Rant Free.

Today I am feeling happy.  It is Friday and I will be meeting up with some friends of mine later today for a journey out into the English countryside.  We are planning a visit to Avebury, Silbury Hill and West Kennet’s barrows.  This is something I am looking forward to very much and I can’t wait to spend some magical times with good friends.  I realised that this blog might have the wrong name, so will ponder a new name for it over the weekend.  I started it because I was angry at the loss of my favourite online forums, but have found this to be a great expression of how I am feeling and also find the feedback from other people on WordPress to be very encouraging.  I further more enjoy reading other people blogging here.  So its all good.  No need for constant rants!

I do find it peculiar that whilst I can see the names of the people who write messages here, I can’t click on it to find their blogs.  Is there a way of fixing this as I would dearly like to be able to read the blogs of people who come and read mine?

Have yourselves a great weekend.

Horns, now I am excited again!

It seems that I am always going on about a book.  Maybe I have an addiction and maybe this is something I need to address.  But check this out: Horns of Power and then try telling me with all honesty that you are not also excited?  A book dedicated to the Horned God.  There has been others before of course, but this one seems to cover it in more detail, with opinions from different people.  It looks scrummy, can’t wait.

A Pagan Book of days? Please help me.

I am looking for a gift for a close friend who recently developed an interest in paganism. I want to give her a nice reference book with information on the different pagan festivals through the year, not just the Wheel of the Year days, but also some of the many other festivals.

I saw The Pagan Book of Days: A Guide to the Festivals, Traditions, and Sacred Days of the Year by Nigel Pennick. Is this any good?

If you are reading this, please make some recommendations!

Wicca Magickal Beginnings

This book by Sorita d’Este and David Rankine of Avalonia became available just around the time that the much loved and missed Avalonia forums were closed.  I ordered my copy promptly, but when it arrived I was reading the Women of the Golden Dawn by Mary Greer and put it aside for later.  I got distracted along the way and nearly forgot about the book when a friend, who is a Gardnerian High Priest, reminded me about it last week, saying that it was probably the most useful book available on the subject.  Naturally I was intrigued.

What is great about Wicca Magickal Beginnings is that both initiates and non-initiates will find it of both of use and interest.  This book provides amazing insights into practices which pre-date Gerald Gardner, as well as literature and other recorded sources, which all eventually made their way into Wicca.  The way in which the material is presented makes for easy reference, divided into chapters by subject.  For example there is a chapter on the origins of the Watchtowers, one on the origins of the Magick Circle and another on the precedents of the Wiccan Rede.  All the major parts of the rituals are covered.

This book gave me the feeling of real Witchcraft, the feeling of what it might have been like to be around during the early days of Gardnerian Wicca or with Alex and Maxine Sanders in Nottinghill.  There is plenty of material I have not seen before and that does not appear to have been considered by other authors, such as Ronald Hutton, on the subject of Wiccan history.  The authors aimed to provide material which side stepped all the debate about lineage and personalities according to their introduction and they succeed in this. The book is non dogmatic and a pleasure to read.  There is a cornucopia of material to use and explore toward expanding the current scope of knowledge of the tradition’s practices, both from ceremonial and folk magick, much of which surprised me.

Wicca Magickal Beginnings is a joy, a pleasure and a brave contribution to the debate of the origins of the tradition.

When ‘Advanced’ = ‘Very Basic’

This seems to be the trend.  I picked up a book in a London store today and had a look.  It had ‘ADVANCED WICCA’ written all over it, it claimed in the description to be for advanced practitioners of the art magical who wish to learn the secrets of advanced Wicca.  So I was curious and I looked.

What was clear to me was that the book did cover the very basics.  It told me all about the Gawdess and the Gawd, the Four Elements and how to do spells.  It told me all about how to open my chakras and how to close them, how to choose the correct phase of the Moon even.  Boohaadaadihay! I say.  What is so advanced about that?  Besides, do authors like this really believe that their readers are as idiotic as to believe that such nonsensensical dribble is ‘advanced’?  Well, it seems like their readers are indeed idiots, where as the authors are clever people who know how to take candy from a child without making them cry.  It seems to be a trend.  Write P.H.D. after your name on the cover of a book and you are an expert in whatever you are writing on, write the word ‘advanced’ and people believe you too.  Of course with Wicca it is even more nonsense than usual because the only way you can do advanced work is by working through the degrees with a good and disciplined coven, none of this nonsense of chakras and a hundred goddess names!

So, why do people who call themself pagan and who support ecological causes and honour the Earth buy such dribble?  It is clearly wasting the Earth’s resources!  It is clearly nonsense!  Is it that Pagans nowadays are actually new age consumers who wish to be trendy and that the idea of reading a book with real information in it seems like hard work?  It reminds me of an article I read recently about how the sale of oranges in the UK is down significantly due to the fact that people think its too much hard work to peel it!  I say, peel an orange hard work?  Reading a real book on Wicca hard work?  I guess it would be, because it will probably tell you to read a dozen more and then seek out a teacher!

