Tag: Social Sciences

Today’s I Ching Hexagram for Dec. 27th is 6: Conflict

6: Conflict

Hexagram 6

General Meaning: Conflict arises when a person is convinced that he or she is entitled to something and then meets with opposition. In such cases, the wiser choice is not to push things to the bitter end, because knocking heads only perpetuates bad will. Creative solutions that meet others halfway are more valuable and longer lasting than victories achieved through force.

Conflicts in which one party is not sincere inevitably lead to subterfuge and distortions. In such situations, those of strong character keep a clear head, protect their own integrity and look out for their own interests, even while seeking compromise. Often this means finding a fair-minded mediator who can help settle matters.

In such times of conflict and turmoil, new ventures and new initiatives are to be avoided.

This is a good time to examine the sincerity of your own motives and those around you. Seek advice or arbitration from an impartial and mature advisor. Consider everything carefully before making any major decisions. It may be time to compromise. And try to clarify roles and responsibilities going forward, so as to avoid conflict in the future.

The Language of the Stars

The Language of the Stars

Author: Radko Vacek

Having listened to the language of the stars closely, I do think it is spiritual, and in accord with the properties of – our own minds! To realize that their language, in all its heavenly grandeur, shares our own mental properties helps us feel better about ourselves. To think that we, in spite of all our flaws, are in the image of the heavenly and the Divine gives us the confidence and the hope to resume reaching for the unreachable star!

I do think that astrologers have been right all along! The language of the heavenly bodies does seem to reflect the events of our daily lives, which highlight that spiritual, divine aspect of life so easily overlooked. This makes the language of the stars, astrology, spiritual! I agree with you: astrology communicates mostly nonsense, but that is if we equate astrology with sun sign and newspaper horoscopes. But if we learn the language as it is meant to be understood, it becomes truly spiritual. How great this is, because as a spiritual language, it is very relevant to us as human beings concerned about our welfare.

To speak of spirituality to one another can have a great impact on our well-being, even turn our whole lives around. In the Introduction to his 2007 book, Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy, Dr. Kenneth Pargament began by describing his work doing psychotherapy with a client named Alice. She struggled for decades with manic depression. He described Alice’s turning point towards recovery, when she was describing how, when she was first hospitalized, she felt terrified while lying on her bed. She went on to share how then she felt something warm in the center of her chest, how the feeling spread through the rest of her body. She said that through this feeling, she knew God was with her, telling her He always would be with her.

Why was she depressed? Maybe she hated herself. Do you sometimes hate yourself too? Each of us can feel better about ourselves and be empowered, by experiencing Divinity in our lives and sharing that experience with each other, as people receptive to spirituality being a very important aspect of life. Knowing that the relationships of the very heavenly bodies, in all their awesome grandeur, are reflected in the events of our lives, which seem so short and trivial in comparison, why would we not be open to spirituality? Knowing that, no longer does it seem hard to believe that a power so great, underlying the whole of this vast universe, could be felt by us on our lowly level as this personal Deity. In this sense, spirituality becomes a value to embrace as a very important aspect of our daily lives. So, the language of the stars is spiritual in the sense of giving us this vital message about our spiritual nature.

I do think that the language of the stars also is a human language, in accord with the properties and the powers of our minds. You might not want to embrace this idea, preferring to think of theirs as like a tongue of angels, or whatever celestial beings you believe in. Take consolation in this: things could be worse. The stellar language could be computer like!

What exactly are the properties shared by our languages and, more generally, the properties of our minds? Considering that we are around people much of the time, and cannot help but live with ourselves all the time, you would think these are easy questions. Actually, they have been the topics of much debate for thousands of years! On the one hand were those who thought of human language as being atomistic, in the sense of being reducible to the words from which sentences are composed. On the other hand were those who thought of it as being holistic, in the sense of being functional and implying sentences from the very beginning. That is, if a toddler says, “wawa”, the whole sentence, ‘I want a drink of water’, is implied, according to this school of thought. In fact, rarely does a toddler, according to them, say a word just for the sense of mastery in saying it; rather, they thought that language usually is inherently functional.

