotic, like an ivory chalice. The one thing you need to stay away from are chalices and cauldrons made from plastic. These are going to prove to be vastly inferior tools. In fact plastic tools are almost always worthless, the one saving grace of a plastic chalice being that the water inside it is not plastic. Chalices and cauldrons are feminine, and so ideally youd want them made out of silver. Silver items tend to be pretty pricey though. Alternatively you can get one with a silver finish and this will work almost as well. A copper chalice, if you made one, would make an interesting tool and you could, no doubt, do some interesting things with it. This is far from mandatory though and a metal chalice that is neither silver nor copper will work just fine. Cool Things to do With Chalices and Cauldrons Chalices are unfortunately feminine, and thus passive, objects. Magick is largely concerned with action and doing, feminine objects dont usually do things, they have things done to them. Because of this, chalices tend not to get much ritual use. Cauldrons are a bit more useful because of their larger size.

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Certain religions that involve active magical practice, particularly many of the Wiccan sects and other neopagan religions influenced by Wicca, try to stress either an equality of the sexes or a feminine agenda. Because of this chalices are included in many rituals either to add balance to the masculine tools (like wands and knives) or in some extreme cases to try to elevate the role of the feminine by having it also encompass what it is not, often times devaluing the role of the masculine in the process. Its important to remember that, in regards to spiritual practices, masculine and feminine refer to absolute and primal ideals, not gender. A boy is not spiritually masculine and a girl is not spiritually feminine (although they could represent these things). Nobody is entirely one or the other, and most people only slightly lean moreso in one direction than the other, and which direction they lean in has nothing to do with gender. Back to the important point I was making, you probably wont see much use out of these tools. Every once in a while they will come in handy, but unless youre designing rituals to specifically use them, you wont find much need for them. Some uses for them though: Marriage Rituals: Chalices and cauldrons represent union. They are a staple of marriage rituals. You almost always see at least one if not two chalices at a wedding. Either the bride and groom should drink from the same cup to solidify their union, or the bride drinks from the grooms cup as the groom drinks from the brides cup. Energy Holder: This can be done with a chalice, to some degree, but works much better with a cauldron. During a ritual a cauldron can suck in a lot of the ritual energy. The ritual may be about empowering the cauldron, or it could just be that the cauldron is there to get the excess energy you plan on producing. Either way afterwards a lot can be done with the water. It can be bottled up and later thrown on things to release the energy on to it (this could be purifying or aggressive energy to attack with, for instance), an item (like a ring) can be dropped into the cauldron to be charged with the energy, or you could leave the cauldron open so the energy can seep out into the room to set ambience or for use in another ritual. Sex Magick: A lot of interesting ideas come to mind, especially with the cauldron. For one, a cauldron could be set up to capture some of the energy from the sexual act. Most people using sexual energy use the preorgasmic energy because this is very easy to raise in large amounts. However at the point of orgasim the energy surges eventually hitting a peak. Unfortunately this only lasts moments and you happen to be in the middle of an orgasm at the time, making it very difficult to utilize this energy. You can set it up to capture some of that energy into the cauldron, although the vast majority of the energy will still be lost (the cauldron is not going to be big enough to hold it all). The bigger the cauldron, the more energy youll be able to hold. You could also charge the cauldron beforehand in order to use the energy during sex. It could be used as an aphrodisiac, to direct or heighten the sexual experience, or it could be incorporated into a sexual ritual depending on the specific energy used. You could also incorporate the chalice or cauldron into a ritual meant to create a more meaningful and permanent union during intercourse.

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Fertility Rituals: A chalice, and cauldron too, is actually fairly useful, although by no means necessary, in fertility rituals. The chalice is representative of the female, more specifically her genitals, in procreation. It represents both the sexual union of two people, and the female party in that union. Bonding and Pacts: Remember how water represents all unions? One use of a chalice or cauldron is in a ritual designed to bond yourself to another entity. This means that the entity will somehow be attached to you or even become a part of you, or you a part of it. This is usually done for a variety of reasons, and typically both parties at least think theyre getting something they want or need out of the deal. A chalice can also be used to seal a pact with an entity. Scrying: Water has a reflective surface. Anything with a reflective surface can be used to scry. Water is even better for scrying when youre trying to divine the future though because the element of water represents the future. You cant scry with a chalice, but you can with a cauldron, or even just a bowl. It needs to be a darker color though, since bright colors (and flashy designs for that matter) tend to hinder scrying. Liquids Other Than Water There are things other than water you could fill your chalice with other things. Generally most liquids will share some or even all of waters properties. Traditionally most ritual liquids were either water, juices, teas, alcohol, or other drugs. I would recommend sticking to these and not trying to incorporate weird things like soda pop into rituals (soda, especially cola, is acidic and destructive, and actually would be useful in an infertility ritual. Also some people can use the high sugar content and caffeine to recharge themselves post-ritual). Juices: Generally juices tend to have properties that are close to the fruits they are made out of. Apple juice is associated with fertility, pomegranate with the underworld, ect. Teas: Teas are awesome drinks. They both relax you and refresh and heal you. Teas are associated with bringing one to a calm and peaceful state, recharging energy, increasing mental capabilities, and healing. The less refined the tea, the better (black is the worst, white is the best). Alcohol: Typically the alcohol used is either beer or wine. Beer is used mainly because traditionally it has been more prevalent than anything else in some regions. Wine is preferable to any other kind of alcohol though. When youre drunk on wine its not as sloppy as hard liquor, or even beer. Even when youre drunk, and you know youre drunk and you can feel it, mentally its more like being buzzed. The loss of mental focus and intelligence, and the cloudiness that result from drinking are counterproductive to magical work. With wine, these effects are lessened. With hard liquor these effects are magnified quite a bit, and so generally we dont use hard liquor in ritual.

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All alcohol is associated with removing inhibitions and freeing oneself or bringing oneself to a more natural and honest state. Wine is associated with sacredness and the divine, and is also associated with certain gods (like Bacchus). Beer and ale is also associated with certain gods, and along with hard liquor is associated with the dulling of emotions or emotional healing. Alcohol being a drug, when used in large enough amounts it can lead to a spiritual catharsis. Alcohol can both open up your psychic senses, most commonly occurring with wine, or dull your spiritual senses, most commonly occurring with hard liquor. The actual effects, and their severity, will vary with the individual. Excessive drinking and alcohol addiction are counterproductive to any spiritual work.

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Tools: Knives, Athames, and Swords; and The Qualities of Different Metals
December 15, 2009 For anyone who doesnt know, an athame is just another name for a double-edged knife, and in practice a single edged knife can just as easily be used for the same purpose. For the sake of this article Im making no distinction in use between an athame and a knife. Anything thats too small to be a sword is a knife, and anything too big to be a knife is a sword. There are knives made out of glass, ivory, bone, and other materials, but for the scope of this article were talking about knives and swords with blades made out of metal, typically steel. Knives and swords are elemental tools, this time the element of air. Air, like fire (wands and staves), is a masculine element, and our masculine elemental tools are tools of action. Some people are under the mistaken belief that wands and staves represent air and knives and swords represent fire. This is a stupid, idiotic, belief based on the fact that fire, like swords, hurts with no actual understanding of the properties of the various elements. Fire is the element of passion, fury, and pure force, and staves, which are naturally occurring in nature, hurt people through blunt force trauma. The metal in swords and knives is man made and thus evidence of the ingenuity of man. They are weapons of skill and precision, not purely brute force and strength. Air is the element of intelligence, science, imagination, and swiftness. If you swing a sword it moves and cuts through the air as if it were becoming part of it. Wands and staves can be set on fire. What to look for in a sword or knife. With knives and swords its important to have decent tools. Prices vary widely from store to store, but theres no need to spend a fortune on these tools for most magical work. However a lot of whats out there is flimsy and made for decoration, not actual use, and this wont do at all. For starters, knives and swords are weapons that cut. A lot of their symbolism and use is tied up in this. Any knife or sword used for magical practice should have a sharp point and a sharp edge. You want decent quality metal for the blade (personally the lowest quality I would use would be 440 stainless steel). Lastly you want to make sure that the quality of the hilt is good and that the blade is securely attached to it. The last thing you want is to be waving around your sword or knife in ritual and have the blade suddenly detach and go flying across the room or into you. For the most part knives and swords serve the same purpose in magical work. However because of mundane reasons knives are usually far more useful. Swords require a lot more space to work with than knives, and so they arent suited for small

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enclosed ritual spaces Knives are also easier to conceal on your person, and in many areas even legal to carry on you, where as swords are more difficult to hide and more commonly illegal to have in public. Size does matter, a lot. All other things being equal, a larger blade will be able to both hold and work with larger amounts of energy. For most acts a large knife will be good enough. Smaller knives, about the size of your hand, are not as useful in magical work, and should be used for more mundane magical purposes like cutting herbs, drawing blood, or carving symbols into candles. Swords are useful for directing very large amounts of energy. Sometimes a large knife is enough to seal an entity, but with larger entities a sword may be preferable. Due to the large amount of energy they can hold swords are preferable as sentient objects. Very large swords can utilize massive amounts of energy. Remember swords and knives are airy objects. Theyre a representation of intelligence and craftsmanship. Because of this better crafted swords tend to work better. This is true of both the quality of the blade, and of the art that may decorate it (such as symbols on the blade or the beauty of the hilt). A very expensive, well made, handcrafted sword would be best, but unfortunately most of us are going to find that out of our price range. We can still get good swords and knives at decent prices (expect to pay between $60-300 for a good sword, considerably less for a good knife if you shop intelligently). As a general rule, better technologies used in the bladework, such as with Japanese swords or the smaller, later era European swords, are going to work better. However blades that are made with technologies meant to lower the cost of the blade by sacrificing quality, such as putting a hole through the center, will be detrimental. The typical use of the type of sword will also lend some bearing to its use in ritual. For this reason dull, purely decorative swords and knives are not very useful in ritual. By their nature they are inactive, and this is even worse with swords which represent the most active element. As another example, the tanto was traditional used to commit ritual suicide, and so tanto knives tend to be more adept at dealing with death energy and people who have been suicidal, especially those who have survived attempts, usually find themselves very compatible with the knife. As a personal note, I would recommend against buying reproductions of famous swords from movies and video games for ritual use. The swords are generally made for decoration, not for use, and in almost every case Ive noticed the swords are inferior to other equally priced swords. Youre paying extra for the product branding. Cool stuff to do with a blade. Physical Self Defense - Swords and knives were meant to hurt and kill, and so long as theyre sharp they do it well. Killing is also one area where a sword far exceeds the capabilities of a knife, and for this reason, at least traditionally, swords were present at most dangerous ceremonial rituals. On the off chance you manage to physically manifest a hostile creature during a ritual (or one manifests during something like a

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house cleaning), a sword will be able to hurt and maybe kill anything that has a physicality. A more common use though would be defending yourself against someone who has become possessed and violent during a ritual. Note that I would recommend doing everything possible not to hurt someone during a ritual, and that local laws concerning what constitutes self-defense and justified force vary and you should be familiar with those laws before using a sword or knife in this manner. However Ive also been shot by a medium who accidentally became possessed during an evocation, so I can understand the need to be able to defend yourself. Battery - This is probably the first thing most practitioners do when they get their first knife. Metal doesnt absorb energy as easily as wood, but it does hold on to it much better. Although any energy can be used, typically practitioners will enchant the knife with their own energy when they are in a calm and balanced mood. For many practitioners, the knife they use as their battery is an essential ritual tool. It acts as an emergency failsafe should something go wrong. If a practitioner ends up completely exhausting themselves during a ritual and then finds they need more energy, like if for instance they were attacked in their weakened state, the blade is a reserve of energy they can use. If they are bound by another practitioner, they can use the energy in the blade to cast an unbinding. If theyre psychologically attacked or otherwise become emotionally unstable during ritual, they can use the energy in the blade to balance out their own energy. The metal will not absorb energy as easily as the wood in a wand will. Because of that it often times isnt enough just to leave a blade on an altar or to take it with you to rituals in order to make a battery. More often than not a practitioner will have to specifically charge the blade with energy. The first time you charge a blade with energy, it could take hours. However youll notice the metal will hold the charge very well and the blade will lose very little energy over time without use. Because of this you only have to replenish the blade after youve used it, and not much more than what youve taken out of it. After doing this several times you may even find that the blade begins to replenish itself after use. To charge the blade, first make sure that you are in a calm, balanced, and strong state. Hold the knife or sword by the hilt and move energy through your hand, into the hilt, and then into the blade itself. You may wish to meditate or otherwise achieve trance in order to make this process easier. As I said it could take several hours to do this properly depending on how good you are at it. You can also try singing with the sword in your hand, and pushing the energy out of your mouth with the words to the song and into the blade through your hand. You can also try something similar involving dancing, and these two methods can be combined. I dont know if this is a better method, but its definitely more fun than just sitting there with your sword. You can also try doing other tasks like watching TV while doing this, but the entire process will take longer. Also, if you need to you can split this ritual up over several days. Energy Manipulation - Blades manipulate energy differently than wooden wands. Where as wands move very large amounts of energy, blades move energy in much smaller amounts. For the trade off though, blades are able to manipulate energy in a

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much finer manner. For instance the smaller amount of energy used by a sword can form a far more devastating attack than a wand could because the energy can be directed at a small, single, specific point. The sword is also going to be better at directing energy at a specific point rather than just pointing a large amount into a single direction hitting everything. For example if you had a barrier around your working area and someone or something wished to enter, you could use your wand to throw a massive amount of energy at the barrier knocking it down. Or you could use your sword to cut a small and specific place for someone to enter and then repair the damage afterwards. Sealing Entities - You can seal entities into blades. You might want to do this for a variety of reasons. You may want the entity in the blade so that it would aid you in battle. You may want it in there so you can access its power during magical rituals, or to empower it with a physical form so that it can act in this world and somehow help you, or to keep it in one place so it is there to do what you need when you need it. Or you could just seal an entity in there to get rid of it and then throw the blade into the back of some closet. Some entities will willingly enter the blade because they want to be inside it. If they cannot do this on their own, you may have to develop a method to help them in. If an entity is unwilling to enter the blade, then you would need to grab it and push it in there, like you would with energy, and then seal the blade so it cannot escape. A basic seal would be a small amount of energy entered into the blade, possibly in the formation of a sigil denoting no entry or exit or a lock or something being closed, empowered with the intent not to let anything escape. A stronger seal would be to charge wax and melt it on top of the sword and sheath in order to seal the two together. Done correctly the entity will only be able to come out and effect the physical world when the wax seal is broken. Bigger entities are going to require bigger blades. Large knives will usually be big enough to seal most entities youll find, but swords are always better for sealings, especially with larger more powerful entities. Some entities, like say gods, are just going to be too big and cant possibly be sealed into a sword (and theyd probably destroy you if you made a serious attempt at doing this). Living Blades - Better than sealing in an entity is a living blade. Some blades do become sentient over time because of energy constantly being passed through them, although this doesnt happen too often accidentally and is much more difficult and rarer than with wood. However, in the instance of a handcrafted blade, if the craftsman puts enough time, devotion, and enough of himself into the blade there is a chance the blade will be born as a sentient and living object. There will happen a lot more often with swords than with knives, mainly because swords take a lot more time to make and require a lot more skill. A living blade will have a personality all its own, and will have some power to act within this world. If the craftsman knows what hes doing, he can do various things like continually charging the object during creation, casting certain spells while making it, and writing certain symbols and ruins on the sword in order to further empower it.

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Sword Memory Living swords will naturally remember the people who have wielded them, their fighting techniques, the battles theyve fought in and the rituals theyve been used in. They can then, to some extent, impart this past knowledge and these abilities to whoever is currently wielding them, and even use these abilities themselves in some instances. A non-living blade can also be made to hold a memory (and by non-living I also mean nothing is sealed in it). This isnt usually an effortless process though, and the practitioner needs to make a special effort to place the image and memory of what has occurred into the blade. Soul Holding - This is far more effective when done with a living sword. In that instance you would merge your soul together with that of the sword, each taking a piece of the others soul, and this would create a closer bond between you and the sword and also allow you to act at times like you were a single entity. You can also do this with a non-living blade, and the purpose in this instance is to leave a small part of your soul behind with the intent that, after death, most or all of your remaining soul will seek that piece out and also enter into the blade. From there you can continue to live on and affect the world as a blade, but the typical intent is to find a suitable host and draw them to the sword, and then over time to work your way either into possessing them or being a true walk-in, effectively achieving immortality. Astral attacks - Finally any of the above blade can be used for an astral type attack, so long as it has some sort of energy charge to it. In this instance you would literally attack a non-corporeal entity with the sword or knife and the blade would cut through them hurting and possibly even killing them. Living swords and swords with sealed entities will do this of their own volition. You might need to tell the sword that you need it to attack astrally, or the sword may be able to figure it out on its own. A sword which is holding a piece of your soul may be strong enough to attack astrally just because you want it to, but you might also need to treat it as if it were a battery. With a battery, the energy is already in the blade and will go through what you are hitting, but it wont actually hurt your victim. You need to access the energy in the blade and attune it with aggression, or possibly pain, and give it an intent to hurt. So long as youve attuned the energy correctly and keep it that way, once you move the sword through the area where the entity is it will hit it the same as if you were cutting through a physical person. This would also hurt a physical person if you were moving the blade through them, but then so would the blade. Sheaths For the most part, the sheath is going to be the least important part of the sword. To cut costs, many swords out there come with very cheap sheaths. If you want to do something special with the sheath, you can always buy a better one to fit over the sword. If you just want it for a utilitarian purpose, youre probably fine with the one you got with the sword. If youre planning to seal something with wax, ideally youd want a metal sheath and a metal hilt on the blade. Youre going to want to buy this with the blade because metal

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sheaths have to be kind of exact. A wooden sheath would be the second best choice, especially if it had a coat of pain or some fabric covering it. Plastic sheaths are going to be useless for this. In fact, plastic sheaths are completely useless for any magical work. If you want to put an enchantment of some sort on the sheath, a wooden sheath is the best choice. Youd ideally want a wooden sheath that looked nice, that was a work of art in its own right. You might also want to put gemstones on the sheath. The Qualities of Some Common Metals Steel Steel is a masculine metal, representing air. Steel is the crystal of the metal world. It doesnt amplify, but the metal is largely blank and can be given a wide variety of different enchantments. The only actual attributes found in steel are its strength and durability, and maybe to some extent beauty (but in a very specific way). Considering what we usually use metal for in ritual, its unlikely any of these attributes would run counter to our goals. Its also purity, but only to the extent that it is pure and anything can be written on to it. Most swords and knives are going to be some kind of steel. Steel rings are also very affordable and are suitable for general enchantments and magical experiments (although if you want a very powerful ring, you may want to spring for a more expensive metal with a gemstone attached). Silver - Silver represents the feminine aspect of metal specifically water. Silver is a purifier. This is why, in folklore, silver weapons are ideal for fighting things which are an abomination to nature, such as vampires and werewolves. Silver is also very good at hiding things. It would be typical for a silver tool to not seem like much but actually hold a great deal of power. Something sealed into silver could also be very difficult to detect or hard to quantify. Silver is also useful with spells concerning invisibility. As for our tools, we usually see silver in jewelry (such as rings and necklaces). Some people do have silver chalices (and due to its feminine aspect silver is ideal), silver framed mirrors, and silver candle holders, but more often than not these items arent sterling silver but just have a coat of silver on top (be very careful, a lot of manufacturers list items with a topcoat of sterling silver as being sterling silver. Large sterling silver items are rather expensive. If you paid $20 or $40 for it, it isnt completely silver). Due to its high cost, they dont make silver swords, and its very rare to see a good sized silver knife (although they do exist, but they are pretty pricey). A large silver knife is a very cool tool to have though, especially if you want something for general metaphysical combat or cleaning houses. Gold - Gold represents the masculine aspect of metal, specifically fire. Gold is good at amplifying things, and because of this it is most often used in spells to amplify wealth. It also tends to draw attention to itself, which makes it ideal for glamours and other spells which are meant to get you noticed. Whatever kind of energy, or entity, is sealed into a gold item tends to be amplified outward and is easily detectable. Because of its high cost, gold tools are usually limited to small jewelry. Smaller gold-alloy cooking knives do exist, although they are still fairly expensive. Gold is generally used sparingly for decoration on hilts and sheaths. Solid gold knives do exist, but you need to be rich (not just well-off and not Pagan rich, like Forbes rich) to afford these.

