Greetings,
How strongly do you believe in evolution? If you think about it, the chair you're probably sitting on evolved from a flat rock or a log that was conveniently placed for some neanderthal bottom to rest on.
One of the perennial questions is: What was the First Cause of this amazing multiverse in which we exist? Physicists and mathematicians have gone back in time to amazingly near that point that we've been trained to call the "Big Bang". Of course the so-called Big Bang theory depends on (a) a bunch of esoteric math and on (b) believing that light is both a particle and a wave form, needing only the Higgs Condensate (something as yet undiscovered) to travel through empty space.
How did the monstrosity called M-theory develop from six or seven string theories? Every time the string theory du jour was proven wrong, it got changed. That's neat. It's kind of like your computer programs getting ever more complicated to overcome goofs by the programmers (apologies to Apple).
To our way of thinking a purported scientific hypothesis or theory should predict the unknown, not be adjusted to fit, it's neither a hypothesis nor a theory if it doesn't work and if it needs changing every few weeks. Come on, people!
Have you ever thought that Adam might have been something like an amoeba? If the great Juju made something in Its own image--something which contained both male and female--maybe the great Juju itself was an amoeba. Though of course the great Juju evolved from it's own beginings into something with which to keep children and gullible adults in line. Okay, so did these very complex theories develop from something like 1 + 1? I'm not sure an amoeba can do even that addition.
You're all supposed to be good meditators. Let's go on an imaginary trip. Meditate on the railway line that runs dead straight for 700 miles, curving only for the curvature of the earth, across Australia's Nullarbor Plain. At its western end there stands upright across the very railroad line an extremely complex domino. This domino represents the multiverse as it is now. As we start there and travel ever so slightly eastward in our meditative state, there is a domino quite close to the first which is barely less complex, (yesteryear's multiverse). The further eastward we move, the less complex and the smaller become the dominoes until at the far eastern point (because we all know that everything must start in the east) there is a domino you can hardly see with a microscope. You can see how the dominoes evolved from this ultra-small, completely elementary and simple transparent wisp. (There is no mathematics in the wisp.)
So along comes a big-booted hairy-chested outbacker in a safari hat and kicks over the wisp. The resulting cascade effect represents evolution. From almost nothingness we evolve into the horror we see around us today ... and into the good stuff too. There are many side branches to the track across the Plain. If you pursue them, you will find that some of them have branches on branches and others fall into ravines, never to be seen again; and yet others rejoin the track further down toward its western end.
You don't need us to tell you that the branches represent all those false starts and stops that have occurred in the course of the evolution of the multiverse.
So what does our metaphor tell you?
"God" could have been an amoeba or even something smaller and more rudimentary: perhaps something as fleeting as a thought. If God is so rudimentary, It clearly cannot interfere in our life today. It cannot be an interventionist deity. Of course this may be why God, when "He" came into the Garden of Eden, couldn't find Adam, let alone Eve, and had to clothe them in skin before they could enjoy sex and populate the world.
Notice skin, not skins. The problem of plurals in translating from the Aramaic is well known: When it was convenient, the translators made nouns singular--whereas in other places the nouns arbitrarily came out plural. And remember that the word for God, HaShem, also translates officially as The Name or The Names. Today we your authors have used the word God with a capital G to mean some form of First Cause or Ultimate Deity--a duo-gender concept--as is our amoeba.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Four Worlds
In the five worlds of the Kabbalah the four-worlds concept is easy to understand. The fifth world is generally accepted to be the concealed world of the Spiritual Creation. In the work of life it is good always to remember the four.
1. The physical
2. The mental
3. The emotional
4. The spiritual
Let's consider the work of a personal friend of ours who makes musical instruments--such as harps and dulcimers--from recycled wood.
The physical work, perhaps the reprocessing of, say, a piece of salvaged cedar into the soundboard of a guitar, is obvious.
The mental effort--visualizing the result of measuring, planing, cutting, forming, etc, to get the pieces perfect--is extensive and comes only after long discipline and practice.
Emotion comes in as the pieces go lovingly together and the strings are first tuned. Then some friend takes the instrument and makes it live. At the beautiful sound, the emotion is so heavy that it sometimes reduces Bob to tears.
So where does the spiritual come in?
Bob listens to that inner voice that tells him in the first place to move out of his comfort zone and make a musical instrument. Then he continues on that path, often giving up other pleasant pastimes such as eating, to finish the job. He is driven by his inner spiritual voice.
Yes, we know we're simplifying.
In all the millions of words written on spiritual development, we've found very few that consider the concept of the four aspects of the Work. We Frosts have come to believe that anything undertaken using only one of the four will not lead to a genuinely satisfying end.
