The Great Migration

I haven’t written for a while now because I’ve been working on getting a new website set up as well working on a few products to sell.  I’ll be writing regularly again, but it will all be on the other website.  There are a lot of bugs to work out, but hopefully they’ll get fixed before the end of the holidays are up.  So check it out and let me know what you think. 

www.magickfortherealworld.com

History of the Elements

The most common idea taught in Western magick is the idea of the elements of fire, water, earth and air.  Many people add in spirit or Akasha but that’s unimportant in relationship to the following.  These elements are intertwined in almost every ceremony, every charm and almost every other aspect of Wicca or any other commonly practiced Western tradition.  So where did the idea of these elements come from?  Were they handed down to mankind on a mountain or given to us by aliens of immense knowledge?  And why are we using them?  Obviously it’s commonly agreed upon that they’re useful or else the entire magickal community would not be in agreement on using them, but what exactly is the reasoning behind using them?  And more importantly, should we use them?  These questions may seem silly or pointless, but in order to ever understand why you’re doing something, you should know the history of how it came to be whenever possible.

 

In the 5^th century, there was a man that lived in Greece named Empedocles.  He lived before Socrates or Plato and was considered an extremely enlightened man.  He was an incredible orator and there were legends of him healing the sick and escaping epidemics.  He proposed an idea that the world was made up of four elements:  earth, air, fire and water, as well as two forces:  love and strife.  Everything in the world was made up of these four elements in differing amounts which accounted for the difference in shapes and forms of the world.  The two forces were the reason for the differing amounts of each.  Love drew the elements together and strife pushed them apart.  These elements and forces were eternal and therefore indestructible.  These ideas were the commonly accepted science and philosophical ideas until the modern ideas.

 

The elements were called the roots of everything, but in fact they were categorized by whether they were hot or cold and whether they were wet or dry.  Fire was hot and dried things, water was wet and cold, air was hot and wet (think of where Greece is), and earth was dry and cold.  After a bit of pondering and reasoning, I came to the conclusion that the cold seems to represent the feminine aspects and the hot seems to represent the masculine.  Earth and water are considered the femininely-aligned elements while air and fire are the masculine-aligned elements.  Also, Qabalists would agree that the masculine energy is about force which is indicated by the energy of heat and lack of form, while the feminine force is losing energy and creating form.  This seems simple enough, but the interpretation of the wet and dry is far more vexing in my opinion.  Water and air are both fluids and this seems to be the key to the interpretation.  The wet elements seem to deal with living life and are far less focused.  Fluids will fill a container while a rock will not and fire will go where there is fuel.  On the other hand, the wet elements also are about growth.  They will push boundaries and will move quickly.  The dry elements are far more focused but are not as apt to explore their possibilities.  These ideas can’t truly fit the common associations of masculine and feminine.  If I were more knowledgeable in the Qabalah, I’d hypothesize that the cold and hot categorizations corresponded to the upper trinity while the wet and dry categorizations corresponded to either the lower or middle trinity.

 

So when these combinations are considered, we end up with the current ideas about the elements:

Fire is a very masculine energy and force that is focused (passion).  Because male energy is less about boundaries, fire energy is more apt to explore than earth, but it is still dry and will only explore where it is drawn (fuel).  It is also far more permanent than air (dry versus wet) because wind is there and is gone whereas fire is there until it runs out of fuel or some outside force puts it out. 

Water is a feminine energy that is unfocused and apt to adapt and grow.  It is far slower than air because it is a feminine energy but it is far faster than earth because it is wet.  Water is the midpoint between the solid world and the invisible world of air in many ways and because of this, it is the realm of the mystic who crosses between the invisible world and the solid world.  This element is also the great emotional element because it is a feminine energy as well as a flowing wet element enabling the communication of emotions.

Earth is a feminine energy that is focused.  This is the slowest energy but also has the greatest momentum once it gets going.  The earth is a place for growing things.  It is the great nurturer because of its unending stability and feminine energy.

