Seeing and The Eye

Sometime during the course of last weekend I had a go at poking my own eye out in my sleep. I know, it sounds more ridiculous the more I say it, but there is no other explanation for the way I woke up with what turned out to be a nail-shaped dent on my eye, which had already formed scar tissue which blurred my vision. The doctor's removal of the scar tissue was the work of moments but the necessity to stay at home putting endless drops in it and wait for it to get better, was another matter.
I'm not good at waiting for things which can't be rushed. For Goddess' sake, I'm putting the drops in, why can't it get better now?
There is another aspect of having a wound (one which isn't really anyone's fault) - it requires its recipient to sit with the fact that sometimes these things just happen, something always difficult for someone as willful as me.
Some wounds of course are spoils of war. I personally keep souvenirs of several wars which gave me wounds. You may feel that this is the wrong attitude to take, but those people shouldn't have gone a-warring.
Visual wounds, of course, have particular associations. With criminals for a start, since you never see a pirate portrayed without an eye patch. Magically, of course, there is no such thing as being blinded, since we put so much effort into seeing in other ways. Also forced inactivity and sensory changes forces you to see in other ways.
But the main thing this opportunity has given me is the need not to be dramatic about it. It's getting better and if it doesn't completely recover I'll go back.
Plus when I rang work I chanced to get one of my colleagues who is a c#nt - I took great pleasure in going into stomach-churnung detail which plainly revolted her :-D

Self Love

'You're too apt to fall on your own sword and too hasty to speak the truth,' said my union rep the other day. She doesn't get it. One of the advantages of having such a mother as mine is that you learn how to seem completely reasonable, and a major way to do that is to reflect on what's happening and own ones own part in a situation. She didn't notice that what I'd actually said was after reflection I'd concluded that my manager is an idiot and my colleagues are c*nts! And people think I can't do subtle.
You see I do actually chew things over at length and I have reflected on the lessons the universe has had for me over the past six months or so. The lesson is simple: it is that love of self comes before anything else. I'm always banging on about the connectedness of everything in the magical world view and it is necessary to have a worthy view of oneself. I don't want to say that this is a necessary precursor to some required love of other people, because I don't think that is necessary. Rather, loving or appreciating myself frees me not to seek love, appreciation, approval, from other people.
Of course the muggles hate this. I have commented before on how wonderful some people's disapproval can be. On the other hand this love of self acts as a magnet for those ready for that love themselves. It also acts as a magnet for the gifts of the universe. The lady will provide for her children, although we are as strangers in the world. If I love myself, I give myself permission to take the gifts of the universe and invite the universe to give them to me.

How to Lose the Power

Illustration: someecards.com
It's a funny thing. We witches come to the power of magic in ways that are frequently incredibly traumatic. Even if initiations have been ritual ones they are frequently 'confirmed' afterwards by real life events, or the other way round. The only thing that can be said with certainty about these experiences is that they will be painful. It's a magic thing - you have to go the extremes of human experience to come back able to work with all the threads of life in a new way.
Given that, it is astounding that some witches (can you hear the tone of voice in which I say *some* *witches*?) seem determined to give their hard-won power away. Or at least their actions would indicate so. So here is a down & dirty guide to stopping yourself from being a witch.
Lying. That's the big one. Virtually the whole of magic depends on things being so because I say they are so. My work as a witch is therefore dependent on me developing my will over the years to the point where it is like a knife, carving its way through reality. There's a funny thing about lying - people do sometimes consciously set out to tell a lie when it is convenient - that isn't such a problem magically - but people have the strange knack of persuading themselves the lie is true as they say it. This is another non-witch thing of seeing oneself as completely good & incapable of sin - a relic of the dualistic Christian worldview that we are all influenced by. If I am caught out in something & cover it up with a lie, I am actively destroying my own will to make things as I say they are. I am trying to do two completely non-relatable things at once.
Telling lies also compromises the freedom I must give to others to do their own will. It means I am not allowing them the space to enact their own will, withholding the information necessary to determine that one is not in conflict with others' true paths: actually lying cripples the will of both lier & liee. It is abusive. As a magical person my aim is clearly to get things right the first time. A certain discernment & clarity of thought is therefore desirable in anyone seeking magic. This skill of discernment will also allow me to pick up on others' lies as they happen.
A lie is the ultimate disrespect to another person, for it also calls into question that person's magical integrity. For example, I'm a c*nt. I make no bones about this. None. If you have known me for some time & seen me in action magically, you'd better believe it. If you then take the piss, you are not believing in the magic at all. Not yours. Not mine. Not anyone's. It's holding up a big sign asking to lose magical power completely, since you plainly don't believe it exists.
There is the slightest of differences between the act of lying & the actual misuse of power; in fact lying is the main weapon to it. The misuse of power is often the attitude to ourselves & others that underlies an untruthful approach to life. This attitude can be anything from explicit manipulation to just not being bothered.
The antidote to all this is a grounded witchcraft. This begins, as all magical paths do, with the right love of self leading to the pursuit of right relationship between self & everything else. In fact this right relationship is virtually the whole of the magical pursuit, & underlies all forms of magic.
So what do we do when we find a witch who is almost determined to give away his magic power? It is difficult to set down principles, but I think a witch who is set on the path of deceit, self-deception & wrong relationship should be avoided as a general principle. You can see it coming with these people - first they feel out of control or trapped, then they try to exert control. Crowley defined 'black' magic as the resistance to & refusal to change. The magician on the path of self-destruction will do almost anything to maintain their status quo. The sign of a magician who is avoiding this trap is that he will go with the challenges life sends him, & take them as opportunities to progress his magical life. If the person is dear to you, you may wish to speak to them. Incidentally, the way to avoid this trap oneself is a full & frank account to yourself of what is actually happening in your life. 'Know thyself' is one of the watchwords of the magical path & this danger is the reason why. Ultimately, sadly, the magical person in pursuit of self-destruction will have to be avoided, to avoid the danger of being dragged down the same road.
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The Curse of the Witch