Whatever theory a person had about the nature of human language usually went hand in hand with a theory of the nature of the human mind in general. Those who had an atomistic model of language tended to think of the mind as more like a blank slate. They argued that the environment is more influential, with people acquiring language and other complex behaviors in bits, put together through learning in step-by-step approximations. Those who had a holistic model of language tended to think of the person as being born with a mind already prepared to organize bits into some type of whole, and therefore from the very beginning responding to roughly holistic perceptions in roughly holistic ways.

The verdict finally is in and, based on the evidence, the vote of the scientific community favors the holistic model of human language and its acquisition, as well as a holistic model of how the human mind, from birth, tends to perceive the environment and respond. Linguistic ability definitely appears to be stored in the human brain as a set of unconscious patterns of mental grammar, which is inborn. Of course, nothing is the result of nature alone. The environment always affects the unfolding of the natural potentials of any organism. In the case of children, they learn the specifics of their particular language through interactions with other people, but always, that learning occurs in the contexts of a genetically encoded “Universal Grammar” which provides the framework for all human languages. In fact, many other human abilities appear to be made possible through such inborn, mental organization. (See Ray Jackendoff, 1994, Patterns in the Mind.) It does appear, from the evidence that the mechanisms of human language serve as an effective model for understanding the way we are.

This has crucial implications for astrology as a helping profession and a body of knowledge. This is great news for those who worry about science disproving astrology. Astrology is most fundamentally a theory for understanding the way we are. It is not quite a science yet, for the lack of scientifically rigorous research confirming so many of its beliefs, but still, I do think it is a metaphysics, based on the pondering, from personal experiences, of many intelligent people over thousands of years. Definitely, it is more about understanding the way we are, than about what we are in the process of becoming. Like psycholinguists, astrologers recognize how the environment always affects the unfolding of the natural potentials of people, but always, like psycholinguists, astrologers emphasize the eternal influence, in the background, of a framework for empowering learning, with which people are born. Psycholinguists speak of “Universal Grammar”; astrologers speak of the natal chart with equal enthusiasm. Both, addressing natal factors, propose ways of understanding the way we are.

Given that astrologers and psycholinguists have all this in common, it behooves astrologers to teach and to practice their art more in accord with psycholinguistic findings. They teach the art in an atomistic way, in introducing the planets first, like words, then putting them in the contexts of signs and houses, but still in a way isolated from the rest of the planets and the natal configuration as a whole. Finally, the aspects between these planets, like sentences, are introduced. It is believed that this approach makes learning astrology easier, but does it? There is much evidence in the brain sciences, that people naturally perceive and interpret new stimuli in holistic ways, which perhaps also applies to the natal chart.

Astrologers want to get away from a fortunetelling model, in which events are fated by the stars, in favor of a counseling model of helping clients make informed decisions. This is understandable, in that the latter seems to be a more promising way of helping people. In doing so, however, many astrologers perhaps lose sight of the foundations of their art, definitely most fundamentally a means to understand the way we are, and secondarily, although importantly, to understand what we are in the process of becoming. No interpretation of transits or progressions can be made without the contexts set by the natal chart, as a reflection of the way the person is. Surely progressions and transits can reflect the changes a person undergoes, but the nature and the extent of change is always in astrology put in terms of the constraints set by the way the person naturally is, as reflected by the natal chart.

For instance, a person may be born when Mars is in Libra. Mars traditionally is said to represent the vital drive, which can manifest in either a good or a bad way. The good way is through assertiveness, and the bad through aggression. Libra traditionally is said to represent the quest of the person to unite with one’s other half, in marriage or some intense relationship. Some astrologers suggest that, if the person chooses not to gratify this Martian desire, the Martian aspect of the person becomes bad in discharging its drive through aggression. As much as the exercise of your freedom of choice is to be encouraged, I think that this interpretation of Mars is inconsistent with astrology as a nativist theory and unrealistic in its optimism about the extent of human free will. A sounder interpretation of Mars is to interpret it in contexts of the distance it is from other heavenly bodies and aspects it makes to them in the natal chart. Depending on these factors, Mars may tend to be either a predominantly aggressive or an assertive influence throughout the person’s life.