Today everyone seems to concentrates on the physical; yet in even such a mundane pursuit as simply beating out a dent in the fender of a car--even this--can call for all the four aspects of the Work your soul/spirit is here to do. If the worker is a trained metal-basher, he has learned to make the physical movements required: to bash the metal not too hard and not too soft to achieve an ideal result. If a recalcitrant dent causes him problems, he will need to maintain an emotional calm. He can achieve such a calm through mental control, just through past knowledge that losing his temper will not lead to a better result. His mental effort may be almost automatic, but it is still there, especially when it comes to, for instance, mixing the color necessary to achieve a perfect match with adjoining undamaged parts.
You may not think there is much of a spiritual aspect in work such as this; but do you not think that when he admires a perfect result he feels a little spiritual uplift?
Now how about circle work?
Casting a complete Church of Wicca triple circle is a chore. Crawling around (often nude) on the floor or in a field is outside the physical comfort zone of many people. It takes mental effort to get the sizes right and the signs aligned. Preparing for the circle with the requisite fasting and celibacy, even making the tools and robes: It all takes mental and physical effort.
As we enter the sacred space of the Circle, emotions run high, especially if there is a neophyte to be initiated. Then they are pushed higher with the sealing of the Circle and perhaps dancing and chanting. At the interlude, everything becomes grounded so that we can move into the spiritual phase of meditation and astral travel. When everything is over and we restore ourselves with a feast, many of us feel empty and washed out. Thus we sleep soundly, knowing that we have operated in all four worlds--and maybe even touched the fifth.
What we are saying here is this: All too often the fact of the four aspects of the Work is overlooked. And very few people seem to teach that, if you want a fulfilling experience, you need to work with all four aspects in everything you do.
The Kabbalah is not the only place where this belief in four aspects appears. An intriguing thought comes through popular crime novels based on beliefs of this continent's First Nations, as made available to us by author Tony Hillerman. He shares with us the idea of a one-legged Sacred Buffalo. That is what life is like today, emphasizing only the physical aspect of activities, especially entertainment, instead of a stable four aspects. A one-legged buffalo--a world that excessively emphasizes one aspect of four--cannot long endure without crashing.
Why don't you try moving out of your comfort zone and entering the four worlds?
1. The physical
2. The mental
3. The emotional
4. The spiritual
Let's consider the work of a personal friend of ours who makes musical instruments--such as harps and dulcimers--from recycled wood.
The physical work, perhaps the reprocessing of, say, a piece of salvaged cedar into the soundboard of a guitar, is obvious.
The mental effort--visualizing the result of measuring, planing, cutting, forming, etc, to get the pieces perfect--is extensive and comes only after long discipline and practice.
Emotion comes in as the pieces go lovingly together and the strings are first tuned. Then some friend takes the instrument and makes it live. At the beautiful sound, the emotion is so heavy that it sometimes reduces Bob to tears.
So where does the spiritual come in?
Bob listens to that inner voice that tells him in the first place to move out of his comfort zone and make a musical instrument. Then he continues on that path, often giving up other pleasant pastimes such as eating, to finish the job. He is driven by his inner spiritual voice.
Yes, we know we're simplifying.
In all the millions of words written on spiritual development, we've found very few that consider the concept of the four aspects of the Work. We Frosts have come to believe that anything undertaken using only one of the four will not lead to a genuinely satisfying end.
Today everyone seems to concentrates on the physical; yet in even such a mundane pursuit as simply beating out a dent in the fender of a car--even this--can call for all the four aspects of the Work your soul/spirit is here to do. If the worker is a trained metal-basher, he has learned to make the physical movements required: to bash the metal not too hard and not too soft to achieve an ideal result. If a recalcitrant dent causes him problems, he will need to maintain an emotional calm. He can achieve such a calm through mental control, just through past knowledge that losing his temper will not lead to a better result. His mental effort may be almost automatic, but it is still there, especially when it comes to, for instance, mixing the color necessary to achieve a perfect match with adjoining undamaged parts.
You may not think there is much of a spiritual aspect in work such as this; but do you not think that when he admires a perfect result he feels a little spiritual uplift?
Now how about circle work?
Casting a complete Church of Wicca triple circle is a chore. Crawling around (often nude) on the floor or in a field is outside the physical comfort zone of many people. It takes mental effort to get the sizes right and the signs aligned. Preparing for the circle with the requisite fasting and celibacy, even making the tools and robes: It all takes mental and physical effort.