Sounds like a horror film, that, doesn't it? I can almost write the screenplay off the top of my head - family move to a country cottage, terrible things happen to them, it becomes apparent from the locals it belonged to an old woman with a cat. The woman was wronged somehow, did something, the cottage has been no good for anyone to live in ever since.
That scenario, while variations of it are common in horror films & folklore, only appears at the top of this post to illustrate what the post is *not* about! In my usual pedantic way there's a grammatical point to be made about the title: 'of the witch' is the genitive case, & means belonging or pertaining to the witch. I will not repeat my numerous previous comments on the meanings & nuances of the word 'witch'. Since the curse of which I speak is 'of the witch' it could actually be a curse on the witch herself, or a curse the witch has put on someone else.
The reality is that the witch - a competent witch - would rarely, if ever feel the need to put an actual curse on someone or something. It is essential that the witch is able to do so, & if the witch is not able to step up to the bar she will frequently find she is confronted with the sort of situation where she feels it is necessary to do so, but in reality a curse initiated by the magical practitioner is way too much like hard work. Just as usually, when as individual feels they are cursed, it is them somehow cursing themselves, usually when someone/thing *needs* to be cursed they will usually merrily do it themselves if you let them, or sometimes slightly push them in the direction in which they are already going.
And the reason why it might be necessary to curse someone cuts right to the heart of what magic is about. I'm also not planning on repeating my opinions on why the 'Law of Three' can't possibly be true, but we humans do somehow bring the things that happen to us, on ourselves. There will always be some level on which the person who can't find another half, only attracts heels, does it over & over again, is doing this themselves. This is the real nature of everyone's curse: we keep on doing the same nonsense. If the witch can recognise this pattern & move it on somehow, that is a very effective curse. For example, a perfect situation would be a case I was reading of recently where a man who works as a stablehand likes sex with animals, & actually has sex with the animals in his care, damaging them & causing them distress on the way. He has been caught doing this *fourteen* times. The last time - the leniency of this sentence staggers me - he was banned from keeping animals for *one year* & fined - get this - 200 dollars. That's two-oh-oh. Ideal subject for a curse this. In fact even as I write those words I can feel the anger of the Goddess building up & the laughter of the universe starting up as he nears a sticky end. It is plain that in this case human justice will not deal with him effectively, & that he will continue. So the thing to do is use that. So what's going to happen is he will choose to penetrate a horse or donkey that is not as placid as it seems, one that will kick out. If he's lucky he might live. It is done: the witch has spoken.
And that brings me nicely to the witch's own curse, which is surely that of simply being a witch at all. In addition to the curse I talk about above, that we all carry round with us, the witch has the curse of being the witch. The responsibility. The duty. The privilege. Often witches go through some *terrible* stuff, more than can conceivably be caused by one person's learning needs in one incarnation. I feel this is because we somehow attract those who need a cosmic slap. The guy above would be the perfect example. And there is no such thing as a day off from being a witch - we're witches all the time, & thus continually are confronted with other people's need for a slap.
Of course it can be difficult to tell which is which. It is not an invariable rule, but I feel witchily dealing with your own stuff will feel relatively more painful, since it usually cuts to the heart of who the witch is. My experience of dealing with other people's stuff is that it usually feels more joyous, with a sense of putting things right. Some of these experiences will also have an initiatory air about them, & thus even more be cases of having to make decisions quickly with *no* way of weighing all the consequences.
So this is why, when people say, 'I wannabeawitch,' I say, 'No, you don't.' The hours are unsocial in the extreme, the pay is uncertain, the prospects of promotion are negligible at best. It also leaves you marked for life: it's almost like you curse yourself at some point. However you have to be prepared to do this, otherwise you are always left at the junction of a crossroads. And this junction is one that you can't return from.
Coming next: 'Grumpy Old Witches'.
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Important things in the life of the witch

The picture is of someone camping in Birmingham city centre, May 2014. I've decided it doesn't violate my policy of not posting pictures of people's bedrooms because I see no reason not to post the *outsides* of hundreds of bedrooms you see behind it.

I've had problems thinking of a title for the multitude of ideas going through my head at the moment, most of which should find themselves into this post, in a more-or-less connected way.

Being a witch involves a certain - I don't quite want to use the words loyalty or faithfulness - perhaps adherence is the word, to the witch thing. Ones witchcraft is one of the more precious things one can have, & not to value it above all else is actually to risk it. In the midst of witch wars we forget this - abuse the gift & the powers can take it from you. I have recently been disturbed by the un-witchlike behaviour of one who calls himself a witch. I have remonstrated with him but he has ignored this.

The difficulty is this: there has to be a sense in which the witch is first & foremost a witch, & if you try to do it any other way you are not being a witch. Or at the least you will hold back your own development: I have had a witch tell me if she had her life over again she wouldn't have married, so as to give herself to magic the more.

Once the witch is on the path of the witching, she will find everything that prevents her on that path being removed from her, frequently quite painfully. In my own case I knew a relationship was holding me back in all sorts of ways, didn't tell anyone, then found it was confirmed in a divination. Of course as to the ontological reason why people are camping in Park Street, I can't begin to tell you at this moment - but they're not reduced to a cardboard box in Paradise Place. Not everything fits into this abandonment-supplying model I'm writing about.

The opposite side of this pole is that when this happens the universe rises up to provide for you. No seriously. Don't look the universe's gift in the eye: the powers are very grateful to their priests & priestesses, & will happily give us what we need when we need it. It's just sometimes we don't recognise it as such. There is a tradition in the modern craft that the witch will be provided with what she needs then a little more. This is certainly my experience, it's just sometimes it can be very unexpected when it happens!

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The Witch As A Mirror

The folklore around mirrors just goes on forever, from breaking them, mirrors as soul-stealers, superstitions around them, mirrors are of such fascination. I feel this is probably so old we would find the reasons embarrassing now: the mirror has the power to 'reflect' us & so has the power, in a pre-scientific mindset, to 'take' part of us. It is a very short step indeed from that, to the idea of people as it were 'living' in mirrors, or mirrors with the power to record life in some way or take or give life. The mirror also appears as a test - very suspicious if somebody doesn't reflect in a mirror! One of the things that makes me think this folklore is old is the way it crosses over frequently into superstition. Now I'm not superstitious, myself, as Granny Weatherwax would have it, I'm a witch, I'm what people are superstitious of! To me the sure sign that superstition is when 'luck' starts being mentioned. Classically it was opposed to religio, & usually incorporates some sense of excess. For moderns I think we usually include some sense of one thing being connected to another, without any rational connection - almost exactly what the doubters accuse the witches of.

Of course we know that witchcraft isn't like that, really: we are interested in the ways that exist in (super)nature to connect things & achieve the 'impossible'. And of course what - to me, this is my blog & I'll damn well bias things in line with my own personal opinion, that's the point - makes us a rather unlikely religion is that we are passionately interested in the right order of things, or at least in *a* right order, no matter how fictionally or mythologically constructed.

Of course the tradition we have of plundering any source that can't run away is responsible for the - sometimes unfortunate importing of these fictional or superstitious references for mirrors into modern witchcraft. For example, I'm not impressed with Cecil Williamson's original annotation to a mirror in the Museum of Witchcraft (he wasn't 'out' as a witch in his lifetime but the rumours have been rife since his death; in fact if you read Doreen Valiente on the subject of these same mirrors she is much more sensible):

'Original text by Cecil Williamson: 'There are witch mirrors, and there are witch mirrors, but of all the mirrors used by witches this one is the top. This type of mirror was turned out in some quantity for one comes across examples up and down the country. To date I know of seven others exactly the same. Of course, a familiar spirit has been conjured and coaxed into making the mirror its home. When you use these mirrors you gaze into them then suddenly you will see in the mirror some one standing behind you. Whatever you do, do not turn around. Remember that, never never turn around. What happens next? Good gracious, you just talk quietly to the figure or face in the mirror, close your eyes if you cannot bear it, but never, ever turn around.' Mentioned in Doreen Valiente's description of the exhibits at Cecil Williamson's 'House of Spells' at Polperro (Transcripts from Doreen Valiente's Diaries 1959-1966, in the museum library (133.43 VAL), pp.29-34). She describes it as 'a very fine piece of wood-carving', and as she was later photographed with just such a mirror it is tempting to think she was inspired by seeing this one to acquire one herself.' (http://www.museumofwitchcraft.com/displayrecord_mow.php?ObjectNumber=342)

Valiente writes sensibly about the use of these mirrors - which she seems to have believed to be 'traditional' - for scrying, in one of her books (I'm writing this away from my notes). This is of course the central point of mirrors used in a magical world-view: they allow you to see things that you otherwise can't, a function served with all sorts of other things. It is unfortunate that superstition should be brought into witchcraft, in fact many of the magical uses described for mirrors are at best ill-advised. There is some bizarre idea going round that one should use mirrors to protect one from 'maleficence' by reflecting it back. This is poppycock & demonstrates a plainly deficient understanding of magic. For a start it divides things into two in a dualistic way: the magician worth his salt knows that everything has the seeds of its exact opposite inside it. It assumes that the magician knows the motives of the other person & his own - it is so important to be wary of possible projection by oneself. If this malficence is coming from a magical person they're certain to have their own protection in place so it may just come bouncing back, & we all know that between two mirrors one of something multiplies, so that kind of mirror work would just make the situation worse.

