Who am I? Got a few hours? Some day I’ll write my memoirs, and when I do, I’ll title it “What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been,” which is a line from a Grateful Dead song, “Truckin’”. Yes, I’m from THAT generation. No, I never was a hippie. I had to work for a living, and I didn’t drop out of college. I also like taking showers and baths too much to be a hippie. I’ve been a Witch almost 38 years, maybe more. I actually sought out Witchcraft when I was in college. I started with what would in the ‘80s be called “ghost busting” and divination with playing cards.
I received my first Tarot deck for Yule, 1969, from my then boyfriend. I bought De Lawrence’s book on the Tarot, which I still have. I don’t have the deck, however, I gave it away to this gay guy I used to know. I taught myself to read Tarot from that book, but had at least three actual teachers along the way. Unfortunately, one of them is deceased. I learned a lot from her. But in early 1970, I knew only what was in that book. But it was enough to tell a cop I was dating how unethical readers bilk their clients. I can’t tell you how I knew the tricks; they just came to me.
In April of 1976, I was initiated into the 1st degree of the NROOGD tradition. In 1984, Barbara Frederick and I formed the Witchaven Society, a group (not really a coven) that grew out of her correspondence with a few prison inmates. I didn’t approve of her choice of menfolk. I’ve always been fussier about who I would be with than she has been. I wouldn’t give her choices a second look, except to think to myself “She’s seeing THAT?” She was satisfied that the guy would want to be seen with her. For me, a man had to bring some benefit to Witchaven. Our apprentices didn’t always work out. We decided to set requirements candidates had to meet in order to be taught by us. She decided to have them wait 3 or 6 months. I decided to have a task oriented set so that if they qualified, they’d have a head start on their learning. I took my cue from the Witches in the faery tales. I’ve always been fond of and came up with five tasks that the candidate had to perform to get hir dedicant necklace. I’ll list and describe them for you now.
1) Read three books from the 13 book long reading list. I prepared the reading list with care, looking for books that would give the dedicant a good idea of what Wicca was all about, at least the trad I was teaching. I didn’t have to have a formal book report, just an idea that the apprentice had read the books, and understood what was in them, and why I had assigned it.
2) Start a magickal diary/journal. This will be your lab notebook, where you will put the conditions under which you performed a given spell or ritual, and any spiritual experiences you have.
3) Write an article or poem for the Greymalkin Gazette. The poem should be at least ten well chosen lines, and spiritual, preferably Pagan in subject matter. The article should be either a “Who I Am & How I Got Here” or a how to article on some spell or tool pertaining to Wicca. One young lady did an article on how to make ritual robes. The article should be at least 300 words long and no longer than 900 words. A quick and dirty way of counting the words is to count the words in a typical line, then count the number of full lines on a page, then multiplying the number of words in a line by how many lines in a page. A line that is a half a line or fewer words long can be combined with another half line to be counted as a full line.
4) &5) These tasks go together, but are two separate steps. First identify some reason why we might not work successfully together. Such reasons can be such things as substance abuse (alcohol, nicotine or other drugs) attitude, or other. I may make it easy for you by mentioning some obstacle. Then you go directly to task #5 which is to remove that obstacle. This may be the most difficult task of all, but #4 may be tricky. If you believe that another person is your obstacle, be careful. The other person is not the obstacle, your attitude towards both the other person, and me, your teacher is the true obstacle here.
Since the Greymalkin Gazette is now a group, which I will eventually bring here, task #3 will be published in all the Greymalkin Gazette groups we have so far.
I was with my Significant Other Doc Richard Fulton for 16 years and 3 months. During that time I was deeply in love, perhaps for the first time in my life. I should have known it couldn’t last, that the Gods and Goddesses would take him away from me. I trusted him more than any man I have ever been with in my life.
As my profile will tell you, I’m a writer, a Witch, a Druid, a Thelemite, a diviner, a craftswoman, a reader and a mother. But that doesn’t really tell you much except that I like yarn, embroidery floss, beads, books, and whatever my daughter does. I’m a writer because I have to. It’s a good thing that I like to write, otherwise I might become a substance abuser, such as alcohol, as so many of my fellow writers have done, in order to escape from the compulsion. Yes, writing is a compulsion, an obsession, and an addiction. The difference between writing and other compulsions/obsessions/addictions is that nobody ever tries to keep me from doing it except when he (it’s always a he) wants me to do something else like housework. I like music. I especially like music that elicits an emotional response. I like to write to music, and have collected a library of music that will enable me to write stirring scenes. They come from several genres of music; New Age/world beat, classical, classic rock, and movie soundtracks.
What else is there about me that you’d like to know? My interests in the Wiccan field are performing spells and rituals, writing spells and rituals, and divination. I practice three main methods of divination: Tarot, Runes, and Ogham. But I do have smatterings of others such as scrying, favomancy (divination by beans), and reading scarabs and Witching Stones. I have Buzios (Brazilian reading shells, but haven’t tried them yet. I love the dance, and now that my my ankles are in better shape, I can resume it. It’s my favorite form of exercise, yes, even over sex.
