Showing posts with label Magick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magick. Show all posts

Sunday, May 24, 2020

ESSENTIAL OILS - What is the Role of Magic and Spirituality?

Essential Oils - Picture: Pxfuel.com
From the beginning, man has been preoccupied with the question of divinity-who is responsible for us being here and how do we relate to the Creator. All primitive peoples have developed some kind of world-view which they expressed through myths, legend, or stories. 

All life was viewed as dependent on a force that transcended the visible world. This force was honored through specific rites and rituals. How were illness and environmental disturbances or disasters interpreted in this world view?-as discord or disharmony between the human, environmental, and spiritual realms? The disease was viewed as disunity and so early on the art of healing was bound up with an ability to appease the spirit world, please the gods and counter curses.

The Role of Incense and Aromatics

In these world views, fragrant odors were thought to be favored by the gods and were a way of appeasing their anger and wrath and ensuring divine favor and attracting special attention to prayers. Since scent delighted the human senses, it was assumed that the deities found it very pleasing in fact it was considered the "food of the gods." 

These odors were thought to work like a drug on the minds of the gods as well as on the minds of men and thus the gods would look kindly on the misdeeds of man. In Syria and Mesopotamia, incense smoke was used as a form of divination to calm the wrath of the gods so they would be inclined to give positive oracles. It was also used as a means of purification-cleansing the human soul before the face of the god.

Many herbs and aromatics were also considered to have magical properties including healing. Temples erected to honor the gods had great urns for the burning of incense before the gods. Early on, burning incense in the sick room was a common way to cure. The Sumerians and Babylonians burned incense as a means of purification to please their gods, the Hebrews used burning incense (generally thought to be frankincense) to veil the presence of God in the holy tabernacle, the early Persians used incense in their worship which is depicted on their monuments at Persepolis, the Muslims still offer incense in the shrines of their saints today. The Roman Catholic Church, Anglican and Orthodox Christian churches still use frankincense and myrrh incense to honor God in their rituals.

Incense was absolutely indispensable in ancient Egyptian rituals. The ascending smoke was seen symbolically as a vehicle to carry one's prayers to the deities and to bridge the realm of human and spiritual. This is particularly true for their elaborate ceremonies surrounding the death.



The Hebrews also used incense to carry their prayers to God.
"Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice." Psalm 141:2.

The use of perfumed ornaments like necklaces made of saffron, orris, musk and Benjamin were used in black Africa and throughout Asia to appease the spirits. In India, the sacred plant of basil was made into sacred beads and rosaries.  In Tibet, dry incense is worn as a talisman to ward off evil spirits and in Mexico to this day, a clove of garlic is still hung around the neck of a newborn as protection.

Amulets are commonly used in magical rites in many cultures and often include aromatic plant materials. In today's world, many users of essential oils are now wearing "diffuser" jewelry to ward off germs from others and protect against bacteria and viruses. For travelers, especially on airplanes, this simply makes good sense. When enough people begin performing this action, a ritual will be established that says-this is how we ward off "evil spirits" like bacteria and viruses. Are you wearing diffuser jewelry



Thursday, July 5, 2018

Does Putting a HEX on Someone Work?

Image from page 561 of "St. Nicholas [serial]" (1873)

What is a hex? A hex is a spell for bad luck put on a person. Often it's not just for one bad thing but a lifetime of woe and despair. The hex might be called the evil eye, a whammy or a curse. The term hex is a Pennsylvania-Dutch derivation of the German word "hexen" which means to practice sorcery.

Many people associate hexes with gipsies and voodoo, regardless of whether the term got its start from the German language. Images of voodoo queens leaving a small bundle of herbs hidden in their victim's house or gipsies pointing a finger and declaring the recipient hexed are part of our world, via the cinema and television. However, those that put hexes on others aren't necessarily practitioners of either. Some are just people with a strong hankering for revenge, the primary reason for a hex.

As with most discussions on the occult, hexes and their viability are greatly debated. Some people believe that they work, but only if the person hexed knows that they had a hex put on them. In this case, it's the power of suggestion or the self-fulfilling prophecy. Others believe that all people have the power to alter matter and therefore control events. The advent of discoveries in quantum physics helps to put their views into a more favourable light.