For the record I think the best way to do that is take hold of whatever nastiness is being sent at you, & either use it for something else or else store it for when some nuclear waste is needed. The only time I reflect things is if I have an object link in a jar spell & I completely surround it in foil to ensure the environment of the jar affects the target & nobody else.

The real relationship of the witch, in my experience, with mirrors, is somewhat different. The witch functions herself as a mirror. People come to us, tell us things, or else set up a situation where they are going to be obliged to see themselves, & usually don't like it when they do. It might be as simple as just discussing a decision with us, but the point here is that I feel one of the reasons the witch figure gets the bad press it does is people project their own 'stuff' onto us. The connection with the mirror is that a mirror is actually a completely neutral thing, but because it reflects people connect it with the parts of themselves they don't like, & this is exactly what happens with the witch figure. This is a daily occurrence for a modern witch. Funny, we're also often strongly introverted, yet people almost come flocking to us, whether they know what we are or not, or even if they don't have words for it. And just like looking in the mirror, there is *no* guarantee people will like what they see.

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The Invisibles/Matrix Egregore Continues

I was in Cex this morning & there was a man in there with his girlfriend, selling his stuff. I suppose they must be students, but what interested me was that they had been watching all three Matrix films.

Thoughts are things & my experiences with cartoon characters are also, with the Matrix thing, the evidence that these magical 'things', when put out there, develop an existence of their own.

I can't remember where, but I have read an interview with the lovely Grant Morrison in which he said that he incorporated a spell into his Invisibles graphic novels, a spell to turn their readers into Invisibles themselves. He said how annoyed he was when The Matrix came out, because to all intents & purposes it was the film of The Invisibles that he had in mind, & someone got there first. However on consideration, he realised that that was exactly what he should have expected when he put this egregore out there: he was actually experiencing the effects of the spell he had cast. No doubt at this moment there are fluffbunnies reading this, up in arms at the idea of performing nonconsensual magic. My personal view is the world is full of the lazy, naïve, those in denial & the just plain vicious, & it is for the magical person to do something about this.

I suppose the 'moral' of all this, if there be one, is that within modern entities of popular culture, the ancient magical question is asked. It is 'Which way will you choose?'. Even within created egregores the magical challenge to go out into the unknown is faced, & the future is changed

I wonder whether that man & his girlf knew what they may be letting loose in their lives, & also wonder which pill they took. I took both, me.

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Hidden City: Dingley's Passage & The City Under The City

This is a post about an apparently insuperable problem in the history of my personal Hedge: it isn't solely an excuse to make rude remarks about getting to the bottom of Dingley's Passage if it kills me, so I'll get that out of the way right at the start. I discovered this place purely by chance on the way somewhere else: surely the best way to find somewhere, although I can see, like the hound I am, I'm going to have to annoy this one 'till I get to the bottom of it.

You see there's a particular difficulty in the exploration, history, & psychogeography of Birmingham, which is caused by the spirit of place itself. A Birmingham 'thing' is the mania for demolishing whole areas of the city every few decades & rebuilding them in the fashion of the time. This is not even something confined to the post-Second World War reconstruction, although that is perhaps the most apparent example. Another example would be the flattening of a whole swathe of city to create Corporation Street in the nineteenth century. A more minor example is the current relaying of lines for trams. I say relaying because actually they're being put down where the trams used to run anyway, before the rails were taken up on the perfectly reasonable rationale that things that run on rails are inflexible to say the least. The Hound's prediction is that in around a decade the present disarrangement of public transport (in bus form)  to several stopping points around the edges of what was the city centre in the days of the inner ring road, will be decried as ridiculous & buses will run down Corporation Street again.

The point of this lengthy digression from Dingley's Passage (it's not over yet, I somehow can't break myself of the habit of only getting to my actual subject in the last paragraph of a post) is to make the point that as a rule only the most recent reincarnation of the city is visible. Not that there is nothing old here: the soil under the Eastside Park has been analysed & shows evidence of deer farming in the Middle Ages. Even at the height of the concrete jungle days you just had to know where to look to find the history of all sorts of times. I suppose this inverts the 'witches look up' motif, to make it 'witches look down' or perhaps even 'witches look beneath'. This is necessary because in the case of Birmingham, there are frequently *no* indicators of what was there before (Dale End is a good example of this, see http://peteashton.com/2007/01/before_the_concrete_collar/ which has links to a further good collection of before pictures). The only other place I know of that changed so much is Sheffield: I can't think of anywhere else with such a new building mania. Coventry doesn't count because it came from necessity rather than a local tradition of frequent demolition & rebuilding.

In the case of the place I'm writing about today, it isn't the place that's hiding, it's actually any history or origin. The first picture shows the actual place - it's just an open space, beside a car park, leading to nowhere, but tarmaced & signposted with a very new-looking sign. It's on the corner of Moor Street & Albert Street: Albert Street shows its Victorian origins to a tee, & I was hoping Dingley's Passage would prove to be one with a history, like Christchurch Passage. But I was to be disappointed. The first thing I did was to search on Google: the passage appears on Google Maps, but nothing. No evidence of any history at all, just people wondering online the significance of Dingley's Passage. Exactly as I am doing here.

So I went home & looked on my 1901 Ordnance Survey map of the city centre (Witches look things up). It's not there. So, heart sinking, I went to the Library of Birmingham (Witches will not beaten by a mere street name). Anyone who's seen the local news recently will know that it's still not up & running ('Shambles...' Thundered the headline in the Birmingham Post), the staff are few & far between, etc. So I did something that normally never fails - picking books on the open shelving that looked hopeful & looking in the index for Dingley's Passage. Nothing. Their larger scale maps (for 1887, a snapshot of that corner is the second picture) also do not show it. It isn't even as if that corner has been too much altered: the inner ring road was right there, but I believe the road plan just there to have remained unaltered.

So then I had to tell the woman (who clearly normally works in a different department) that I needed Kelly's directory. Once she'd shown to the ones for Dundee & I found the Birmingham ones myself, I made the unsurprising discovery that Dingley's Passage does not make an appearance (I picked the 1958 one at random).