I have one child, a daughter, aged 30, who is doing post doctoral work in computer cryptography at UCSD. She has taught me a lot about computers, and when she’d come to visit, she’d amuse herself by improving something on my computer. It was she who downloaded and configured Firefox, my favorite browser, on my old HP Pavilion Windows XP machine. On my new one, which I’m writing this on right now, I did all the downloads myself.
When I say I’m a Witch, I also include that I’m a shaman, because Witchcraft is European shamanism. I got this from Christopher Penczak in his book the Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft. I agree with him. Hedge Witches are very shamanic, since they use animal guides and “ride the hedges” which are the boundaries between this world and other worlds to make healing soul journeys, both to find out what steps will heal a patient, and to retrieve soul fragments. They also make tools, magickal objects, and potions, brews, incenses, and oils from found objects and plants. I think you can even be a hedge Witch in the city or suburbs. You simple make your tools and craft objects by recycling other people’s “junk.” I have a dear friend I call Snoodlady who made planters out of defunct computer monitors. You can find great treasures at garage and yard sales, flea markets, and farmers’ markets. We have a group which we’ll bring here eventually.
The other part of “we” is my friend, house mate, and partner (Business, not romantic) Stephen Abbott, aka abbottsinn. You may have heard of him. He and I are fairly notorious on the Internet. Together we run the Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick. It was started over 40 years ago, went on the Internet 9 years ago, and I joined it as his partner 3 ½ years ago. Some years ago before this, we started starting and maintaining groups on several networks, and we are hoping to bring branches of our groups here. We have over 60 titles for different groups, but I’m going to talk him out of having me start more than a few fairly representative groups. One of these is Hedgecraft 4 Us. Our groups cover a plethora of topics, from serious discussions on magick and paranormal phenomena to humor. Yes, humor is important. The best and simplest
way to banish demons and other malefic spirits is to laugh at them. They take themselves very seriously, and their only real weapon is the fear they inspire in people, so if you laugh at them, they will be unable to cope, and will go away. I’ve always had a rather playful attitude towards daemons (note the different spelling, it’s quite deliberate I assure you).
Let me tell you an illustrative story. Back in late 1986 to early 1987 I lived in a magickal household. I was between residences at the time, so was living in a small basement room with the man who would later become my third ex-hubby. In the same house, just on the other side of the bathroom lived another couple, Caitlin, a young woman who had fled her possibly abusive husband was living with Chris, a young magician, who supposedly was very intelligent. He was always calculating these complicated magickal formulae. He never did any magick, he just worked on the formulae. He also took crank, and drank, then was plagued by daemons stirred up by one of the other denizens of the house who was doing the Abra Melin Working for Knowledge and Conversation with his Holy Guardian Angel. I invited the daemons to our room, where I played with them while Delphinius was gone. We would laugh about how silly Chris was to be so afraid of them. He was too tainted by the Judeo-Christian to really understand about magick, which included Witchcraft, which is what I practiced then, as now. I think the daemons liked me and my playful humorous attitude towards them. They also, however, enjoyed tormenting Chris. I never did manage to train them to bring me money.
In closing, I want you to know that I will answer any question about myself except my age. You probably have some idea of the general range when I say that I’ve been a Pagan for almost 38 years, and that my daughter Janvier, is 30 years old. Those of you who haven’t been Witches as long as I have can ask me anything about the modern Wiccan movement, including the inception of CoG, the Covenant of the Goddess. I also have a lot of history in my head about the Reformed Druidry Movement. Some of it can be read in the Druid Chronicles, but there’s a lot that happened in California in the Bay Area in the mid- to late 70s that I was there for. What I don’t know, I can ask Stephen, who’s been a Druid four years longer than I have. And now I’ve got to read some of your blogs so that I can learn about some of you.
Showing posts with label tarot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tarot. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Stele of Revealing & Writing of Book of the Law
Do check out the other 11th House of Thoth groups on other networks. Sorry to have been gone so long, but we had computer issues for a few months. Now you won’t be able to get rid of us because Tegwedd now has a new computer, and Stephen has his laptop back. We also have cell phones that go on the Internet. Stephen’s is a go-phone, and Tegwedd has the regular arrangement, but we both got the same model phone. They’re even the same color, blue and black.