It sounds tragic; it surely can be a very dark cloud. Yet, I think it does have a silver lining, two in fact! One, Mars may reflect a force with which you must grapple for the rest of your life, but there is as well a chance of other, friendly forces accompanying you throughout your life. Two, grappling is not necessarily such a hostile activity! When I was a child, I did judo, of which grappling, much like wrestling, was a part. It was a mock adversity, because really it was friendly; we were strengthening each other through the struggle. Judo is respected by most people, but boxing? I have heard some call it barbaric. This is, however, a matter of the attitude you choose to take, as is the status of Mars in what is considered to reflect a predominantly aggressive force in your life. If you develop into a skilled boxer, then, in spite of the suffering you and others may face, you have allowed that something, which is a part of your nature no less than everything else, to manifest. Without doing so, you would not have been all that can be. In a similar way, regardless of what others say, letting that predominantly aggressive, Martian force have expression could let you be all that you can be. The choice still is yours, whether or not you want to pay the price of the suffering you and others may face.

The message of astrology is that, although we are constrained by our natal charts from becoming whatever we would like, nevertheless we can choose whether or not the way we are is an actualization of all that we can be. We do have some freedom after all! If you choose that path, then you might find your starlink.

Oh no! Is it real? It is the morning after!
What happened to all the causes for the laughter?
The Hell is in the living
With the unbelievable things which I have done!
The humanness is in the grieving
For all that I have lost, the beautiful now gone!
The enchantment is in the believing
In the resurrection, the reincarnation,
The cause that makes life go on.
The hope is in the reaching
For the unreachable star.

 

A Ritual of Necromancy

A Ritual of Necromancy

Outside the circle, set up an altar with three candles (the original rite calls for red, white, and black) situated around a black and red triangle, with a picture or representation of the person to be called within the triangle. Burn wormwood and horehound as incense.

1. Make your openings/quarter calls as you feel appropriate.

2. Call upon a force which presides over the dead. The original rite calls upon Hecate with a poetic incantation, followed by an ad-lib request for the deity’s help in successfully completing the operation.

3. Call upon the spirit of the deceased. The rite gives the following: “Colpriziana, offina alta nestra, fuaro menut, i name …….. the dead which i seek, …….. thou art the dead that i seek. Spirit of ……, deceased, you may now approach this gate and answer truly to my calling. Berald, Beroald, Balbin, Gab, Gabor, Agaba! Arise, i charge and call thee.” {The magic words are from the Grimoirium Verum, and though i don’t wish to go track the reference down right now, they are clearly corruptions of latin and hebrew words.}

4. Make an X sign, calling the person’s name. When there is some manifestation in the smoke, Say to it: “Allay Fortission Fortissio Allynsen Roa!” which is also a combination of hebrew and latin. The intent of the words seems to be the giving of strength (fortis) and breath (ruach).

5. Do your business with the deceased.

6. When you wish it to depart, say “Go, Go departed shades by Omgroma Epic Sayoc, Satony, Degony, Eparigon, Galiganon, Zogogen, Ferstigon. I License thee to depart unto thy proper place and be there peace between us evermore.”

7. Close shop.

Incidentally, the rite from the Grimoirium Verum is not nearly as explicit, has different components, and was most likely used to *raise* the dead rather than to evoke them. The process is kept alive today in the caribbean with the aid of certain frogs and fish, and it is possible that the french grimoire records an ancestor of the practice. In both the very real carribbean and the hypothetical 17th century french cases, the victim of zombification is only “mostly dead” and thus the rites fall under the domain of psychological manipulations and not of magic.

Daily Motivator for November 25th – Run with it

Run with it

Let your life come fully and positively to life. You are here on this glorious day, so make the very most of it.

You have passions and interests, so pursue them. You have dreams and desires, so get busy and fulfill them.

You have unique perspectives and opinions, so express them. A magnificent, fascinating universe surrounds you, so experience it.

There are people about whom you care deeply. So give them your time, your attention, your love and fellowship.

You’ve already experienced yesterday, so don’t live it again today. This is a day to bring new and interesting and meaningful substance into your life.

On this very day you have the priceless opportunity to live. Take that opportunity, right now, and run with it as far and as high as you possibly can.