I do, however have a tentative theory. What appears on the 1887 map is one of the old courtyard buildings (they've all gone now except the National Trust one). My theory is that Dingley's passage could have started life as the passage marked under Victoria Buildings or the one into court 23. I wouldn't go to the stake for this theory, since Dingley's Passage seems to go at a different angle to either of those. It retains its mystery as to its origins & the reason for its continued existence.

There is a possible connection (quite likely, given the unusual name) between the Passage & a hotel that stood on Moor Street called Dingley's Hotel. Phyllis Nicklin's photograph of it in 1960 is the third picture. Memories abound of this hotel - it was dead swanky, frequented by businessmen & the great & the good. It is said to have been built c.1745. The memories of it may not quite agree with the reality - I notice from the Birmingham Post Year Book & Who's Who of 1960-1 that it had only 16 bedrooms - the second smallest of the twelve hotels in the city centre - & was recommended by neither the AA or the RAC. At the other end of the scale the Grand Hotel had 220 bedrooms & was recommended by both.

I am therefore forced to consider the name Dingley by itself. They are obviously quite some family locally: even today there are no fewer than nineteen professionals with this relatively unusual name on linkedin in Birmingham (I can't reference this, I can't get on the site, but that came at the top of a Google search for <Dingley Birmingham>). There is or was also an award & badge manufacturing firm in Warstone Lane.

On the principle of the most simple explanation being the most likely, I'll have to postulate that one or more of the Dingley family/ies either owned land around there or was even a leaseholder on the buildings. I'm fully expecting now that the history of this place will in the near future leap into my lap - maybe even from a visitor to this site - purely because I've dug down below the surface, so have no doubt I've disturbed whatever is down there.

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Witches know (2)

My goodness, the weirdness has been coming thick & fast this week: this is (obviously) a continuation of the last post. One of the things I've been thinking about is how we witches see things on all sort of levels (by which I mean the planes of occultism) & thus also act on all those levels.

Where we left this was after a friend did a reading indicating that a criminal activity was going on in a certain street of the city, which was being covered up by powerful people, but that this situation was on the turn. Of course I kept this reading to myself, I mean I wouldn't want anyone to think I was weird. Actually the real reason was that I've been thinking this matter was something that was a 'task' being put in my way. Needless to say this was confirmed by a friend, who doesn't know the area. She told me that it was the *street* that needed clearing up, rather than the - to me - immediate problem of the criminal activity, & that was what I needed to do (she said there was a load of yuck that has been building up there for centuries & it just attracts more). She said that the illegality is so close to being sorted, the police would be close on my tail. The perpetrators would all be arrested & convicted except one who would get away.

By this stage it was so obvious that I was being prodded into action I had to do it. In the morning I visualised the street opening up & a wind blowing through it, cleaning it up. I did this for no reason at all - I just awoke with the conviction that the street I'm still not naming was somehow 'blocked'. Certainly when I got there later in the day it felt radically different, & for the first time I could actually walk that street without discomfort.

I started by invoking Hecate, & is she pissed. It was clearly her pushing me into doing something about this: the situation is the kind of thing that makes her angry. I'm a great one for using whatever is to hand for magic, so I continued by calling on all the angry, discontented spirits of the place, everyone who has suffered there over the centuries (it's one of the older areas of the city). This will ensure that that one perp who thinks he's getting off scot-free will end up throwing himself on the mercy of the law. What the witch has for him is much worse, much much worse: he will have no peace anywhere, none, not the slightest moment of rest, peace, relaxation or calm. And this is justified, oh how this is justified. Turds like that are *exactly* what the Goddess Hecate hates most. And the best bit (for me) was making a union with the dead in that place, using their anger, using the slime that has built up there to make sure this cannot continue. This is the heart of witchcraft: transforming cruelty into good, balancing the books, calling it what you will.

Next I walked the street sprinkling sea salt & mentally uttering a cleansing charm. I did this in broad day light (I hate that street at night) by having the salt in a carrier bag with a hole in it. Good indicators are that I felt no disturbance at all when I came back, & that I've been feeling like the itch has gone. I've rearranged something on a very deep level, now to see what happens on our plane. Watch this space: I've got a Birmingham Mail, & just haven't looked at it yet...

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Witches know

Something I keep banging on about is the Hedge, which is the environment in which the witch finds herself, on all levels. The hedge of course refers to boundaries & the ability to see ones environment on lots of different levels at once. It is in the hedge that we find the challenges that need to be faced, & which cumulatively constitute an initiatory experience for the witch.

I have recently come across a challenge in my hedge, which I'm not sure what to do about yet, but I'll use it here as an example of witches knowing & the ways we know. It also partly illustrates what happens when a witch makes her way into the hedge: it gathers itself around her & interacts with her.

There is a street in the city centre which at certain times I find unbearably uncomfortable. For reasons that will become apparent I will not be naming it - I don't want certain people searching the name of the street & coming to this post - nor any details of what I think is presently happening there. Suffice to say that it is a street to the south of Birmingham's present city centre. It has existed for centuries, & was among the streets of teeming slums around there in the eighteenth century that became turned over to industry in the nineteenth century.

I first became aware of something wrong in that area on one of my tramps through the city. The feeling I get to either side of that street is the comfortable, welcoming, busy Birmingham one, but on one particular evening the street made me intensely uncomfortable. I'm not easily weirded out but I had a distinct sense of being watched, in a very hostile way. I literally could not wait to get away from that street. I have been back twice since, once in the day & yesterday in the evening & it seems that the place has somehow closed to me. I got absolutely nothing there on either visit: it felt completely closed, & giving away absolutely nothing to me. I feel this may be significant.

Of course I have done investigations. After the first visit I asked a friend to do a divination. She does not know the street, does not even live in this country, but got the sense of unrelenting violence, dangers, murk murk murk, & murdered children & prostitutes. Her advice was very clearly not to go there at all. She also felt that a certain illegal activity was going on there now. Thus far my differential diagnosis was the centuries of desperate human existence had created a spirit of place which was predisposed & invited illicit, dangerous activities.

My next step was to go to the library & see whether any of this had made the history books. The sort of things I was looking for were murders, brothels, gangs, etc, in that street & surprisingly the written history of that street is completely pedestrian & normal. I was amazed. On the other hand, the kind of thing that I was looking for are the kind of crimes that people are usually keen to keep hidden. In fact, now I put it like that, I feel that I'm being directed more clearly to another aspect of spirit of place: this street keeps its secrets hidden. It's not often I can't get to the bottom of something psychically or through history. So my diagnosis remains that there may or may not be a spot there that attracts this kind of thing, that also attracts cover ups. What remains unexplained in any way is why it is just that street: it seems bizarre that that kind of energy would be confined to the man-made unit of a street, I would normally expect it to be spread further. I would also expect the surrounding streets to have the same energy but they don't at all.

I have been mulling this over for a while now. Then yesterday evening the whole situation leapt into relief for me. I was in a pub with a witch friend (that is the pretext for the picture, illustrating me at the bar), talking about this & he brought out the tarot cards. Even I was amazed at the clarity with which a cesspit of abuse & corruption, all carefully guarded & covered up, appeared in the cards. This thing, kids, is huge, & it's powerful people, the apparently great & good, running the show. The good thing that appeared was that this situation is on the turn & can't continue indefinitely.