Basically this group is about the intersection between Uncle Al (Aleister Crowley) and the Khemetic tradition. Uncle Al an his bride Rose Kelly Crowley Spent the nights of April 8th-10th 1904 in the Great Pyramid receiving the Book of the Law, which Rose channeled through her husband’s Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass. We don’t know what drugs they may have taken, must’ve been good stuff, wonder if we could get some, because of all the channeling that Rose did. Uncle Al loved Rose deeply. She was a sincere priestess and occultist. But he didn’t love her as much as loved that damned mountain that he just had to climb. If he hadn’t deserted her and their newborn daughter in Rangoon, she wouldn’t have slipped into her cups, and would have seen to it that the bottles for the baby’s milk were boiled, or would have breastfed the baby (which is actually best) so she wouldn’t have gotten typhus and died. When you love someone, you don’t leave her and your newborn daughter in Rangoon. You stay with them. Thelemite men, ever after that, have a tendency to mistreat their women.
But back to Khem. Khem means “black” It gave its name to alchemy and its offshoot chemistry. Egypt is the Greek name for it, a corruption of the Khemish Hout-ak-Ptah, which means the temple for the ka or soul of Ptah. The Greeks under Alexander and Ptolemy had trouble pronouncing Hout-ak-Ptah. What’s so tough about it? Tegwedd just did it. They must’ve been monumentally stupid. The black land came from the black fertile silt that came over the banks of the Nile each year during the annual flood. Now with the Aswan Dam, that doesn’t happen anymore.
The Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu is a painted wooden offering stele discovered in 1854 at the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Dayr Bahir by Francis August Marinett, which was originally made for the Khonsu priest Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu . It was discovered near his coffin ensemble of 2 sarcophagi and anthropomorphic inner coffins. It dates to cerca 680/70 BCE either late 25th dynasty or early 26th dynasty. Originally located in the Boulaq Museum, under inventory number #666, it was moved around 1902 to the newly opened Egyptian museum of Cairo . On the front, the stele shows Ankh-en-ef-Khonsu offering his god Re Harakhty Ra of the 2 horizons or Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The text on both the front and back shows a number of quotes from the Book of Coming Forth by Day, aka the Egyptian Book of the Dead. He also begs his gods not to stand against him when he stands in the Hall of Judgment. The way that Uncle Al paraphrases this is quoted in the Book of the Law (Liber Legis). “This combination of magic[sic] and theology is technically called ‘theurgy’ from the Greek theos and ergon work.” All quotes and information are from the Wikipedia, although we derived some material from the Thelemapedia.
Who is your favorite Khemetic deity? Tegwedd is torn between Sekhmet the lion Goddess and Seshat the Goddess of and inventor of writing. Tegwedd named her computer after Seshat. Seshat is shown wearing a leopard skin dress. This may explain why Tegwedd is so fond of leopard print. She has a leopard print comforter, wants to get leopard print sheets, and has a leopard print case for her many crochet hooks. She wanted a leopard print upholstered sofa, but Doc put his foot down. She still wants one, though, and if she ever got a lot of money, she would get a couple, since the living room needs two couches.
Stephen just picked his wallpaper for his cell phone. It’s the Stele of Revealing, #666 in the Bulaq Museum. He got it from Widipedia,and is very excited about it. According to the unpublished Society of Hidden Masters, Lady Frieda Harris became Uncle Al’s disciple on May 11th, 1938. She started at the 4th degree because she already had a previous initiation into Co-Masonry. Crowley also began to teach her divination. She had he choice of systems, and opted for the Y Ching . “Y Hing was your choice which I approved because it has the kind of discipline that will inform your painting. If you are to make a new mark in art, you need a new mind, enlightened from the supernal triangle.” From a letter from Uncle Al to Lady Frieda.
By his own admission, Uncle Al had intended his Tarot deck to be traditional, but Lady Frieda encouraged him to use his occult, spiritual, magickal and scientific knowledge in the project. Harris sent him a regular stipend to help with the project. She also used her society contacts to procure financial backing for the paintings, catalogue, and publication of the Tarot deck. The pressure may have taken its toll on both Harris and Crowley. It was to languish in someone’s basement until ‘69 or ‘70 when it was acquired by Carl Llewellyn Weschke, who published it at Llewellyn Publications, for which Stephen once worked.
We’re still searching for a house mate. Now if you are willing, able, and ready to to do some hard physical labor like Stephen is doing to get the house and yard in shape, $100 will be taken off your rent until the work is completed, then the rent will go back up to $400. So you will be paying only $300 until the work is completed. .
Our friend Caitlin ni Manannan has people bringing her wood from when they prune their trees in their yards. And we are shortly going to be making rune Rune and Ogham sets. So if you’re local, bring us your branches. They should be at least the thickness of your thumb.
All you hard-workin Pagans should stand solidly with labor and against the Tea Party. As James Hoffa Jr. said, “Recall those sons of bitches! Go to your ballot boxes and vote them out.” The 75,000 Verizon workers are on strike, and we stand with them. Solidarnosc! as the Poles would say. Verizon management, all Republicans, have made 100 unreasonable demands, and refuse to negotiate, but are paying scabs to cross the picket lines, and work for them. All the workers want, is to keep what they have, a small cost of living increase in wages, their health care, and their pensions. Management wants them to pay $100 per month for health care, while they get it free. If you were thinking of getting a Verizon phone and account, don’t, and do tell them why you aren’t, that you are boycotting them. If you have a Verizon account, close it, and go to another carrier, and tell Verizon why. If you want to piss off Stephen, abuse or oppress the workers. Tell Verizon that you refuse to do business with an employer who oppresses its workers.