Albert Einstein created the hypothesis that matter is neither created nor destroyed, simply converted. E=MC2 is an equation most school children know, even if they don't understand it. E stands for energy, the M is mass and the C is the speed of light in a vacuum, what it takes to convert mass into pure energy. The formula represents the fact that energy and matter are really one. Quantum physics experiments show that when an observer watches an experiment, it changes the outcome. The proved that the observation has the power to turn a wave, energy, into particles, mass. So, why is it so difficult to believe that the mind of an individual doesn't also contain that same power?

There was a study done in Washington, DC where hundreds of advanced yogi's meditated on peace in the city for one month. The result was a lower violent crime rate for the city. Dramatically lower than the average. Was this simply serendipity or did they have an effect? Another study used a random number generator and two control groups. One group was supposed to will the generator to show x's and the other was to will it to show O's. The results showed a marked increase in x's for the group willing x's and O's for that group. Had they controlled the computer?


If these studies are indicators of the potential, then hexes are possible. Ah, the law of attraction now comes into play. Whatever you focus on, you receive. Normally this means that if you think all is lost, you can bet it is but if you believe that good comes from something, you're also right. In the case of a hex, you focus on evil or a bad outcome for someone. What occurs? With so much focus and ill intent, you need to watch out because it comes back to you. Many early religions that practice hexes and spells have the law of threefold. It simply means what you put out into the universe, in terms of spells or hexes, comes back to you only three times more lethal.

    Keith Ward is the Founder and Director of the Circle of Professional Clairvoyants, which offers Psychic Readings with fully qualified Senior UK Clairvoyants and Psychics.
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Thursday, September 28, 2017

ALEISTER CROWLEY: Reflection on the Pioneer of Magick

Aleister Crowley.jpg
"Aleister Crowley" Via Wikipedia.
Aleister Crowley was a pioneer, a trailblazing searcher who opened the door of magick to reveal the secrets that had not been, until his time, even whispered in the confines of a closet. Aleister opened the doors and swung them wide for all followers of the occult to rush through in pursuit of their magical attainment. For this reason, he has been called a genius as well as a trivial madman but one thing is true; he has not faded into the facade of history nor has his persona quietly died. Quite to the contrary, Crowley has continued at the forefront of those cited as contributing the most to the spiritual dark arts.

During Crowley’s youth, he traveled with his father who preached across the country and so, Aleister was exposed to the work and skills needed to communicate a message and idea to the masses. In the days before technological advances, the “face to face” communication was not only the most effective; it was one of the few ways to spread the word of any philosophy. Aleister was drawn to belief: not good or bad, but he had a deep-seeded wish to search for more and this trait was one that served him well throughout his life. Ever a student, he would spread the word of his magical workings throughout his entire life.

Young Aleister’s father died of cancer and the experience left the impressionable youth stunned and ultimately, bitter. He set his path on an unspoken philosophy of “anything that does not conform”. His earliest poetry illustrates the idea of “anti” while opening the mind to that which was “unthought” or never spoken. I do not say that Aleister’s heart was filled with hate; that would be untrue and an easy way to dismiss his life-long works. Aleister was filled with something much different. He was filled with a burning wants to question everything (a trait embraced by Satanists even today) and a tenant to believe only what could be proven. This served him quite well throughout his life.

Crowley was a connoisseur of sex and he loved sexual encounters with both men and women. He often remarked that he “only had sex to fulfill the requirements of his magical workings” yet it seems that he also took great pleasure in the many deviations to sex acts that were anything other than conventional. He would enjoy paying a prostitute to degrade him by inserting various household items into his rectum and on one occasion, was sodomized by two men in a Turkish bathhouse while performing ingeminating fellatio on yet a third man. He also enjoyed subjecting his partners to pain as well. During a sex magick ritual, he placed his fist into a young man’s anus to the point of almost rupturing his intestinal wall. All within the spirit of magick and finding a higher awareness of “self”.