Then we went from one pub to another by a route that crossed this road at one point. Once again I sensed absolutely nothing - the spirit of place was completely closed to me, & I normally can't contact individual entities unless I'm on my own. My friend got a sense of a strangled prostitute & was quite distressed by the experience. He also got the same feeling of the roads either side feeling completely different.

Then a lovely thing happened - we went to another pub & both made contact at once with an ex-landlady from the 1960s - her bleached blond hair in a beehive gave her away, also the chain smoking which gave her the lung cancer that killed her. She thought we were a couple - everyone thinks that, as it happens we're not each other's type, but she really liked us. She'd seen some wheeling & dealing in her time, but nothing like as dodgy as the road I've been writing about. It was a pub that has not long re-opened after being derelict for many years - the present landlord could do with cranking up the friendliness a bit, but who needs that when you can chat with the landlady from 50 years ago?

As for the street I've been writing about, I'm trying to discern whether this is something that has turned up for me in my hedge. My personal hedge is changing, as I noted in my last post, so it is to be expected that the next thing for me to do is going to be different. By now I'm assured enough that I also know the resources will be available for the task when the time is right to do it. This is the responsibility of the witch's knowing - because we know things in a way that others don't, we end up knowing about things that we have to do something about. Plus I feel this one may be so big it will be in the papers when it is undone...watch this space!

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Spirit of Place: Shrewsbury & Grope Lane

'Witches are people who look up,' says (I think) Granny Weatherwax somewhere, which is interpreted in its context to mean witches look up from the daily round to think about its deeper meaning. After the success of looking up in Worcester yesterday, I was hoping that doing the same in Shrewsbury would pay off, but unfortunately the street names in Shrewsbury are much less quaint.

They don't even have another little plaque underneath to say what they used to be called, as they do in Worcester, which is a pity, because the case of Grope Lane would certainly be interesting:

'A street called Grope Countelane existed in Shrewsbury as recently as 1561, connecting the town's two principal marketplaces. At some date unrecorded the street was renamed Grope Lane, a name it has retained. In Thomas Phillips' History and Antiquities of Shrewsbury (1799) the author is explicit in his understanding of the origin of the name as a place of "scandalous lewdness and venery", but Archdeacon Hugh Owen's Some account of the ancient and present state of Shrewsbury (1808) describes it as "called Grope, or the Dark Lane". As a result of these differing accounts, some local tour guides attribute the name to "feeling one's way along a dark and narrow thoroughfare".' (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane)

The latter attempt at derivation is of course delicate nonsense: Grope Lane is in the regular place (in the town centre, near the market) for a place of prostitution advertised in mediaeval fashion by the name of the street. In fact there were loads of them:

'Gropecunt Lane /ˈɡroʊpkʌnt ˈleɪn/ was a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages, believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas; it was normal practice for a medieval street name to reflect the street's function or the economic activity taking place within it. Gropecunt, the earliest known use of which is in about 1230, appears to have been derived as a compound of the words grope and cunt. Streets with that name were often in the busiest parts of medieval towns and cities, and at least one appears to have been an important thoroughfare.' (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane)

The 'groping in the dark' tale is trotted out on the Shrewbury Tourist Information website (http://www.shrewsburyguide.info/shrewsbury_tour/tour_02.shtml) with a denial that there is any ruder meaning, but there was another man photgraphing the sign when I was, who found it hilarious. I didn't think this would turn into a 'spirit of place' post of any depth, but perhaps it has, if these two competing explanations for 'grope' represent different facets of the town's spirit. On the other hand, the Love Shrewsbury website is very proud that this is the last surviving remnant of 'Grope' in the country (http://www.loveshrewsbury.com/article/history-lesson-shrewsburys-town-crier). As it happens it seems the prostitution derivation is supported by the facts, as reported by at least one academic historian (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5864981/Street-names-date-back-to-brothels-and-red-light-districts.html) so this may well also be one of those posts about the phenomenon of people who simply will not see what's in front of their own faces!

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Witches & Christians, with reference to Bishop Pat Buckley

The picture is actually of Pope St Pius X celebrating Low Mass. I have commented before that he was plainly a man who knew how to dress for church, but he was plainly also a man who knew the value of subtle.

I have a confession to make. It's something that is perhaps unusual among witches, it may even be surprising to anyone who knows me & my history, but I don't actually have a problem with Christianity, myself. I have a problem with certain Christians, their beliefs & actions, obviously, but my opinion is the Christianity is not *that* incompatible with a magical worldview or even a witchcraft milieu.

They don't like to talk about it, but the real reason Christians tend to in-fighting is that there have been two distinct strands to Christianity from the beginning. One I will call the charismatic one, which is (to over-simplify for the purpose of the argument) more spontaneous, inspired, seeks its authority within, & so on. The other is the authoritative strand, which is broadly more conservative, ordered, & seeks its authority outside itself, whether in scripture or church tradition.

What does this have to do with witchcraft? On the surface, nothing. However, when you translate the charismatics as hedgewitches, & the authoritarians as lineaged (or BTW, as they're called in the States), the similarity becomes apparent. The similarity to a magical world-view also becomes apparent when you consider that the two world views can rarely be clearly separated out, as I have above, one form often calls itself the other, & extremes at either end tend to flip over into the opposite, this situation will become familiar to any magical person reading this. In the interests of balance & upsetting everyone equally, the thing that Gardnerian witches don't talk about is that Gardner was also a Christian priest, or even bishop in a rather unusual independent Christian church!

Just in case there are Christians reading this who have not been exposed to a magical world view (welcome, whoever you are), we call this polarity. The entire aim of all magical systems everywhere & at all times has been the reconciliation of all opposites to the pursuit of balance. The nub here (where Christians will part company) is that actually the whole Judaeo-Christian tradition can be understood in magical terms. The best book on this is Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician; Islam has its own magical world that I don't know enough about to write on.

One of the tags on this blog that I find myself using the most often is 'the witch figure'; the fact that I find myself repeatedly chewing this over indicates the ambivalence & multi-faceted nature of the witch figure that we model ourselves on. Some of the characteristics of this figure carry heavy Christian theological ramifications, such as prophet, scapegoat, gathering, time (kairos). The only element which is almost completely missing from witchcraft is sin & redemption. The God of the Christians is plainly Y*hw*h, G*d of Israel, & Jesus is their messiah. We, if we don't have duotheistic views, have often several divinities or a henotheistic God and/or Goddess. I would recognise multiple Jesus figures (downplaying his divinity for Christians) as semi human/divine figures, including each witch herself. I've ignored the Holy Spirit so far, but I would equate the Spirit to any of the entities involved in witchcraft cosmology or even the reality that some witches recognise behind God & Goddess.

This is a roundabout way of saying that since we magical people understand thing happening on several planes of existence (the way things manifest for us represents patterns & systems of reality that we can't physically see on this plane) the way witches would understand this also to Christians, & the way things play out here are part of a cosmic drama representing the realities behind what we see.