— Ralph Marston

The Daily Motivator

Your Daily Number for November 25th: 4

You’re capable, realistic, and especially good at planning today. An important opportunity may present itself; however, it’s best to exercise skepticism. Review all facts attached to an offer or proposal. It’s quite possible that someone may be exaggerating or lying. If this is indeed the case, avoid emotional confrontations.

Fast Facts

About the Number 4

Theme: Form, Work, Order, Practicality, Discipline
Astro Association: Aries
Tarot Association: Emperor

‘THINK on THESE THINGS’

‘THINK on THESE THINGS’
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

How weak-willed are we at times when we’ve made a decision and know we must stand on it. It is so much easier to give in to the easy way of doing things.

We are almost a “house divided against itself,” and the strain of staying with a decision seems almost our enemy. But we never gain mush stature by giving in to ourselves against our better judgment. And we never get anywhere by scattering our efforts.

Making a decisions is difficult enough without losing one’s determination in following through. Laying down the responsibility is somewhat like warning children to behave themselves and then permitting them to continue to misbehave.

How long has it been since you’ve proven to yourself that you mean business in carrying out a plan?

A man of wisdom has written that we have firmness of character when we have the ability to say “no” to the wrong as well as to those things which are good but stand in the way of our progress.

Always remember that to want something that is good and right is the blessing. God gave us the ability to desire of we would never have thought of using it. But God also gave us the ability to cry, to feel pain, and the freedom to choose whether we go on or quit.

In our lives we face many decisions. Some are hard to make because we know we must turn our backs upon something that seems harmless at the moment simply because we know it would not be good in the long run.

But there are also decisions that are more challenge than decision. They are the good things that are placed before us, and our will to follow through is tested. When defeat seems sure, then is the time to begin to fight. When others are quitting, then is the time to throw more strength into the battle. Anything worth having is worth working for, and is of lasting value.

Very often these sieges must be made silently and without seeming effort. And yet we know we cannot get something for nothing. We have a service to perform. We can make it a drudge, or we can make it a delightful experience, according to our faith. Be persistent. Unless you do not particularly want your dreams to come true, you can’t afford to know the meaning of apathy. You must continually be on the scene with the muscles of your mind toned.

It isn’t difficult to have a dream. But it often ceases at that point. The willingness to follow through, the determination to look impossibilities in the eye and trudge on must be practiced before that dream can amount to anything.

All along life’s road there are those who would discourage you, very often in ignorance, not realizing the effect of their words upon you. It is then that you must muster the strength to believe that theirs is only an opinion while your plans are based on the principle that all good things come to those who hustle while they wait.

It is too bad that they cannot see your invisible companions, persistence, faith, and a worthwhile plan. Smile and walk on.

There is a Divine being with whom we can place all our obstacles, all our doubts and fears – and then our work begins. We give lovingly of friendship, of any kind of help that we are capable of giving, of positive words and thoughts and understanding.

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Available online! ‘Cherokee Feast of Days’
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler.

Elder’s Meditation of the Day – November 11

Elder’s Meditation of the Day – November 11

“If you don’t know the language, you’ll only see the surface of the culture…the language is the heart of the culture and you cannot separate it.”

–Elaine Ramos, TLINGIT

The Creator gave to every person their own special way to communicate and understand. Indians understand connectedness, balance, harmony, spirituality and the relationship to Mother Earth. The understanding of these things is expressed in the language. The true understanding of culture is expressed in the language. The language is the heart of the people. If we have not learned the language, we need to find a teacher.

Great Spirit, help me to learn the culture. Let me pray and sing to You in my language.

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Your Daily Number for November 3rd: 5

Work-related travel is possible today, and good long term connections are likely to be made. You may dream up some very worthy money saving ideas, but hold off on sharing them with others until later. Today is an excellent day to focus on business.