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Platinum - Platinum is a feminine metal which represents the element of Earth. Its generally associated with stability, resistance, and endurance. Its also good for spellwork which is meant to attract physical pleasures such as sex and sexual contact, wealth, and food. Because of its high price, the fact that it is not as vibrant as gold (which is cheaper), and that it actually resembles silver (which is way cheaper), youre not really going to see any tools made out of platinum except for jewelry. Lead Lead also has an Earth association. It represents stability, durability, and resistance. Its also considered an ancient metal and represents age. Out of all metals, lead is the most protective and also is the best at keeping things sealed inside. Due to the fact that it is poisonous, you dont typically see magical tools made out of lead. Tin - Tin is masculine and represents strength, particularly increasing strength. Copper - Copper is a feminine metal and is associated with love, beauty, desire, sex, fragility, and impermanence. It is ideal for casting glamours and love spells. It can also be used to cast spells meant to end things, promote decay, or for spells concerning general destruction. Bronze - Bronze is associated with love, beauty and desire, strength, and permanence. Used as an enchanted weapon, it can attack with the destructive powers of beauty and love (properly channeled love energy is very destructive). Bronze weapons are sometimes seen as the weapons of the righteous warrior in battle. Bronze jewelry still exists today and is not very expensive. For centuries now steel has been universally used for weapons instead of bronze because it is both cheaper and makes a better blade. However prior to the discovery of steel, bronze was a common metal used in blades and recreations of copper knives and swords are still on the market, although they tend to cost a bit more than their steel counterparts (but not by much). Planetary Associations of Metals Sun > Gold Moon > Silver Mercury > Mercury Mars > Iron (Steel) Venus > Copper (Brass, Bronze) Jupiter > Tin (Bronze) Saturn > Lead

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Tools: Wooden Wands, Staves, and the Qualities of Different Woods

November 9, 2009

Section 1: Deals with how to use wands and staves in magical practices, and is meant to aid those who dont know what a wand does or how to use it. Section 2: Deals with the different qualities of various common woods, and is meant to aid those who want the correspondences of different woods. Types of Wands There are basically three types of wands that are of use to us as magicians. The first type, and the most important, are wooden wands, which will be dealt with in this article. There is a second type which is a piece of crystal in the shape of a wand, known as a crystal wand or energy wand. These are generally associated with the new age movement and are very useful. Lastly theres a type of wand that is hand made by putting gemstones and herbs inside of a hollow pipe. Ill discuss these types of wands in future articles. There are other types of wands, most notably a metal wand, which some stores are now selling. These things are next to useless and a waste of money. Youre better off with either a wooden wand or a knife. How to Use a Wand Wands are one of the magicians five elemental tools and are fire associative. Wood is great at quickly absorbing and easily working with large amounts of energy, and so wands are used to manipulate large amounts of energy easily. Note the following exercises assume at least a passing understanding of how to manipulate energy. Without this understanding your results will not be as impressive. Soak and Radiate: This is not really an exercise. Just a comment about the nature of a wand. If you watch a wand youll notice that, all on its own, it will very easily soak up some of the energy around it. Youll also notice that the wood will radiate this energy from it, as if it is slowly leaking out. This is the nature of wood and how it reacts with energy and why it is so good at manipulating energy as it does. Moving Energy: Moving energy is easy enough. If you can find it in the room you can easily wave your hand to move it, or swirl it around, or whatever (you dont even need a hand, but these things are always easier with physical aids). Now try these same exercises with your wand. Youll notice youre moving a much larger amount of energy around, and youll be doing it a lot easier than if you just used your hand. Pulling Energy into the Wand: Put each hand on opposite ends of the wand and hold it horizontally at chest level. Now concentrate on pulling nearby energy towards yourself and into the wand. You should notice the wand works kind of like a magnet

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pulling in whatever stray energy may be around. Raising Energy (Method One): This is the same as the previous method, except this time try to pull energy from more than just the surrounding area. You can also try pulling energy from out of the ground. Youll notice youll pull a lot of energy into the area very quickly. Raising Energy (Method Two): Pretty much the same as the last method, except instead you hold the wand in one hand and move the wand in an upward motion. This is typically the preferred method for raising energy from the ground. You can also prance around the room doing this because, um, some people like that sort of stuff. Not me! But some people. Energizing (Screw Method): Swirl the wand over an object or person in a clockwise motion to push the nearby energy into it. Swirl counterclockwise to drain. Directing energy: This is pretty much the same as moving energy. Hold the wand vertically and move your arm down until it is at a ninety degree angle with your body. All free energy should now rush towards whatever is being pointed at. Unless the energy is specifically charged for an act, this is generally an attack. You throw enough energy at a barrier and it will break. You throw enough energy at something living and you will kill it. It helps if the energy is aggressive and malicious, but an aggressive and malicious intent is usually enough to do it. All of these methods are more dependent on will and intent than anything else. The motions are only meant to help focus the mind and ones intent through physical action.

Staves Staves work much the same as wands. Theyre pretty much just really big wands. Anything you can do with a wand, you can do with a staff. The advantage of having a wand is that it is easier to carry around to rituals, its easier to store several of them, theyre easier to charge on an alter, they are cheaper and easier to make, and some woods can not be made into staves. Staves have several advantages. For starters, theyre more inconspicuous, if you have a small, modest staff. If you have a ten foot tall staff with feathers and bells hanging off it, no its not inconspicuous. If you have a cane-like walking stick, you just use a cane to walk. Staves are also bigger. Technically this means, all things being equal in regards to wood types and enchantments, they should be able to move larger amounts of energy. Itd be very rare though, with a properly enchanted wand, to hit a point where you felt you needed more and a staff would make much of a difference.

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Also, being bigger, staves can hold larger charge for longer. This is actually the biggest advantage the staff has. Wood radiates energy, and so the charge is always disappearing. The more energy that enters a piece of wood, the quicker it will radiate out. A staff can hold a lot more energy though, so a staff will keep its charge much longer. Because of this, and the ease of carrying it around as a walking stick, many people like to take staves to places with large amounts or unique energy in order to charge them. Properly done, this can result in a very powerful and highly charged tool when used in ritual. Adding Gemstones to Your Wand A lot of people like to attach gemstones to a wooden wand. Whether or not to do this is up to the practitioner and largely a matter of preference. A gemstone will hold a charge much better than wood, and so it can be used as a battery for the wand. Gemstones also amplify energy (meaning the energy coming off the wand will be increased). A gemstone may make it easier to manipulate and shape energy in a finer, less broad, way. And finally a gemstone will taint the wands energy to that of the gemstone. The exact taint is dependent on the type of gemstone used, and is beyond the scope of this article. On the downside the gemstone will have its own personality (which you much be compatible with, in addition to that of the wood), and a gemstone will have a particular taint on the wands energy (which the wand ideally should be compatible with). The Personality of Wood Remember that wood was once a living thing, and as such each plant had its own personality, and that personality is going to carry on to the wood itself. Thats why its important to be sure that you are compatible with a particular wand or staff. The Qualities of Wood Broadly speaking, different types of wood have certain inherent qualities, and these will effect how any wooden magical tools made from them operate. Listed below are some of the most common, and also some of the most useful, types of wood youll find in magical tools and their general qualities: Apple Apple is associated with love and fertility, and is good for utilizing love and sexual energies. It works well with all sorts of love spells, lust spells, marriage spells, and fertility spells. Apple is compatible with deities of love, sex, desire, and courtship. Ash Ash is fire associative. All wands are fire associative, but ash is doubly so. Ash makes a very good battle wand. Its best use is for direct attacks against people and entities. It also does pretty well with death curses and with destroying crops (not really

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that useful in this day and age though). Because of its combative nature, its also good at most kinds of protection magick, like casting wards and barriers. Properly enchanted, ash can also do well in aiding all kinds of creativity. Ash is compatible to deities who are fire associative and deities of warriors and battle (Mars, Aries, Athena, Tyr). Bay Laurel The bay laurel is sacred to Apollo and is generally associated with immortality, eternal youth, the regeneration of youth, and healing. Elder - Elder wood is very good at finding and absorbing negative energies. For this reason most people will find Elder, at best, difficult to work with in any kind of magick that doesnt involve harm, vengeance, or cursing. Elder is also a very alive and vengeful type of tree, and Elder wood should never be taken off of a tree without permission from the tree, otherwise you may have to deal with the wrath of the tree. Elder wood will often work as a ward by itself, either because entities fear the elder wood, or because they fear that which is powerful enough to control the elder wood. Elm Earth associative, Elm is the opposite of Ash. Hawthorn A fae associative wood (and surprise, you can make alcohol from it). Like oak, this is an otherworldly wood, which makes it somewhat useful for evocations, but keep in mind that it comes from fae realms and generally connects to fae realms. Hawthorn is best for magick dealing directly with fae. Fae-kin may also find the wand very compatible. The woods nature may also make it a good choice for fae-like endeavours. Cutting down or otherwise destroying a Hawthorn tree that fae have laid claim to will often times make them angry and vengeful. Hazel Air associative. Hazel is a wood of wisdom and intelligence. Because of this, in spiritual work, many see hazel wands as a general good all-purpose wand. Holly Holly is associated with order and is sacred to Saturn. Generally holly wont make a very good wand or staff. It tends to work against most magick since it is geared for balancing things, setting things right, and putting things in the boundaries that they are meant to be in. People who have strong ties to Saturn and are used to utilizing order magick might be able to find some value in a holly wand, but most people wont get much use out of it. It would do very well for binding spells, closing portals, deenchanting an area, and cleaning up magical messes. Items made out of holly can be very useful, especially when properly enchanted. They can help with achieving balance and order. If you find your life is in disarray, if youre emotionally unhinged, or if you have major metaphysical issues in your home, holly can help to fix this. It can also help protect against certain kinds of spells and supernatural threats. Fae also dont like holly and sometimes they can be driven away by it. Generally holly will try to push things out of an atypical, metaphysical, imbalanced or chaotic situation and move it towards a typical, mundane, balanced, and ordered situation. It promotes calm and peace. Maple - Generally a wood of protection.

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Oak - Oak is an ancient tree, the species is older than this world. Oak does not originate here, it originates in other worlds, and as such it acts as a sort of anchor to these worlds and their magicks. Because of this oak is a very powerful magical wood. Groves of oak trees are a preferred place for ritual because the area is anchored into other worlds. Oak also works very well when used to move through worlds (either going out via astral projection, shadowwalking, or dreaming) or bringing things in through evocation. Oak is also associated with lightning and is sacred to all lightning associated gods (Zeus, Thor). Pine - A good wood for spells involving youth, the slowing of age and decay, immortality, and strength (when defined as resistance). Also a good all purpose wand for spells involving practical matters. Poplar - Some confusingly think that poplar is good for protection spells, when in fact its that items made from the wood make excellent guardians. Your poplar wand isnt so much going to be good at casting protection spells as it is going to be good at protecting you from attacks while you carry it. Rowan - Rowan is an excellent absorber of energy. This makes the wood superior in all kinds of protection spells. In fact just having Rowan wood on your person may be enough to completely absorb all of the energy from a hostile spell. Likewise Rowan can absorb the radiant energy from the area and from dead spirits and stray entities, rendering them harmless and invisible. Properly enchanting and using Rowan wood will magnify (and if done right filter) its absorption abilities making it more effective in these endeavors. Also due to its very high sensitivity in regards to absorbing energy they make superior dowsing rods. Sandalwood Sandalwood is a divine wood. It is associated with divinity, the gods, and all matters of a higher spiritual nature. Sandalwood is also an endangered and protected species, and there is a much greater demand for the wood than supply. Because of this most sandalwood is not true sandalwood, but of a related species. Walnut Walnut is another fire associative wood. Its a strong wood and its associated with destruction. Because of this it makes a good battle wand. It differs a bit from ash though. Ash is actually associated with the battle and is good for fighting, preferable to walnut in that regard. Walnut just destroys things really well, which is always good in a fight. If you just want to destroy your enemies and leave a path of massive destruction in your wake, go with walnut. It would also work well with spells of mass destruction and death. I believe walnut may also be useful with glamour spells, and a wand used for that would be very interesting. Willow Willow is water associative. Its good for both healing spells and cleansing spells. Its also good for exorcising spirits (which is technically a cleansing spell). This makes Willow an excellent choice for besoms and brooms. In actuality what Willow is good at is washing away that which is bad, improper, or old and bringing forth that which is new or a renewal. It is because of this that willow is sometimes associated with bringing the dead to their final resting place, however willows association is with

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exercising the dead and the resulting renewal, not with the land of the dead or with death energy. Willow can also work well with death spells under very limited circumstances. Due to willows nature of getting rid of that which is bad, improper, or old there are some legends that the tree will uproot itself and seek out and kill travelers. (European) Yew First off, make sure you get European Yew and not Pacific Yew (which is more common in North America). Yew is associated with the dead and the land of the dead. Yew is very good at utilizing death energy (this is the energy of the dead, not energy that kills). Its also good for bringing forth and controlling the dead. Yew is compatible with most Chthonic deities.

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Of Shielding and Banishing Rituals Introduction

March 26, 2012

Banishing Ritual A ritual designed to clear an area of all entities, magical energies, and supernatural influences. The Lower Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram is the most well known banishing ritual. Shield A barrier created using the energy of ones aura, and typically used to deflect magical attacks or prevent oneself from being magically probed. Shielding The act of consciously creating and controlling a shield. In the past Ive talked a lot about how I feel that shielding and banishing rituals are overused within the community, and how these two things, for some, have become the solution for almost every metaphysical problem imaginable. Reading various message boards that have linked to this site and what some have asked me in comments and emails, it seems as though Ive been misinterpreted. Part of the problem is that I havent said that shielding and banishing rituals should never be used. Im of the opinion that every tool a magician has in their repertoire, properly used, is an asset, and under the right circumstances almost anything can be useful. So of course I recommend learning how to shield or banish, because these arent very hard things to learn and youre going to be more powerful through knowing them. I also recommend learning how to do everything else you can too. Some have read this as me just saying that shielding and banishings shouldnt be used quite as often as they are by some practitioners, but they should still remain a basic element of ones practice. I never meant anything close to that. I think there are only a handful of situations where either of these things may be useful. The vast majority of shields Ive done, over my entire life, have either been simple tricks to amuse me, like making my spiritual body look like a ruby rock to others to see if they notice, or so absurd and complicated, both in appearance and function, that they could hardly be considered shields. Things like the Insta Bramble Reverse Shield Trap, or the Holey Knife Shield. I havent used a shield for any kind of defense in over three years, and I havent had a need for it in all that time. In my entire life, I can count how many times Ive used a defensive shield on my hands. Outside of experimentation or to prove that I could do it, or as part of a ritual that included it, Ive never done a true banishing. Ive never come across a use for it where there wasnt a better option. Ive done a few cleansings, which are sort of like banishings, but they specifically targeted general entities and not energies. I dont even do those anymore though. Im scary enough all by myself that I can get rid of just

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about anything I dont like. At least anything that would be affected by a banishing anyways. This is in contrast to people who promote always shielding and including banishings as part of every ritual. I also find that the sort of people who always suggest better shielding or doing a banishing ritual as the solution to every metaphysical problem arent very skilled magicians. It doesnt take any great amount of skill, creativity, knowledge, or first hand experience to suggest either of these options. The answer is always either A or B, and which answer best fits which situation is usually obvious. The fact that there are usually far better solutions to these problems, and that these solutions arent discussed, weighed, or even imagined by these magicians, only goes to further prove how incompetent they are. These are typically the sort of people who parrot the magical information of others, often times without fully understanding it, and usually have very limited, or even nonexistent, first hand spiritual experiences. Over the next week Im going to write two more articles in this series, one dealing with my views on shielding specifically, and one dealing with my views on banishings. The first, on shielding, is probably going to be the longer of the two. Although just as overused, banishing rituals are not as bad as shielding. Banishing can be somewhat counterproductive, but there are also some very strong magicians who banish frequently, and the drawbacks of doing this are not that detrimental. The worst part about banishing rituals is that its used as a solution to problems it doesnt really fix, or doesnt fix well. So long as a magician keeps a wide arsenal of tools, theyre usually fine, even if they do banish too much. The same cant be said of shielding, which is a much bigger problem. In the short term, shielding is not as protective as people think it is, and often times leaves the practitioner in a much more vulnerable state. Its also not very economical, and used incorrectly, it can seriously hinder the practitioner, both inside a fight and outside of it. In the long term shielding tends to seriously harm the practitioner by restricting their magical ability and limiting their spiritual growth, not to mention the fact that it discourages learning better offensive and defensive techniques to protect oneself with. Insta Bramble Reverse Shield Trap - The idea comes, partially, from my Hecate barrier spell which I first cast for a friend. One of the differences of that barrier, from a standard one, is that it was a thorny thicket, so that anything attempting to break through it would be hurt. This shield works in the same way, being composed of thick bramble that causes pain to anything that directly touches it rather than a standard energy barrier. In order for this to work, it has to be an instant shield, which Ill talk more about in the article dealing with shielding. Basically though this means that the shield wont come

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up until its needed. So the shield doesnt come up until the punch is thrown and about to connect, or an enemy is charging you and almost on top of you. At the moment the enemy connects with the shield, it pulls itself off the practitioner, and instantly surrounds the attacker. Thats the trap part, and in doing so it becomes a reverse shield, shielding the attacker instead of the defender. At that point the shield is hurting the attacker and also preventing them from forming an attack that breaks the shielding. The shield then begins slowly folding in on itself, squeezing the attacker, causing more pain, and generally crushing them. In order for it to work, the timing needs to be perfect. Its also easily broken, and it doesnt cause all that much pain. Its a fun attack though, and if it doesnt work, I have a thousand more to try. Holey Knife Shield - The basic idea comes from having a shield of knives. I like a shield of knives, because you can attack with one of those. Its holey because there arent enough knives to completely defend the practitioner, or even defend the practitioner well. Theyre just sort of misplaced here and there, leaving the practitioner pretty open to attack. They do extend far outward of the practitioner (I like to keep mine three to five feet out from myself in all directions). The energy holding the knives to the practitioner could be turned into a standard shield for better protection, but instead the energy is kept loose and weak and fluid, that way the practitioner can be better focused on making the knives more powerful, and more knives can also be created so they extend further out. Basically the knives act as if theyre tied to the practitioner by strings all over their body, except they arent affected by gravity and can float around, and the practitioner wont accidentally hit themselves with the knives as they move. This way the practitioner can jump around, swinging their arms and legs, and hitting their enemies with knives extending several feet out when they do.

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Of Shielding and Banishing Rituals Shields

May 3, 2012

The Method of Shielding In its most basic form, a shield is a wall of energy which surrounds and follows an individual, and is structured in such a way that it will deflect or stop purely energy based attacks. Some shields may be further developed to stop other kinds of attacks, such as vampiric drains, bindings, or general hexes, although this isnt true of all shields. The ideal shield would stop all forms of attacks, including physical attacks, although shields of such power are rarely seen. Shields are usually developed, at least initially, by manipulating the naturally occurring energy in ones aura. An aura usually consists of the energy that is normally shed by a person. This energy is still strongly connected to the individual, it tends to follow the individual around, and a relationship is formed between the energy and the individual where anything that affects one will have an immediate effect on the other. For example, when a person becomes emotional, the energy of their aura will change to match their emotions. This may be partially due to the fact that the person is constantly shedding energy, but it is also due to the fact that the aura energy is linked to the individual, and affected by their condition. In the same way an attack against an individuals aura can be felt by the individual. As time passes energy moves further away from the individual, and the link weakens until it reaches a point where there is no longer a significant connection between the individual and the aura energy. Until the link becomes weak, the energy in a persons aura can be easily manipulated by a trained practitioner. With Shielding, the basic idea is to make this aura energy more solid so that it becomes a barrier and prevents other things from passing through it. Shielding and Wicca Shielding is a very simple technique. Its not hard to figure out, its not hard to do, and we can safely assume that most magicians through out history knew about shielding, could do it, and kept it as a tool in their magical toolbox. However up until recently there hasnt been much written about Shielding. Granted shielding is so simple that perhaps the old masters didnt see much need to discuss it. Still, even within works that deal specifically with magical attacks and defenses, shielding is hardly mentioned.

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But in recent times, and rather suddenly, Shielding has become THE magical technique. Its offered up as the solution to nearly every spiritual or magical problem that exists. Entire books have been written on how to shield. New practitioners are often encouraged to concentrate on learning shielding and developing their shielding abilities. Usually thats the only form of defense they are taught (other than banishing rituals). The popularity of Shielding seems to have a direct correlation to the rise of Wicca, and its easy to see why. One of the main tenets of Wicca, which has been stressed again and again by practitioners, is harm none. Unfortunately, in matters of self-defense, harm none is one of the worst philosophies for a person to have. Once youre in a violent situation, the best ways to defend yourself involve harming others, usually harming them a lot. In fact there are very few ways to protect yourself without hurting someone else. Shielding has become so beloved among Wiccans, and other adherents of the harm none philosophy, because it is a method of defense that doesnt hurt anyone. However its a very poor method of self-defense, one that doesnt work very well when its done to the exclusion of other techniques, and one that if it is done too often will ultimately harm the practitioner. Not to mention that by focusing on shielding, the practitioner is leaving themselves extremely vulnerable to attacks, because they lack the tools to defend themselves when shielding doesnt work. Proactive vs Reactive Defenses There are two different types of defenses against an attack, proactive defenses and reactive defenses. Proactive defenses are those defenses which always need to be on. In order for these sorts of defenses to be effective, you need to be doing them before youre attacked, and you can be attacked at any time. Shielding is a proactive defense. If you dont have your shield up, and youre attacked, your shield wont help you. It has to already be up for it to work. The second type of defense is reactive. A reactive defense is a defense that you only turn on after an opponent has already started an attack. When you move your arm up to block a punch, thats reactive. When you throw a punch in retaliation, thats also reactive. When compared to reactive defenses, proactive defenses are inefficient. A proactive defense has to be on all the time. You need to expend energy to maintain that defense whether youre being attacked or not. A lot of energy is currently being spent on shields that arent doing anything, because the practitioners who use them arent, at this moment, being attacked.

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In contrast, reactive defenses only require energy be spent on them when a person is being attacked. You dont spend your life with your arms covering your face. You put your arms up after a punch has been thrown. Passive Defenses Shielding is a passive defense. As already discussed, from a harm none perspective, this is shieldings biggest advantage over a lot of other forms of defense. As a matter of self-defense though, its a huge disadvantage. There is no inherent deterrent to shielding. If someone attacks you, and the shield successfully deflects that attack, nothing negative has happened to the attacker, and theres no reason for them not to try a different kind of attack, and to keep trying different kinds of attacks until something succeeds. Your best hopes with a shield are that the attacker will expend so much energy that they need to take a break and rest for a while before they try again, or that theyll get bored trying to break your shield and move on to something more interesting. Now imagine if your shield hurt the attacker every time they attacked you, if it caused them to feel pain. Theres now an inherent deterrent to the defense. This wont make the shield completely unbreakable, or deter those that are absolutely determined to hurt you, but every time the attacker fails it will give them a reason not to attack you again. And if they finally do succeed in breaking the shield, the shields counter-attacks will have weakened them, which will make them easier to defeat with other methods. This is why, with self-defense, its best to hurt your opponent. Even if you can prevent them from hurting you right now, you have to give them a reason to stop trying to hurt you, and if that doesnt work, you have to make it so they cant try to hurt you anymore. Shield Vulnerabilities Shields are not as powerful a defense as some practitioners make them out to be. Ive seen a lot of shields, but Ive never seen one that I couldnt easily break. In fact the strongest proponents of shielding usually have some of the weakest shields. Id say at least 95% of all shields have a couple of easily exploited defects. As Spock pointed out of Khan, the practitioners who use these shields tend to think two dimensionally. Its common for a practitioner to imagine a shield and think of it as a wall thats in front of them, and behind them, and wrapped around their sides (some, in fact, just see it as a wall in front of them, leaving their backside wide open). They assume every attack will come towards them in a straight line. They never think that someone will arc the attack over the shield so that it comes at them from overhead.