Air is a masculine energy that is unfocused and apt to explore.  It is the fastest element and also is the least solid.  This is why it is often associated with the mind because nothing is faster than the mind or as intangible.  Air is also the great communicator because it is wet and yet has more focus than water because it is hot.

 

These are the ideas that are currently in place in the magickal community, now why do we use them?  After much frustration I finally came to the conclusion that it’s because they represent something that is inexpressible.  How do you explain what earth means to someone?  It’s more than a huge list of characteristics, it’s a feeling when all of those characteristics come together to form a symbol.  This is the true reason why it is necessary to use symbols in magick.  The elements may or may not be inherently magickal, but they hold the idea of something just as a flag represents something more than the United States government.  This is true of almost any magickal system.  The Qabalah is the most prominent alternate representation of the universe and everyone recognizes it is simply a system of characterizing the universe and this characterization is what gives it power.

 

So the final question is “Should we continue to use this system?”  That’s absolutely up to the individual, but I’m not changing much about my rituals.  I’m glad I added more depth to my understanding of the elements even when I thought I understood them as much as possible.  I am also very glad that the assumption that the elements were inherently magickal is turned off because that’s simply an ignorant idea.  Nothing is inherently magickal and at the same time, everything is inherently magickal.  Overall, I hold to the idea that understanding where your beliefs came from is absolutely necessary to understanding your beliefs.  My ideas about the world may have changed but my practices will probably stay the same because the system works as is, and will work better now that I have more understanding of it.

On Vacation

Tomorrow morning I’m leaving for a 10 day roadtrip to South Dakota.  I won’t be able to get to a computer, so there won’t be any new posts until August 30th.  Have a great couple weeks!

Why Sacrifice?

Sacrifices have been made for various reasons, but for the most part they fall into four categories:  releasing attachment, in reverence/celebration of gods, to build energy, and to return the energy given by the universe/gods.

In many magickal systems there is a need to release the attachment or memory of a ritual or spell in order for it to work.  This is primarily based on the idea that you continue to draw energy from that spell every time you think of it or talk about it, thus weakening the spell.  A very common way to do this is through a sacrifice.  This is commonly done by taking the ashes of a ritual fire and burying them, burning something, throwing an energized object into a forest, etc.  It is almost always some sort of material sacrifice that happens at the very end of the spell or ritual as a closing.  I’m not really sure why this works, but it is one of the best ways to break the attachment from the spell.  Maybe this is something that we could discuss some more.

Every religion/culture has made sacrifices to celebrate or revere the gods or spirits that they associate with.  Some of the examples could be the ritual human sacrifices by the Aztecs, the sacrifice for Lent by Catholics, or even when warriors would pour out the first bit of a drink for their fallen comrades.  This is as much to give reverence to the gods and spirits as it is to bring out the emotions necessary for that celebration.  The Aztec human sacrifices were a way to call forth the energy of Huitzilopochtli, the sun god, as well as put everyone there in an emotional state to welcome that energy into their lives; that’s not even mentioning the energy that Huitzilopochtli received for each of these sacrifices (they did become an incredibly large empire, maybe this had something to do with it?)  There is a lot more to this ritual because it was such a serious sacrifice, but that’s the most important part of it in my opinion.  The sacrifice that people make for Lent is a way for people to build up the martyr energy necessary to understand what Easter and Lent are all about.  It is also a way to celebrate Jesus’s personal sacrifice made to his followers.  The warrior’s sacrifice is different than these because it is obviously more about bringing forth the emotional response of remembering loved ones and celebrating their lives.  It is also to remember that we are all mortal and that we should enjoy ourselves.  All of these sacrifices give energy to the spirit that is deserving of the sacrifice and gives them power, but it also allows the energy that they are giving to come into their lives through the emotional response of the sacrifice.

