Generally, sleep is one of the most underrated experiences and it is becoming increasingly clear that it is evolutionarily critical. So why would I post on sleep as a magician? First, I want to, and that’s that. Second, it is a great place where magic, the occult and the psychological overlap. You can even be a hard core atheist and this will help you. Read more
I have been studying and practicing my magick for a long, long, time. If I were the late President Lincoln, I could say it was two score and eight years ago that I began this meandering path. After a decade or two of study, I decided to begin to practice what I’d been learning about. One of the first things I did was start to collect stuff. Altar stuff. Reference books. Tarot decks. I needed tools. Read more
Many aspects in our tradition end up getting oversimplified into easy to swallow 'Christianized' binaries. This is most evident in the modern concept of Valhalla. Read more
The Rev. Melissa Hill says goodbye and reflects on her journey to becoming a writer and where she's headed next. Read more
In everything I've read of the old Irish and Scottish folklore it seems pretty clear that there was no idea of separation between daily life and the numinous. People prayed and said charms over everything from lighting and banking the fires each day to preparing food, from milking the cows to bathing their children. The sacred was woven into the mundane so completely that the two were nearly indistinguishable. Read more
One aspect of Pagan leadership is in the function of hosting events. And one of the things I often talk about when I teach workshops on leading rituals is that rituals shouldn't be "written," they should be designed. Sculpted to create a particular experience. Whether you're hosting a small open discussion night at a cafe, or a public ritual, or a large festival or conference, hospitality is a part of that function. Read more
Community practice in a village in ancient times would have had most people following similar customs, but that's not always workable for modern pagans. That doesn't mean one can't have a meaningful Lughnasadh celebration in a group with only one Celt, though, and without giving short shrift to anyone else's stuff. Read more
The Witches of the past learned their magic from the fairies, meeting them in the woodlands and fairy mounds that ordinary people avoided. Given herbs, potions, and the secrets of the Craft. In the woodlands, following a path deep into the heart of the greenwood. Read more
I use Aconitum to kill off dishonesty; the dishonesty of others. Read more
Unlike the doomed protagonists of the Gothic novel and the later weird writers (H.P. Lovecraft and his circle), who attempted to subdue the forces of darkness with their philosophical reason and were crushed by the noumenal terror of a cosmos indifferent or hostile to humanity, the Decadent Catholics made themselves the villains of a gothic tale of their own making, an appropriate role for English Catholics who were the villains of the Protestant imaginary of the earlier generation. Read more
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