Fast Facts

About the Number 5

Theme: Resourceful, Adventure, Speculation, Travel
Astro Association: Taurus
Tarot Association: Hierophant

Sweet Dreams Sex Magick (Blood/Harvest Moon)

Sweet Dreams Sex Magick 

 
When you are deeply and passionately in love, it seems you are always thinking about the one you love. Your mind just keeps wandering back to your beloved, back to the way you feel when you look him or her in the eyes, when you embrace, and the shivers you get when you kiss, and the explosive power of your love making. Just before you go to bed with your lover, look him or her in the eyes, and say:
 
With your love, so many dreams become reality
All I desire is to be your special friend
All I dream is to be your passionate lover.
Sweet dreams become reality.
Blessed Be!
 
Make passionate love. As you drift to sleep, repeat to yourself:
 
Sweet dreams become reality.
Blessed be!

“THINK on THESE THINGS”

“THINK on THESE THINGS”
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

We are all aware of the emotional effect color creates. And for this reason we choose colors that please the eye by first pleasing the inner emotions. Certain colors have the same effect on many, while other colors affect each of us individually and in particular ways.

Red has an exciting effect; green is cool serenity, orange is the color of vivacity; and brown tones are restful earthy colors. People dress to enhance their appearances with certain colors. Homes are decorated and offices are planned to create pleasant surroundings.

And we as individuals possess moods of many colors. Yet, we are far more careless about the color of that mood, letting the attitudes and colors of others dictate to us how we are to behave. If we could remember when we meet people whose moods are black, to remind ourselves that their moods are their own, there would be less involvement in the emotions of others.

We are so vividly aware of color, we must not be reckless in recognizing the color scheme within our own personality. Whether it is a vibrant color, sophisticated, or bright and witty, color always works its subtle magic.

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Available online! ‘Cherokee Feast of Days’
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler.

The Akasha Connection

The Akasha Connection

 
 
Spirit is considered the fifth Element and is sometimes referred to as Akasha. Spirit is the binding force of the other elements, the part that runs through all matter, and it is also the collective unconscious of life forms. Sources don’t agre on the original meaning of Akasha. Some say the word is Persian or East Indian and means “inner space.” Others say it’s a Sanskrit word that means “hidden library.” Despite its elusive origins, it is known as Spirit in the magickal realm.

September 9 – Daily Feast

September 9 – Daily Feast

 

There are ways you have not dreamed existed – until you can see beyond your own limited vision to possibilities of real substance. It takes a certain Mindset to stop believing in shortages and start seeing good things happen. Some people believe they will never see their dreams fulfilled – they accept it. And that acceptance solidifies such beliefs into reality. You have developed a consciousness of ga lu lo gi, the Cherokee’s expression of lack. In the words of the prophet, “Is anything too hard for God?”

~ We are all poor men; and I think others have got all the goods. ~

SATANTA – KIOWA

‘A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II’ by Joyce Sequichie Hifler

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Wandering Through Faerie Land: Metaphor and the Semantic Landscape

Wandering Through Faerie Land: Metaphor and the Semantic Landscape

Author: Rhys Chisnall
On Midsummer’s Day, the corn stood half grown and green, knee high in Suffolk fields. The bumblebee buzzed as it flew from flower to flower and overhead high above the corn the skylark sang. The midsummer’s sun beat down from high in the clear blue sky as I walked along besides the footpath than ran between the field and the hedgerow. I hadn’t drunk enough water so as I walked I noticed the sleight effects of dehydration. I continued onwards, creeping thorns grasping at my boots, while the stinging nettles failed to penetrate my jeans. The heat of midday, the smell of the corn, the summer flowers, the humming bee, the singing skylark all swirled in my awareness. And then it seemed to me that time stopped; it stood still.

I was in eternity, in faerie land, out of time. The experience and the realisation of timelessness was both beautiful and horrible. Beautiful as there is no ageing and no sting of death. But it was also horrible for nothing reaches its potential in faerie land. The corn never ripens and babies are never born; trapped in between time beautiful and horrible, both and neither.

Then the air moved again and a breeze stirred the corn which began to ripple and sway. I heard the buzzing of the bee again and the skylark continued to sings up high. I was back in time, back in the field. Did I ever really leave it? Had I really been in faerie land? Is it really a real place?