As Jessica stated, there is a common idea in many cultures that requires a gift be returned with something worth at least equal value.  Therefore, gifts were often more of obligations than gifts.  The Norse have a rune called Gebo that signifies this idea as a gift that must be returned or honor and status are lost.  Therefore, if you sacrifice something to a god, they are obligated to give you something in return and vice versa.  Therefore, a safe voyage on the sea required a gift to the gods of the sea or else they would be angry because the “gift” of safe passage was not returned in equal value.  This can also be seen at Christmas time in modern America when people give the most they can afford in order to maintain or achieve a higher status in the family.

I’m sure that I’m missing some categories, but these were the only ones I’ve been able to come up with.  I guess that you could categorize spells as well, but these seem pretty clear cut as far as divisions go.

Sacrifice

Lately, it seems as though the brainstorming for a post topic is taking almost as long as the actual post takes.  So in response to this shifting difficulty, I’ll change it up a bit and have a single topic that I/we can elaborate on throughout the week.  Yes, I’ll still be posting every day, but it will be on a single topic that can be explored a little more adequately than a single blog is able to do.  Maybe I’ll even be able to have some topics to research now (and maybe a little time to do that research now that I shouldn’t have to brainstorm for 45 minutes to come up with a decent topic).  Anyways, onto the topic of the week:  Sacrifice.

Sacrifice is a natural instinct and has been represented in many myths.  Wine/champagne bottles have been broken on ships in order to sacrifice the wine to the gods of the sea, animal sacrifices were made worldwide for any number of gods and reasons, and many cultures even had human sacrifices.  The difference between the sacrifices in myth and the ones in the present day is that people have forgotten what sacrifice truly means.  Sacrifice does not mean to give up or to lose; it means to make sacred.

So what exactly does making something sacred mean?  Well, probably the best way to think about it is to consider your sacrifice a gift to the gods/universe.  This means that instead of being annoyed that you’re losing the item/time/energy, you have to be glad that you’re giving it up.  No one wants a gift that you are mad that you have to give.  At the same time, it has to be a gift that is hard for you to give up.  It has to be something that you care about.  No one wants a gift that you’re annoyed you have to give, but at the same time, nobody wants a piece of grass that you couldn’t care less about.

In my experience, the best sacrifices are not monetary sacrifices or materialistic sacrifices because these things are usually replaceable.  When I make sacrifices, I give up things that mean something to me or that are hard for me to do.  For example, I have taken dried herbs and roots as well as gemstones that are related to a certain god and crushed them into dust.  The entire time, I make sure that I stay in the moment and don’t think about the groceries I need to get or the bills that need to get paid.  I spend the two hours simply crushing things in order to make a sachet to leave in the woods somewhere.  I know that this seems silly, but have you ever actually sat in one spot and focused on doing a very brainless activity for two hours?  It’s incredibly difficult, and therefore is an excellent sacrifice.  I put my energy into the gift I am giving to the gods.  It’s no different than giving a gift to a significant other.  The energy and thought are the important thing, not the actual gift (though I’ve found that diamonds are the exception…).

This leads to the next type of sacrifice that Catholics have completely embraced.  Have you ever sacrificed something that you enjoy doing for a god?  Catholic priests have given up sex (well…they’re supposed to have given up sex…) and Catholics in general celebrate Lent, where they have to give up something that they really care about for 40 days.  Can you imagine the kind of energetic build-up if you were to sacrifice something that you truly enjoyed for 40 days?  This could be used for magickal purposes, but at the same time, it could be sacrificed.  I’ve made these kind of sacrifices and they’re incredible.  You wouldn’t believe the luck I got afterwards…or the dreams for that matter…

I’m not proposing that every sacrifice should be a six month long endeavor to make, but at the same time, it should be something that is worth something to you as well as be made with a good heart.  I can’t stress that last bit enough.