Which brings me nicely to the subject of Bishop Pat Buckley (http://www.bishoppatbuckley.co.uk/), who is the bishop of what's called an Independent Catholic Church. He was ordained a Catholic priest in his twenties: up to there his career superficially embodies the authoritative side of Christianity. However when in the 1980s his bishop tried to suppress his views about the ordination of women & homosexuality, he felt he had no option to embark on an independent ministry, & ultimately sought consecration as a Bishop in the line of Archbishop Thuc, a bishop who performed many consecrations without the blessing of Rome. His status therefore, as far as Rome is concerned, is 'valid but irregular': no doubt they wouldn't want to regularise him given his history, but he is a bishop. Why I'm going into all this is that his career here tries to reconcile the two sides - charismatic & authoritative - of Christianity, a reconciliation of opposites that is exactly the aim of most magical practitioners.

I find it interesting also how his prophetic role may manifest energies that are unseen. His blog (http://wisecatholic.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1), to which I subscribe, makes for interesting reading, not least for the prophetic criticism he makes of the church life which surrounds him, even attracting anonymous  comments from local priests. This may seem like a disaffected former priest attracting other malcontents but I don't think that's quite what's happening, in fact on a higher level it more manifests a) an ongoing argument in the religious world more generally, & b) when a culture of disaffection is fostered by heavy-handed authoritarianism, it actually creates its opposite (in a polarity philosophy), in this case clusters of people actively resisting the authority. In this case I have no doubt that the local 'proper' Catholic bishop considers him a thorn in his side, but if one were merely to call him a malcontent, in an attempt to make his existence insignificant, it is to ignore a whole layer of meaning, that we humans ignore at our peril.

And he certainly does seem to be filling the roles that are often reflected in the witch figure. Prophet, by his ongoing criticism of the Catholic church as it is. Sanctuary for those nobody else will care for, by his gay marriages & ordination of women. Confidant, in listening to those who also have an unwelcome story to tell. Scapegoat, by his existence as an object of blame for the local Catholic community & others. I feel he was also scapegoated when a local judge decided to divulge his HIV+ status in court (do privacy laws not count in Northern Ireland?). Incidentally he was in court for allegedly conducting sham marriages to enable foreigners to stay in the country. In fact he almost exactly embodies all the aspects of the witch figure despite being a Christian...

Or perhaps because of it. My point here is that if Christians follow where genuine discipleship leads them they will step on toes & upset apple carts. That's the point.

The other point is that from a witch point of view the things they do will have a broader, more cosmic vibrational aspect. In fact, they may have more in common with us than either of us likes to think, just another of those surprises that the universe likes to give us!

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Tarot: The Hermit. Also Telford, Solitude & the Apparent Soullessness of the Modern Town

There is a received wisdom that the modern city is impersonal & somehow soulless. Of course there is a truth to this: the adage that 'we spend money we haven't got, to buy things we don't want, to impress people we don't like' holds true, whether at Birmingham's Bull Ring on a Saturday afternoon or any other Maul. The spelling is deliberate.

I am writing this at Telford Central station, waiting for a train to take me on to Shrewsbury. I had never been to Telford, & don't really intend to go again: the town centre is one large shopping centre with all chain stores. You can't get anywhere without using bridges to cross motorways. It's a planning disaster.

But the day hasn't entirely been wasted so far. Being me, of course, I left the pedestrianised way & had a nice little walk in a less-tamed green bit, & contacted the underlying spirit of place. Unbeknown to me I suddenly started feeling outlandishly frisking & desiring a farm boy to leap into the bushes with. Of course! This is Shropshire Lad Country! I love this parody by Humbert Wolfe, who must surely have been shopping in Telford, of Housman's verse:

When lads have done with labour

In Shropshire, one will cry

"Let's go and kill a neighbour,"

And t'other answers "Aye!"

So this one kills his cousins,

And that one kills his dad;

And, as they hang by dozens

At Ludlow, lad by lad,

Each of them one-and-twenty,

All of them murderers,

The hangman mutters: "Plenty

Even for Housman's verse."

The point here for the purpose of this post, is that some people both have a well-developed sense of self & also can sit with their own presence. The people who do not have these things are the ones who go wrong in the 'soulless' - in reality distractionless - environment of the modern world.

This is what the Hermit card depicts: when you are without distractions from yourself, the lack of escape can literally make you go mad.

So people seek distractions, & *how*! Shopping, drink, drugs, anything other than sit with their own company, which for many people is the most frightening thing in the world. This also explains why religious people are frequently the *most* dysfunctional people you could ever wish to meet: religion can make another attempt to fill up people's perceived emptiness or deal with the thoughts we think we shouldn't be having, sexual ones for example.

In the solitude our own 'demons' come up, & from these there really is no escape. Meditative practices can assist us to become more comfortable with them without being beaten over the head by them. I know mine: anger at the people who've done me over, grief at my inability to build a liveable relationship with my mother, my distrust of people & expectation of unconditional obedience.

This is what the Hermit card feels like: the totality of our existence, but particularly the shitty bits. I've always had a sneaking suspicion myself that the character (at least in RWS) is actually part of a procession, a wildly dysfunctional procession where people aren't talking to each other.

A most unusual interpretation is that of a friend of mine who refers to the hermit as the 'wanker' card. This is of course a realistic interpretation: he's in solitude with his own sexual predilections & is dealing with them as best he can. This is a kind of 'reversed' interpretation, the 'negative' side of the more positive spin I've put on sitting with your own company. Just be grateful I haven't illustrated the post with that image!

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I can't avoid psychic vampirism any more

Quite the nicest sort of vampire

I have been trying to avoid this post but mother's early training means I'm ridiculously early for everything so have some time to kill before starting a late shift.

Yesterday I went to the doctor's for a prescription for eye drops. There was an elderly lady there with her son (who must have been pushing seventy) waiting for an ambulance to take her to hospital, whence she had obviously been discharged too soon the day before, after treatment for a stroke.

What this has to do with psychic vampirism is this: the son, who wasn't excessively debilitated himself, had driven his mother to the surgery, put her in a wheelchair, & taken her in. This was a total distance of about 25 yards, but I heard him on the phone to his daughter saying how that had exhausted him.

The exhaustion is the point: it is no coincidence that I mentioned my mother at the beginning of this post, since some people live off other people. I'm not overly concerned by the distinction you read about between those who do it consciously & unconsciously, since the end product is the same.

And here's the real problem with these people: because their life source is other people any attempts to solve the problem as perceived by those around them - that is, them draining the life out of you - is doomed because this isn't a problem for the vampire. A short sharp cut from all relations with them - if this is possible - can be the only way.

Those who do it unconsciously may be prepared to change some of their behaviours & may even be cured of it if we make an alternative source of energy available to them. If after a divination the conclusion is reached that the person does it consciously there are several routes available.

The only way in which a psychic vampire will ultimately stop being parasitical of those around them is through a full & frank realisation/admission of what they do & a resolution to change. Confronting them with it in a non-confrontational way may therefore help. It is no coincidence that the maxim of 'know yourself'' is a major element of magical traditions, since knowing oneself is the key to discerning your own 'stuff' from things happening around you. The magician who doesn't know him or herself is a danger, and amongst other things is in danger both of vampirizing others and being sucked dry by them.

The people whose energy they sap must ensure their defences are up: unfortunately this will then make them vampirise someone else. Those who adhere to the Wiccan rede will be able to see at this point that the use of nonconsensual magic on a psychic vampire is essential to prevent harm to anyone.