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Some practitioners think of their shields more spherically though. In this instance, the shield is sort of like an egg that comes up off the ground and meets at an apex a little above their head. These sorts of shields protect the magician from having something lobbed over the shield. However these practitioners assume, usually without even realizing that they do it, that the floor will provide them some protection against a magical attack. This would be true of a physical attack, but in all but a few rare instances, this isnt the case with a magical attack, and these practitioners can be easily reached with a gopher attack which moves underneath the ground and then comes up at their feet. To make a shield properly, it either has to be a full circle, which extends underneath the ground youre walking on, or it has to be enclosed around your skin, so that its human shaped and covers your entire body. If youre reading this right now, you can easily fix your shield so that it doesnt suffer from these two common defects. Even so, shields are still incredibly easy to break. I literally have hundreds of other methods to go after a shield, and I can say with almost certainty that one will work. If fact Id wager that most of them would work against your shield. Broken Shields One of the biggest issues with a shield is that, in a lot of situations, its effective. A lot of weaker spirits, light magical attacks, and weak magicians can be successfully fended off with a shield. But these arent the sort of attacks you should be afraid of. These are the sort of things that, if the shield wasnt there, probably wouldnt hurt you all that bad anyways. It might be annoying, even painful, but it isnt going to kill you, or destroy your life. Its probably not even something thats going to take a few weeks to recover from. The good things about these small attacks is that they give new practitioners some experience with being attacked and fighting back. A practitioner can use these attacks to learn how different attacks feel, to develop various defenses against attacks and actually try them out, and to formulate their own counter-attacks and see how well those counter-attacks work in practice. Unfortunately when a magician is always shielding, the shield prevents these light attacks from getting through. Often times the magician doesnt even notice when they are being attacked, and the only type of defense theyre developing is shielding. Most magicians, if they practice long enough, will eventually come across something which is hostile or malicious and strong enough to break their shield. Once the shield is broken, a magician that hasnt developed any alternate forms of self-defense against weaker attackers will be left completely defenseless against an attack that can seriously injure or even kill them.

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Two Way Street of Shielding A shield doesnt just deflect attacks. In fact, a shield doesnt just deflect. A shield is a barrier. It keeps things out, both good things and bad things. Also anything that flows in one direction must be able to flow in the opposite direction. So for a shield to be effective it not only has to keep things out, it also has to keep things in. This results in a couple of things. First off, a magician with a shield isnt going to be able to feel the world outside of his own shield. The energy flowing around him, his empathic abilities, his precognitive abilities, all of that is going to be cut off. To work, all of those things need access to the energy outside of the shield. Secondly the magician isnt going to be able to cast spells outward. If, for instance, the magician tried to counter-attack, the shield would prevent the counter-attack from leaving the magicians little shield bubble, effectively stopping counter-attack in the same manner that it stops attacks from the magicians opponent. Some magicians go to great lengths to work around their own shields. Usually this involves creating some sort of backdoor through which the magician can work. One common trick is to use an energy blend or filter. Basically the magician will create a shield so that certain energies can pass through it while others are deflected. Usually the pass-through energies are ones the magician views as non-violent, passive, or harmless. In practice though a filter just adds a new vulnerability to the shield. Now an enemy can bypass the shield by keying into an energy that the magician has decided can pass through the shield. Many magicians dont realize that energies like happiness, tranquility, and love can be turned into devastating attacks (especially in the case of love). These backdoor techniques also require more complicated shields, which means more energy needs to be expended to maintain them. The more a magician wants to open up his shield, and the more he wants to guard against vulnerabilities, the more complicated the shield needs to be, which ultimately leads to even more vulnerabilities. Other magicians, meanwhile, have such piss poor shields that theyre able to work through them to some degree without a backdoor. No matter how well a magician develops their backdoors, and no matter how weak their shield is, theyre still not going to be able to feel energy around them as well as if they didnt have a shield, and the magic they cast outside of the shield still isnt going to be as effective as it could be. This is the best argument I can make against shields. When a person uses a shield, it makes them a weaker magician. Having a shield up will degrades their magical ability. Worse, by degrading their magical ability, the magician wont be able to practice at full

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strength, nor will they be able to take advantage of all the opportunities around them to practice their magical skills. Ultimately this leads to a retardation of magical and spiritual growth. Its the constant, daily practice of magic that, over a long period of time, builds up strength in a magician. Using a shield once in a while isnt going to have an effect on ones spiritual growth, in the same way missing a gym session isnt going to have any noticeable effect on a professional body builders physique. Constantly using shields over a long period of time, however, will result in the magician spiritually evolving to only a small fraction of their full potential. Because the effects arent immediate and only happen over a long period of time, the affected magician usually wont even notice the damage being done to their spiritual growth. When To Use a Shield Enough about how horrible shields are, there are two instances where shields can be very effective, and in one of those instances a shield is probably going to be the best option. The first effective form of shielding is an instant shield. An instant shield is a shield that only goes up after the attack has been made, but before it reaches the practitioner. The shield then goes down once the attack is deflected. Imagine that I throw a psychic fireball at you. Right before the fireball hits you, you put up a shield to deflect the fireball, and then you immediately tear down that shield. This sort of shield requires a lot more practice and ability than a shield that is always up, but its far more advantageous. First off an instant shield is reactive, not proactive. This means it only requires that energy be expended on it when its needed. Secondly, because the instant shield only goes up after an attack has been made, the attacker usually wont have time to try to break the shield. By the time they realize a shield is up, the initial attack will probably have already been deflected. And lastly, unlike normal shielding, this isnt something that is usually used as an end-all be-all form of self-defense. Its one of a variety of tools that would need to be used to defend oneself during an attack. The second time that you would need to use a shield would be during a strong continuous attack. By strong I mean an attack that is powerful enough to seriously harm or kill the magician, in which case the attack cant simply be toughed out. In fact, during this kind of attack, shielding is really the only good option. Some very powerful entities have an ability where waves of powerful and aggressive energy flows off of them naturally. Its not even really an attack, its just an aspect of their being. If a magician gets too close to one of these entities, and stays exposed for too long, they could die just by being in proximity.

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There are also certain areas, and even realms, that have a powerful drains connected to them. Weaker drains can usually be dealt with without shielding, but its much more difficult to do with very strong drains. Sometimes these drains can be so strong they can be fatal, or they can cause rapid decay or accelerated aging. Other times the drains can weaken the magician so much that if the magician is exposed, it can make it so the magician doesnt have enough energy to do what they need to do. In a draining situation there are often times other options, but sometimes a shield is the best option available. Better Alternative Strategies To Shielding A quick overview of a couple of strategies that are better than shielding: 1. A Good Offense A good offense is by far the best defense you can have. If you cause a malicious entity or magician enough pain through magical attacks, they will probably stop attacking you. If they dont, eventually your magical attacks will probably kill them, in which case theyll no longer be attacking you. Its also empowering to know that youve fought with powerful entities and defeated them. It gives you confidence in your abilities, it enables you to push yourself magically, and it allows you to still feel safe despite all the dangers that exist in the universe. A lot of the entities out there that attack people unprovoked are relatively weak. Stronger entities, even very evil, violent, and malicious ones, tend to have more important things to be doing than randomly attacking folks. Once you start getting into fights with more and more powerful things, and winning, you start to become so powerful that those weaker entities get scared of you. Suddenly nothing is attacking you, because its all either too powerful to care about attacking you or so weak that its scared to. 2. Soaking It Up In Dragonball Goku had a common strategy he employed against a new foe, one that was taught to him by the Turtle Hermit. He stood there and let the guy beat the crap out of him. In this way Goku was able to accurately gauge the ability of his opponent. He was also able to learn about his opponents attack. After receiving the attack, he could figure out the best way to counter it, and sometimes could even mimic it afterwards. Gokus technique is an excellent strategy. A lot of times the only way to learn an attack is to allow yourself to be hit with it. Once youve felt the attack and seen it used against you, you can usually sort out how it was done. Then you can figure out the different ways you can counter it in the future. Often times youll also figure out how to do the attack yourself, and it becomes another tool in your self-defense toolbox.

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Plus if you want to be a magician, you need to not be such a wuss. Sometimes youre going to get the crap beat out of you. You need to be able to handle that, and the best way to be able to handle that is through practice.

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4 rituals
December 18, 2011 Put me in coach, Im ready to play, today, look at me, I could be, centerfield. So you want to be a magician. If youre not a magician, I assume thats why youre reading my blog. Maybe you havent found the right group, or the right teacher. Maybe you cant afford one of those other correspondence courses. Maybe youve tried other systems, but its too difficult to invest six months or a year or three years to a system before you see results. Youre in luck because Ive come up with a 1 lesson correspondence course that will make you a magician. Im giving it away free, so all itll cost you between a quarter and two dollars in supplies. You dont have to study. You dont have to learn protection techniques or magical theory. You dont need a teacher and you dont need a group. All you have to do is read this one post, follow these instructions, and tomorrow morning you will be a magician. If you havent yet done a spell, if youve never performed a magical operation, even if youve never seen a ghost or had a psychic premonition, what Im offering right now is the key to your spiritual attainment. Whatever you want to do or become spiritually, it all starts right here, right now, and all you have to do is want it. Right now youre being given a choice. You can choose to become a magician today. If you chose that, then today youll start on your spiritual path, whatever that may be. Whatever it is you want spiritually, youll find it on that path. Whether thats doing magic, seeing ghosts, finding your higher self, gaining enlightenment, flying on a broom stick, or whatever else you want spirituality to be. If you choose not to become a magician today, I dont know why youre reading my blog, or any magical blogs or books. You should give up, save yourself some time and money, and not waste the time of legitimate teachers and group members. If you arent yet a magician and you dont become one today, I have very little faith that you will ever become a magician. Magicians are defined by their actions. They do things. They also tend to jump right in and do things. They dont wait until theyve studied enough, until theyve learned the right techniques, until their success or safety is assured, or put things off until tomorrow. Magicians get an idea for some magic in their head, and then they go out and do it. If you put off doing this today, you will probably never do it. If you want to wait until youre ready, you will never be ready. If you want to be a magician, if you want to be a spiritual person, just take this first step, and everything else will come to you. I implore anyone reading this who has never cast a spell, or who hasnt cast a spell in a long time, to change that and become a magician today. I want people to be magicians. I want other people to find their spiritual attainment. So please, do this for yourself, and make yourself, spiritually, into what you want to be. 148

. . . . . . . . So youre still reading, so I assume youre at least thinking about seeing this through. You might be wondering how you can be a magician. Its easy. A magician is someone who does magic. If you do magic, youre a magician. The wonderful thing about magic though is that once you start doing it, everything else will start to fall into place. Youll be having spiritual experiences, which will teach you about the metaphysical universe, and then youll have practical knowledge to apply to theory. This will make you a stronger magician who can do more, which means youll have even more spiritual experiences, and those will teach you even more about the metaphysical universe, giving you even more practical knowledge to apply to theory. Youll begin a cycle that will make you more and more powerful through out your entire life, and even into your afterlife. All you have to do to put everything in motion is do one spell tonight. That will start the chain. I suggest trying to do magic as often as you can. You can easily do one of the spells youre going to do tonight every night if you want to. Or you can experiment with other spells, maybe even your own. You dont have to commit to all this right now though. Right now all you have to commit to is doing one spell. I figure some of things people want are sex, money, and power. I think most people want at least one of these things. So Ive devises four simple spells to help you attain sex, money, and/or power. Will these spells work? That depends on you. The magical theory is solid. If you do them well enough, the spells will work. They might not though. Dont get discouraged if they dont work on the first try, or if they never work for you. It might take a few tries, or it might take a different kind of spell to see results. Just keep on trying until something finally does work, and always perform these spells with a positive attitude, never giving up faith that this time it will work. Right now the important thing isnt results. Right now the important thing is to be doing magic. Even if it doesnt work, its still a first step on the journey to becoming an adept, and even a horribly bad novice magician is still a magician, which makes them much more spiritual than someone who isnt a magician. So, four spells, pick the one you like. All of these spells require a candle. I suggest a new white pillar candle that will burn for a few hours. Thats just a suggestion though. Feel free to use any kind of candle you want, can afford, or happen to have on hand. If

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it burns too long, you can always just put it out. Youll also need a lighter, and something to put the candle on, preferably a candle holder. The prosperity spell also requires some pocket change, and the glamour spell works best with a mirror. I also suggest taking a nice relaxing shower prior to doing any of these spells. If that isnt possible, thats okay, its just a suggestion. A quiet, dark place where you wont be disturbed is also ideal, but not necessary. Once youre ready pick your spell and get to work. You may want to copy your spell into a text editor and print it out in case you need a reference during the spell. Spell 1: Making Yourself Pretty This spell is a basic glamour + projection. The idea is to make yourself more attractive, so more people will be interested in you. This spell works best if you havent pleasured yourself lately. If you have, dont worry, you can still do the spell. First things first, take off all your clothes, including your socks and underwear. I didnt include clothes in my $2.00 of required tools, and clothes can be expensive. This will also get you into a magical mindset, and it may even help you get used to experiencing new things and being able to still work magic under those conditions. Dont worry, its a solitary ritual, so no one will see you. Except your gods. And any spirits that happen to be around. And any one who may astrally project or remote view you. Actually, unless youre a never-nude, not being seen naked isnt really an achievable goal anyways. Hold the candle in your hand and look into the mirror, and focus on your better physical qualities. Figure out the things that make you attractive. Spend a few minutes (like five or ten) looking into the mirror, and thinking of yourself as an attractive person. Be attracted to yourself. Ignore your flaws, or any parts of yourself that make you unattractive. The goal of a glamour shouldnt be to give yourself specific attributes, like six pack abs or larger breasts. That doesnt really work, and theres no telling if a potential mate will even want that anyways. The goal is to put an aura of attractiveness around yourself, and then the person looking at you will fill in the blanks to make you attractive. After you finished that, sit down with your candle. Put your hands on either side of the candle, bow your head down, and close your eyes. Say out loud, Let what I think and what I feel leave me and enter into this candle. Now start thinking about either love or sex. Remember what it feels like to be in love, or even to like someone and have a crush on them. Think about how wonderful it is to think about them and spend time with them. Think about some sexual fantasies and

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things that turn you on. All the while hold the candle in your hands, and try your best to think about the candle. If you can, visualize these thoughts going into the candle. I suggest spending five to ten minutes on this. Place the candle on its candle holder. Say out loud, As it burns, let all that is within this candle come to be with me. Once all that is within this candle has come to be in me, let it come off of me as the heat comes off the flame. Light the candle. Spend about five minutes staring at the candle and feeling whatever it might be giving you. After that, go about doing whatever you want to do that night while the candle burns. The next morning you may want to repeat the mirror ritual without the candle, but you dont have to. For the first half of your day, maybe the entire day, you may notice people looking at you a little more lustfully. Spell 2: Bringing Yourself a Lover Chance encounters with people you find attractive are great, but the yre so chancey. Theres no guarantee that youll meet someone when you go out tomorrow, and very few ways to increase your odds. Maybe you would have more luck at a singles bar, but the love of your life might just be doing their grocery shopping tomorrow. This spell is designed to bring about a chance encounter with a potentially special someone. After that its up to you, since the spell doesnt offer any help beyond that. To start, take off all your clothes, including your socks and underwear. I didnt include clothes in my $2.00 of required tools, and clothes can be expensive. This will also get you into a magical mindset, and it may even help you get used to experiencing new things and being able to still work magic under those conditions. Once youre naked, stand up straight, close your eyes, and say out loud, I am a magnet, the person I want will be drawn towards me. Repeat this for a total of five times. Louder is better, but dont yell or scream. If you think you might be overheard, you dont have to say it loud enough to be heard. Next sit down with your candle. Place each of your hands on either side of the candle. Bow your head down and close your eyes. Think of all the traits you want your boyfriend or girlfriend to have. Think of the different physical attributes you would find attractive. Imagine all these things combined together into a dream person who would be your new boyfriend or girlfriend. While doing this try to think of the candle. Imagine all of these thoughts entering into the candle. If you can, visualize these thoughts, and your dream lover, leaving you and entering the candle. Do this for five to ten minutes.

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Place the candle on to the candle holder. Say out loud, Let another lonely heart, like the one described within my mind, be drawn to me. Let this candle burn, and in doing so bring us together. Light the candle. Stand up straight, close your eyes, and say out loud five more times, I am a magnet, the person I want will be drawn towards me. Spend a few minutes staring at the candle while it burns. See if you can feel anything, like the universe twisting around and coming together around you to offer you an opportunity. Now go about your business for the rest of the evening and let the candle burn. You may wish to repeat that last part of the ritual about being the magnet again in the morning. If all went right with the spell, you may find yourself having a chance encounter with someone special. Spell 3: A Simple Prosperity Spell Maybe youve already found the love of your life, so those other spells arent going to be all that useful to you. But all of us could use a little extra spending cash, so heres a spell to help make you part of the 1%. In addition to your candle, youre going to need some pocket change for this spell. Try to get between five and ten coins, and ideally have at least one of each. Now that you got your pocket change, you arent going to need your pockets anymore, so take off all your clothes, including socks and underwear. I didnt include clothes in my $2.00 of required tools, and clothes can be expensive. This will also get you into a magical mindset, and it may even help you get used to experiencing new things and being able to still work magic under those conditions. Sit down. Put your money in your left hand and make a fist. Hold the candle with your right hand. Put your arms at your side, and raise your hands so theyre level with your head. Close your eyes. Say out loud, Let these two things be as one. Let this candle be as money, and make me richer and bring prosperity. Let this money be as the candle, released into the universe. With your hands still raised, and your eyes still closed, imagine the money coming out of your hand and entering the candle. If you can, imagine it entering your hand, traveling through your arm and across your chest, and exiting out your other hand into the candle. Then imagine the candle burning, and showering coins into the universe around you. Finally imagine the candle burning, and coins showering out, and being drawn to and entering your body.

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Continue these visualization for five to ten minutes. When youre about to finish, bring your hands together, putting your left fist, holding the money, against the left side of the candle. If you can, take a minute or two to imagine all of your thoughts and imaginings from the last five to ten minutes leaving your mind and entering the candle. Place the candle on the candle holder. Say out loud, Burn and bring me prosperity, and riches for a day. Light the candle. Spend five to ten minutes staring at the candle. See if you can feel the candle doing anything to you, specifically enchanting you with a prosperity spell. If you cant thats okay. The next day youll hopefully either find or come into some extra money. Itll probably just be spare change, but its still money, and if you want to develop your own prosperity spell, the basic concept is the same, you just have to think bigger. Spell 4: Feel the Magic Maybe youre content with the material aspects of your life. Maybe youve done the first three rituals already, so you have the love of your life and youre piggy bank is all filled up with pocket change. All you want now is to feel something magical. Lets do a little empowering magic. WITH THIS SPELL YOU NEED A LIGHTER NEVER USE MATCHES!!! First things first, strip completely naked, and that includes socks and underwear. I didnt include clothes in my $2.00 of required tools, and clothes can be expensive. Being naked will also get you into a magical mindset, and it may even help you get used to experiencing new things and being able to still work magic under those conditions. With this spell in particular, being naked is going to make it that much easier to experience something. Sit down with the candle, and put your hands on either side of it. Bow your head and close your eyes. Think about the candle for a bit. Think about its shape, how it feels, what it is, and how its about to be used magically, and what it might symbolize ritually. Imagine the thoughts and images in your head flowing out of you and entering into the candle. If you can, specifically imagine the route they take from your head, through your chest, through your arms and hands, and finally into the candle. Continue these visualizations for five to ten minutes. Once you finish, place the candle on the candle holder. Take the lighter in your hand and say, I am of the magi, and I call forth fire elemental to sit upon this flame. As soon as you finish, flick the lighter, and use the flame to light the candle. If you screw up lighting the candle, start again with, I am of the magi<. As you light the candle, imagine a fire elemental (whatever you think that would look like) being pulled up from underground and into the flame.

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Once the candle is lit, sit down. Watch the flame for a minute. If a fire elemental is inside, it may be moving erratically. The flame may be much bigger than it should be, or the flame may rapidly change from being small to large and back. Sit down facing the candle. Spread your legs a bit, but not so much that youre uncomfortable. Hold your hands up to your head with your palms facing the ceiling. Look at the candle. Look at the flame on the candle. Think of the energy coming off the candle as it burns. Think about the heat coming off that flame. Imagine that the energy is like the heat, an invisible aura that emanates from the flame. Look at the flame, and visualize that energy coming off the flame. Imagine pulling that energy and that heat off, towards you. Imagine pulling that energy off the flame and into you. Continue sitting there, legs still spread, hands still up, imagining the energy coming into from the flame like a steady stream. Imagine the fire elemental being pulled off the flame and into your body. Imagine it coming to rest inside of you. If you managed to successfully evoke and take in the fire elemental, youll probably begin to feel a bit hotter underneath your skin, and a lot more powerful. Taking in a fire elemental is like getting a quick boost of power. If you dont manage to get a fire elemental, you may still end up drawing some of the energy from the candle into yourself. If youre not used to taking in energy, it may seem like an awful lot. Got a beatup glove, a homemade bat, and brand-new pair of shoes, you know I think its time to give this game a ride. So theres four spells. All you have to do is follow the instructions and do one tonight and tomorrow youll be a magician, and youll be on your way to spiritual attainment. If you have any issues or questions with the different spells, or have trouble getting them to work, Im more than happy to help. The only thing is, Im not going to help anyone who hasnt attempted one of the spells. The whole point is to do something tonight, not put off doing it until I can get around to answering your questions. Even if youre having problems, try doing the spell. If you dont understand why youre doing something, thats okay. If youre not sure about something, guess. If theres a part of the spell where you dont know what to do, make something up. If you cant do a spell exactly as its written for some reason, then make some sort of modification to it so that you can do it. It doesnt need to be exact. It doesnt even need to work the first time you try it. What does need to happen is you need to be doing magic today, even if you completely fail at it. Likewise if you want to tell me that this is crap, its dangerous, tell me why it wont work, tell me how they can be improved, or otherwise complain or point out flaws in these spells, go ahead. But if youre going to do any of that, do one of the spells first. If

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youre not a magician, I dont care about youre opinion on magic. Its uninformed, and I know a hell of a lot more than you do. If you want to compliment me on this post or tell me how great it is, I always like to hear nice things, but wait until after youve done one of the spells. Then you can talk about what you did and experienced if you want. And, until youve done one of these spells, doing one of these spells is going to help you a lot more than commenting on Internet blogs. If you want to talk about your experiences with these spells, or how well they worked for you, feel free. I always like hearing about how this sort of stuff works or doesnt work for other people.

