From Our Shelves: May the Darkness Cover Us
All hail the fall, October, the ensuing darkness, the dimming of the light.
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling it. May the dark roll over us like a warm blanket, force us inside to gather around the hearth and tuck in together for the cold months. May we find peace in the rosy cheeks of our neighbours, the warm cup steaming, the rain on the window.
Here’s some books we’re reading at the mo! As usu, it’s a tad eclectic. We’re not quite into the spooky season but definitely pulling out the warm fuzzies and getting cozy.
Gods know we all need a little bit of this right now. Spiritual Cleansing: A Handbook of Psychic Protection is an intriguing little read. Short digestible chapters packed with useful information, tips and tricks. Covering everything from dealing with Molochia (evil eye) to various kinds of cleansing - baths, water, saining - my favourite is the chapter on cleansing with raw eggs. There’s a really great chapter at the end of recommendations for treatment of general ailments, this book will be a welcome addition to your library.
And, in times of trouble, it’s best to utilise all our knowledge and resources isn’t it?
Note: I found the beer baths to be most useful for me. Easy to do and readily available. And, well, beer! Also there’s something about a regular practice of cleansing in this way, that forms into habitual activity that is super calming. Consider adding this to your self-care regimen.
From the book:
Everyone, at one time or another, has met an individual who appears surrounded with negativity, or has visited a place that seems imbued with "bad vibrations." Removing these negative vibrations is what spiritual cleansing is all about.
Magic practitioner Draja Mickaharic offers simple and effective solutions drawn from every ethnic group and spiritual practice. Spiritual Cleansing shows how to:
Use incense and flowers to clear the air after arguments
Protect yourself from negative energy while you sleep
Clean the previous tenant's vibrations out of your house or apartment
Use cleansing baths for luck, love, and financial improvement
Select a Spiritual Practitioner
Counteract the "Evil Eye"
“Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don't do it.
It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself,. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.”
― Steven Pressfield
Can’t say enough about this little best-seller gem. If you are a creative, a writer, an artist or really, just alive, The War of Art is like a herald flag, a life skills coach and your mama all rolled into one. Come here for pep talks and reminders about why tf you must do your art. Serious perspective generator. A blunt tool to help you dig through the biggest blocks.
I’d seen Initiation into Hermetics several times at work at the bookshop, but hadn’t picked it up yet. Then, I stumbled across Franz again, funnily enough in one of those coffee table books - you know the ones with lots of pictures and sound-bites of whatever the topic is. This one had a 1970s glossy pink bubblegum hardcover, and was called simply, “Magic”.
The cool thing about Reader’s Digest-y books is that they really do call you in. I found Franz to be a super fascinating figure. One of the most important occultist of the 20th century, he developed a magical system that was a sort of amalgamation of various mystery schools (Masons, Rosicrucians, Illuminati) and eastern mystical thought.
This guy was actually captured and imprisoned by the Nazis because as we know, they were obsessed with the occult and magic and they wanted him to divulge his secrets. When he refused they tortured him. (Eventually he got away… was rescued by the Soviets.)
What grabs me about his system is the emphasis on the physical body and keeping everything in ship-shape. I find this is missing in a lot of modern-day teachings, like we’ve forgotten that the body is a vessel when it comes to powerful energies. Secondly his emphasis on the elements and how they translate into magic. And by this I mean in a way this is more akin to Ayurveda than to Wicca let’s say, where the elements are almost archetypal energies. The task is to master the element within the body first, before they can be projected outwardly toward magical aims.
This is a much more science-y kind of magic, grounded in the “earth” of the body and our home-base reality. Bardon always said that science and magic are the same. For me, this is the stuff now, this is my jam. Magic is real - just a part of the natural universe that we cannot explain in scientific terms. Yet!
From Wiki: Bardon's training system is comprehensive. Initiation into Hermetics is divided into 10 practical steps. The program further subdivides each step into three areas – Non-being spirit or Mind (Spiritual abstract universal mental body; see Spiritual bodies: Theosophical society: Soul as mental body into the astral, psychic and emotional body; the astral body and physical body – with the intent of developing all areas of the self simultaneously and in a balanced way. This is to ensure that the student maintain a balance of the three "bodies", which accelerates progress in the long run and minimizes injury to oneself in the process of growth. Also, there occurs a purification of the personality, where the magician should become incapable of wishing harm to his fellow man. This is an important point since, as the power of the magician increases, so his ability to do harm – even unintentionally, increases. In summary—
Mental exercises of the Spirit (or abstract mental being) begin with simply observing the mind and progress from there, with each subsequent exercise building on the previous.
Astral exercises of the Soul focus on systematically cataloging the positive and negative aspects of the self and, later, transforming and purifying the negative aspects into positives.
Physical exercises of the body stress physical health and development as well as the integration and use of the physical body and physical environment.
I recently stumbled (digitally) across The Museum of Icelandic Witchcraft and Sorcery . Oooooh so much good stuff. From their website:
We collect knowledge about the history of Icelandic sorcery and witchcraft.
We receive visitors from all over the world to the little town of Hólmavík and explain our forefather's means of survival.
We research.
We give information about what Hólmavík and the Strandir area have to offer and have a cozy restaurant for hungry travellers.
Sigh.. one day I’ll be sitting there in that cozy restaurant, pouring over tomes like this one below. Warm bowl of something in my hand. Reading magic and planning my trip to the mineral pools later that day.. I bet they have a fireplace too..
Ahm.. ok anyway. Yeah so I bought a few things! Two Icelandic Books of Magic is a fantastic little rendition of two early modern manuscripts of magic. From the site:
“The two manuscripts printed here were written around 1800, only 100 years after prosecutions for witchcraft ceased in Iceland.
The first manuscript in the book, Lbs 2413 8vo, was written ca. 1800 and is the largest collection of magical staves in a single manuscript even when compared to those collected by amateur scholars almost a century later. Many of the magical acts described are the same as those mentioned in court records and similar ones can be found in the 17th century grimoires.
The second manuscript in the book, Lbs 764 8vo, was written ca. 1820 and is very different. It is 14 x 8,5 cm, only 14 leaves and wrapped in an old leather wallet. The manuscript was bought in 1903 but no information about its history has been found. The first half appears to be of European origin and this part consists of protective signs and texts in Latin and with little connection to Icelandic court cases unless such signs or texts are the kind of blasphemy sometimes associated with staves or sigils.”
I love these staves. Also love this little glimpse into the reasons why people used to use magic when magical use was more common and prevalent. Was it for world domination? Nah… usually for love or revenge or to get back something your shitty neighbour stole from you.
What witchyness are you reading these days? Let us know in the comments.