Soon we may be selling pendants of the lady and the tiger worked in silver. If you reading this are a silversmith please call our toll free number 1-888-611-7982, and we’ll do business. Coming soon--prints of the Lady and the Tiger by Lizet. Rune and Ogham sets worked by Stephen. Tegwedd has started to crochet cellphone holsters of her own design. They are of acrylic yarn, in assorted colors. She is obsessed right now with making holsters for the Pagan Pride Harvest Festival, but she will make you one to order for a reasonable price. She has some right now in assorted colors for just $9.95+S&H. She is working with yarn she has on hand, so a custom one will cost more because she has to obtain the yarn to make yours. It will cost $14.95 + S&H The smallest container for US priority mail is $4.95.
We are offering a new service. For just $19.95, you can have spell-coaching. We will take you through the construction and performance of a spell. It’s very simple. If you want to perform a spell but you don’t think you know what you’re doing, hire us to coach you through it. The fee is payable to our PayPal accounts, to either abbotts_inn@yahoo.com or tezra.reitan@gmail.com .
We will coach you using strong ethics. Tegwedd has a couplet she will teach you which you can add to your spell that will ensure that it is ethical. Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick is over 40 years old, having been founded in 1970 in Berkeley, CA. It went cybernetic almost 9 years ago. Lizet has been helping us put the school on a more commercial footing, and with her inspiration, Tegwedd has started packaging the classes into manageable packets. Ms. Freeman did a 3rd website for us almost a month ago at http://abbottsinn.wordpress.com. From there, by clicking on two of the graphics, you can go to either of the other two sites: http://abbottsinninternational.com/ and http://abbottsinn.com/ . You can also get to our network http://abbottsinn.ning.com/ . With her help, we also salvaged some things from his old website, including the mission statement: The Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick aims to provide a gentle nurturing environment that promotes education in both the atmosphere and the specific tools of magick. Our research arm is called the Magickal Research Institute or MRI, not to be confused with the medical MRI, or Magnetic Resonance Image, which Tegwedd had on her right ankle about 10 months ago. Stephen and Lizet came up with the name almost 9 years ago. The three of us have become a very effective working team. Stephen has his cell phone, and we are both enjoying learning how to use our cell phones. His cell phone number is 916-467-6393. He’ll have access to the Internet on that phone. He says “I’m not very good at texting because of my glaucoma, so please be gentle with me.” Don’t forget to call 888-611-7982 for all your divination, learning class, and research needs.
Basically this group is about the intersection between Uncle Al (Aleister Crowley) and the Khemetic tradition. Uncle Al an his bride Rose Kelly Crowley Spent the nights of April 8th-10th 1904 in the Great Pyramid receiving the Book of the Law, which Rose channeled through her husband’s Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass. We don’t know what drugs they may have taken, must’ve been good stuff, wonder if we could get some, because of all the channeling that Rose did. Uncle Al loved Rose deeply. She was a sincere priestess and occultist. But he didn’t love her as much as loved that damned mountain that he just had to climb. If he hadn’t deserted her and their newborn daughter in Rangoon, she wouldn’t have slipped into her cups, and would have seen to it that the bottles for the baby’s milk were boiled, or would have breastfed the baby (which is actually best) so she wouldn’t have gotten typhus and died. When you love someone, you don’t leave her and your newborn daughter in Rangoon. You stay with them. Thelemite men, ever after that, have a tendency to mistreat their women.
But back to Khem. Khem means “black” It gave its name to alchemy and its offshoot chemistry. Egypt is the Greek name for it, a corruption of the Khemish Hout-ak-Ptah, which means the temple for the ka or soul of Ptah. The Greeks under Alexander and Ptolemy had trouble pronouncing Hout-ak-Ptah. What’s so tough about it? Tegwedd just did it. They must’ve been monumentally stupid. The black land came from the black fertile silt that came over the banks of the Nile each year during the annual flood. Now with the Aswan Dam, that doesn’t happen anymore.
The Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu is a painted wooden offering stele discovered in 1854 at the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Dayr Bahir by Francis August Marinett, which was originally made for the Khonsu priest Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu . It was discovered near his coffin ensemble of 2 sarcophagi and anthropomorphic inner coffins. It dates to cerca 680/70 BCE either late 25th dynasty or early 26th dynasty. Originally located in the Boulaq Museum, under inventory number #666, it was moved around 1902 to the newly opened Egyptian museum of Cairo . On the front, the stele shows Ankh-en-ef-Khonsu offering his god Re Harakhty Ra of the 2 horizons or Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The text on both the front and back shows a number of quotes from the Book of Coming Forth by Day, aka the Egyptian Book of the Dead. He also begs his gods not to stand against him when he stands in the Hall of Judgment. The way that Uncle Al paraphrases this is quoted in the Book of the Law (Liber Legis). “This combination of magic[sic] and theology is technically called ‘theurgy’ from the Greek theos and ergon work.” All quotes and information are from the Wikipedia, although we derived some material from the Thelemapedia.