Can you practice magick if you are fat?

Right controversial I know.  These days you are not meant to say things which seem to be saying that someone is excluded from something on the basis of anything, its not PC baby, is it?  Well the thing is, you can be a 5foot high, 20 stone person wanting to run the 100m at the next Olympics.  No one is going exclude you because your a overweight, they are going to exclude you because it is unlikely that you will be able to run a qualifying time.  If you can run a 100m in less than 9 or 10 seconds, no one is going to care if you are overweight.  You are able to prove yourself as being capable of being a qualifying athlete.  However, this is very unlikely to happen.  If you are that much overweight, it is just not something which is likely to happen, is it?  We are all realistic about this.  Yet, apply the same logic to magick and we are not.

To be able to manipulate energy effectively a reasonable level of personal fitness and health is required.  Anyone who tried to direct energy when they have a terrible flu will know that it is not that easy to do, even if you are usually quite good at it.  If you have a stuffy head and runny nose, it takes a great deal more determination and concentration to achieve the same results.  Even basic tasks such as typing an email can take longer.

So, if you are very overweight and unfit, can you effectively perform ceremonial magick?  Would the regular practice of ceremonial magick affect your psyche to the extend that you will loose weight or at least reach a balanced weight?

A few years back I gained a few too many pounds whilst going through some emotional trauma.  For a period of time I found it more difficult to perform things such as the LBRP, it seemed to be less effective and also more difficult to do.  Once I lost the weight again and gained a better level of fitness the energy seemed to flow again more easily and the ritual seemed less of a punishment to perform, more of a pleasure.  To work on the smaller perfections thereof, the intonations and the movements, became part of my daily routine.  It the fitter I was, the better the results not only of the LBRP, but also other rituals I performed.  It did make me wonder if anyone else has had similar results?

The Women of the Golden Dawn

I am very interested in the contribution of women to the world of magick.  It is more often obvious in traditions like Wicca, but less so in things like the Golden Dawn.  Anyway, it was with great excitement that I discovered the book “Women of the Golden Dawn” and promptly ordered it as part of my May book buying.  I had heard someone at Treadwells in London give a talk about the women of the GD a few months back and thought that this book would be an interesting read to supplement the bits of information the lady who gave the talk shared (her lecture was almost entirely based on information in this book).

Women of the Golden Dawn is an amazing work, credit to the author Mary Greer!  Great reading and a fantastic inspiration to the rest of us.

The Cults of Paganism

I have been thinking a lot of late, looking at websites and forums, in an effort to replace the mourned Avalonia forums, how much of modern Paganism is a cult? Or at least, even if they say they are not and believe they are not, might they still be a cult?

Using the Cult Evaluator created and developed by Isaac Bonewits, it would seem that many of the groups and traditions of Wicca indeed seem to be displaying cult like behaviour. If you don’t know Isaac Bonewits’ cult evalutor I am speaking about, you will find it http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html Using it as a general guideline, I found that many of the groups I encountered might be considered borderline.

So is being a cult dangerous? Are Pagan cults just as much a part of religious society as Christian cults?

Great. It seems to be working.

Well, I had my first response to a message I posted yesterday.  So that must be good?  Thank you Green Witch, and yes you are right, I think I might like this.

All I need now is some good topics. Something which is interesting enough to get other people joining in and sharing their opinions and ideas too.  Of course this needs to be something I am interested in too.

Well, off to watch a good film now.  Its the Beltane Bash in London this weekend, I will be joining in the parade on Sunday morning.  Go and look at www.paganfestivals.com if you don’t know what I am on about.  If you are coming, look out for the big gold sun banner and come and say hello.

Pants. Gimme a cuppa coffee now.

Its late. I know that. But I just found out that the lovely people at Avalonia.co.uk has gone and locked their forums down. No more Avalonia discussion. No more Avalonia discussion. No more Avalonia discussion. Pants! I need another cuppa coffee. Its late, I know, but I am going to miss those forums. Admittedly I only rarely made my voice heard there, but there was nothing like it for a good debate on magick. They had it all. Witchcraft, Thelema, Ceremonial, Psychic stuff and probably the only sensible Wiccan forum I have encountered in the last ten years. I mean there were some real experience to be had between the regulars there. Not like the other forums where the best you can expect is someone recommending a silver broomstick or a Ham Sandwitch to newbies. Nah, the Avalonia forums are going to be missed. At least Mistress Sorita d’Este is keeping the website up and running. So that is a good thing. Mind, she has good reason for putting somethings on hold, she is a mammy now and she is a great writer too. Obviously priorities are important. Just a pity that the forums had to go. Pants. This means I have to now entertain myself in future. Hence, Magick Rants. My new blog. (My first blog actually).