Aleister was also interested and even curious about the fragility of life itself. After hearing a saying that a cat had nine lives, he reasoned that it would be almost impossible to kill a cat, and he set out to do just that. Crowley caught a cat and administered nine different terminal treatments to the animal which culminated with the cat being thrown from a second story window to “remove any remaining life”. Quite to the contrary, the animal had been dead since giving it a lethal dose of arsenic; the first of the treatments. For the curious young lad, the event was performed in the name of science and the results were simply a byproduct of a scientific experiment.

Crowley’s “The Book of the Law” is hailed as his best work even though there are other great titles to choose from. His writings were factual, confusing, poetic and mystifying, all at the same time. He had written poetry since a young boy and that motif operandi was seen as a common thread in all of his future writings. Prolific yet reserved, he preferred to write poetry and insisted on being called “The World’s Best Poet”.

He was an enigma that was perhaps, before his time and I often contemplate what he could have achieved if he lived in our wonderful time of email, internet, and cyber chat. Oh, what he could have accomplished! Without conscience and devoid of humanity, he is what all members of the human race should strive to be… “a searcher”. He was not encapsulated by hearsay, dogma or urban legend. He opened his mind and all senses to receive all he could discover. Satanists take so many of his attributes to heart and strive to learn that which will show itself during a magical endeavor.

Mwt.jpg

"Mwt" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Crowley’s magick was without bounds and he did not set out to be evil at all. He believed there were forces and spirits just beyond our worldly grasp and he wanted to experience those dark images that do not cast any shadows on the floor. “Evil” was a moniker that was assigned to Aleister by a self-righteous society unable to open their minds enough to discover and benefit from Crowley’s work. His acts frightened the population and his words angered the monarchy of the time. He was not a Satanist per se. Satanism was not his primary focus and Aleister did not seriously believe in a pointed-tail viper, as it were. He communicated with demons and spirits thus being more of a student of demonology than any other magical operation.

He has been the inspiration for countless searchers; myself included. He inspired L. Ron Hubbard through his magical workings which can be glimpsed in Hubbard’s Dianetics and The Church of Scientology. Anton LaVey cited references and praised Crowley’s written works. Led Zeppelin guitarist, Jimmy Page, was an avid follower of Crowley and even purchased the house “Boleskine” once owned by Crowley, on the south-eastern shore of Scotland’s Loch Ness. Page claimed the house was haunted and also confessed the house “held a sacred and creative feel that allowed for total artistic freedom”. Crowley continues to inspire and influence music and writers in modern society today.

Aleister Crowley was one of the first practitioners of the occult to blend magick with consumption of mind-altering drugs during his rituals.His grimoires, which read like scientist’s process books, recorded many occasions when Aleister and those asked to join him, would ingest large amounts of narcotics and natural stimulants to achieve a higher state of conscientiousness and open their minds to events that would enlighten the participants. Experimentation in such arenas was frowned upon and in some cases, the act of performing a blasphemous ritual as he often performed, was illegal. His connection with the other side of the human brain can be called “cutting edge” however, Crowley’s grimoires were often dismissed as “drug-induced gibberish”.

Within the framework of magical operations, Aleister was meticulous in the execution of rituals. He would labor over the details and weigh the effects of each slight deviation from the original working to gauge the expected result. He also looked at magick as cumulative or “cross-collateralized”, which built upon the earlier building block; increasing power and heightening the magician’s experience. Nothing was taboo, too sinister or any idea dismissed without fully exploring the possibilities that might reap benefits. Aleister was anything but shy and if the ritual called for him to be treated with violence, disdain and abusively injured, so mote it be.

Aleister Crowley was a well-known member of the group Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of the Temple of the East) which closely resembled the Freemasons and Masonic Lodge until Aleister joined. He led the association in a different direction which adopted Thelema as the core principle. The Book of the Law communicated two of Crowley’s best-known verses which are still used quite often even today. First, the groundwork for his belief and theology was laid with a simple phrase; “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will” which is cited regularly by those practitioners of all magical arts. He was never quick to dismiss anyone’s ideas or beliefs without first evaluating and contrasting the belief compared to his very own.