Who is your favorite Khemetic deity? Tegwedd is torn between Sekhmet the lion Goddess and Seshat the Goddess of and inventor of writing. Tegwedd named her computer after Seshat. Seshat is shown wearing a leopard skin dress. This may explain why Tegwedd is so fond of leopard print. She has a leopard print comforter, wants to get leopard print sheets, and has a leopard print case for her many crochet hooks. She wanted a leopard print upholstered sofa, but Doc put his foot down. She still wants one, though, and if she ever got a lot of money, she would get a couple, since the living room needs two couches.
Stephen just picked his wallpaper for his cell phone. It’s the Stele of Revealing, #666 in the Bulaq Museum. He got it from Widipedia,and is very excited about it. According to the unpublished Society of Hidden Masters, Lady Frieda Harris became Uncle Al’s disciple on May 11th, 1938. She started at the 4th degree because she already had a previous initiation into Co-Masonry. Crowley also began to teach her divination. She had he choice of systems, and opted for the Y Ching . “Y Hing was your choice which I approved because it has the kind of discipline that will inform your painting. If you are to make a new mark in art, you need a new mind, enlightened from the supernal triangle.” From a letter from Uncle Al to Lady Frieda.
By his own admission, Uncle Al had intended his Tarot deck to be traditional, but Lady Frieda encouraged him to use his occult, spiritual, magickal and scientific knowledge in the project. Harris sent him a regular stipend to help with the project. She also used her society contacts to procure financial backing for the paintings, catalogue, and publication of the Tarot deck. The pressure may have taken its toll on both Harris and Crowley. It was to languish in someone’s basement until ‘69 or ‘70 when it was acquired by Carl Llewellyn Weschke, who published it at Llewellyn Publications, for which Stephen once worked.
We’re still searching for a house mate. Now if you are willing, able, and ready to to do some hard physical labor like Stephen is doing to get the house and yard in shape, $100 will be taken off your rent until the work is completed, then the rent will go back up to $400. So you will be paying only $300 until the work is completed. .
Our friend Caitlin ni Manannan has people bringing her wood from when they prune their trees in their yards. And we are shortly going to be making rune Rune and Ogham sets. So if you’re local, bring us your branches. They should be at least the thickness of your thumb.
All you hard-workin Pagans should stand solidly with labor and against the Tea Party. As James Hoffa Jr. said, “Recall those sons of bitches! Go to your ballot boxes and vote them out.” The 75,000 Verizon workers are on strike, and we stand with them. Solidarnosc! as the Poles would say. Verizon management, all Republicans, have made 100 unreasonable demands, and refuse to negotiate, but are paying scabs to cross the picket lines, and work for them. All the workers want, is to keep what they have, a small cost of living increase in wages, their health care, and their pensions. Management wants them to pay $100 per month for health care, while they get it free. If you were thinking of getting a Verizon phone and account, don’t, and do tell them why you aren’t, that you are boycotting them. If you have a Verizon account, close it, and go to another carrier, and tell Verizon why. If you want to piss off Stephen, abuse or oppress the workers. Tell Verizon that you refuse to do business with an employer who oppresses its workers.
Soon we may be selling pendants of the lady and the tiger worked in silver. If you reading this are a silversmith please call our toll free number 1-888-611-7982, and we’ll do business. Coming soon--prints of the Lady and the Tiger by Lizet. Rune and Ogham sets worked by Stephen. Tegwedd has started to crochet cellphone holsters of her own design. They are of acrylic yarn, in assorted colors. She is obsessed right now with making holsters for the Pagan Pride Harvest Festival, but she will make you one to order for a reasonable price. She has some right now in assorted colors for just $9.95+S&H. She is working with yarn she has on hand, so a custom one will cost more because she has to obtain the yarn to make yours. It will cost $14.95 + S&H The smallest container for US priority mail is $4.95.
We are offering a new service. For just $19.95, you can have spell-coaching. We will take you through the construction and performance of a spell. It’s very simple. If you want to perform a spell but you don’t think you know what you’re doing, hire us to coach you through it. The fee is payable to our PayPal accounts, to either abbotts_inn@yahoo.com or tezra.reitan@gmail.com .