Sorry, no posts for the weekend

So I’m taking an early leave of the work week this week.  I’m headed to St. Louis tomorrow to meet up with a friend from high school, so I won’t be writing again until Monday.  Hopefully this will be the last of the ultra busy weekends for a couple weeks.  I’ve got some good ideas for the next couple blogs.  Have a great weekend everyone.

Morals and Ethics

I’d like to get everyone’s opinion on a somewhat controversial topic.  There’s that ever present issue with what is right when it comes to magick.  Most people simply go with the old advice of the Rule of Three or Karma.  Then there are the ones that adhere to Crowley’s only rule which was ‘Do what thou Will shall be the whole of the law.”  Remember that he means by Will, he means the true Will of the person.  He’s not simply saying do whatever you want to do.  He’s saying that you should do whatever you need to do to stay on your personal path to enlightenment, and to never stray.

I, personally, am a follower of Crowley’s laws.  Instead of trying to convince you to do things for your common man, he instead points out that becoming the best that you can be is far more important.  That doesn’t mean that you should kill people, do negative magick for no reason, or even insult people.  These things break his law quite quickly because they do not put you further on the path to finding your True Will.  They actually create road blocks by creating enemies.  On the other hand, if someone is doing something that is keeping you from becoming a better and more full you, then you should absolutely do what you need to to remove that negative influence from your life.  That doesn’t mean to kill them because, again, you are simply creating more obstacles for yourself.

On the other hand, the Rule of Three and Karma are based on a system of right and wrong.  It feels a little too reminiscent of heaven and hell style ideas.  I don’t think that there’s any reason why you can do something that is wrong if it’s your soul’s true path, yet that may mean that you have to banish someone who is continuously interferring with your life.  In the Rule of Three and Karma world, you should let the Universe take care of bringing the problems back to bite them in the ass.  In the mean time, they are interferring in your life.  Yes, you could put up protection spells, but at the same time, pushing them out of your life completely (and usually displacing them by some strange coincidence…) is usually much more effective.  Some people will argue that you won’t get bad Karma because of this, but you’re moving a person out of the area they enjoy, you could be moving a parent out of the life of his/her child, or you could be moving a teacher out of the life of a student.  You aren’t just giving someone what they deserve and protecting yourself; you’re also causing a lot of negative effects for a lot of people.  So you should be getting some bad Karma on this one.  Yet I’d do it if it was necessary, and I don’t think that I should have negative outcomes because of it.  If that’s the case, there’s negative outcomes to everything we do.

What is the big draw to the Rule of Three and Karma then?  Is it that people have experienced the effects of it?  Couldn’t that just as well be the effects of not living out your soul’s desire?  The world could be trying its hardest to push you away from these unnecessary actions that are pushing other people off of their soul’s paths as well.

So the next question is, “What’s my soul’s path then?”  I really don’t have an answer for you on that except to ask other questions, “What have you ever done that made you feel ecstatically happy?” and ”What makes you want to be awake rather than be sleeping?”

Oh yeah, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve TV.

The First Evolution of this Blog

The first thing I want to say is that after only 33 days of being an active blog, there have been almost 2100 hits.  That’s such an incredible number that I can’t express how pleased I am with the numbers.  I couldn’t have nearly that kind of popularity without the advertising that some of you have been doing.  So I’d just like to thank those of you who are spreading the word about it.

I’d also like to thank those of you who have continued to comment and give me new ideas.  I’ve learned a lot and have really expanded my ideas about what I want to do with this Movement because of the ideas that have sprung from the comments on some of the posts.

The purpose of this post though, is that we’ve been talking about a movement that’s going to be nationwide.  We’re going to need a massive amount of people signing up as well as advertising for us.  We really have no funding at all currently, so we can’t really do much advertising of our own (unless someone independently wealthy has been reading and wants to write me a check…).  I think that the key to that is to get as many people interested in the movement as possible.  Because the blog is the first real step in this process, we need more hits to the blog.