For some people it is, they believe that fairyland is an actual literal place. They may have had experiences similar to mine or more likely have read about it in books on popular Wicca or even in books on mythology. Many of the ‘Celtic’ myths feature stories of fairies, the Sidhe or the Tuatha de Danaan (what fairies are is another story) . How are we to view such things as intelligent people who are interested in a view of the world, which is life-enhancing but still congruent with what we know about reality? There just seems to be no way that faerie land can be a literal place. Remembering as Doreen Valiente reminds us in her book An ABC of Witchcraft that faerie comes from the Old French meaning enchantment, perhaps it could still be saved as a metaphor.

Metaphors are essential to how we use language; linguists tell us that we could not have complex language without them. Simply put they are when we describe something (called the target by linguists) by analogy (the source) . So, for example, we might say that my child is a fairy. The child is the target and the fairy is the source. This does not mean that we believe that our child is literally a fairy rather we are suggesting that she has some fae like qualities. Interestingly we somehow know which fairy qualities to apply to the child, so unless we are on the autistic spectrum we would not think that the child is an immortal with wings or likes to steal babies and put changelings in their place (remember no babies are born in faerie land) . Rather we would assume that the metaphor meant that she was small and cute looking or perhaps cute and full of mischief. So the description of my experience is a metaphor, an analogy. But what is it a metaphor for?

This metaphor is how I would try to communicate what my experience is like and what it means to me. Quite simply, we use metaphors to hint at things we can’t describe directly or in any other way. To understand this we need to look at three types of metaphor although there are in reality many more. The three we are interested in are conceptual metaphors, paralogical (or absolute) metaphors and extended metaphors. My experience falls under the heading of paralogical and extended metaphors but let’s first discuss conceptual metaphors.

Conceptual metaphors are used to illustrate one concept with reference to another. It sounds complicated but you may be surprised to learn that you use conceptual metaphors all the time. Consider for example when we say, “it was the high point of my life”. This is a classic example of a conceptual metaphor. If you think about it unless you were parachuting or bungee jumping you were not literally high up. It is a metaphor that we use to describe how we feel about a particular time in our lives. Another example is “I turned the music down”, after all music noise does not literally have a direction. What is especially interesting about conceptual metaphors is that they are indicative of our subjective view of reality. They illustrate some of the filters through which we perceive the world.

Consider for a moment what we mean by high point. It rests on an assumption that high is something that is good and desirable, while conversely low, as in “it was a low point in my life” we see as bad and something that we intuitively see as undesirable. The American magician and Linguist Patrick Dunn in his book, ‘Magic, Power, Language, Symbol’ (a book well worth reading) suggests that metaphors in general are so ingrained in our though patterns and assumptions that they often fall under the radar to all but linguists. Yet language and thought are fundamental to how we subjectively experience the world.

The underlying metaphors which make up beliefs are so important and taken so literally that Professor Joseph Campbell has lamented, “People are dying for metaphors all over the place”. Conceptual metaphors are worth a great deal of consideration and I recommend keeping your ears open for them and meditating on how they underpin your assumptions of reality. This is a very worthwhile and illuminating exercise.

Without paralogical metaphors the Craft, the occult or religion in general could not operate. Paralogical metaphors are utterances where there is no obvious link between the source and the target. So when we say, “the weather is pants”, you have to be in on the metaphor to understand what is being said. There is no way to infer the link between weather and pants if you were not already in on the expression and understood what it means. It also makes some underlying assumptions on pants suggesting that they are not very nice things. I wonder what assumptions people who use the term, “the dog’s bollocks”, make.

Paralogical metaphors can be seen as being symbols and the study of symbols is called semiotics. The discipline of semiotics includes not just written things like pentagrams and ankhs as symbols, nor even just spoken language, but body language, haircuts and the deliberate arrangement of trees; in fact anything that carries information. Some postmodernists such as the magician Patrick Dunn argue that as everything we perceive and experience is represented by information (via symbols to consciousness) in the brain, so our whole subjective experience is a symbolic representation. There may be an objective world out there, in fact there probably is, but we can never know it directly. We only know it indirectly through our senses that provide us with symbolic a representation filtered through an attention bottleneck based on biology, biases and the symbolic information of our beliefs formed by experiences. We live in our own little reality bubbles, in our own stories and narratives created from our symbolic representations. This is an idea that is finding considerable favour with many modern occultists, mostly because it seems to be backed up from the finding of perceptual, cognitive and discursive psychology.