We will coach you using strong ethics. Tegwedd has a couplet she will teach you which you can add to your spell that will ensure that it is ethical. Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick is over 40 years old, having been founded in 1970 in Berkeley, CA. It went cybernetic almost 9 years ago. Lizet has been helping us put the school on a more commercial footing, and with her inspiration, Tegwedd has started packaging the classes into manageable packets. Ms. Freeman did a 3rd website for us almost a month ago at http://abbottsinn.wordpress.com. From there, by clicking on two of the graphics, you can go to either of the other two sites: http://abbottsinninternational.com/ and http://abbottsinn.com/ . You can also get to our network http://abbottsinn.ning.com/ . With her help, we also salvaged some things from his old website, including the mission statement: The Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick aims to provide a gentle nurturing environment that promotes education in both the atmosphere and the specific tools of magick. Our research arm is called the Magickal Research Institute or MRI, not to be confused with the medical MRI, or Magnetic Resonance Image, which Tegwedd had on her right ankle about 10 months ago. Stephen and Lizet came up with the name almost 9 years ago. The three of us have become a very effective working team. Stephen has his cell phone, and we are both enjoying learning how to use our cell phones. His cell phone number is 916-467-6393. He’ll have access to the Internet on that phone. He says “I’m not very good at texting because of my glaucoma, so please be gentle with me.” Don’t forget to call 888-611-7982 for all your divination, learning class, and research needs.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The Romani People: Their Psi, Their Magick
One group who has trained its children in the use of the psychic sciences is the Rom, aka the Romani, known to most gaje as the Gypsies. For many centuries they were thought to have come from Egypt, hence the name “Gypsies”, short for Egyptians. Unfortunately, they mostly use their psi to see how they can relieve non-Rom of their cash and valuables, hence the term “gyp” as in “He gypped me.”, which is the old ethnocentric term for “he ripped me off.” They also tend to have and foster a fatalist view towards destiny and the future, which to them in engraved in stone, and cannot be altered. We who understand how quantum mechanics works know that the future is fluid, destiny is what you make it, and that an event changes merely by the act of being observed. Just the fact that you know what may be coming changes it, and if you don’t like what is coming, you can take steps to change it. But if you do like what is coming, it is your responsibility to take steps to see that it comes about. The origin of the Rom is as mysterious as they are themselves. It is thought that they left India sometime in the 9th century, which is about the time that the Muslims came to India, and started throwing their weight around, as Muslims often do. They have the same sense of entitlement that Christians do, which bugs the hell out of me. Anyway, the Romani people were pushed out of India, and slowly traveled west. They brought their skill at divining with paper cards with them. They had gotten the cards from the Chinese, and developed the art as a way of supporting themselves. In the meantime, during the Italian Renaissance, the game of Tarocchi was developed, and the cards were developed. The Rom switched from divining with the Chinese cards to divining with the Tarocchi cards (Tarot in French, which is where we get it from.
Back to the Romani, most people are so focused on 6 million Jews being killed in the concentration camps during the Third Reich that they fail to recognize that over a million and a half Romani perished in those camps. How do I know all this? Well I’ve read books on the topic, and I also looked it up online. The Rom have their own website, “The Padrin”. Raymond Buckland, the Witch who was responsible for bringing Gardnerian Wicca to the United States back in the ‘60s is part Rom, or Traveler, as they call them in the.British Isles. He has two decks out. One has the unfortunate but undoubtedly commercial title of “Gypsy Fortunetelling Kit. The deck is much like a normal deck of playing cards except that there are some cards added that depict the Romani experience. I don’t read with it much. But what I do find valuable is the accompanying book, because it told me how to use my crystal ball, which was a gift from my 3rd ex-hubby. You want a dimly lit room. I like to have the living room dark, but have light in the hall, or some other room in the house then have a candle burning on the table where I have the ball set up. I have a black velvet cloth to cover the table. The candle should be dark blue for psychism. I have a psychic portals incense that I burn on charcoal to put my mind in the right space. Then I take my glasses off, because I want a soft focus, and I gaze at the crystal ball. Buckland, or Uncle Raymond, as I like to call him, says that it will become foggy, but I have yet to witness that phenomenon. Mostly what happens is that I get an image in my mind. There is a saying which goes YMMV, Your Mileage May Vary. That goes in spades in Scrying. I am fortunate enough to own a crystal ball, but there are other things to scry into. You can scry into a bowl of water. Stephen 6580 favors the magick mirror. You remove the silver paint from the back of a mirror and paint it black. Let it dry thoroughly, and then wash the back with mugwort water. That is a solution which you make by boiling mugwort leaves in spring or purified water. Let it cool. Put it in a clean glass jar, and keep it in the dark until use. You can just pour your mugwort water over the mirror and gently pat dry with a clean cloth. Do not wipe as this will remove the herb’s virtue from the mirror. Let dry.