Aleister Crowley painted portrait _DDC7564

Aleister was always fascinated with lines, angles, and voids created by an enclosed symbol, especially a unicursal creation. Aleister’s unicursal hexagram is a star that can be drawn in one line without stopping the continuous flow. Geometric shapes were often drawn by Crowley to illustrate his projections occurring in astral travels. He believed “reason” was shielded by logic and by understanding motivation, one could clearly look deep into the logical progression of magick. Transitional Logic and Cognitive Modeling were paramount to understanding the results of magick rituals and by disseminating the logic relationships, one could also change the variables to estimate the results of a ritual, having slightly changed the inputs and elements. The idea was revolutionary for its time and the general population was too critical of Crowley to even seriously consider the possibility that he might very well have a theorem that was truly brilliant. He did not help his cause when the press ran articles about his magical escapades including homosexual encounters, spells/hexes, animal sacrifice and a report revealing that Aleister had eaten his own feces as well as the feces of others in his ritual group. Reports of killing animals during sexual intercourse did not help his cause at all.

Aleister was also an avid Astrologer and he studied astrology almost as in-depth as magick. Evangeline Adams was one of the most important influences on the development of American astrology and Crowley developed a relationship with Adams that was based upon their mutual passion of studying the stars and planets. The two would collaborate on articles, papers and books about astrological aspects and the relationship of celestial bodies and planetary orbits. Crowley also used many astrological illustrations and references in his magical writings as well. One such reference was used to explain how a person cannot readily change their path through life and how inertia plays an important role in continuing the established directional path and momentum: “There are no ‘standards of Right’. Ethics is balderdash. Each Star must go on its own orbit. To hell with “moral principle”; there is no such thing.”

So, I have pointed out some facts and observations of Aleister Crowley; some good and some “not so good”. To me, he is truly a pioneer that was perhaps a few generations ahead of his time. I read and study his works from time to time and I appreciate his dedication to his craft. His entire life reads like a grimoire of magick, experimentation, excess and theories “tried and proven”. Because Crowley and searchers like him have documented so much – so well, we are able to take advantage of his efforts which allows us to be light years ahead of where we would be had he never written even an article about magick. We should recognize the advantages we have and the knowledge passed down to us by Crowley. His efforts of being totally uninhibited have allowed seekers to “pick up where he left off” in the never-ending quest for increased magical knowledge. We are better magicians, seekers, followers, practitioners and ultimately more powerful because of this man. Yes, he was eccentric and his approach to the magical arts was unorthodox (and stomach turning as well) however, he blazed a path into history and for his efforts and sharing of his art form, we are better for having access to his writings and privileged to do some of the same workings that he not only practiced but actually created.

Aleister Crowley will live forever and his words will be shared for all eternity; which is something he could only dream of in his time.

Author Aleister Nacht is a Satanic Magus and leader of a regional coven comprising of numerous groups located in Florida. With a modern view of Satanism, he brings the darkness to life in a very tangible manner. His books have found favor with a multitude of searchers crossing all demographic and geographic boundaries. Nacht is also the spiritual/technical advisor for the “Gods of the New Church”; a Satanic group that meets in a virtual sanctum created by Nacht in cyberspace. Nacht’s audio recordings (Aleister Nacht’s Satanic Audio Blog) are available for free download on iTunes.

His books on Satanism have connected with the emerging multitude that refuses believe the lies of the religious establishment. Nacht manages to offer searchers an alternative based upon truth and reason instead of hypocritical rhetoric and lies. His digital and hard-copy books are distributed worldwide by Loki / Speckbohne Publishing. Recently, Nacht was approached by an independent producer/director interested in filming a documentary entitled “The Resurrection Next Door” that will explore modern Satanism and the recent increasing interest and popularity in Satanism. Nacht lives in the Tampa Bay area and enjoys the “Salt Life”.


By Aleister Nacht - http://satanicmagic.wordpress.com/ - http://www.aleisternacht.com/

Article Source: EzineArticles