What the vampire wants is energy so a longer-term solution is to attach them to an energy source - a volcano, a river, a nuclear power plant, whatever.

If the vampire is your nearest & dearest - an elderly or ill relative is common - sharing the person out with others reduces the drain. Be wary of having children near a vampire - they often have no defences at all. If the vampire is obsessed with a single energy source - a person or group of people - to the extent that they won't leave alone, the only option is an amputation. In my own case a motherectomy stopped it. They won't accept it, but the vampire's own actions lead to this point.

Finally as magical people we have to be aware of our own energy levels & sources, so that we don't become psychic vampires ourselves. Virtually all magical practices connect the practitioner to greater sources of life & energy in addition to the self-awareness mentioned above.

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Some reflections on candle magic

My reference for the 'textbook' way to do candle magic for this post is Cat Yronwode's page on hoodoo candle magic divination at http://www.luckymojo.com/candlemagicdivination.html, which links to other pages on the excellent Lucky Mojo site about candle magic.

I have recently been rethinking the way I do candle magic. The main thing I have changed is that shibboleth you read in all the books that you must never never under any circumstances blow out the candle. The reason given for this in Wiccan sources, & others that use the elemental approach, is that the candle represents the perfect balance of the elements, & that blowing it out disrupts this. The hoodoo sources don't seem to give a reason for this, but it is still maintained as something you must not do.

I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that no way of putting out a candle does not disrupt the elemental balance (even using a snuffer, which obviously works by making the candle use up a restricted supply of oxygen, thus removing one element of the fire triangle). I have also become dissatisfied with pinching them out as I always find some of the wax dried on my fingers afterwards.

This may sound like an uncharacteristically nit-picking approach to magic for me (at least I hope it does, I'd hate it if I routinely came across as nit picking), so I have taken the bold step of deciding that I will blow out candles mid-spell & not be held to rules laid down by others that don't work for me.

What does continue to do it for me, though, is what happens to the wax, both how it burns, of this more anon,  & also how I dispose of the remains of the candle. The traditional way of disposing of the remains would be to bury it under your doorstep if the spell is to bring something to you, or to put it in flowing water, or a graveyard, if the spell is to get rid of something. If I want something more exciting than a mere vanishing trick to befall the person I like those bins for dog mess. So does the Goddess.

Because this is something that really does it for me - plus I like not having the remnants of spells hanging round - it is gratifying to find that when I'm doing a spell for someone else I can do what they want with the remains of their candle without qualms. I'm obviously not in the habit of doing spells for other people (while *to* other people doesn't bother me at all, if they deserve it), I'd rather teach people how to do it themselves, but in the circumstances where someone can't do it, debilitated by illness for example, I will.

I have recently done three candle spells. I use just candles for them, I don't fret over what colour they are. I do it when the time feels right. The candles I've used for these spells were quite cheap so have burned badly & allowed scope for divination by the way the wax has dripped.

Cat yronwode says that candle workers in spiritual churches are looking for three witnesses to how the spell is working - how it's burning, the appearance of the flame, & what's left at the end.

I'm tending to focus on the first & last of those. The first spell (the first picture) was a healing spell for a person with fibromyalgia.  The candle burned very quickly, with the wax running off in a single stream, until the flame got into the flower-shaped wax thing caused by it running onto the candlestick. There it burned very slowly, it took several evenings to get to the point where it couldn't be lit again.

Now my interpretation of this & that of the person concerned is completely at odds with what I read on the Lucky Mojo website. Because there was a large amount of wax left, the problem should be unresolved - no doubt true with such a chronic condition - & the running wax would indicate tears.

The person the spell was for felt nothing until the long slow burn at the bottom, when she felt all the pain leaving her (which we would equate to the wax running off) & returned her to feeling as normal as she has for ages. Don't you love magic - miracles to order, & frankly who cares if it's psychosomatic, she *feels* better, that's the point!

The second spell (the second picture) was a spell to fix a boss, so the candle - all three candles came from the same cheap box from the shop round the corner - was anointed with Boss Fix oil. This time the wax ran off in multiple rivulets, which knowing the situation the spell was for I feel means the layers & layers of stuff that this boss has caused will be coming out all at once & biting her on the bum.

The third candle (third picture) was for another boss, & anointed with Boss Fix. I seem to be getting a reputation for sorting out bosses. This time the candle burned less quickly, but the wax - and less of it ran off - ran into the sweet little curlicues you see in the picture. Once again I would interpret this as multiple schemes & deviousnesses coming out into the open.

I have no doubt I'll be returning to this subject, I wanted to post on the subject of how the Hound approaches candle magic - that is, not completely as you're supposed to, but you expected that, didn't you?

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Naught for your comfort

This post is occasioned by thoughts which occurred to me when eating lunch in the peace garden on Sunday. The pictures are respectively one titled 'Homeless person's bedroom?' And another of the church there as it was before it was bombed, both found online. Because the peace gardens are frequented by an incredible mixture of people, some who clearly live in the luxury flats nearby, and a greater number in far less sumptuous circumstances. Some are clearly homeless or drug users, others have the pallor you only get on submarines or in prison.

I feel the spirit of place draws the disadvantaged. A friend commented that that area of the city feels all over the place, & it truly is. That spirit is a magnet, conscious or not, for those on the (h)edge. And while that spirit is welcoming it is never really comforting. It is the natural place psychically for the desire for peace. Real peace is not achieved without discomfort. A full & frank exchange of views can be very uncomfortable but can create peace between people. Similarly real peace is not achieved by overlooking or forgetting the things that contribute to conflict.

It is good the disadvantaged are drawn to the peace garden because a true peace is not one creating by pretending ubfortunate facts of life don't exist.

The title of this post is stolen from Trevor Huddlestone's book about apartheid-era South Africa. The Afrikaaners were very comfortable with their God-given life & country, happily ignoring the fact the majority of the country's population were is poverty. I've read through the book hoping for quotes but his cause is quite different from a witch one.

The prevention of oppression of a majority by a  minority is a clear case. We as witches create peace often by causing - or not allowing people to forget, rather - the discomfort of the things people are ashamed of.

Huddlestone's book paints a bleak picture of human nature. The theory of health & safety - that a lot of near misses will snowball into an eventual fatality - is quite true. If magically we pull people up on what discomfits them, it will often turn out that what we have uncovered is the tip of the iceberg. This is also the keen psychology underlying zero tolerance law enforcement.

If we take a zero tolerance approach as witches, tackling seemingly little things will cause greater conflict because it will bring bigger stuff out of hiding. Not letting things pass also involves no comfort for the witch, since we must have the same approach to our own behaviour.

Huddlestone's book brought out a feeling of discomfort in me - that I ought to be out doing something - so doing precisely what it said on the cover. However I feel that is not the witch's way. It is difficult or impossible to tie witchcraft to a public cause, since what we are called upon to do is too hidden and shadowy. I do do things to change the world, it's just not always apparent. I also make efforts to make myself right-sized in the world. But to continue this, I have to remember that it is important continually to work on my own attitudes, since this is exactly my point, that outer actions indicate inner attitudes, & long-term revolution is wrought by changing them.