The most obvious examples of paralogical metaphors in the Craft are tools, symbols, the elements, and the gods. Let us take tools to illustrate what I mean. In the Craft, as in ceremonial magic, there are several symbolic tools, which represent certain things. These are paralogical metaphors because these symbols are not obvious and difficult to infer the target (the concept/experience we are trying to understand) from the source (the tool and metaphorical expression) . There are several tools and symbols used in the Craft. As the Craft is organised into small autonomous covens which tools are used depends upon the Craft tradition and the coven.

In the coven in which I am a member the tools used are the besom, the athame (sword) , the dish, the chalice, and the censer. We also use other symbols such as the stang, the cords, the skull, the hare and others. Like all good symbols these parabolic metaphors have a loose associations, allowing room for individual investment of meaning. Roughly speaking the stang is a metaphor for the Dark Lord (who is himself a metaphor) , raised during the winter months between Halloween and Beltaine, the besom is the union of male and female, the cords for masculinity or femininity depending on the colour and the skull for death. The elemental tools are the athame for will and phallus (a metaphor for masculinity) , the dish for the body, the censer for thought and the cup for both emotions and the mystery of femininity, life and the Lady (again more metaphors for metaphors) . The tools themselves are not important, it is what they are metaphors for, in other words what they represent which is.

This is all very well but you would be justified in asking why bother with this talk of metaphors? The answer is that these metaphors have a semantic content in the mind of the practitioner. In linguistics, semantics means meaning. So in other words the tools and symbols of the Craft hold meaning for the practitioner. These symbols activate the meanings in the mind of the Witch when they are used. For example, if the Witch uses the athame to cast the circle (another paralogical metaphor) then its meaning infers and invokes the will of the Witch. These metaphors are like keys that flip the mind into the state that the metaphor represents, provided they have been invested with their semantic content.

As such the Witch can deliberately buy into and build up these semantic connections. As paralogical metaphors are not obvious, so then associations need to be built and assumptions about reality implicit in the metaphors need to be examined. The witch builds up a semantic landscape, a landscape of meaning and metaphor. It is in this semantic landscape, itself a metaphor, in which the Craft operates. The world of faerie, the world of enchantment.

Occultists, philosophers and scientists have a long history of using metaphorical places in order to better understand difficult concepts and meanings. For example in the Western Mystery Traditions we have the astral and inner planes. The problem with using metaphor, especially in the Occult, is they are often taken as literal, in other words some people believe that the astral and inner planes are real places. Rather they are analogous to the ideas of ‘prime space’ in mathematics, ‘design space’ in evolutionary biology and ‘possible worlds’ in philosophy, though used to understand different concepts.

Prime space is a metaphorical space which helps mathematicians understand how reality would be effected if the mathematical language of the universe was different in some way. It is a useful tool because by understanding what would happen under different conditions it helps mathematicians to get to grips with why the math of the universe behaves the way it does. Likewise with design space, in enables the evolutionary biologist to understand why organisms are the way they are by exploring the way they could be but are not. The ‘possible worlds’ in philosophy allows philosophers to conduct thought experiments, which highlight our intuitions about concepts, and the way the world is. These are metaphors, conceptual tools and so are astral and inner planes. In a sense like myth, they are extended metaphors. They go beyond just one symbol, into many symbols that are analogous to states of mind, complex concepts and help us to understand complex information.

The astral plane is a metaphor for the emotional mind while the inner planes are a metaphor for the deeper levels of the psyche. They describe states of mind where the characters of deities, elementals and other spirits (more metaphors and memeplexes) can communicate with the occultist, or where the unconscious mind can come through, communicating according to Freud and Jung through the language of symbols. Likewise the semantic landscape is not a real place, but rather entering into a state of mind where one is aware of the symbols as metaphors and what they represent. The more one connects with and builds up these metaphors, the richer ones semantic landscape. For example, if you learn the folklore, the medicinal and magical properties of local plants, a walk in the countryside becomes richer in the sense that you will also be taking a walk through a semantic landscape full of meaning and association. Each plant will be a metaphor for various states of minds, various experiences, various connections, enriching your life and being put at your disposal.