I think that the best way to get more hits is to get more posts and more articles.  We’re going to need them anyways if we’re going to create a comprehensive list of all things Pagan for the final website.  What I’m getting to is that I need some other writers.  I don’t know everything about Paganism, and I definitely am not creative enough (nor do I have enough time) to write 5 posts a day.

Here are some simple ideas as to what I’m looking for:

How to make anything
Examples of effective spellwork
Political issues having to do with Paganism
News and commentary on Pagan issues (UU church shooting in Tennesse for example)
Exploration of the elements
Gardening and Herbology articles
Energy healing techniques
Any commentary on Pagan-lifestyles (think of the stereotyping <a href=”http://magickfortherealworld.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/stereotyping-pagans-pt-1-the-legendary-poor-pagan/”>post</a>)
Commentary on other Pagan blogs
Pagan/Magick book reviews
Any kind of comedy relating to Pagans
Basically anything else you could think of that relates to Paganism, think of Witchvox style articles without the 2 year wait to be published.

Now, I’m not giving up complete control on this.  The first couple of articles you want to publish, I’d like to read first.  After that though, I’ll add you as an author and you can publish whenever and mostly whatever you want.  I’d like a couple of people to contribute regularly because people like to read stuff from the same authors, and we’re trying to draw a bit of a crowd.  I’d also like most of them to be intelligent, or at least as intelligent as mine have been.  I will also continue to post almost daily, and will continue to alert everyone of new posts via myspace bulletins (you guys are going to get sick and tired of that… and I may have to quit depending on the number of authors).

So if you’d like to give it a try, shoot me an email at jrw627@gmail.com and send me your idea and/or post you’d like to post.

Publicity or Secrecy?

I’m having some trouble here lately coming up with a reason for the secrecy of magick.  I know…I know…magick’s supposed to be kept in secret so that people who aren’t worthy of the power won’t get it…  The only question I have is, “Do you know anyone who, after spending 10 years on a magickal path has less of a right to this supposed ‘power’ than you do?”  I know that I’ve spent a lot of work getting to where I am, and I don’t think any government officials are worried about what I’m doing.  I agree that we don’t want a bunch of crazies doing serious curse work, but then again, if they’re smart enough to get to that point then they’re probably going to get the information regardless.  I guess that if we kept it in covens or groups where someone could weed out the crazies then it would work out, but how many of you have stayed in a single coven for your entire magickal career?

What I’m asking is for a true reason for the secrecy.  I personally think that there are a lot of good reasons why it was hidden (persecution, wanting all of the power to themselves, solitaries wishing to learn rather than teach), but why do people want it hidden now?  The secret’s out kids, Wicca is a recognized religion.  People are very aware that there are people walking around calling themselves witches and magicians (though most of them think we should be taking crazy pills).  Very few, if any, Pagans want the books to stop being published or for Barnes and Nobles to stop selling Tarot decks or for those rare Metaphysical stores to all be shut down.  So why are so many people up in arms against anything that resembles being public about our beliefs?

So after all of that, I would like to know if there is really any valid reason why people should keep their practices secret.  I feel like I may be missing something because everything I’ve ever thought about magick is always steeped in secrecy, but I just can’t logically come up with a reason.  I know that individual rituals or ceremonies shouldn’t be talked about due to the leaking of power, but should the basic ideas behind rituals be made public?  If there is an organization that is pushing for Pagan equality, they’re going to have to explain what exactly it is that we believe and how it works.  So do we downplay things or do we be straight-up with them and explain what we do?  Or do we just tell them to read a Silver Ravenwolf book (which I’m absolutely not saying in a sarcastic manner, it’s just that she writes in a very easy to understand language for people with no background)?

Sorry, No Posts This Weekend

So, I’ve got another fast and furious weekend and won’t be able to get to a computer regularly, so everybody keep the comments up on the last blog and I’ll get back to writing on Sunday.  Everybody have a good weekend!