I mentioned before that Uncle Raymond has 2 decks out from Llewellyn. The other occupies a place of honor in my heart as one of my favorite Tarot decks of all time. In fact it’s one of the few that I have in a wooden box. It is the Romani Tarot, and it is a very powerful deck. The artwork is drop-dead-gorgeous, and the scenes are very evocative of scenes in Romani life. I don’t know whether it is still in print, as it came out in the early 2000’s, but check with either Amazon.com or Ebay. Also, Mind-n-Magick may have a copy in their store. But if you get a used one, check to make sure that you’re getting the deck as well as the book. I made the mistake of buying a used deck from Amazon, and their 3rd party seller neglected to send me the deck along with the book. I didn’t even care about the book. It was The Book of Doors, a quasi-Kemetic deck and book set. I wanted the deck. Naturally, I panned the seller soundly. Thus far he has not offered to make good on the botched order, so I’m going to make sure Amazon doesn’t use that seller again.
I’m offering a new service on KEEN. If you know that I have a certain deck, you can request that I read you with that deck. There is one exception to that offer. If you are getting a free 5 minute reading, you get read with whichever deck I happen to have on hand. For example, this week, I am featuring the Tarot of the Elves, but you can request the Romani Tarot, or the Morgan-Greer Tarot, or any of the other 400-some decks that I own. If you like, in future blogs, I can feature some of my decks and discuss their virtues and shortcomings. Please let me know if you’d like me to do that in future blogs.
Isaac has just finished having chemo and radiation. Please send him all your healing energy. And he needs money to pay for all of this, so buy his books directly from him. I’m currently reading his “Neo-Pagan Rites”. It’s the go-to book for those who want to plan public Pagan rituals, from ones with just a few in your living room to several hundred in a hall or at a park. He goes through what works and what doesn’t, and why. His book is for everyone from experienced ritualists to the novice just starting out. He begins, as he often does, with definitions. I’m lucky, in that my definitions pretty much agree with his. Of course, he being the master of definitions, he put into cogent words what I had been thinking for years, but hadn’t been able to spell out. Go to http://neopagan.net/ and you will find his books listed. His email is ibonewits@neopagan.net. I don’t know whether Phaedra is answering his emails, or whether Isaac is in any shape to answer your own, but go to the site, and see which book(s) you might like to buy. I realize that it says on the site to buy the books at your friendly local metaphysical shop, or at amazon.com, or b&n.com, but that is outdated. The more current word is that they need to move the inventory they have on hand, and Isaac needs the cash he can garner from selling the books directly, and donations, all the donations he can get. Remember that as my guru the Swami Beyondananda says “Does are better than stags because with a country full of stags, you have stag-nation, but with a country full of does, you have doe-nation.” But personally, I would prefer a country full of bucks. All the bucks you can send my way will be most appreciated.
If you have a question that calls for a date or time period, Stephen6580 is the go-to guy. He uses the Celtic Wheel of the year time system, and can pin point when something is supposed to happen to within a week, according to the cards that are drawn. Readings go for up to a year and a day. He is a great reader, and has taught me much about the Tarot in particular and divination in general. For a clairvoyant, you can’t do any better than Astro Wing 3323. Stephen has stated that I am a clairvoyant. He’s only half right. According to the KEEN rules and definitions, I’m what is known as a pseudo-clairvoyant. I can get vague images, but not names, either of people or locations. I taught myself remote-viewing. I can sit in the passenger seat of a carm and see where there may be clogs in the traffic ahead. With a finger exercise I do, I can at times clear it up by sending everyone on their way on alternative routes. If it is an accident, I clear out the rubber-neckers. That’s what slows traffic down with an accident, you know. It’s not the accident itself, it’s all the people trying to get a look at it as they drive by. Once the highway patrol get there, they clear the road pretty quickly. There wouldn’t be as many accidents if people would just pay attention to their driving and not follow the person in front of them so closely. Give yourself a good stopping distance between you and the vehicle in front of you. The California Uniform Vehicle Code decrees that you should allow at least one car length for each 10 mph that you are driving.
Back to the Romani, most people are so focused on 6 million Jews being killed in the concentration camps during the Third Reich that they fail to recognize that over a million and a half Romani perished in those camps. How do I know all this? Well I’ve read books on the topic, and I also looked it up online. The Rom have their own website, “The Padrin”. Raymond Buckland, the Witch who was responsible for bringing Gardnerian Wicca to the United States back in the ‘60s is part Rom, or Traveler, as they call them in the.British Isles. He has two decks out. One has the unfortunate but undoubtedly commercial title of “Gypsy Fortunetelling Kit. The deck is much like a normal deck of playing cards except that there are some cards added that depict the Romani experience. I don’t read with it much. But what I do find valuable is the accompanying book, because it told me how to use my crystal ball, which was a gift from my 3rd ex-hubby. You want a dimly lit room. I like to have the living room dark, but have light in the hall, or some other room in the house then have a candle burning on the table where I have the ball set up. I have a black velvet cloth to cover the table. The candle should be dark blue for psychism. I have a psychic portals incense that I burn on charcoal to put my mind in the right space. Then I take my glasses off, because I want a soft focus, and I gaze at the crystal ball. Buckland, or Uncle Raymond, as I like to call him, says that it will become foggy, but I have yet to witness that phenomenon. Mostly what happens is that I get an image in my mind. There is a saying which goes YMMV, Your Mileage May Vary. That goes in spades in Scrying. I am fortunate enough to own a crystal ball, but there are other things to scry into. You can scry into a bowl of water. Stephen 6580 favors the magick mirror. You remove the silver paint from the back of a mirror and paint it black. Let it dry thoroughly, and then wash the back with mugwort water. That is a solution which you make by boiling mugwort leaves in spring or purified water. Let it cool. Put it in a clean glass jar, and keep it in the dark until use. You can just pour your mugwort water over the mirror and gently pat dry with a clean cloth. Do not wipe as this will remove the herb’s virtue from the mirror. Let dry.