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How to Summon Baal, or Anything Else, Quick and Dirty Like.

November 4, 2007 I posted this on another forum to a fellow who was asking for a method to summon Baal. My reply isnt specific to Baal and I thought this might be useful to some so Im reposting it here. 1. Research what it is you want to summon. In the case of Baal, the name can refer to numerous things, including several deities, so you need to figure out exactly what Baal you want to summon, and then you need to get an idea of how Baal is seen, what people generally think about him, and what hes probably like. So long as its something that is popular or common internet searches will probably turn up enough information for the summoning. Be sure to check out encyclopedia mythica and wikipedia, although not always accurate they can still have a lot of information to help you out. 2. Find a statue or image of what you want to summon, and if you cant find that then try for a symbol associated with it. Spiritual depictions are usually better than artistic depictions, but in any case go with the depiction that you feel most closely resembles what youre trying to summon. If you have no other alternative you can make your own depiction. 3. Remove any barriers, wards, ect. that you may have around the general area that youll be doing the summoning (most likely your home). This includes personal wards and barriers, ones that are anchored to objects (be aware of certain things that may be decoration but are used for protection because they may have become active and can effect the summoning. This includes gargoyle statues and depictions of pentagrams), and ones that may have been put up by others. 4. Take down your shields and natural defenses. Any type of defense can hinder the summoning. 5. Make sure you arent in any kind of circle. Make sure there are no seals or sigils in the area since these may have an unknown effect. Refrain from doing any pre-ritual type ritual including asking for protection from anything. We dont want to be putting up new barriers. 6. Now take your depiction of what you want to summon (in this case Baal), and place it somewhere (such as on a table or a night stand). You can just leave a picture on your computer screen if you want, that works too. Or you can print out a picture and put it in a frame and then place it on a table (the later method will generally bring better results). Now you need to activate this as an alter, in this case to Baal. Unless you want to develop a very strong relationship with Baal, this will probably just be a makeshift alter that we will take down after the summoning.

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7. Now that the alter is ready non-aggressively direct energy towards the depiction of Baal with the intent that this energy is to be received directly by Baal. Make sure your defenses and your shields are down and, if he chooses to, Baal will also be able to direct his energy towards you. With a little practice you should be able to figure out how to bury thoughts into the energy in order to communicate, and youll be able to receive thoughts in the same manner. 8. Whether or not Baal responds you should also make it clear that he has an invitation to appear in your house and that you wish for him to come. 9. Have fun with your summoning adventures.

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Contacting the Divine

October 24, 2009 This is basically a rehash of the information I supplied in my earlier post, summoning Baal quick and dirty like. The reason for this is to eliminate some confusion. This is not an evocation method. It doesnt really evoke. Its meant for communion. In fact, its generally used for divine communion, and thats how I was originally taught it, although you could do it with anything. Anyways heres the method, as taught to me, with some paraphrasing and minor tweaking. 1. Figure out which deity you would like to contact. Remember not everything thats ever been listed as a god or deity or whatever really is one. When first starting, its better to pick a big name that is tried and true. Its also best to pick a god or goddess you feel a personal connection to or compelled to contact. Id recommend against using this method with the Judeo-Christian god (yes he exists, however theres a reason why I recommend this and it deals with the nature of what he is, and Im not opening that can of worms here). Id also recommend against trying to contact a supposedly all encompassing deity (Im talking about the Wiccan Goddess). Also remember that sometimes deities are incorrectly associated as the same deity, and other times they have multiple names. Figuring out exactly who you want to talk to may require some research. For instance, Venus is not Aphrodite and Jupiter is not Zues, Pluto is the same as Hades and Dionysus, Bacchus, and Iacchus are all the same deity. 2. Do some additional research on the deity to get an idea of who youre trying to contact. Read the mythologies concerning them. Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Mythica are good places to start. The information may not be the best there, but at the same time remember that a lot of the myths out there are long bastardized and misunderstood, to the point that you usually cant decide anything for certain about a deity until youve met them. 3. Next you need an altar. You can build a very nice permanent altar, but for now well just use a makeshift altar. I have a whole FAQ on altars. Basically its just a space we set aside for an entity, in this case a deity. All we need for an altar is a representation. We can easily go online and find a picture and turn our computer monitor and surrounding area into a temporary altar. The altar is not essential, this can be done entirely mentally, but its easier with an altar early on. 4. Next we want to prepare ourselves for divine communion. What different gods will find acceptable and offensive varies. In emergencies, this step can be skipped, and most deities will understand. Its best to take a shower or bath beforehand, especially if its needed, and a short cleansing ritual while youre in there wont hurt. Clothing will vary considerably based on personal taste and deity. At the very least youll want to have descent, clean clothes. Formal is more respectable, but black tie is usually going way too far. Naked is actually sacred and as formal as you can get (plus it will help with the later steps). When in doubt, wear nothing. Also make sure the area around the makeshift altar is clean and dusted and free of garbage or crap to show proper respect.

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5. To begin the communion meditate in front of the altar, hopefully reaching a state of trance (although this isnt mandatory). Ive also written an FAQ on this. Once youre relaxed, you need to direct energy towards the representation. This is simple energy manipulation. If you cant do this, you can try directing thoughts or focusing on the representation, although this wont be as successful. Direct the energy at the representation with the intent of it reaching the deity (this is important. Ultimately the representation doesnt really matter, its the intent of where the energy is sent). Also try to keep your shields, filters, wards, and barriers as low as possible and be open to receiving foreign energy. 6. After a time you should hopefully feel divine energy sent back at you. If youve never felt divine energy before, dont worry, youll know it when you feel it. The first time it is thousands of times stronger than what youre used to and literally rips right through you. Once you get used to dealing with divine energy this will ease up a bit. You shouldnt do this around bedtime, at least at first, because youll be wired for a long time. 7. Once you feel the energy coming back at you, youve successfully achieved communion. You can now direct the energy coming into you back to the deity, creating a cycle. You can also bury thoughts into the energy to communicate, and stuff will come back in the energy sent to you. Sometimes this might be a direct worded answer. Other times it may be more detailed and beyond words, and it may be buried in the energy and not fully manifest for hours. Divine energy also tends to try to create a purity, although the definition of what constitutes a purity varies between gods. Jupiter, for instance, defines purity as being larger and stronger, and Jupiterian energy tends to make people stronger and helps them to build muscle. 8. After ending the communion its important to keep the divine energy and not cleanse or ground until its worked its way out of you, unless its a dire emergency. Divine energy is a divine gift, and intentionally expelling it is disrespectful. Also information may be buried in the energy to answer your questions and offer guidance. 9. Not everything that can be contacted with this method, and not everything listed as a god, is a god. From my experiences no real god will get upset if they are asked to prove that they are in fact a god (at least by their own methods, in other words dont try asking gods to prove themselves by winning you the lottery. That actually can get you in trouble if you ask the wrong one). Anything that says its a god and wants to treated as such will see nothing wrong with proving this unless it isnt a god. Ive also found that deities dont mind being questioned about their advice or about their nature. There usually isnt anything wrong with asking why. 10. Objects can also be blessed by a deity while doing this through various methods. If you have something you want blessed, have it ready and ask the deity if theyll do it during the communion. Usually, if theyre willing, theyll give instructions of what needs to be done.

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11. One of the worst things you can do is utilize a deitys energy for a purpose that you dont have permission to utilize it for (especially if its something the deity wouldnt give you permission to do). Its always best to ask first and to respect their wishes. 12. The gods understand that we are only human. They also understand our nature and all our emotions. They do forgive honest mistakes and know that were all far from perfect. They also are there to guide us and help us with our lives and our spiritual paths.

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Aresian Unbinding Spells

March 16, 2008

Listed below are two spells meant to aid the practitioner in releasing themselves from any outside interference which may be hindering their true path. In general terms a binding spell refers to a spell that seals away all or some of a practitioners powers, and an unbinding spell is one which undoes this. These spells are not specifically meant to deal with a binding, although they may be effective in that regard, instead they are meant to eliminate anything which may be hindering or otherwise holding back the practitioner from pursuing their passions. These spells work through the power of the Greek god Ares, and its important to understand what Ares is in order to use them. Unfortunately Ares was badly slandered by Homer for a variety of reasons, and Homers popularity and influence among the Greeks resulted in Ares being badly slandered for ever after. Ares is a god of the righteous in battle, of justice, of love, of vengeance, and yes there is some violence in him. It would be easiest to say that Ares true dominion is in being a slave to ones passions, but it would be profane to say that a god is a slave to their passions. Rather Ares has dominion over following ones passions without regard for the consequences. In that regard he is both a god of justice and vengeance, as when he murdered Halirrhotius, he is a god of passionate love, as when he pursued an affair with his brothers wife Aphrodite, and he is a god of the warrior in battle. Aresian Short Unbinding The short unbinding is a simple spell meant to release the practitioner from any minor outside force which has taken to changing the true course of the practitioner and moving him away from his desires. The spell is meant to target those forces which are manipulating the practitioner against his will, albeit in minor ways, and as such is generally safe to perform whenever the practitioner believes he may have been bound to a path other than his own. I. To begin with, construct an alter to Ares if one is not readily available. II. Undertake all necessary preparations to spellwork and presenting yourself before a diety, including any ritualistic cleansing or bathing. III. The ritual is best performed both alone and skyclad. IV. If absolutely necessary, any of the first three steps may be omitted, with a mental alter to Ares being built instead of a physical one, if the situation is dire and the practitioner needs the spell cast immediately.

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V. To begin, light a new candle on Ares alter as an offering to him. VI. Initiate a communion with Ares. This can be done by sitting in a comfortable position, meditating, and then directing energy towards Ares alter while allowing energy to be directed back. Allow the energy of Ares to flow through yourself and ask permission for what is about to be performed. VII. When ready, and while feeling the energy of Ares flowing through yourself, you may begin the actual spell work, which consists of two parts performed simultaneously, a visualization and an incantation. VIII. Visualize your body covered in straps and chains, and the energy of Ares bursting forth from every bit of your body, breaking the chains and straps. To the best of your ability, direct the energy of Ares towards this visualization. IX. While visualizing, recite from memory the following incantation: Lord Ares Lend your strength Let each strap be unbroken Each twine unwound Let the true heart walk its path Unswayed, unbound X. Afterwards thank Ares for his aid. If possible, allow the candle to burn itself out. Otherwise it may be put out and saved for later, but the candle should only ever be burned as an offering to Ares. The alter should be left up for at least a day, if not longer, and when it is deconstructed proper care should be taken as the objects its made of are sacred to Ares. Aresian Long Unbinding The long unbinding is a much more drastic spell meant to release the practitioner from any force, internal or external, preventing them from following the true desire of their heart. This spell, being as it is, can have serious repercussions, and should only be used when absolutely necessary, and only after lesser methods have been tried and failed. As noted below, the fourth candle should be lit, if it is lit at all, with extreme caution. It should also be mentioned that fire exists without form, and as such is considered a link between the physical world and the spiritual or metaphysical world. The act of lighting a flame can be considered a connection between the physical and spiritual worlds. I. Construct a proper alter to Ares if one is not readily available. Make sure that there is enough room for several candle holders. II. Undertake all necessary preparations to spellwork and presenting yourself before a diety, including any ritualistic cleansing or bathing.

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III. The ritual is to be performed skyclad and alone, or if not alone then with an object of ones desire only and also skyclad. IV. Initiate a communion with Ares and allow his energy to flow through you and ask for permission for what is about to be done. If with a partner, both should perform this communion. If needed, candles may be burnt in offering to Ares in order to aid in communion. V. Place three or four candles on the alter as shown: -A-A 2334 -112 (ed. note: Im having trouble properly formatting this diagram. Ill look into getting something better set up soon. If anyone needs this diagram to do the spell in the meantime, email me and Ill try to help you figure it out.) VI. When ready, and with the power of Ares flowing through you, recite the following incantation from memory (with two, both partners may recite the incantation, or one may do so as the ritual leader): Lord Ares Lend your strength May all that confines the heart be destroyed VII. It must be understood that the first candle is meant to release the practitioner from any internal restraints they may have placed on themselves which prevent them from realizing their passions fully. These restraints may have been enacted out of fear, modesty, etiquette, safety, or many other reasons. This candle is meant to make their passions swell within themselves and overcome all else. VIII. As the first candle is lit, visualize your body being engulfed by a white flame of passion that grows from within you and overswells eventually consuming the all of your being. Recite the following incantation from memory (with two both should perform the visualization, and one or both may recite the incantation): Let my passions be alight A burning flame, pure and white, And let my heart be aright (Or for two): Let our passions be alight, A burning flame, pure and white, And let our hearts be aright

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IX. It must be understood that the second candle is meant to release the practitioner from any external factors that are preventing them from realizing their passions fully. These can be thought of as the forces of society. These are parts of the mundane world which are not just obstacles to achieving ones passions, but are actively working to push the practitioner away from their passions. X. As the second candle is lit, visualize the flame that has engulfed your body bursting forth from you and consuming everything it comes in contact with. Recite the following incantation from memory (with two both should perform the visualization, and one or both may recite the incantation): Let my body release its flame, Let it burn through mans domain, And my passions, not man, shall reign (Or for two): Let our bodies release our flame, Let it burn through mans domain, And our passions, not man, shall reign XI. It must be understood that the third candle is meant to release the practitioner from any spiritual forces and bindings that may be preventing them from realizing their passions fully. This would include any spells, hexes, or curses cast, any magickal bindings, any spells which have effected the practitioners path and destiny, any pacts or deals made with any entities, and any debts owed so long as these things are contrary to or otherwise prevent the true will of the practitioners heart. XII. As the third candle is lit, visualize yourself bound by ethereal straps (or hands or chains) and the energy flowing through you moving from your body into these straps and completely destroying them, leaving you naked and free of all bonds. Recite the following incantation from memory (with two both should perform the visualization, and one or both may recite the incantation): Let all binds break Remove all ties save fate And return me to my natural state (Or For Two): Let all binds break Remove all ties save fate And return us to our natural state XIII: The spell may be completed after lighting any of the four candles, and the fourth candle should be lit with extreme caution. It must be understood that the fourth candle is meant to release the practitioner from their destiny, for use in instances when the

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practitioner feels as if their destined path runs contrary to their desires. If this portion of the spell is successfully performed, at the point directly proceeding the spell the practitioner will no longer have a future or a destiny, only their desires, and their destiny will then be rewrit from that point. A practitioner will be unhinged from destiny for a moment prior to a new destiny being made for them. The repercussions of lighting the fourth candle are serious and most likely irreversible. XIV: As the fourth candle is lit, visualize your body being thrown from its current place and put into a void, visualize the energy in you white and pulsing out, destroying any remaining ties you may have to anything, and destroying anything that comes near you. Recite the following incantation from memory (with two both should perform the visualization, and one or both may recite the incantation): Remove myself from my destiny Rewrite what is meant to be And untie even fate from me (Or For Two): Remove us from our destiny Rewrite what is meant to be And untie even fate from we XV: Presumably a fifth candle could be lit, supposing the proper visualization and incantations could be figured out, and this candle would allow the practitioner to transcend the laws of the universe if it were within the will of his heart, allowing for such impossibilities like immortality and gain without loss. Perhaps the past could also be rewritten via this candle, or perhaps that would require yet a sixth candle. XVI: After the ritual the candles should be allowed to burn themselves out. If possible, the practitioner should stay and meditate until all the candles are burnt out. Alternatively the practitioner could sleep in front of the alter until all the candles are burnt out. If the ritual was performed with a partner, the two may have sex following the ritual if they both desire to, although the act would be sacred. After all is finished proper gratitude and respect should be given to Ares, and the alter should be left up for at least a day if not longer. XVII: A final caution, make sure you know what it is you want before casting this spell.

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Evocations I Classical Methods Explained

March 18, 2013 Its going to be a few posts before I get to my actual evocation methods, because I have some background information so they can be better understood. I will be posting some really cool methods shortly though. As I side note I dont like the classical method of evocation and I never use it. I consider it immoral and a tool of weak practitioners who cannot hold their own. Information on the method is provided only so a practitioner can have the necessary background to understand the methods Ill be posting later. When we look at classical ceremonial magic, the basic evocation ritual involves a circle and a triangle. Likewise the ritual is split into four parts: preparing the area, evoking the being, coversing with the being, and dismissing the being. None of these methods are native to ceremonial magic. There have always been evocations, even long before ceremonial magic came into vogue, and all evocations attempt to manipulate the same basic principles to bring about results. If we knew the exact evocation rituals of early man we would no doubt find similarities to modern ceremonial rituals, not because there has been a clear line of influence, but because both rituals attempt the same thing, and there is only so much room for variation. Even the rituals in this book, which are advertised as an alternative to the predominate ceremonial methods, have clear similarities. Once again this isnt because of a direct influence, but because there is only so much room for variation. Constructing the Magic Circle The most important part of the classical method is the magic circle. There is no one way to make a magic circle, or even a best way. In fact the best way for you to make a magic circle would be based on your own spiritual beliefs and knowledge. In its most basic form a magic circle is just a circle. It can be drawn onto the ground with chalk, etched into dirt, drawn into the air with a wand, knife, or finger, or it can be drawn on a piece of cloth that is laid on the floor. The circle serves several purposes. It creates an area which exists outside of space-time, it connects the magician to the divine, it empowers the magician, and it protects the magician. Lets go over each of these four purposes individually and how each is derived. First off, in order to maximize our success with evocations, we need to be within an area outside of space and time. Not everything will be able to manifest into the available space. The area may be too small for it, or it may be a small creature and the area may be too big for you to see it. It may be of a vibration that cannot enter this world through normal means, or the enviornment of this world may be too foreign to it for it to manifest here. Likewise the entitys normal movement through time may not be conductive to communication. It may be moving backwards through time, or stagnant in a single moment of time, or it may be moving too quickly or too slowly through time relative to the magician to make communication possible. It may also, for whatever reason, not be available at the exact moment of evocation. 166

A circle represents infinity. It has no begining or end. It encompasses all space and time. When we are inside the magic circle, we enter into a space that is outside of space and time. Inside the circle, space and time may move exactly the same as directly outside the circle. In fact this is how it will most likely be moving when the magician first enters the circle. However once the evocation begins the circle will shift its place in time and space as needed to be conductive to communication. It should be noted that the area directly surronding the circle may also be affected by these shifts in space and time. A person standing directly outside of the circle may not notice any change (such as the magician moving slowly or rapidly through time, for instance) because they are being affected by the same shifts. However inconsistencies in time can sometimes be sensed between the ritual area and an area that is far enough away. Secondly we want a connection to the divine, or at least some sort of higher power. And in the next two steps we will talk about why we need that connection. A circle is generally seen as a symbol of the divine, or God, or the gods because it is infinite and all encompassing. Exactly which higher power you wish to draw upon is going to be dependent on your own personal beliefs. Christian mystics will usually draw upon the power of the Christian God or Christ, because they see him as being the highest power in the universe. Others will call upon something called the All or the Is, which is simply the sentient form of the accumulation of all things in the universe, seen to some as the supreme god or creator. Others will use a god or gods from various pantheons. And still others may call upon the power of the angels. Which one you decide to use isnt that important. What is important is that what youre using is real, that it is very powerful, and that youll be able to draw its power down and access it. Thirdly the magic circle empowers the magician. In the classical method of evocation power is provided by an external source, and this source is accessed through the magic circle. Your connection to the divine is your source of power. It is important that the magician understand that their connection to the divine is their power source, and also that this power is absolute. They also have to have faith that the power they draw upon is absolute. If the magician does not have an understanding of and a faith in the power, they are projecting weakness instead of strength, and this in turn creates a weakness which can be exploited by the evoked spirit. Lastly the circle provides protection for the magician. The circle is a source of absolute power, or at least a power far greater than what is being evoked, and this power cannot in any way be breached. The circle is not only there to protect the magician from a direct attack, but also to protect them from more subtle influences that the spirit may have upon the magician. Within the classical method of evocation this protection is essential, because from the begining the magician attempts to control and exploit the evoked spirit through force which creates a hostile relationship between the two. The magician does this with borrowed power, which only goes to illustrate how weak the magician is without his protections.