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The Meaning of Witchcraft

I am shamelessly hijacking the title of Old Gerald's second non-fiction book on the subject for the title of this post, because it best suits what I have to say. The modern witchcraft moevement is an extraordinary phenomenon, & I think there is great significance in its arising when it did. This post at least partly consists of the thoughts I'm continuing to have about my previous post concerning the United Nations & the Catholic church.

The *only* evidence for a religious movement drawing on the witch figure before the twentieth century is Leland's Aradia. This sentence is almost a direct quote from Hutton, I'm writing this out & about but if you want me to, email me & I will find the actual reference in my notes. My opinion is that without the sort of movements which preceded it, as also laid out by Hutton, & particularly the occult explosion at the end of the nineteenth century, it could not have happened.

And what makes it extraordinary is that our way of life should be a load of quackery & romantic nonsense. It is inconceivable that people on opposite sides of the world can have the same experience without meeting, but it happens. It is inconceivable that we can influence events magically, but it happens.

I feel there is a sea change going on, that has been happening for some decades & we are part of it. In many ways the old order is being confronted by modern powers (ie RC church/UN for example). The old order is struggling for survival.

We, on the other hand are a movement which as a movement is a completely new (ie twentieth century) thing, yet is built almost completely of older ingredients. Our tendency to idealise a fictional past is part of this: we are taking stuff from the past & magically changing it into a new thing. It is not for nothing that Dion Fortune's adage of 'all gods are one god, all goddesses are one goddess, & there is one initiator' is so popular among us. We witness to human ability to make all things one.

This is of course open to criticism as cultural imperialism, but this is really what I'm trying to say. I have a sneaking suspicion that the cultures of the past are actually melding together, so that what may seem imperialism may actually be people coming together as one.

The insight that you are me & I am you is both magical & a genuinely ancient insight of 'spiritual' people.

Even the old divisions of mind/body/spirit are coming down. The internet is partly responsible for the spell cast over the world.

Crowley defined black magicians as those who would resist the natural process of change, which is life itself, & I think to resist this process may be the most futile exercise there is. It is merely to invite death, & transformation into another entity who will be able to change.

When people say that witches go with natural cycles this is exactly what they mean. I personally am not willing this, I am describing the tides of time that I can sense going on in me & around me. The challenge for us as humans is to go with this. The challenge for us as witches is to enable this to happen. The point of witches is to witness to, & move this process on.

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Review of Edward Gorey's Fantod Pack

This has been on my wish list for ages, so earlier this week when reading about it online had me jibbering in my angst yo own it, & I found one online at a price I was prepared to pay, I had to have it.

Several things drew me to it: I love Gorey's art. I love that it was originally published as a cut out in Esquire magazine for people to paste on to their own cards. People tend to review it as if it's a joke, but of course my camp thing makes me want to turn the jokey serious & vice versa, so that appealed to me, & finally *not one* of the meanings of the cards is positive, or even vaguely pleasant. Of course this is bang up my street, I love foretelling bad things happening to people, to the extent that I realised the other day I've only ever interpreted the 6 of cups with a reversed meaning. Everybody but me sees it as happy family, reminiscence & wishes coming true, I see it as inherited disease, abuse of all kinds, dysfunctional families, & the sweets offered a child by an abductor.

Unsurprisingly, then it was gratifying to read the tale of Madame Groeda Weyrde, author of The Future Speaks Through Entrails, in the Little White Book. I feel as if I know her actually, but think I've probably met her under another name. Unsurprising that, since she ended up as persona non grata with the rich & the famous, on account of her unflinching prediction of death & disaster. As part of her lifetime's work of divination she only reluctantly consented to the publication of the Fantod Pack.

The pack itself comes in a pleasant box with a lid that lifts off. I much prefer that sort of box myself to the sort of flip-top box tarot decks normally come in. There are 20 cards, a pleasant size to hold in the hand, if a little tall for their width. They feel very laminated, to the point of sticking together, which could make the recommended method of reading with them difficult. That said, they don't smell as plasticy as, say, my Aquarian tarot cards do, even after some years of use. The LWB has the history of the deck, a method of reading with them & meanings for all of the cards.

Perhaps these things are best demonstrated with an actual reading. The online vendor I bought them from advertised them as new. When they arrived, I found they are not new: they are not shrink wrapped & the box they arrived in is scuffed & dented. I don't have a problem with this - I would only not use second-hand tools if I felt there was something wrong with them - but they should have advertised them as the condition they are in. I'm not shooting myself in the foot - I'm not going to find this deck that cheap again - but let's see what the vendor's misfortune is using the method in the LWB.

First you shuffle the cards, then hold them in your left hand & throw them in the air. You pick up five cards, still with your eyes closed, & place them in a cross shape in order you have picked them up. Here's what the vendor's got, using the meanings in the LWB:

1. The Yellow Bird. For this one I'll give all of the meanings as a taste of how the book reads: 'Saturday; true love thrown away; pique; foot trouble; mania; barratry; an accident on a ladder; indiscretion; bone disease; thwarted ambitions; poison; an unforeseen catatrophe; complications.' This position represents the basic situation. Since it is Saturday, I feel the state of their business is already bad. They're advertising things wrongly because they're not bothered, their business hasn't worked out the way they wanted it to, there may have been an unforeseen problem, or they may have planned badly.

2. Something from the past that continues to affect your future: The ladder. Slander, reversals & jealousy are amongst the meanings. I really feel the owner of the business has gone about it in the wrong way, they clearly want to succeed without doing the leg work necessary to run a business.

3. His or her inner self: The Ecorche. Aha, this confirms my feeling that this person doesn't have the necessary mind set to run the business: 'a forged check; obscurity; irregularities; puckers; inconstancy; deception' are the relevant meanings in the book. Don't worry, I'm not picking out the negative & ignoring the positive - the other meanings are no more positive, but 'an accident on a pier' is unlikely to be this person's inner self!

4. The outer world: The Tunnel. I'm not sure whether this refers to how the outer world objectively is for the person or how they see it, but it's highly likely they see 'a swindle' & 'angst' in their outer world. Meanwhile of course it's even more likely they have 'an unpleasant discovery' & 'bad luck' awaiting them if they carry on as they are!

5. Something about to come into being in the near future: The Bundle. If I wanted to tell a really old school misfortune, I'd conclude that they were going to have a broken engagement & a train accident on Wednesday. However let's subtle it down a bit. The existing malaise in their business will come to a head very soon, likely this week, they may even be meeting their accountant on Wednesday! Or else conceivably this person has some business deal coming up this week that will fall through, at root it will once again be because they're not putting the work in, but I feel this is someone who will blame everyone else. In fact there's almost no point telling some people's misfortune, because they won't listen, will they?

As an aside, just because I'm nosey, I'm interested to see that Gorey gave out his sexual orientation as asexual. I'm intrigued by this because I would normally assume a person saying that is denying or covering up their sexuality. I would have thought an artistic man living in a house full of books with a collection of cats & other fur coats was gay - at least that's how I would have guessed his orientation until I found this out. He even had a respectable collection of old school tarot decks, many of which I would kill for - Gorey's collection at his house is the second picture.

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