I mentioned before that Uncle Raymond has 2 decks out from Llewellyn. The other occupies a place of honor in my heart as one of my favorite Tarot decks of all time. In fact it’s one of the few that I have in a wooden box. It is the Romani Tarot, and it is a very powerful deck. The artwork is drop-dead-gorgeous, and the scenes are very evocative of scenes in Romani life. I don’t know whether it is still in print, as it came out in the early 2000’s, but check with either Amazon.com or Ebay. Also, Mind-n-Magick may have a copy in their store. But if you get a used one, check to make sure that you’re getting the deck as well as the book. I made the mistake of buying a used deck from Amazon, and their 3rd party seller neglected to send me the deck along with the book. I didn’t even care about the book. It was The Book of Doors, a quasi-Kemetic deck and book set. I wanted the deck. Naturally, I panned the seller soundly. Thus far he has not offered to make good on the botched order, so I’m going to make sure Amazon doesn’t use that seller again.
I’m offering a new service on KEEN. If you know that I have a certain deck, you can request that I read you with that deck. There is one exception to that offer. If you are getting a free 5 minute reading, you get read with whichever deck I happen to have on hand. For example, this week, I am featuring the Tarot of the Elves, but you can request the Romani Tarot, or the Morgan-Greer Tarot, or any of the other 400-some decks that I own. If you like, in future blogs, I can feature some of my decks and discuss their virtues and shortcomings. Please let me know if you’d like me to do that in future blogs.
Isaac has just finished having chemo and radiation. Please send him all your healing energy. And he needs money to pay for all of this, so buy his books directly from him. I’m currently reading his “Neo-Pagan Rites”. It’s the go-to book for those who want to plan public Pagan rituals, from ones with just a few in your living room to several hundred in a hall or at a park. He goes through what works and what doesn’t, and why. His book is for everyone from experienced ritualists to the novice just starting out. He begins, as he often does, with definitions. I’m lucky, in that my definitions pretty much agree with his. Of course, he being the master of definitions, he put into cogent words what I had been thinking for years, but hadn’t been able to spell out. Go to http://neopagan.net/ and you will find his books listed. His email is ibonewits@neopagan.net. I don’t know whether Phaedra is answering his emails, or whether Isaac is in any shape to answer your own, but go to the site, and see which book(s) you might like to buy. I realize that it says on the site to buy the books at your friendly local metaphysical shop, or at amazon.com, or b&n.com, but that is outdated. The more current word is that they need to move the inventory they have on hand, and Isaac needs the cash he can garner from selling the books directly, and donations, all the donations he can get. Remember that as my guru the Swami Beyondananda says “Does are better than stags because with a country full of stags, you have stag-nation, but with a country full of does, you have doe-nation.” But personally, I would prefer a country full of bucks. All the bucks you can send my way will be most appreciated.
If you have a question that calls for a date or time period, Stephen6580 is the go-to guy. He uses the Celtic Wheel of the year time system, and can pin point when something is supposed to happen to within a week, according to the cards that are drawn. Readings go for up to a year and a day. He is a great reader, and has taught me much about the Tarot in particular and divination in general. For a clairvoyant, you can’t do any better than Astro Wing 3323. Stephen has stated that I am a clairvoyant. He’s only half right. According to the KEEN rules and definitions, I’m what is known as a pseudo-clairvoyant. I can get vague images, but not names, either of people or locations. I taught myself remote-viewing. I can sit in the passenger seat of a carm and see where there may be clogs in the traffic ahead. With a finger exercise I do, I can at times clear it up by sending everyone on their way on alternative routes. If it is an accident, I clear out the rubber-neckers. That’s what slows traffic down with an accident, you know. It’s not the accident itself, it’s all the people trying to get a look at it as they drive by. Once the highway patrol get there, they clear the road pretty quickly. There wouldn’t be as many accidents if people would just pay attention to their driving and not follow the person in front of them so closely. Give yourself a good stopping distance between you and the vehicle in front of you. The California Uniform Vehicle Code decrees that you should allow at least one car length for each 10 mph that you are driving.
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