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The Triangle The other part of the classical ritual is the triangle. Much like the magical circle, there is no correct way to make a triangle. It can be drawn in the air, on the floor, in the dirt, or on a cloth. Usually the triangle is much less elaborate than the circle. The triangle is often seen as much less important than the circle. The triangle is the space in which we wish to evoke our entity. Where as we wish ourselves, standing into the circle, to be connected into the highest power and a part of all times and all places, we want the exact opposite for what we evoke. We want the spirit to appear in a specific time and place. Ideally we want it to have a spiritual preseance which can be channeled into, an astral presence which can be felt, and a physical manifestation which can be seen and heard. We also want the entity to be contained, so that it can only affect the world in the ways we command it to, and we want it to be weaker than us so we can control it. It should be noted that the importance of the triangle in the ritual varies between magicians and rituals. Some magicans prefer to always use a triangle, and only evoke spirits into the triangle, so that they always have the greatest amount of power and leverage throughout the entire evocation. Other magicians evoke spirits outside of the triangle, and only use the triangle when necessary to control the spirit, or when they feel they need the added protection. These magicians can use the triangle as a threat, forcing disobediant spirits into the triangle. Some magicians, meanwhile, omit the triangle all together, and instead only make use of the protections provided by the circle. So why a triangle? The representation of the triangle is multifacited. First and formost, three is the number of the universe. 1 (singularity), 2 (duality), and 3 (triplicity) are the three most powerful numbers in existance. Three also represents the three realms into which we can evoke spirits. The first realm is the mental realm. Spirits in this realm can be channeled by experienced practitioners in order to communicate and share knowledge. The second realm is the astral or spiritual realm. Spirits in this realm have a presence that can be felt. They are able to move and manipulate energy and affect the astral realm. They can be seen by and communicate with practitioners who are sensitive enough to see and hear ghosts. Finally there is the physical realm. Spirits in this realm can physically affect the world. They can move objects. They can be seen and heard by anyone. Three is also a number of incompleteness and seperation from the divine or complete power. Remember there are five elements. These five elements are represented by the five points of the pentagram. Combined these five elements are considered to be absolute power, which is why the pentagram is such a common and powerful magical symbol. However the number four has the same power. Spirit is often time looked at as the combination of the other four elements, or that the other four elements all spring

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forth from spirit. Therefor a representation of all four elements also represents spirit. Because it does lack spirit though, four is sometimes seen as being absolute power in the realm of the physical world where as five is absolute power in all realms. Three however is one less than four. It only represents three of the elements. Anything evoked into the triangle is only allowed to be made up of three elements at once. At any given moment, whatever is in the triangle is missing one of the four basic elements from its being. This means it is within a very weakened state, a state through which it cannot make a true divine connection. This is essential because it garuntees that the practitioner, in the circle, is more powerful than the spirit, that the practitioner has access to a power that the spirit is denied access to, and that the protections provided by the ritual cannot be breached. The Four Steps of the Ritual Step 1 Preparing the area - Adequate preperations need to be made prior to the evocation. Some practitioners prefer to perform a banishing ritual prior to the evocation so they can work within a clean space. Others prefer to use the existing energy of the area. Most importantly the circle and triangle need to be constructed. Special care needs to be taken with the placement of the triangle. The triangle needs to be placed in an area that is free from any belongings. Likewise the area needs to be thouroughly cleaned and care needs to be taken that any skin folacels, nail clippings, hair, and blood, of both humans and pets, are not present. These things will provide a link to the practitioner and those close to him and can be used by a malicious spirit to exact revenge. Likewise all reflective surfaces, including black mirrors like your computer monitor and tv, need to be covered, since they can give the spirit access to areas outside your control. Energy also has to be raised in order to fuel the evocation. Spirits may need large amounts of energy to manifest, and having large amounts of energy available in the room will help with that. In addition to raising energy you may also attempt to burn candles and use incence to provide additional energy. With this method, even if a spirit can manifest on its own, its considered poor form to be dependent on the powers of the spirit. The practitioner should provide ample energy for manifestation. In fact the practitioner should do everything they can to accomodate the spirit for the purposes of the evocation. A failure to do so shows weakness, and the practitioner needs to be careful to always come from a position of absolute power. Any tools being used in the ritual also need to be put in their place. If a mirror is being used for communication it needs to go into the triangle. If sigils or rings are being used those need to go into their proper place. All magical tools at the ritual should be placed inside the circle unless there is a specific reason not to. Lastly the practitioner and

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anyone else attending the ritual needs to be inside the circle and needs to remain in the circle for the duration of the ritual. Step 2 The Evocation - Step 2 is the actual evocation. Here the practitioner needs to call forth the spirit by name and command him to come forward. If the spirit does not respond, the practitioner should become more and more threatening, until finally they use the power of the circle, if need be, to pull the spirit forward. During this stage the practitioner should also command the spirit to manifest within the realm of the practitioners choosing (either mentally, astrally, or physically). They should also make the spirit appear in a form that is pleasing to the practitioner. Everything in this stage needs to be a command, and everything needs to be done exactly to the practitioners wishes. The key here is to establish a position of power and control from the begining. Step 3 Communion - During this stage the practitioner talks with and commands the spirit. If the practitioner has evoked the spirit just for knowledge, then the practitioner should engage the spirit in conversation for that knowledge. If the practitioner has a task for the spirit, they should give the spirit this task. The instructions given to the spirit need to be clear and concise with no room for independent thought or action, and the spirit must be given clear guidelines that this task is the only way they are allowed to affect the world outside the triangle. The practitioner should not bargain with the spirit, agree to repay the spirit in any way, and if necessary the practitioner should force the spirit to perform the task. The task should be performed immedietaly taking no longer than the duration of the ritual for the spirit to perform its part. Step 4 Banishing - The last step is for the practitioner to use the power of the circle to completely banish the spirit from the triangle. This is of utmost importantance. The practitioner cannot leave the circle, nor should the triangle be broken, until after the spirit has been completely banished. To fail this step is to put the practitioner at the mercy of the spirit which he has abused and exploited with no power other than his own to protect him. Pros and Cons Advantages to using this method 1. With the classical method the practitioner is able to fully exploit the powers of the spirit. Instead of the spirit only doing what it wants to do or is willing to do it is forced to do what the practitioner wants it to do. 2. The practitioner is able to command the spirit and take from the spirit what he wants. The practitioner does not need to bargain with the spirit, to pay back the spirit, or depend on the charity of the spirit. 3. If done correctly and successfully, this method provides the practitioner the greatest amount of protection from not only direct harm, but also more subtle attacks such as being negatively influenced by the spirit.

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Disadvantages to using this method 1. This entire method is a hostile act against the evoked spirit. Many normally nonaggressive spirits may become vengeful and violent and look for any opportunity to harm the practitioner. At the very least this method will create an adversitile relationship with most spirits where the spirit is not acting in the interests of the practitioner because it wants to, but is instead doing what it has to do. 2. The practitioner is dependent upon borrowed power for the evocation, control of the spirit, and his protection from the spirit. Although commanding from a position of power, the use of borrowed power shows the weakness of the practitioner. The spirit is controlled by, and possibly afraid of, the source of the power, not the practitioner. 3. All things considered, this method is probably the most dangerous. Although this method uses very powerful protections, it does so because it also creates such a dangerous position for a practitioner to be in. It creates a hostile situation while the practitioners relaiance on external power advertises his weakness. If everything is done correctly the method is entirely safe. However the smallest error (be it in the preperation, the ritual, the banishing, or even the wording of commands) can prove disasterous. 4. Many people have ethical and moral issues with this method. Many people see commanding and exploiting another, even if it is a spirit, for no other reason than because you can as unjust. Many different religions and spiritual beliefs take issue with this method. #Note: I may be a bit biased because I am not a fan of this method. I believe that the only reason why this method is so popular is because many people believe it is the only method. My goal in writing this book was to not only explain evocations, but also to provide alternate methods for evocations. Ive explained this method in such detail because I wish to give a complete overview of evocations in this book, and also because understanding this method explains a good deal of the theory behind evocations and how they work in practical use, and this will also show what has been changed in the alterantive methods and why.

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Evocations II Magic Circle Exercises

March 21, 2013 These are some exercises to help teach you how to make magic circles. Exercise #7 requires a white bedsheet and a black magic marker. No tools are required for the other exercises. These exercises were designed to build upon one another, so they should be attempted in order. They also arent meant to only be done once, but to be done over and over again until a person gets it. A practitioner should start with exercise #1 and continue to do that exercise again and again until they feel like theyve been successful with it and feel comfortable with it, or until they feel they cant get any better at it. Then they should move on to exercise #2, and continue doing this for all further exercises. A person may however, and should, go back to previous exercises and retry them from time to time to see if theyve become any better at them, and to strengthen the core skills taught by the earlier exercises. If you like, you can light incense to aid you during the exercise, however this isnt necessary. Myrrh and Lotus will work really well. Cinnamon, Dragons Blood, and Vanilla are less effective, albeit still good choices. If you do use incense, you should stop using it by exercise #8 at the latest. Likewise you may light candles if you wish. 1,3, or 5 candles in front of you for exercises #1-2. Four candles spread out around you making a square, or five spread evenly around you for all other rituals. However, once again, you should stop using candles by exercise #8 at the latest. Exercise #1 Sit comfortably on the floor. Close your eyes. Take some time to relax and calm yourself. Clear your mind. Notice the empty blackness in front of you. Imagine a circle being drawn there. Visualize the circle and hold it in your mind. While visualizing the circle, think about all the things which the circle represents. Think about the idea of infinity. Imagine something tracing the line of the circle over and over again forever. Think about the idea of absolute divine power, and how that idea is represented within the circle. Think of all the things a circle means to you personally and what it personally symbolizes to you. When you are finished spend a few more minutes sitting with your eyes closed. Think about and evaluate all of the things you have visualized. Spend a bit of time calming yourself and bringing your mind back to this world. When you are ready peacefully open your eyes.

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Exercise #2 Sit comfortably on the floor. Close your eyes. Take some time to relax and calm yourself. Clear your mind. Imagine a circle being drawn in the blackness. As the circle is being drawn, visualize immense energy coursing through it. When the end of the circle meets the beginning, and the two ends meet, visualize a sharp increase in the energy of the circle, and the energy becomming absolute and divine. Continue to visualize the circle and the divine energy flowing through it. When you are finished spend a few more minutes sitting with your eyes closed. Think about and evaluate all of the things you have visualized. Spend a bit of time calming yourself and bringing your mind back to this world. When you are ready peacefully open your eyes. Exercise #3a Sit comfortably on the floor. Close your eyes. Take some time to relax and calm yourself. Clear your mind. Instead of imagining the circle being drawn in front of you, imagine the circle being drawn around you on the ground. Visualize the circle and hold it in your mind. While visualizing the circle, think about all the things which the circle represents. Think about the idea of infinity. Imagine something tracing the line of the circle over and over again forever. Think about the idea of absolute divine power, and how that idea is represented within the circle. Think of all the things a circle means to you personally and what it personally symbolizes to you. When you are finished spend a few more minutes sitting with your eyes closed. Think about and evaluate all of the things you have visualized. Spend a bit of time calming yourself and bringing your mind back to this world. When you are ready peacefully open your eyes. Exercise #3b Sit comfortably on the floor. Close your eyes. Take some time to relax and calm yourself. Clear your mind. Imagine a circle being drawn around you on the ground. As the circle is being drawn, visualize immense energy coursing through it. When the end of the circle meets the beginning, and the two ends meet, visualize a sharp increase in the energy of the circle, and the energy becomming absolute and divine. Imagine the energy going upward, into the air above you, and creating a powerful and impenetrable barrier around you.

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Continue to visualize the circle and the divine energy flowing through it. When you are finished spend a few more minutes sitting with your eyes closed. Think about and evaluate all of the things you have visualized. Spend a bit of time calming yourself and bringing your mind back to this world. When you are ready peacefully open your eyes. Exercise #4 Sit comfortably on the ground outside, in dirt or sand, or anywhere that you can mark the ground with your fingers. If you have thick carpet, you may be able to do this inside. Close your eyes. Place your hands together behind your back. Push your fingers into the ground and move your hands away from each other, drawing a circle in the ground around you, and meeting direcly in front of you. Visualize energy coursing through the circle as you draw it. When your hands meet, visualize a sharp increase in the energy, and the energy becoming absolute and divine. Imagine the energy rising up into the air above you and creating an impenetrable barrier around you. Think about all the things which the circle represents. Think about the idea of infinity. Imagine something tracing the line of the circle over and over again forever. Think about the idea of absolute divine power, and how that idea is represented within the circle. Think of all the things a circle means to you personally and what it personally symbolizes to you. When you are finished, take your hand and wipe away part of the circle, breaking it. Visualize the circle of energy ceasing to exist immediately after the physical circle is broken. Spend a few more minutes sitting with your eyes closed. Think about and evaluate all of the things you have visualized. Spend a bit of time calming yourself and bringing your mind back to this world. When you are ready peacefully open your eyes. Exercise #5 Repeat exercise #4, but leave your eyes open the entire time. Exercise #6 Sit comfortably on the ground outside, in dirt or sand, or anywhere that you can mark the ground with your fingers. If you have thick carpet, you may be able to do this inside.

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Draw a circle on the ground, as in exercise #4. Visualize energy flowing through the circle as you create it, and visualize an absolute and divine at the end of its creation. Once you create the circle, remain sitting with your eyes closed, point your palms at the circle, and visualize the energy inside of you flowing into your hands, and then visualize that energy flowing out of your hands and the lines of the circle. Visualize your energy intermixing with the energy of the circle, and further empowering it. When you are finished, take your hand and wipe away part of the circle, breaking it. Visualize the circle of energy ceasing to exist immediately after the physical circle is broken. Spend a few more minutes sitting with your eyes closed. Think about and evaluate all of the things you have visualized. Spend a bit of time calming yourself and bringing your mind back to this world. When you are ready peacefully open your eyes. Exercise #7 Unfold a large white bed sheet and place it on the floor. Sit in the center of the bed sheet with a black magic marker in your hand. Draw a circle around yourself as the inside border of your circle. Visualize energy coursing through the line as you draw it. Draw a second circle around the first to act as your outside border, but be sure to leave some space between the two circles. As you draw this second circle, visualize energy flowing through the line, and as the line completes itself, visualize a sharp increase in energy, and the energy flowing through the entire circle, from one border to the other. and the energy being absolute and divine, and reaching upwards into the air above you. Take the marker, and between the inner and outer borders of the circle draw a symbol that has personal spiritual significance. Continue to sit in the circle, and closing your eyes think about or meditate on the symbol. Think of all the things the symbol means, and what powers it has. Spend several minutes or more doing this. With your eyes still closed, move your hand over the image you drew. Imagine energy flowing out of your hand, and imagine this energy empowering the image, and turning it on. Visualize the energy and power you associate with the image flowing out of it, and flowing into the circle further empowering it. Continue to draw more spiritually significant images into the circle and repeating the exercise. If you feel up to it, after completing this part of the exercise you may also repeat exercise #6 inside the circle and empower it with your own energy. When you are finished close your eyes imagine the energy of the circle dissipating and flowing away. Remain sitting with your eyes closed for several more minutes afterwords. Contemplate the ritual during this time and all the things that were visualized and all of the sensations that were felt.

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Exercise #8 Sit comfortably on the floor. Close your eyes. Take some time to relax and calm yourself. Clear your mind. Place your hands behind your back. Put your hands together behind your back. Without touching the ground, move your hands away from you, around you, and have them meet directly in front of you. As you do this, imagine the circle forming around you. Visualize energy coursing through the circle as you create it. When your hands meet, visualize a sharp increase in the energy, and the energy becoming absolute and divine. Imagine the energy both falling to the ground and rising up into the air above you creating an impenetrable barrier around you. Think about all the things which the circle represents. Think about the idea of infinity. Imagine something tracing the line of the circle over and over again forever. Think about the idea of absolute divine power, and how that idea is represented within the circle. Think of all the things a circle means to you personally and what it personally symbolizes to you. Point your palms at the circle, and visualize the energy inside of you flowing into your hands, and then visualize that energy flowing out of your hands and the lines of the circle. Visualize your energy intermixing with the energy of the circle, and further empowering it. Imagine your spiritual symbols appearing within the circle. Move your hands over them, let the energy flow out of you, and empower them. When you are finished with the ritual, visualize the energy of the circle collapsing around you and the energy ceasing to exist as quickly as you can. Spend a few more minutes sitting with your eyes closed. Think about and evaluate all of the things you have visualized. Spend a bit of time calming yourself and bringing your mind back to this world. When you are ready peacefully open your eyes. Exercise #9 Repeat exercise #8, but with your eyes open the entire time. Exercise #10a Repeat exercise #8, but while standing up. Work on doing the ritual as quickly as possible.

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Exercise #10b Repeat exercise #9, but while standing up. Work on doing the ritual as quickly as possible. Exercise #11 Create a magic circle while walking. Create the magic circle as quickly as you possibly can. Make the circle as powerful as you can make it. Make it so the circle follows you and you are always at the center of the circle as you walk. Then break down the circle as quickly as possible. Repeat this exercise again and again as many times as possible. Further exercises: Work on creating magic circles in various distracting situations and environments. Try doing it while having a conversation, while watching TV, while doing chores, and while doing various physically and mentally taxing activities, for instance. See how large you can make the circle. Can you make it so it covers a larger area around you, or above you, or below you. Make your circles ever bigger. Try to see how much energy you can get coursing through the circle and how powerful you can make it. And of course, do it faster, and faster, and faster.

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Method of Evocation #1 General Method of Evocation

July 31, 2013 Well here it is, my method of evocation. This ritual was written and developed by me after studying dozens of ancient texts, finding all of the previous methods unsatisfactory, doing additional channeling, and further improved by experimentation. Ive done this ritual, the whole thing, over a hundred times. I can now cast this in my head, and I have magic items designed to specifically cast this spell. It works. It is absolutely amazing in how well it works. This is not the method of some amateur evocator who just read Goetia and now fancies that hell try to sell you a book about his knowledge. This is a method Ive used a lot. That Ive used for many years. That I know better than just about any other spell or exercise. Ive seen spirits physically manifest, objects move at high speeds across the room, walls become intangible, time become inconsequential, and Ive personally been shot at close range during one of these rituals and lived through it almost completely unharmed. This is magic. Real magic, the stuff of fantasy novels. If youre bored with magic, or with studying, this ritual is awesome, it is sublime, it is everything youve been wanting out of magic, and it is everything I love about magic. You do need to know how to evoke a fire elemental to make it work. Ill get some exercises up later. Maybe. Lets face it, I really suck at posting the things Im supposed to post. Energy manipulation 3-5 will be up one day too, I swear. Gather together the following items: Three white unscented and unmarked virgin candles. Three seperate candle holders for the candles. Oils representing: Water (Recommended: Sandlewood or Jasmine) Earth (Recomended: Musk) Air (Recomended: Vanilla or Nutmeg) Incense representing fire (Cinnamon is highly recommended). An incense burner A cloth for dressing the candles. A lighter (matches are not recommended). A knife for candle carving. Additionally you may wish to gather the follwing items: A candle snuffer to put out the candles. A wand to aid in raising energy. A sword or knife for emergency use. A pen and paper for recording information. Chalk to draw on the floor to aid visualization. Additional incense to set the mood, raise energy, or channel.

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Prior to the beginning of the ritual, prepare the candles as follows: The first candle is the candle of water. Spread your saliva around the candle to create a bond with it. Carve into the candle the runes of water. Dress the candle in the oil representing water. The dressing should first move down and clockwise, and then counterclockwise and up. Say, I give this candle the element of water and all that it encompasses, as taken from my body and soul, while moving your hand in a circular clockwise motion over the candle. While doing this pull the element of water from yourself and push it into the candle [#Note, we are not evoking water into ourselves first, we are simply pushing the water that is already in us out into the candle]. The second candle is the candle of air. Spread your saliva around the candle to create a bond with it. Carve into the candle the runes of air. Dress the candle in the oil representing air. The dressing should first move down and clockwise, and then counterclockwise and up. Say, I give this candle the element of air and all that it encompasses, as taken from my body and soul, while moving your hand in a circular clockwise motion over the candle. While doing this pull the element of air from yourself and push it into the candle. The third candle is the candle of earth. Spread your saliva around the candle to create a bond with it. Carve into the candle the runes of earth. Dress the candle in the oil representing earth. The dressing should first move down and clockwise, and then counterclockwise and up. Say, I give this candle the element of earth and all that it encompasses, as taken from my body and soul, while moving your hand in a circular clockwise motion over the candle. While doing this pull the element of earth from yourself and push it into the candle Arrange the three candles so that each is in a different place in the room or area in which the evocation is to take place. These three candles will form the three points of the triangle. The triangle should be as large as possible. At a minimum, the triangle should be large enough so that all of those attending the ritual can fit within it comfortably. Raise as much energy as possible. Place the fire incense within the triangle. Light the incense and say I call forth the element of fire, may its power fill the room. Evoke a fire elemental into the flame on the incense.

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Creating the triangle: Begin with the earth candle. Light it while saying I hereby combine the element of earth with the element of fire, the physical plane with the spiritual plane. Next light the air candle while saying, I hereby combine the element of air with the element of fire, the mental plane with the spiritual plane. Finally light the water candle while saying, I hereby combine the element of water with the element of fire, the emotional plane with the spiritual plane. Now draw a line (physically or psionically) between the earth candle and the air candle. Say, As the past flows into the present, let earth flow into air, the physical realm into the mental realm. Draw a line (physically or psionically) between the air candle and the water candle. Say, As the present flows into the future, let air flow into water, the mental realm into the emotional realm. Draw a line (physically or psionically) between the water candle and the earth candle. Say, Let the future flow into the past, water flow into earth, and the emotional realm flow into the physical realm. Say, I have created a space that is devoid time and space. Speak the name of the spirit that you wish to call forward. Ask the spirit to come forward. For instance *name of spirit+ I ask that you come forward, or *name of spirit+ I request that you appear. When you have finished conversing with all spirits, the triangle needs to be shut down. Erase the line (physically or psionically) between the earth candle and the water candle. Say, I hereby remove the element of water from the element of earth, the future from the past, the emotional realm from the physical realm. Erase the line (physically or psionically) between the water candle and the air candle. Say, I hereby remove the element of water from the element of earth, the future from the present, the emotional realm from the mental realm. Erase the line (Physically or psionically) between the air candle and the earth candle. Say, I hereby remove the element of air from the element of earth, the present from the past, the mental realm from the physical realm. Blow out the water candle. Say, I remove the element of fire from the element of water (the emotional realm from the spiritual realm) and return it to a purity.

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Blow out the air candle. Say, I remove the element of fire from the element of air (the mental realm from the spiritual realm) and return it to a purity. Blow out the earth candle. Say, I remove the element of fire from the element of earth (the mental realm from the spiritual realm) and return it to a purity. The ritual is now completed. Variations 1. To increase the likelihood of a physical manifestation: Light the incense and evoke the fire elemental after lighting the three candles and forming the triangle. 2. To have increased safety and security during the ritual: Put each of the three candles on an altar to a particular deity that you feel comfortable with. If at all possible put the candle on an altar of a deity associated with the same element as the candle (ie, Zeus for air, Saturn for earth). Either prior to lighting the candles, or while lighting the candles, ask that particular deity for protection. 3. To decrease prep time: Many of the ritual acts can be done psionically, or are only included to strengthen the ritual. Once youre practiced with the ritual and become proficient at it, much of it can be eliminated or substituted with psionic magic. Because of the long preparation for the ritual (about thirty to forty-five minutes usually), this can greatly reduce the prep time. In the past Ive done this ritual almost completely psionically in a few minutes. 4. To decrease the prep time and save money on supplies: The candles used in the ritual can be saved and used again! You have to be able to remember which candle represents which element. By reusing candles you can skip the entire candle preparation segment of the ritual. However the ritual seems to have a greater success rate when the candles are fresh. If you have difficulties with recycled candles, try fresh ones. Important Notes: #Although attendees can leave the area at any time, the magician casting the triangle should not leave the area prior to the triangle being closed. If they must (such as a potty break) they need to be a short distance away and quickly return to the area. Failing to do so can make them sick and weak. #After the triangle is cast no one should manipulate energy within the room or area. Doing so may have a direct and negative effect on the magician casting the triangle. #If you cast the triangle and do not evoke a spirit, strange things start to happen. #This ritual may attract random spirits and the dead into the ritual area. Be prepared.