You may be tempted to ask the question so what? And that would be a good question to ask. Why bother building up our semantic landscape and considering what assumptions our metaphors make about reality? The answer is as mentioned before, we are as Stewart and Cohen suggests ‘the storytelling ape’. We perceive and communicate our reality as a narrative. This is why Jung’s ideas about archetypes are so powerful even though we know they are not literally embedded in our brains (if you cut open a brain you won’t find a single archetype anywhere) . Rather they are embedded in how we tell stories, including the stories of ourselves. Stories are metaphors, they are full of meaning, which operates on many different levels, but they are not directly the way the world is. If they were then we would have discovered evolution, germ theory, the heliocentric solar system much, much sooner than we did.

By building up our semantic landscape, by taking control of our stories of reality, we can then change them if we wish. And if we are really good at it, and understand other people’s stories, we can change those as well. By understanding that our experience of the world (and entities) is a collection of narratives we can also avoid the obsession and eventual mental breakdown that has afflicted some literally minded dabblers in the occult. When we build up our semantic landscape, when we weave meaning and metaphor it gives us some power over the narrative, though the narrative will always have some control over us.

My experience of wandering through faerie land is a metaphor for an experience. It is a metaphor for the state of mind where I experienced the wonder and horror of eternity. Faerie land is not a real place, there are no literal fairies out there, but the experience nonetheless like many other experiences that many others and I have had was real and very useful. The experience of faerie is the state of mind that we enter into when we cast the magic circle. Putting aside the results of operant conditioning of casting the circle in that after a period of time and experience it automatically puts us into a certain state of mind, the circle becomes the semantic landscape. It is the world of metaphor, representing not only the totality universe but also the state of mind that is out of time and all of time.

The circle represents the whole of time, a metaphor for all the year, the whole of our lives and so, like faerie land, it is a mind state in eternity. We are metaphorically between the world of the physical and the semantic landscape of our narrative minds, wandering through the story, wandering through fairyland. And it is from here, in those states of mind that we can experience and change the stories and encounter the characters of our narratives including our self. It is when we are wandering through faerie land that we meet that grand narrative which we call the Divine.

Daily Motivator for Aug. 30 – Power of your thoughts

Power of your thoughts

The focus of your attention enlarges and expands whatever you focus upon. That can either hurt you greatly or help you immensely.

Your complaints, for example, give more power and presence to whatever you complain about. Your love, on the other hand, gives more substance to whatever you love.

Put the focus of your attention not on what you wish to avoid. Instead, constantly direct your attention toward where you would like your life to go.

Your unceasing thoughts have great power. So frame those thoughts in a positive way that will put their power to work for you.

The more you think you are, the more you are. What you do flows surely and steadily from what you think, so keep your thoughts focused on your dreams.

Give life to your best intentions by giving the power of your thoughts to them. Make your dreams real by keeping them constantly in your thoughts.

— Ralph Marston

Daily Motivator for August 25 – What you do

What you do

You cannot always control what you get. What you absolutely can control, though, is what you do.

The actions you take will indeed bring results. However, there can often be other factors that influence those results.

Focus your energy on pointing your actions consistently and persistently in the direction of your dreams. Those actions will, one way or another, move you in that direction.

What you can control is what you do, so make the very most of that opportunity. Although other factors may at times work against you, there is great benefit to having your own considerable strength working for you.

Fashion and evaluate your goals in terms of real, specific actions you can take. There is plenty that you can do, so don’t let any adverse outside influences stop you from doing it.

Life can sometimes be arbitrary and unfair, and yet your authentic purpose and intention give you the upper hand. Do your very best no matter what, and your positive, living purpose will surely prevail.

— Ralph Marston

National GEO Photo of the Day for 8/23: Babysitting

Babysitting Langurs, India

Photograph by Stefano Unterthiner, National Geographic

This Month in Photo of the Day: National Geographic Magazine Features

Are these the monkeys’ mothers? Not always. Langurs often share babysitting duties within a close-knit group of females and their offspring. The young are born with thin dark fur that turns thick and grayish gold after a few months.