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#This ritual does strange things to the passage of time. #The ritual seems to be affected by the people in attendance. #With our experimentation, weve had greater success with this, and most other, rituals when they were performed after sunset. However with some spirits you may have greater success evoking them during the daytime hours, or during dawn and dusk. Explanation of the ritual. Lets start by explaining exactly what were trying to do. We want to evoke a spirit. In order to do that we need a space with a lot of energy that is outside of space and time. Were creating this space inside of a triangle. The triangle exists outside of space and time, and it also mashes together the various realms that make up the universe. In order to do this, were literally ripping a hole in reality. The triangle we create exists outside space-time as we know and perceive it. The area in the triangle, and usually a certain amount of the area directly surrounding it, is actually inside its own little pocket dimension. The pocket dimension is created by the magician casting the triangle literally pushing his or her own soul outward and turning it into a space. This space is loosely anchored into the physical realm and time-space at the point where the triangle is created. Anyone and anything that is inside the triangle is literally existing within the soul of the practitioner. When the spirit arrives it is actually entering a dimension that exists within the practitioner which is being projected outward into the area. Youll also notice if you read the section on the classical method that the triangle in this method has aspects of both the triangle and circle in the classical method. Much like the circle of the classical method, weve created an area outside of space and time. But here all four elements (and thus all five elements) are present within the triangle. Likewise both the practitioner and the evoked entity exist within the triangle. However with this method the energy fueling the evocation is largely being supplied from the practitioner. Some of the areas natural energy may be pulled, and some energy is being provided by a fire elemental, but the majority of the energy is still coming from the practitioner, and the additional energy provided by the fire elemental is due to the practitioners skill at evoking elementals. The entire space meanwhile is encompassed by the power, will, and being of the practitioner, putting him or her in a place of power while showing that he or she is a powerful magician. The lack of protections also shows that the practitioner has faith in themselves and their power. The first part of the ritual is the gathering of supplies, which should be self-explanatory and is pretty boring, but well go over it anyways. First you need three white unscented and unmarked virgin candles. Why did we pick white? Long ago color wasnt really associated with candle magic because until relatively recently candle dyes were so expensive only the wealthy could afford colored candles. I really dont get into the whole color and candle thing, but maybe you

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do. White is either an amplifier or something that projects whatevers in it outward, and its also blank. Its the perfect default candle for almost any candle magick. We want it unscented because we are going to scent it ourselves with our oils. By unmarked, it means be careful going to occult stores. Some of stores will bless or mark candles with runes and symbols in order to prevent them from being used for certain types of spells they view as immoral or dangerous. Sometimes its very hard to see the markings as they can be very light. If you buy your candles at the arts and crafts store or from reputable mass market online retailers (like Azure Green) as I do, this wont be a problem. Lastly by virgin I mean that the candle has never been burned before and it hasnt been blessed or left on an altar or anything. In other words it is a brand new clean candle. You need candle holders for the candles. Since the candles need to be set up at different points in the room each needs its own holder. Next up we need three oils for our candles, one for each of the three elements (water, air, and earth). In addition to the element that is represented by the oil, its also very much okay if the oil is fire associative too. First up we have water. Sandlewood is my favorite oil for water, it represents both fire and water, and its usually a very easy one to find. You could also use Jasmine which represents fire, water, and to a much lesser degree air. Rose and rosewood represent fire, water, and earth. I try to stay away from this one because of the earth association, but if you cant find anything else you can use these ones. Second we have air. Vanilla and nutmeg are both airy and are both very good choices for air. Vanilla is more about intelligence while nutmeg has more of a mystical edge to it. Amber is okay, its knowledge associative, and Ive used it, but I prefer not to because its also past associative. In a pinch you can also use opium. Finally we have earth. Musk or a variant (such as Arabian musk) is the best choice. There are very few earth associative oils out there and musk is the only one Ive ever been able to just walk into a store and buy. Then we need to pick out our incense, which is fire associative. Cinnamon is the number one choice. Its ability to raise and amplify energy comes in handy during the ritual, and its also one of the easiest incenses to find. Ginger will also work. Most fruits that are red or reddish, except for apples, are also fire associative (like mangos and oranges). Why we need an incense burner should be obvious. We also need a few odds and ends. We need a cloth to dress the candle. Ritual cloths are nice, but theyre very inconvenient because they need to be washed after every use. I usually use paper towel and it works just fine. You need a lighter to light the candles. You shouldnt use matches because were playing with a fire elemental and that creates a small fire hazard. You also need something to carve the candles with. I use a pen knife. You can really use anything, including a toothpick or nail.

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You also may want some optional items for the ritual. A candle snuffer is a safer way to put out candles when youre finished with them. A wand will help with raising energy, and although far from necessary a lot of people will prefer it. Ritual knives and swords can be very useful if something goes wrong and you are attacked during the evocation. I highly recommend having a pen and paper available since a lot of times youll get a spell or word or name youll want to write down. You may want chalk to draw on the floor with. And you can have additional incense to set the mood or raise energy prior to casting the triangle, or to help you channel after the triangle has been cast. Next were going to prepare our candles. All three candles are going to be prepared in essentially the same way, the only difference being the element used for each. It really doesnt matter what order we prepare the candles in. The first thing were going to do when preparing a candle is spreading our saliva upon it. The best way I find for doing this is putting the candle in your mouth (if it is small enough) or you can do anything from licking the candle to rubbing the saliva from you hand. In any case the point of this is to establish a bond between the practitioner and the tool by use of a bodily fluid. Properly applying a bodily fluid will help to quickly establish stronger links with magical tools. We could use just about any bodily fluid. Blood would actually make a much stronger bond, however blood is a bit difficult to get out. Likewise semen and menstrual blood would both create a stronger bond than saliva, but saliva is a far less gross choice. Plus if your masturbating on candles or pulling out a tampon, dont expect attendees to show up to your next ritual. Well get to why we need such a strong bond in a little bit. Next we want to carve the symbols of the element into the candle. Ive supplied a nice assortment of symbols for each of the elements. You can apply all of them, or some of them, or one of them, or even just apply symbols from a different source. This process is mainly to help strengthen the fact that this candle represents the element in question and to help associate the element with the candle. The next step is to dress the candle with the appropriate oil. Once again this step is to help associate the candle with the element in question. Make sure you use different corners of the cloth to apply the oil, or use separate cloths all together, to prevent the oil from mixing. Dressing the candle downward in a clockwise motion symbolizes something entering the candle. In this case it will be the element that we draw out of ourselves in a future step. Dressing the candle upward in a counter clockwise motion symbolizes something being taken out of the candle, in this case the element leaving the candle and forming the triangle when we later light it. The next step involves actually enchanting the candle. Although its important to understand every aspect of the ritual and have your mind and energy focused on the intent of every action, we now get to the point where we have to be able to perform some psionic magic. This step is really nothing more than simple energy manipulation (pushing energy out of your body) and knowing what a particular element feels like so you can identify it and pull it out of yourself. If you cant do these two things, you can

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still attempt the ritual and see how well it works for you, but youll have a much lower success rate. If you have problems with the energy manipulation, try working with the exercises in section . If your not familiar with the elements, try the earlier rituals for evoking elements and taking them into yourself until you feel comfortable with them. Why do we say things in ritual? Announcing what were doing makes clear our intentions to the universe and any forces that may be present and acting upon the ritual. It also makes our intentions clear to us. It takes a collection of thoughts that may be kicking around in our head and puts them into a clear, concise, and structured phrase. It gives us the clarity and focus that will help us properly direct our actions and energies. So were doing exactly what were saying. We are giving this candle the aspects of ourselves which are defined by this element. The reason why we are doing this is because later we will use our own soul or spirit or whatever you want to call it to form the triangle that well use for the evocation. So the candles, taken as a group, will encompass our soul and the spiritual connection of our soul. Its not enough to just say were doing something though. Saying that were doing something just helps us focus and make clear exactly what were doing. As we are saying what were doing, we actually have to do that act. In this case we have to take the particular element out of us and push it into the candle. If you did the elemental evocations you should know what each element feels like. Beyond that this is just like pushing energy out of yourself. Find the element within yourself, push it out like it was energy. You can push out non-elemental energy too if you need to at the same time, it wont hurt the ritual (in fact it may help energize the candle). We make a clockwise circular motion over the candle when doing this as a ritual aid. The ritual is a common one, it mimics the motion of a screw. Clockwise to push something in, counter-clockwise to pull it out. You can use a different method to charge the candle if you prefer, however the screw ritual is a good and common method. As a final note on charging the candles, we are not pulling elementals into ourselves to use in the candle. We are taking what naturally exists within ourselves. The reason is that we, and not elementals, are going to be the primary source of power for the triangle. Now we need to set up the candles for the triangle. This step is pretty self-explanatory. We just have to find three flat surfaces where we can put candles and their holders. As with anytime we use a candle, we want to put the candle somewhere without a draft either from wind, a fan, or a vent. If you cant do that then you need to buy something called hurricane glass which is a glass or vase that goes around the candle to protect it from drafts. We want the triangle to be as big as possible. Remember we have to fit in the triangle, other attendees will probably want in the triangle, and the evoked spirit has to fit in there too. The more room we have in the triangle the more room we have to work with.

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Next we raise energy in the room. Any method you wish to use is fine. Were going to need lots and lots of energy for various parts of this ritual, so the important thing is to raise as much energy as possible right now. We wont have a chance to raise large amounts of energy later. We need to put the incense within the triangle because we want it to be a part of the ritual, and not exist outside of it. When we light the incense, we have to evoke the fire elemental. Im assuming that youre using stick incense, which is the easiest to find and the easiest to use. Evoke the fire elemental into the flame either on the stick of incense or on the lighter prior to lighting the incense (and it will most likely jump over once the stick is lit). You do have to blow out the flame on the stick, but dont worry the fire elemental can jump into the cherry of the stick afterwards. The fire elemental is going to provide a lot of excess energy which will be needed through out the ritual. By bringing forth the fire elemental at this point it will lend the majority of its energy to creating and maintaining the triangle, taking a lot of the weight off the practitioner and allowing the practitioner to have a greater degree of control over the entire ritual. Note that the practitioner is not taking the fire elemental into themselves, theyre just summoning it into the room. The fire elemental may start jumping between the candles during the ritual. In my experiences this is fine, just leave it be. This spell does use a fire elemental so take all necessary precautions when working with fire elementals. Now we can start to create the triangle in a magical sense. First we are going to light each candle individually. Remember that fire is in between being physical (it generates heat and can burn you) and being spiritual (it has no mass or form), and so it acts as a bridge between the spiritual world and the physical world. When we light each candle, we are combining that element and the world it represents (either the physical [earth], mental [air], or emotional[water]) with the highest realm which is represented by the element of fire. Note that there is no element connected to the astral realm. That is because the astral realm is technically part of the physical realm, and so the astral realm is also represented by the element of earth (just like the physical realm, the astral is composed of matter and energy). The important thing to remember when lighting the candles is that we are combining the element represented in the candle with the element of fire, and bringing those two realms together. As the candles are directly tied into our body and spirit, we are also connecting ourselves to this highest realm. Next we need to combine the candles, and we do this by creating lines through which the candles can flow into one and another. Generally these lines can be created psionically by envisioning imaginary lines between the candles. If you need the extra help, and it is convenient to do so, you can draw the lines between the candles on the ground. Make sure you do these candles in order, earth to air, air to water, and water to earth.

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Earth will naturally flow into air, as earth represents the past and air the present. Likewise, and for the same reason, air should flow into water. It is simply a matter of creating a path (by making the line connecting the two) and then pushing just a small amount of the element from earth into air, or air into water. After that they should flow forward and backward on their own. The final part is to connect water with earth, and the future into the past. This one is just a little bit more difficult, as it is not natural for the future to flow into the past. But by connecting water into earth last it is made a lot easier. Create the line, the same as you would the first two, and then push water into earth. It will take a bit more force, but once the element starts moving it will complete the triangle and all three elements will flow as they should. Once weve created the triangle, weve now made our special space. Inside the triangle all time is connected, and all four worlds (physical & astral, mental, emotional, and spiritual) are strongly tied together with little or nothing separating them. Our special space is a place where the rules of time and space no longer exist. Also note that all four, and thus all five, elements are connected together. So are the four worlds. And so are all points in time connected together in an infinite loop. Our triangle now has the all-encompassing infinite that is represented by the magic circle. Also the triangle is essentially the practitioner. It is an outward extension of the practitioner, it is an aspect of them. Because the triangle is connected into the highest spiritual realms, so is the practitioner. Because the triangle connects into everything and is a part of everything, so is the practitioner. In these aspects the triangle is just like the magic circle. Unlike the magic circle though the triangle does not connect the practitioner into an external higher power. Instead the triangle is the practitioners own self and power acting on the environment. So the power of the evocation and all aspects of the ritual come forth from inside the practitioner. Now is the time to start evoking things. All you need to do the evocation is a name and an intent to bring it forward. Simply speak the spirits name to bring it forward, and barring some unforeseen external barrier, the spirit should show. Its best to speak the spirits name, asking it to show, and to be polite. If your intention is truly to ask for an audience, the spirit may refuse to show (although this is rare in my experiences). If it doesnt show or you do not want to ask, you can force the spirit to show simply by willing it to come forward from inside the triangle. You can evoke multiple spirits this way. The best way to do this is if you still are not tired after speaking with a spirit, wait for it to leave and then call another spirit forward. Be careful as this ritual is very taxing and it is very easy for the practitioner to become weak which puts them at a major disadvantage should they evoke something that happens to be malicious. Also keep in mind that this ritual will start sucking energy out of everything, and it needs a lot of energy. It will take a lot out of the practitioner. Its also going to start using that fire elemental. And it will start sucking the energy out of the room, out of

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ritual objects, and out of the people in attendance during the invocation. Just attending this type of evocation can take a lot out of you. Casting it will take a lot more. It is a very energy intensive spell. When you are finished you need to shut down the triangle. Remember the triangle is pulling energy off of everything around it along with the person who cast it. It needs to be shut down. Doing this, however, wont necessarily close everything youve opened with the evocation. We take the triangle apart in a backwards order from the way we created it. If you drew the lines in chalk, you should do your best to erase them. In any case, you have to erase the lines psionically. Basically just visualize them fading away, or being blown up, or however you want to do it. Remember when we remove a line we are disconnecting those two elements from each other, those two worlds from each other, and those two aspects of time from each other. Start with the line connected Earth to Water. As soon as this line is gone the triangle is broken, and you should notice a lot of the strain from the ritual has been lifted. Space, time, and energy within the triangle should start to feel somewhat normal again after this. Continue with the other two lines. After the lines are gone go to each candle, starting with water, and blow them out. When we do this, we are removing that particular candle from its connection with fire, and at this point the candle again becomes a pure element. Once all three candles are blown out the triangle is shut down and the ritual is complete. Although the strain of the ritual should be gone, now that the practitioner is no longer empowered by being connected into the ritual and they may suddenly become exhausted (this is normal). The candles may be saved to be used in future evocations, but be careful to remember what they are and not to light them for other purposes. Lighting one of the candles may draw energy out of the practitioner since they are connected into them. Explanation of Variations: 1. In the original version of this method the incense was not lit and the fire elemental was not summoned until after the triangle was finished. This seemed to increase the likelihood of a physical manifestation. Using the fire elemental first was discovered by accident when I screwed up the order of the ritual. If youre just starting out, and just want this ritual to work and want anything to come forward, its best to summon the fire elemental first. When summoned first, the fire elemental will help to generate the necessary energy to create and maintain the triangle, which is the most important part when doing the evocation. When the fire elemental is summoned after the triangle, normally the fire elementals power would be lent to creating and maintaining the triangle, but instead that is almost entirely drawn from the practitioners own power (along with some energy from the room). However now the fire elementals power can be used later in the evocation,

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both to draw spirits forward and by evoked spirits to help them manifest and take action. If you feel comfortable with the ritual, and that you can handle the additional energy strain, and you havent had much luck getting physical manifestations from spirits, try evoking the fire elemental after the triangle is completed. Note that all other parts of the ritual happen in their normal order, and the candles are now lit and connected into the spiritual plane through fire prior to the lighting of the incense. 2. Initially, when I first created this ritual, I put the candles on altars to the gods and used the gods represented by these altars as a protection. Once I felt comfortable and safe casting evocations, I didnt really feel like I needed this protection anymore, and so I removed it from the ritual. If you dont yet feel comfortable doing evocations with no protection besides yourself, you may wish to add this step back into the ritual. In my opinion though it is unnecessary. If you are strong enough to cast the triangle, you should be strong enough to handle almost anything you manage to evoke into it. 3. All of the ritual, like any ritual, is only present to help you focus your mind and power and also to help you manipulate the exterior forces of the universe. There is nothing here that can not be done mentally. I dont suggest trying to do that from the beginning. But once youve done the ritual a few dozen times and feel comfortable with all the parts, start stripping physical actions away and see if you can do them with your mind. I typically do this ritual with no other acts besides lighting three candles and one stick of incense, and if I really wanted to I could (and have) eliminated even those steps. This does slightly weaken the ritual, but at the same time it saves on prep time and work. 4. This one is fairly self explanatory. The candles can be used again simply by relighting them. This is true of almost any candle used in a ritual. If you are reusing candles, you can skip all the steps involved with candle preparation and go straight to setting up the three candles in a triangle. The ritual tends to be a little bit weaker when done this way, but not by much. The only important things to remember are which candles correspond to which element, and not to use the candles for any other purpose (since they will drain the practitioner). Explanation of notes: There are no real protections offered and there is no danger with leaving the triangle (unlike leaving a magic circle during an evocation). In fact the least safe place to be is within the triangle, so by leaving it you are actually safer. However the magician who cast the triangle should not leave it, or if he or she does they need to not go very far and return quickly. Its actually not uncommon for the triangle to expand outward a bit and actually take up some parts of the room that arent actually inside of it. The magician can usually get away with being several feet

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outside the triangle. And leaving for a short period of time, like for a quick potty break, probably wont be a problem. But, and we found this out through experimentation, if you go far from the triangle and leave for an extended period of time, you will begin to get sick. The triangle is going to be pulling on you and taking energy from you, and everything running around inside of it will be running around inside of you. As you increase your physical distance from the triangle, you also increase the strain it puts on you. Likewise manipulating energy inside the triangle can be detrimental to the casting magician. Anything done to the energy in the triangle is literally being done to them. If the inside of the triangle fills with an energy they are uncomfortable with, they will feel the negative effects from it. If you swirl around the energy in a circle you will probably make them nauseous. It is best for everyone involved to leave the energy alone once the triangle is cast. If you do cast the triangle, you should always evoke a spirit into it. If you just leave the triangle up without evoking a spirit, and without giving it a purpose, strange things start to happen. If you want to know more, you can try it sometime. Its not dangerous, its just weird, and most likely a waste of an evening. This ritual uses large amounts of energy and punches holes into time, space, and reality. Rituals like that tend to attract things. You may have large amounts of random spirits, especially smaller and weaker ones and especially the dead, converging upon the general area surrounding the triangle, and possibly even inside the triangle. Most of these things are harmless and they are usually weak enough that they are easy to deal with if they become a problem. Weve also noticed strange occurrences in regards to the passage of time with this ritual, and even how time operates. Sometimes spirits will begin to appear and manipulate the environment hours, days, or even weeks before they are evoked or a decision is even made to evoke them. Weve had instances where multiple clocks inside the triangle were out of sync with multiple clocks inside the triangle. Weve seen an hour pass in mere minutes, and at other times hours seem to have gone by in less than half an hour. Once we walked outside during a ritual and heard ourselves inside speaking and having a conversation that we had hours ago. The people in attendance can also affect the ritual. Remember the ritual is going to be drawing on the energy in the room, and the triangle is actually very sensitive to the energies of anybody inside of it. Because of this the people attending the ritual can influence its flow, direction, and the make-up of the triangle just by being present. As with many rituals, we found this ritual to work best after the sun has completely set. Most magic seems to work best after dark. There are certain spirits that can only be evoked at specific times either during the daytime or during dawn or dusk, so in some instances you may have to use the ritual during the daytime. The ritual should still work regardless of the time of day.

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Expect this ritual to take a good amount of time. Prep time alone can get be close to an hour long. As for the actual evocation itself, there are too many variables to tell how long it will take. It depends somewhat on how many spirits you plan on evoking and how in depth you want to get with each one. But time also starts acting screwy, and minutes can drag on for hours, or you could lose an hour or two in mere minutes. Id say if you want to do this ritual, plan to spend the entire night doing it. You may be able to end it early, but you might not. Pros and Cons Advantages -This is my preferred method of evocation. Its a great general method of evocation thats useful in most situations. Its also a happy medium between the power of the ritual and the complexity of it. -This method is actually very powerful. You should be able to call forth almost any spirit using it. -This method is both non-aggressive and respectful of the spirits, which helps promote mutually beneficial relationships with spirits. -This method is ethically sound under most spiritual systems. No harm is done to the spirit and no attempt is made to bind the spirits power or control it. -The practitioner is the primary power source of this method. This ritual is performed through the practitioners own power. -Due to the fact that there is little reason for normally non-malicious spirits to be hostile when evoked under this method, and because the practitioner is seen as a source of power, there is a much smaller chance that a spirit, given opportunity, will attempt to harm the practitioner or attendees in any way. -Because the practitioner is not dependent upon multiple protections to ensure their safety, there is much greater room for error and experimentation and small mistakes are usually not as disastrous with this method as with traditional evocation methods. Disadvantages -Once a spirit is evoked, the practitioner will have very little control over them. To overpower the spirit with the triangle in this method would cause the magician to expend a great deal of energy and is not advised except in cases of absolute emergency. -It is not uncommon for the magician to have to bargain with or befriend a spirit in order to procure a favor from it.

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-The magicians only protection is himself and his power, and during the ritual he is being drained in order to sustain the triangle. The magician may evoke a hostile spirit when, because of the triangle, he is in a very weakened state. -The ritual is very energy intensive, and it may take quite a bit out of the magician who casts the triangle, especially if they are not used to very powerful rituals.

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On the origins of the Tarot

May 5, 2007 A lot of people feel the need to give the tarot a mystical beginning. That it came from lost Egyptian knowledge, that it was originally intertwined with Kabbalism, that it contains lost Hindi information, that it came to Europe via the gypsies, that it was invented to transmit occult or witchcraft information, ect. However the real origins of the tarot have been well researched by archaeologists and historians who have studied the history of playing cards. It may not be known exactly where and when the tarot was created, but we do have a fairly accurate idea of its beginning. In the fourteenth century it was becoming popular for artists to use cards as a medium for their artwork, and several art decks were created in Europe for various aristocrats. Games would soon be adapted to fit these decks. And as printing technology advanced decks of playing cards became accessible to the lower classes. The first tarot decks appeared in Italy in the early fifteenth century. Although the first decks may have been intended as works of art, it wasnt long before the cards started being used in a trick taking game similar to bridge. Its unknown when exactly the cards were first used for divination. Theres no direct evidence of divination in the first few hundred years of the tarots life, although cards were a common divinatory device of the time, and speculatively the cards could have been used for divination within just a few years of their creation. This is the real origin of the tarot. There is no evidence of any other origin, and there is no valid argument that can be made in dispute of this (although, admittedly, my facts werent properly checked and there may be a few minor errors here and there). Many devotees of tarot discover this and instantly lose faith. Some stick their head in the sand and try to make believe that it isnt true. And some critics use these facts to dispute any validity the tarot may have. The best argument against this is the one made by Crowley. As a practical tool the tarot works. As a divinatory tool, as a meditative aid, as a means to transmit esoteric knowledge, we get verifiable results from the tarot when it is used properly. As for its origins, it really doesnt matter where it came from, so long as it works. But Crowley doesnt get into how or why tarot works, just that it does and that should end any dispute. To begin with, age and origin isnt very important when talking about truth. In Christianity, all things originate with God in the beginning, and so its common to view anything new as inherently wrong. Unfortunately many people who arent Christians, including many who call themselves Pagans, still cant transcend a

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Christian perspective of things. Truth is. Age doesnt make something more true, and youth doesnt necessarily mean it cant be true. Secondly, the tarot is just a medium, like a book. When we look at the origin of the tarot, were looking at the origin of the medium itself, not the origin of the occult tarot. Just like a book, anything can be put inside of the tarot. It can be meaningless, it can be a work of art, or it can be an enlightening spiritual work. Taking this into account, theres no longer anything that ties one tarot deck to another. At best, we can say that two decks are bound by both being spiritually true. But Crowleys deck is no more like Waites deck than the Bhagavad Gita is like the book of Mormon. So with no common tie other than the medium, each deck has to stand on its own, with its own card meanings, and its own unique divinatory systems. Yet we know this to be untrue. Different aspects of the truth can be seen in Crowleys and Waites decks, yet the actual meanings of the cards remain the same. The Devil is still the Devil, the Two of Cups is still the Two of Cups, and Lust is the same as Strength. Meanwhile page 15 of the Bhagavad Gita is completely different than page 15 of the book of Mormon. So there has to be something more tying together every tarot deck, or at the very least every true occult tarot. The common tie between the occult tarot decks is a single definitive deck. I use the term deck here very loosely and usually it is referred to as a book, but once again that term is very loose. This deck is what is sometimes referred to as the Book of Thoth. This is the complete, accurate, and unabridged tarot. Every portion of the deck contains infinite knowledge, but the deck itself cannot be completely transmitted into this world. The deck also transcends language and symbols, and so even if its known, it cant even be properly communicated in this world, and it exists here only in translation. All occult tarots transcend from this one definitive tarot. The tarots differ because its impossible to make a copy of the true Book of Thoth, so they end up as the authors interpretation of the true Book of Thoth. Crowley interprets certain cards differently than Waite. Sometimes Crowley focuses more on one aspect of a card where as Waite will focus moreso on an entirely different aspect. Sometimes theyre trying to say the exact same thing, just in two completely different ways. But regardless of whose deck youre using, the Two of Cups is still the Two of Cups, and the meaning is exactly the same, because both cards are an allusion to the one true Two of Cups that exists inside of the one true deck. And the divantory meaning of the Two of Cups remains the same regardless of the deck when we divine from the source rather than the current interpretation.

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Reading the Tarot Pips Introduction

January 28, 2007 Note: Ive changed the sections. Ive realized some things do need a more detailed explination, and it seems more organized to keep all the subjects seperate. Yes, I realize I never finished my first series of posts dealing with shielding, but damn it, Im starting a new one. Id like to start putting together some instruction on reading the tarot. The books that exist today are pretty stupid and its hard for someone serious about reading to find good information. At the same time writing just the introductory information to begin reading the tarot would require at least an entire book worth of pages, if not more. And I cant write a book, because there are some areas where I think Im still not proficient enough to write a complete book. So, as my compromise, Im going to start writing information here on different aspects of the tarot, maybe. At the very least Im going to be writing about one aspect of the tarot, reading the pip cards. For some reason people tend to think that the pip cards are the hardest part of the tarot to learn to read. Theyre actually the easiest, easier than both the court cards and the trumps. The problem stems from people not learning how to read the cards correctly, but rather memorizing divination keys. There are more pip cards than trump or court cards, and they contain less clues to the meaning, therefor theyre considered the hardest. What Im going to teach here is a system of reading the pip cards that will help you understand and figure out what the cards mean based on their correspondences and not be reliant on memorization. This is meant as an introduction, and not a complete system, but it will put you in the right direction to complete the process on your own. By the end of these lessons, with a bit of practice, you should be able to write your own key, at least for the forty pip cards. At the same time youll be able to figure out what a card means in the context of a spread, and at times youll see a meaning in a card you never realize existed before. This system isnt meant just for divination either. What is being taught is determining the meaning of the card, and it will work just as well for card meditations, gathering occult information from the cards, and spellwork utilizing tarot cards.

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Reading the Tarot Pips Part 1: The Elements

January 29, 2007 Quick note, Ive decided to expand the number of parts to better organize everything. This post will now be split into eight parts. The introduction post has been changed and has more details. There are five elements which make up the entirety of the universe (or at least the part were concerned with for now); Spirit, Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. An element doesnt encompass just what its name implies, but all things which have similar qualities. Earth doesnt refer just to dirt, but to rocks, clay, and even wood and plastic. Air isnt just oxygen, but all gases. Water refers to all liquids, be it soda pop or gasoline. Lightning would be considered Fire. The elements dont just refer to physical things either. All things, even abstract things, are defined through the five elements. Thoughts, which cant be seen or felt, yet exist , are considered Air. Emotions, which can be strong and violent, yet are shaped by their environment and ever-changing are defined by Water. A stubborn person who refused to change their views could be said to be very Earthy. But at the same time there is no such thing as a pure element. Theres always some impurity, even if its very small, and all things contain all five elements. Even an actual fire, which would be almost completely made up of the element of Fire, contains Spirit, Water, Air, and Earth within it. And a thing doesnt necessarily need a dominate element either. Mud could be in a state that makes it as much Water as it is Earth. It may be helpful to explore the elements as the phases of matter. Fire is plasma, Water is liquid, Air is gas, and Earth is solid. However this is not to say that science has just renamed the elements. Fire is not plasma, its Fire. The element of Fire contains qualities that are inherent to fire itself, but not necessarily inherent to the physical state of a plasma. The elements are also each given a gender, either Masculine, Feminine, or Hermaphroditic. Fire and Air are the male elements. Water and Earth are the female elements. Spirit is hermaphroditic. This is not gender as currently defined by gender and anatomy though. A campfire doesnt have a penis, no more than drinking water has a vagina. Rather the genders are defined by those qualities that are inherent to the gender. This is where the feminists get involved and a whole lot of bullshit ends up being created. This is because said feminists are idiots. A mature and intelligent person can

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understand the abstract idea of gender and realize that it differs from the physical, biological definition. As with the elements, there is no such thing as a pure gender. All gender exists as an impurity, and so even the most masculine of things will be somewhat feminine. And as stated above, were dealing with an abstract concept of gender, and this has no relationship to a persons sexual organs. A woman can be far more masculine than most men in her personality, spirituality, and even her physical make-up. And men can be very feminine. Most people wont be near the absolute end of either spectrum, but rather they lean a bit more to one side or the other. The term hermaphroditic is also a bit confusing in terms of the biological definition. A biological hermaphrodite can not function reproductively as a male or a female. For our purposes though, the term means the exact opposite, where a hermaphrodite is able to function as both a man and a woman. Biologically this doesnt occur among mammals, but it does commonly occur with other forms of life, like plants. We look at things from the perspective of the Masculine and the Feminine because its a duality, and the universe, at least the part were concerned with for this lesson, exists as a duality. In the beginning there was nothing, and then there was something, and this created the first duality, that of nothing and something, and the entire universe expanded from that duality. So the universe is a set of dualities built upon the alpha duality. But as weve talked about, there are three genders, not two. Thats because the universe really isnt a duality, but rather a triplicity. But well get more into all this with the part on Kabbalism. For now all we need to concern ourselves with is the dual nature of things, the Masculine and the Feminine. The Masculine part of the universe is the active side. Its the part that is forceful, violent, destructive, and creative. It is the exertion of will. It creates and destroys. It is the doer of the universe. Things move and change through the Masculine side. The Feminine part of the universe is the passive side. Its the part that conforms to whats happening. Its the part that things are done too. It doesnt exert force upon the rest of the universe, rather force is exerted upon it. Within the elements, we consider Fire to be the father, Water to be the mother, Air to be the son, and Earth to be the daughter. Here is a very simple alchemy experiment to illustrate the relationship: Go to a river or a pond and fill a pot with water. Faucet water wont do, it needs to be natural, dirty water. Take the pot the stove and turn the flame up all the way. We now have our mother and father elements sexually involved. Fire is the active force in this. Its aggressively attacking the pot and causing the change to occur. Water is the feminine part of these process. Its just sitting there and being effected by the water. Eventually the water will be evaporated, and well be left with the children of this

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union. First is the mist that rose up out of the pot, the Air. This is the active force, it got up and left, and so its the masculine of the two. The other child is the bits of dirt (or sand, or whatever) left within the pot. This is Earth, the daughter, which just passively sits there and does not move or cause change. Now that we know our boys from our girls, and we know what that means, we can get on to the elements themselves. As stated before, all things in the universe are defined by the five elements, be it a physical object, an emotion, an idea, a non-corporeal spirit, or even the empty space where nothing exists at all. When thinking about the elements, try to think of all of the things that exist within each element, and why it would be associated with that element. When thinking about something, try to think about it in terms of what element(s) it is mostly made up of. The list of things that would be associated with any one element is infinite. For a practitioner to have a proper understanding of an element, they need to be able to understand the element. It isnt a matter of memorizing a definitive list, but rather a process of coming to a deep understanding of the elements so that the practitioner is able to figure out any relevant elemental associations as needed. What follows shouldnt be taken as a complete list of an elements qualities, but rather a short list detailing the most prominent and conspicuous traits. It is meant to act as a springboard so the practitioner can develop their own understanding of each element. Spirit is the all encompassing element. It was the first element, and it exists within all things. It is the most abstract and most difficult element to understand. Lucky for us, we dont have to, at least the purposes of this lesson. Spirit does work its way into the tarot, but its not really associated with the lesser arcana. That isnt to say that it isnt associated with the lesser arcana at all (each piece of the tarot connects to every other piece and all things are important to every card), but for what were trying to accomplish here, it isnt necessary to understand just yet. So we move on to Fire. As stated before Fire is an active Masculine element. Fire is passion (not to be confused with love). Fire encompasses all passion, be it artistic passion, desire, lust, hatred, ect. It is a driving force that moves towards some goal in the most powerful and forceful manner possible. Fire burns, as does passion. Its also associated with masculine creativity. This is a singular creativity that doesnt require a partner. Painting a picture, building a building, making a blog post, ect. Anything that makes something that wasnt there before. And at the same time Fire encompasses destruction. Creativity and destruction are tied into a cycle, to engage in one is to engage in the other. And due to its non-corporeal nature, Fire is associated with the spirit world. Some other attributes of Fire include force, bluntness, truth, and determination. Water is a passive Feminine element. Water is associated with feminine creativity. This is creativity via a union of two partners. Sexual reproduction, among other things. Because of this Water is heavily associated with both love and romantic unions, but it also encompasses all other emotions. Water also suffers from a passive conformity. The shape of Water is dependent upon the container it is placed in. Where as Fire forces its

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shape and will into its environment violently, the element of Water is changed by its environment and conforms to it. But at the same time this makes Water very flexible and adaptable, and also changing. Because of its changing nature, Water is associated with the future. Air is an active Masculine element. However its unseen and cant be touched, and yet it is still able to effect the world (ie wind). Because of this Air is associated with thought. Air encompasses ideas, abstracts, intelligence, knowledge, imagination, ect. It also encompasses subjects like mathematics, theoretical sciences, philosophy, ect. Much like Water, Air is flexible and can take on the shape of a container. However Air is an active force, not a passive force. It has the ability to effect the world, although this ability is limited and its form is flexible and ever changing. Because of this Air is associated both with the present and with freewill. The final element is Earth, a passive Feminine element. Earth represents material things, be it an object such as a desk or a computer or something more raw like stone and wood. Because of this Earth also represents materialism and wealth. Money, which is itself an abstract, along with the having of and the means through which it is acquired (mainly work), are represented by the element of Earth. Earth is also represented by a lack of abstract or spiritual thought. Earth based thinkers utilize a simple method of thinking which only takes into account the obvious, what can be seen and understood. Theyre very grounded individuals that keep their heads out of the clouds and lack imagination. Earth is also solid and strong. It doesnt move or change, and because of this its also stable and enduring. Earth is associated with the past because of its unchanging nature.

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Reading the Tarot Pips Part 2: Basic Kabbalah

February 18, 2007 The Kabbalah is a complicated subject. It basically discusses the creation of life, the universe, and everything. And as such it has to take abstract concepts that cant fully be comprehended and bring them down to something resembling a human level. The end result is a system that can be studied for a lifetime, or even thousands of lifetimes, and still not be fully understood. And even if you did understand it, you could never really manage to impart that understanding to someone else. This, on the other hand, is a short post dealing with the Kabbalah. The Kabbalah itself is intertwined into all aspects of the tarot, but for our part what were really concerned with is how the Kabbalah relates to the pip cards. So were going to keep this short and sweet and only cover what we absolutely need to in order to understand the next section. But a deeper study of the Kabbalah will certainly aid in understanding the tarot. The Kabbalah itself is part of the Jewish religion. According to Kabbalistic beliefs, the Kabbalah was the spoken word of God, as passed down by Moses but originally given to Adam (the historical view on the subject places its origins at a much later date). There are many books written on Kabbalism, but the three major books are the Sepher Yetzirah, Sepher Bahir, and the Sepher Zohar. The Sepher Yetzirah is almost mandatory reading when dealing with the tarot. The best English translation is the one by rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. Be careful of the various occult translations (especially Mathers). Most were done by people who had very little understanding of the Hebrew language or Kabbalah, and the text is often mangled. Kaplan also made a translation of the Sepher Bahir. The Sepher Zohar is much longer than the other works and has never been fully translated into English (although I did hear about Oxford working on a very expensive full translation at one point). Back to the history lesson. Many of the Jewish sects have since abandoned Kabbalah completely, or have lessened its important within the faith. However some sects still do practice Kabbalah and it is still taught by some rabbies. But Kabbalism has also expanded outside of Judaism. The Kabbalistic works were picked up in Europe, mostly by Christian mystics, and the concepts ingrained into occult theories. Rosicrucian beliefs are largely centered in Kabbalism, and the ideas have spread from there into almost all aspects of magick, including the modern neopagan religions. And all of this leads up to a theory concerning tarot. At one point in time, due to lack of understanding both the history of European art and Egyption hieroglyphs, that the tarot originated in ancient Egypt. It was believed that the older Egyption society had a wealth of esoteric information that had become lost in modern times. And the tarot was supposedly a fragment of this information. And it was believed that the Kabbalah did in fact originate with Moses, except that it wasnt given to him from God, but taken 200

from the Egyptians and then preserved as another lost fragment of this information. And so a correspondence was created between the tarot and the Kabbalah that exists even today, long after the Egyptian origins of the tarot have been disproven. Now theres a thing called the tree of life. The tree of life is a diagram that was created to help visually explain some of the Kabbalistic concepts. The tree itself consists of ten points, known as sephiroth, and twenty-two paths connecting those points. These ten sephiroth, and twenty-six paths, represent the entirety of creation. By understanding how the tree of life works, we understand how the universe was created. But it isnt just how the universe is created. It shows how everything is created, how it grows, and how it ends. Anything can be put into the tree of life. Our ten points correspond to the first ten Hebrew numbers. The twenty-two paths correspond to the twenty-two Hebrew letters. The twenty-two paths deal with the tarot trumps, and thats not what were concerned with here. So instead well be looking at the ten points. The first point is Kether, but Kether isnt the beginning. Rather, Kether is where we start, because we need to start somewhere. But there is stuff that lies before Kether, and stuff that lies before that, and so on and so on. There is no true beginning, that we know of, to start at. And so we pick a point in the middle and go from there. That point is Kether. Now the next nine points are created in succession after Kether, first the second point Chokmah, all the way down to the last point, Malkuth. And when Malkuth is reached, the universe is created. But, the universe was also created instantaneously. All points appeared at the same time. As soon as Kether appears, so does Malkuth, and all points in between. There is no delay Kether existing and Malkuth, yet at the same time the points come in succession and one point cannot come in existence without the preceding point. To help explain this idea there is the lightning bolt diagram. Basically it compares the process to a lightning bolt. When a lightning bolt comes, its all at once. Its top appears as soon as its bottom. As soon as theres the beginning, theres the end. Yet we know logically that a lightning bolt begins in the sky, and moves downward eventually hitting the ground. This of course is just a metaphor. We know scientifically that a lightning bolt does not come all at once in any way, and the appearance that it does is an optical illusion brought about by the high speeds at which it moves. The points do come all at once, and they do it in succession. As said there are ten points, and in order they are Kether, Chokmah, Binah, Chesed, Giburah, Tiphareth, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkuth. Each of these points is infinite, and yet limited. That is to say that each point goes on for infinite and holds an infinite amount of things, and yet no point holds all things, each only holds certain things. The idea is best described mathematically. There are an infinite amount of numbers between 1 and 2. 1.1, 1.23, 1.4566743, ect are all between 1 and 2. Yet 3.1 isnt be tween 1

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and 2. Its between 3 and 4 (and there are also an infinite amount of numbers there). Infinite things, yet limited and not all encompassing. And thats all that needs to be known to get into the next section, Numerology 101, where well discuss the meaning of the ten points and how creation moves through them. But I did say in the last section that Id discuss the duality of the universe to a greater degree here. On greater reflection, it helps to understand the tarot in general, but isnt a necessity to understand the pips. Still, I did say I would. The universe exists as a duality. All things come in twos with everything having an opposite. Male/Female, Good/Evil, Life/Death, ect. Even the ten sephiroth have the ten qlippoth, and each is a necessity for the other two exist. Thats because in the beginning, out of the nothing came a something, and then there were two things, a nothing and a something. From these two things spawned everything else, and so all things exist in these pairs. Even the four elements are a take on this. Its just that you have the original pair that start, Fire and Water, and the later pair that are spawned from them, Air and Earth. But there are five elements. And the world isnt so black and white. Theres not only gray, but theres stuff that cant even fall into the color spectrum. Its because the universe doesnt really exist as a duality. It sort of does, because, as said before, there was the something and the nothing. But theres something else too. The nothing wasnt there first. It could only come into being when its opposite, the something, existed. The same goes for the something, it can only exist when the nothing also exists. This is the first duality, and so the universe turns on this principle. But as I said no one knows the true beginning of things, and the something and the nothing are not it. So what was before the something and the nothing? Something else entirely, and something that doesnt turn on a duality. And the heritage of this something else is still intertwined into this universe, and its the third thing that creates the triplicity under which all things exist.

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Reading the Tarot Pips Part 3: Numerology 101

March 4, 2007 Okay, were going to talk about numerology, or what the numbers mean. As per our tarot pips, well be looking at numbers 1-10. Each of these numbers corresponds to a Hebrew word and a sepiroth. 1 = Kether = The Crown 2 = Chokmah = Wisdom 3 = Binah = Knowledge 4 = Chesed = Mercy 5 = Geburah = Severity 6 = Tiphareth = Beauty 7 = Netzach = Victory 8 = Hod = Splendor 9 = Yesod = Foundation 10 = Malkuth = The Kingdom The ten numbers are split into three triads and across three pillars. The first triad is Kether, Chokmah, and Binah, and these three come together to form Chesed. The second triad is Chesed, Geburah and Tiphareth, which come together to form Netzach. And the third triad is Netzach, Hod, and Yesod that come together to form Malkuth. The three pillars are the pillars of Balance, Mercy, and Severity. Kether, Tiphareth, Yesod, and Malkuth exist on the pillar of balance. Chokmah, Chesed, and Netzach exist on the pillar of mercy. Binah, Geburah, and Hod exist on the pillar of Severity. All of this is important, and it all has meaning if you study it long enough to understand it. But moving on, were going to look at how an idea passes through these ten points. 1. Kether The first point is Kether. As stated before, this isnt the true beginning, but where were starting with our idea. It also isnt the start, but what came before it. Kether is represented by the statement of I. Kether is the seed, the first act through which all else comes into being. It is the foundation of the idea. Kether is where existence starts. Geometrically speaking, it is a single point existing by itself. 2. Chokmah Chokmah is represented by the statement of I Am. After existence begins, the next step is being or existing. Here the idea is in its purest form. Chokmah is the purity of being, without any outside force hampering that being. Geometrically speaking, Chokmah is a line which can be drawn between two points. 3. Binah Binah is represented by the statement of I Know I Am. In Binah the idea is taking the next step in existence and acknowledging that it does exist. It is the knowledge that one is something and that they exist. And through Binah we get the 203

first impurity of the idea. Its now effected by knowledge of itself. And this taint will manifest in various ways depending on what the idea is. Geometrically Binah provides three separate points, through which a shape can be made. 4. Chesed Chesed is the completion of form. Once the idea acknowledges its own existence, it comes into the next step, the completion of its existence. In Chesed, the idea becomes complete for the first time. Although the idea is complete here, it is still alone and has yet to be put into the universe. Here the idea is strong and fortified, but that strength is only because the idea still exists outside of the universe, and so there are no other forces acting upon it, and no opposition to it. Geometrically Chesed provides a fourth point, allowing for a three dimensional object to form. Also, in order for a thing to be spatially defined, four points are necessary. An X,Y, and Z point, and a fourth point to observe it from. Within Chesed we have the true formation of being within space. 5. Geburah And this leads to Geburah, in which outside forces act upon the idea.. In Geburah the idea is cast out into the cruel universe. Within Geburah we have opposition to the idea, we have attempts to both change and destroy the idea. And possibly we have the destruction of the idea. 6. Tiphareth Tiphareth is the strongest and most balanced form the idea will take. Here the idea has been completed in Chesed, it has faced opposition in Geburah, and it has survived the opposition of Geburah and come out stronger for it. Tiphareth exists at the exact center of all things, being in the pillar of balance, being as close to Kether and Malkuth, and proving a direct connection to both. The idea has found its most perfect form (as opposed to its purest form in Chokmah). 7. Netzach Within Netzach is the consequence and the end to the perfection found in Tiphareth. Within Tiphareth things were perfect and all opposition was destroyed. Without opposition, the idea becomes less than perfect. At this point we have stagnation, sloth, boredom, and over-indulgence. The idea starts moving towards destroying itself through the sloth of perfection. 8. Hod Hod is the reaction to Netzach. In order for the idea not to be destroyed, in order for it to survive and thrive again it has to make some changes towards the opposite direction. However Hod isnt the return to balance, but the exact opposite extreme of Netzach. Hod moves towards its own destruction to, and it is as bad a situation as Netzach, its just done in the exact opposite way. 9. Yesod By joining the two extremes of Hod and Netzach together we come to Yesod, the return to balance. However Yesod differs from both Kether and Tiphareth. Kethers balance comes from it existing alone. There is nothing else, so it is always at the exact center. Tiphareths balance is naturally occurring. Balance is the natural state of all things upon reaching Tiphareth. But the balance of Yesod is forced into being. It comes not as the natural state, but by taking two opposite extremes and forcing them together, coming to a compromise between them. We can look at the four stages of balance as being balance (Kether), perfect balance (Tiphareth), imperfect balance

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(Yesod), and natural balance (Malkuth). We can also look at the balance of oneself and ones energies (see Lies a Kabbalist Told Me for some background information on this). In Malkuth we have the natural balance brought about by existing in the universe. The idea that all things within the universe are always perfect and balanced. In the next stage we have Yesod where balance is achieved by positioning two opposites with equal force and having them pull against each other. In Tiphareth, we have energy balanced and codified, where it acts as a single force. And finally in Kether we have balance achieved through a complete oneness with the entire universe, which as we said with Malkuth is already perfectly balanced. 10. Malkuth Finally, born of Yesod we have Malkuth. In Malkuth the idea has finally completed its cycle. In Malkuth the idea has become so complex that it has collapses under its own weight and destroys itself. This will lead into our eleventh point. 11. Kether From the ruins of Malkuth springs forth a seed. This seed will act as a new Kether, and the 11 becomes renumbered as 1, and the cycle begins again, with the idea building upon the complexity of the previous cycle in a new cycle. This act continues on and on with the idea becoming more complex every time it completes a cycle. Eventually we have the formation of the universe, the all of creation, and everything that has come into being up until now. And the cycle will continue on with the universe constantly growing and everything evolving into a more complex state. I understand that everything Ive written may seem very complicated, and that some people may be very lost at this stage. However I think everything will become a lot clearer once we take some examples of ideas and look at how they progress through the ten sepiroth. That will be the main purpose of the next section. Well also look at how everything fits together, and briefly well look at how the pips correspond to the trumps. After the next section you should be able to read the pips just fine. The second half of this will look at astrology and the method used by Paul Christian and the Golden Dawn.

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Reading the Tarot Pips Part 4: Putting It All Together

April 7, 2007 Yeah, Ive been putting this off. This section ends the first half of this article, and by the end of this section, with a little practice, you should be able to read the tarot pips just fine. The second half of this article is going to deal entirely with the astrological associations of the pip cards. Since a basic primer on astrology is required to understand that section, it requires a bit more parts than what weve talked about so far. But the astrological side of the pips is a bit superfluous and is most useful when looked at as a compliment to the elemental-kabbalistic associations of the cards. The second half of the article will help you gain a better understanding of the pips, but the first half is all that is actually necessary. Here were going to talk about putting together everything weve talked about so far, starting with the elements. The tarot suits each correspond to one of the elements: Fire = Wands, Sticks, Staffs Water = Cups, Chalices Air = Swords Earth = Coins, Discs, Pentacles The associations of Water and Earth are almost never disputed. A cup is an object which holds water, and the element of Water is very much tied into the symbolism of the cup. Earth is associated with the material world and wealth, something symbolized by the coin. There are, however, some disputes about the associations of Fire and Air, and some tarot decks have been designed to correct this supposed error in the older Fire=wands association. To begin with, the element of Fire is associated with raw will. Within ritual magick, the will of the practitioner is represented by the wand. Likewise the sword, in ritual, can be used to cut through the air for a variety of purposes, thus giving it an associated. As a weapon, the sword is an elegant weapon that swiftly and through intelligent design slices through the opposition. The wand, used like a club here, is a simple weapon of pure brute force. Swiftly sticking a blade through a mans chest is an airy attack. Pushing a blunt stick through his chest is a fiery attack. And lastly, a wand is a piece of wood which can easily be set on fire like a torch, thus giving it yet another associated with fire. Unless youre a biblical angel, you arent going to be able to do this with a sword. The counter argument to this associated consists almost entirely of the idea that fire burns, ergo fire must be signified by swords because they are a weapon.

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Now that we got that out of the way, we can start to look at how we determine what a card means. We do this by crossing our associations. We look at the suit to determine what element is represented by the card (see part I), and we combine that with what is signified by the number on the card (see part III). Each number and element is limited to only certain ideas, however the ideas contained within each number and element is infinite, and likewise the number of ideas contained within each card are both limited and infinite. In other words each card has a lot of meanings. If our goal is to look at the card, to understand it, to meditate upon it than we can choose to look at it in both a very broad perspective that covers all of its various aspects or we can look at it in a more limited perspective and try to understand what it means in regards to single specific aspect contained within it, and everything in between these two extremes. If were using the tarot for divination, however, ideally we want to know exactly what the card means. On the metaphysical side of this we can utilize intuition, channel meanings, and read the energy on the cards. On the physical side we use the context of the reading to determine what is meant by the card. We look at what the question was, the other cards in the spread, the meaning of the cards position in the spread, and what we already know about any of the parties involved in the question. Determining the exact meaning of a card is the more difficult part, and something that can only be truly learned through practice. However the more a person understands the cards and their meanings and associations, the easier it is to find their meanings in the context of a reading. At the same time reading tarot forces the reader to focus so greatly on precise meanings of the cards, and allows them to do so inside of a context, that at times the reader will discover meanings that they otherwise would have missed, and a much greater of understanding of the complete card is obtained. Now that everythings been said the lesson is pretty much complete. Contained within these first four parts is everything a reader needs to know in order to begin understanding and reading the tarot pips. All thats left to do are some examples of putting these meanings together. Most tarot books will give meanings to various cards and expect the practitioner to work backwards from there. Instead, with these examples, Im going to take one of the more specific ideas associated with the element and show how it moves through the ten numbers. This isnt meant to be a complete divinatory key for any suit, but rather a look at one very specific idea moving through the ten numbers. To begin with well take an easy idea, romantic love as represented by the cups. Please note that, dependent upon the question and spread, any of these cards can represent things of the past, present, or future. The verb tense contained herein is meaningless. A - Here we have the foundation, the point from which everything else will spring forth. This can represent the beginnings of a romance, or the events that led into a

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romance. It can be something as simple as asking someone out on a date for the first time to a complex chain of fifty events that ended in two people meeting each other. 2 - This is loves purest form. Its love at first sight. Soulmates coming together. It exists without reason or thought. It simply is, and its strong and powerful. This is the emotion at its most base and uncompromised. This is the what the sappiest of music and poems tries to express, yet the fact that it has been thought about and communicated has tainted it beyond this purity. 3 - In number three it is realized that love exists, and so love becomes idealized. This is what is talked about in the sappy poems and songs. This is, Ill love you forever, I want to always be with you, I would die for you, ect. ect. Its also in three that sacrifice becomes associated with, and often mistaken for, love. In its purity love simply is, its only after the existence of love is acknowledged that sacrifice can logically be equated with love. In truth this isnt necessarily the case, its the act of believing it that makes it so. 4 - Love, as represented by the four, is childhood crushes and first loves and the like. Its what we think of as love before we ever fall in love. Its untested and it exists because we havent yet experienced actually falling in love. Yet because we have so little experience to go on and there isnt an outside force acting against this ideal of love these crushes can be very strong and intense. 5 - And here we have five, which is our outside force. The five represents any force which could threaten to end a relationship between two people. Outside affairs, temptation for outside affairs, families not getting along, one person getting offered a job 300 miles away, ect. The five can represent the end of the relationship, or it can just represent a threat to a relationship. 6 - Six is love in its most balanced and perfect form. This isnt the raw and overpowering love of 2, the overly idealized love of three, or the simple crush of four, and it has survived and proven itself stronger than the obstacles of five. It has taken on the strongest aspects of each of the previous numbers and cast aside the weaknesses. This is the calm and harmonious yet strong love that can last forever. 7 - Seven is the possible end result of the perfect love of six. Its been without opposition, it has achieved the highest possible state that it ever will, and in the end its led to stagnation and boredom within the relationship. 8 - And eight is the opposition to seven. Its massive change, either in a desperate attempt to save the relationship or end it. It can mean changes within the relationship, experimentation, trying to spice things up, counseling, whatever. It can also mean affairs with other people. Alternatively seven can be seen as the reaction of losing the perfect love of six. Here seven deals with depression and sloth, where as the opposition of eight is being jaded and closing oneself off from future emotional connections.

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9 The nine is about compromise, and here we have compromise of love. This isnt soulmates coming together in two and this isnt spending your life with your most perfect mate as in six. This is giving up on those things and instead settling for someone who you enjoy, who makes you happy, and who you think will give you a happy life. Its a very positive form of love, a lesser form nonetheless. 10 - And here we have the collapse of love. Tens deal with endings, so obviously this deals with a love affair coming to an end. Where as the 5, 7, 8 can mean an ending, they can all also mean things which can be overcome. The ten is the ending itself. If its a future event, it can obviously be altered, but the meaning of the card itself holds. But there is an exception. In the ten the idea collapses on itself, and this leads directly into eleven, which is the seed of a new idea, which immediately becomes a one. In this way the ten, in addition to being a card of endings is a card of transition (note: if we look at trumps XII, XIII, and XIV in succession we see that ending and transition are deeply intertwined, but since this article doesnt deal with the trumps, Im not saying anymore about that). The ten can mean an evolution of love. Perhaps the intense love of two will burn out but form the calm and more sustainable love of six, or the crush of four will evolve into the love of nine or even six. When reading the cards like this though one has to be careful to read the cards as they lay, and not to try to put an optimistic maybe in there. That way lies to madness and the horrible misinterpretation that have been made of the Death card. Sometimes the Death card means someone is going to die. That is the most literal meaning of the card. Looking at the ten as transition we see that love can evolve. Wed expect it, since the numbers represent an evolution of our idea from one to ten. A two can become a six or a nine. A four can become a six or a nine. A six can become a nine. But can it evolve backwards too? Can the compromised love of a nine ever achieve the perfect state of six? Can the perfect state of six ever achieve the raw and pure state of two? These questions arent rhetorical, and Im not about to answer them either. But they do have answers. And even if you never do figure out what the answer is, youll still get a prize for trying. Okay, now lets try another one dealing with cups, but well try to go through it a little bit faster. A - Once again we have a foundation. This is the seed that will eventually grow into getting laid. This is not the act itself, but something that brings it into being. 2 - Here we have pure sex. This is animalistic and instinctual. There is no thought or meaning behind it. Whatevers having sex isnt even aware of what its doing, its just doing it. 3 - And with the three we have a realization that sex is happening. We know there is such a thing as sex, that it is pleasurable, and we can anticipate it happening and long to bring it about to receive pleasure. We can also assign it things. We can associate it with love. Sex can now be viewed as a beautiful thing, or as a dirty thing. It can be

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something were proud of or ashamed of. The point is, we realize its happening and it can be assigned meaning. 4 - This can be looked at in a few different ways. This can be great sex, great only because the person hasnt yet experienced better sex. For example if you only ever had sex for five minutes at a time in the missionary position, you could conceivably see it as the greatest thing in the world. On the other hand it could be subscribing to certain views of sex, for example the idea that sex isnt meant to be pleasurable for women. 5 - And here we have the outside force. The obvious idea is anything that stands in the way of someone having sex, be it moral views, religion, society, or a father who owns a shotgun. This can also be something that shatters a previous view of sex. A realization of homosexuality, sexual experimentation, ect. And of course theres the more simple meaning of impotence, abstinence, and castration. 6 - Wow! I think everyone has an idea of what this represents. If you think of the best sex youve ever had, it mightve been a six, but it probably wasnt. 7 - And with seven we have overindulgence. This can refer to things like kinks and orgies and multiple partners, or it can just refer to regular sex with the same person, but way too often. In any case Crowley named this card Debauchery, and this is why. 8 - And here we have the extreme opposite of seven. Where as seven is debauchery, eight represents sexual repression. Sex in all its forms are viewed as sinful, destructive, harmful, immoral, ect. Instead of overindulgence we have abstinence. 9 - And after everything we end up here, back at compromise. This is two people getting together to pleasure each other. It may not be the greatest sex ever, it may not be about love, but in the end everyone leaves a little happier than if they hadnt. 10 - And here we have sex collapsing upon itself. This can refer to a very bad sexual experience like rape or molestation that traumatizes and forever changes, possibly kills, a persons sex drive. It can also mean going into a state of abstinence, either intentionally or unintentionally. It can mean getting screwed over in an early sexual relationship and not wanting to have sex again. Okay, lets move into another element and look at knowledge as represented by the swords. A This is the foundation of knowledge, the seed. This is actually what is. Knowledge is an abstract. It takes something that is and it turns it into something that can be understood, pondered, and cataloged. The seed of knowledge is the thing that is before its made abstract. For example, a bear would be a seed, but when we call it a bear and catalog its shape as being a bear, it becomes knowledge and is no longer a 1. 2 - This is absolute truth. Its knowledge which is pure and untainted, the most simplest form of knowledge.

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3 - This is the state supposedly achieved by Adam and Eve right after eating the fruit, which according to that myth brought about sorrow, thus the card is sometimes named sorrow. In any case this is the knowledge that knowledge does in fact exist. And once you know it exists, it becomes tainted, and its no longer absolute truth. But it can now be pondered and thought of and given names. It also becomes more complex. And where all knowledge is attainable in two, once three is reached it will eventually lead to the realization that one will never know everything (another reason why the card represents sorrow). 4 - The four is ignorance. Its having an absolute truth that is only an absolute truth because the idea has never been challenged. 5 - Five is opposition to an idea. It is the force which acts upon the paradigm and brings about the paradigm shift. At times its also a force that acts upon a paradigm and is destroyed by it. And sometimes it is the paradigm itself acting against an idea that exists outside of it. It deals with a loss of faith or having ones beliefs brought into question and possibly destroyed. It can be a very negative card in terms of having ones entire world view taken away. But it can also be a positive card representing new ideas and inventions or enlightenment. 6 - Here knowledge has been formed, it has been challenged, and it has survived those challenges. Crowley calls this card science, and this is why. The card extends beyond the limits of just science though. And it is the closest one can get to finding absolute truth outside of two. 7 Seven is knowledge becoming so overly abstract and complex that it becomes very difficult to ever obtain. At this point knowledge becomes useless, because it is too complicated to ever be understood, or if it can be understood it is too abstract to have any bearing on real life. We see an example of this in the field of modern physics. Not too long ago the field of physics became so complex that no one person could realistically master it. At this point the field of physics collapsed (that would be the ten), and from that spawned two separate fields, theoretical physics and experimental physics. 8 This is the reaction to seven. Here we have an oversimplication of knowledge, a dumbing down of knowledge, or a pure revolution against or hatred towards learned individuals. 9 - And then we have the compromise of knowledge. Psuedointellectulism exists here. Truth is entirely lost, as is application, or at the very least these things no longer matter. What matters is people being smart, or giving the appearance of being smart. This is the place where people use big words. It is the place of contemplation sans reason. This is also where complex questions get easily understood and simple answers. Such as Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people being answered with The lord works in mysterious ways, along with any other complicated question concerning God. In fact the knowledge of nine deals largely with everything

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having answers that can be looked up, and that these answers be obtainable by everybody. Public schools are usually built here :) 10 - And here knowledge collapses under its own weight. It becomes so complex it can no longer be understood, or so abstract it no longer matters, or so dumbed down it has become useless. I was hoping to do at least two more of these, one for Fire and one for Earth, but Ive spent a real long time on this already. Maybe Ill get around to adding to this post in the next few days. If anyone wants to try to do one themselves, feel free to post it here. If we get good ones for Fire and Earth, then I wont have to do them :) But feel free to use whatever idea you feel comfortable doing regardless of the element. As for the second half, itll probably be some time until I get around to doing it. I really need to get a better outline on what Im doing there and I need to put some ideas together. Honestly astrology has never been my strongest subject. These posts are also turning into a lot more work than I originally thought theyd be, and I kind of need a break. On the plus side though, about 95% of the information is in the first four articles, and you can read the pips just fine with the information you already have.

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Reading the Tarot Pips Part 5: About the Aces

May 28, 2007 The aces deserve just a bit more detail than the other pips, but just a bit. Most works on the tarot will spend more time on the four aces then any other individual set of pip cards, and some now take this to mean that the aces are more important than the other cards. And its this same thought process that leads to the conclusion that the trumps are inherently more important to the deck than the pip or court cards. In reality every card is equally important in the deck, and absent a single card, regardless of which card it is, the entire meaning and form of the deck crumbles. Trump only tarot decks, even though they can sometimes lend further insight into the trump cards, cannot function as a complete tarot deck should. It would be like tearing a random number of pages from a book, and then expecting the information therein to confer the same knowledge as if the book had been read cover to cover.The only reason why the aces need a bit more time than the other pips is because they operate a bit differently than the other pips. In the same way each trump needs a very in depth individual explanation because the trumps operate on a much more unique and individual basis than the pip or court cards. In the next few sections Im going to deal with how astrology relates to the tarot pips and Paul Christians deacon method. However the deacon method only covers cards two through ten. The aces are absent. As we will talk about later, in the lower cards a greater purity exists, and as such the deacons hold less power over the card meanings. The greatest purity exists in the ace, and here the purity is absolute, nullifying any deacon that may be assigned to it. The ace also acts as the connection between the pip cards and the court cards within a suit. Modern card games have taught us to perceive the deck in a way in which the ten naturally leads to the princess. Within the tarot though the actual suit order is king, queen, prince, princess, A, 2,3<10. Whether you want to look at the king as the highest or the king as the lowest card is all a matter of perspective. I dont want to get into too much detail about how the court cards connect to the pip cards here, because it would involve a new set of articles detailing the meanings of the court cards in order to fully understand it. To put it simply, the element would begin in the highest realm being represented by the King. Herein it would take on its fiery aspect. It would then move down through the other court cards gaining another aspect of each. The lowest of the four cards, the princess, exists in the heavens above Earth. Each of the four princesses are assigned one of the four quadrants from the North Pole. The aces exist on the earth itself, encompassing the ground beneath the heaven of its princess. Where the princess of a suit ends, the ace begins, and in this way the ace is said to be the throne of its princess (And the princess is sometimes said to be the throne of its ace. Brownie points to anyone who can explain why both sayings are correct, the answers hidden in this blog post). And to return to our original idea, the element has

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moved through the four court cards, gained all four aspects of itself, and is now born into being, represented by the ace which, as we discussed earlier, would represent the absolute beginning of its creation. And as when we look at the four court cards as being four different aspects of an element (fiery, watery, airy, and earthy), the fifth missing aspect is represented through the ace (spirity). As we discussed earlier, spirit is a combination of the four other elements. One who understands how to read court cards properly would understand that the king of swords is the fiery part of air. In the same way, the ace of swords is the spirity part of air. If you dont yet understand what all this means, dont worry. This section is really meant for those who already have an understanding of the court cards. As discussed above, each princess/ace combination has dominion over one quarter of the Earth. As per Crowleys rough estimates of the quadrants, the Princess/Ace of wands would have dominion over Asia, Cups over the Pacific ocean, Swords over the Americas, and Coins over Europe and Africa. Some interpretations of the pips put much greater emphasis on the symbolic nature of what they create than we have yet discussed. For instance the ace of swords is sometimes seen as great power which may be yielded for good or for evil. This is because the ace of swords is literally the seeds of knowledge. In the same way sometimes the ace of coins is interpreted as illusion since it represents the seeds of physicality or the material world, and in some philosophies the material world is seen as illusionary. This pretty much covers everything that is going to be said about the aces for the remainder of these articles. I spent a lot of time and gave very little information about actually interpreting the aces in the course of a reading, but I think I managed to include some useful information that will help some better understand the aces and study them. The next article is going to be a quick review of basic astrology.

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