As we enter the sacred space of the Circle, emotions run high, especially if there is a neophyte to be initiated. Then they are pushed higher with the sealing of the Circle and perhaps dancing and chanting. At the interlude, everything becomes grounded so that we can move into the spiritual phase of meditation and astral travel. When everything is over and we restore ourselves with a feast, many of us feel empty and washed out. Thus we sleep soundly, knowing that we have operated in all four worlds--and maybe even touched the fifth.
What we are saying here is this: All too often the fact of the four aspects of the Work is overlooked. And very few people seem to teach that, if you want a fulfilling experience, you need to work with all four aspects in everything you do.
The Kabbalah is not the only place where this belief in four aspects appears. An intriguing thought comes through popular crime novels based on beliefs of this continent's First Nations, as made available to us by author Tony Hillerman. He shares with us the idea of a one-legged Sacred Buffalo. That is what life is like today, emphasizing only the physical aspect of activities, especially entertainment, instead of a stable four aspects. A one-legged buffalo--a world that excessively emphasizes one aspect of four--cannot long endure without crashing.
Why don't you try moving out of your comfort zone and entering the four worlds?
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Miscellaneous/schedule
To all those who inquired,
Gavin is experiencing a disk problem in his lower back. So far the neurologist's injections have not helped, so it looks as if a replacement disk will be in order at some time in the near future. This means that he has some pain, which is controllable. More importantly, though, at the present he cannot dance, though he can still teach dance.
This gets us, then, to upcoming festivals to which we have been invited.
Date Event Website
03 20 Ostara unitarians@frontier.com
3 p.m. - 5:30 520 Kanawha Blvd, Charleston WV: Unitarian Universalist church
04 02 Book signing 1 p.m. The Book Worm 1057 E. Main St, Radford VA
Suzanne Chrysalis on facebook
05 05 - 05 08 Florida Pagan Gathering flapagan.org
Ocala National Forest
05 27 - 05 30 Michigan Pagan Fest mipaganfest.org Belleville, MI: Wayne County Fairground
07 11 - 07 17 Sirius Rising brushwood.com
Brushwood near Sherman NY
07 18 - 07 24 SummerFest brushwood.com
Brushwood near Sherman NY
07 27 - 08 01 Kaleidoscope Gathering kaleidoscope-gathering.ca/
Raven's Knoll 50 miles west of Ottawa in Ontario Canada
09 16 - 09 18 Mabon Mountain Mysteries mountain-mysteries.com
Heavenly Acres Campground, Stanardsville, VA
Troops out west, we're sorry; it looks as if we won't be making it this year. Nor will we be carrying a vast variety of books to festivals. Watch this site for updates of a happier tone.
About the School of Wicca
Yes, the Church and School is still teaching its courses and signing people up. No, we have not updated the website. The only way to sign up today is to download the application form from the website and send it with check or money order to the School via snail-mail. For a variety of reasons, the School is not handling credit-card transactions.
Faithful students and friends already know full well not to expect prompt replies to their e-mails. The volume of such messages incoming is simply too great for us to reply this minute to that e-mail. We do a lot of humility here in Hinton.
Of course students come first; but the students too know that we do not teach by e-mail. After trying out the net, we believe that the good old USPS allows more time for contemplation and for meditation on the themes and ideas than the instant turnaround of the e-mail system.
You must find your own answers through meditation and not be satisfied with the shallow answers, the glib one-liners, and the blue balls of fire you may get from other sources such as occult books and on the web. Craft precepts are radically different from the sick, twisted ideas in this western culture; thus they need time and re-reading and pondering to sink in to any meaningful depth in your mind.
Yes, we're old-fashioned. But to offset that you have the fact that the School has had some 60,000 students internationally and that it has been around for a very long time ... so deal with it.
Gavin is experiencing a disk problem in his lower back. So far the neurologist's injections have not helped, so it looks as if a replacement disk will be in order at some time in the near future. This means that he has some pain, which is controllable. More importantly, though, at the present he cannot dance, though he can still teach dance.
This gets us, then, to upcoming festivals to which we have been invited.
Date Event Website
03 20 Ostara unitarians@frontier.com
3 p.m. - 5:30 520 Kanawha Blvd, Charleston WV: Unitarian Universalist church
04 02 Book signing 1 p.m. The Book Worm 1057 E. Main St, Radford VA
Suzanne Chrysalis on facebook
05 05 - 05 08 Florida Pagan Gathering flapagan.org
Ocala National Forest
05 27 - 05 30 Michigan Pagan Fest mipaganfest.org Belleville, MI: Wayne County Fairground
07 11 - 07 17 Sirius Rising brushwood.com
Brushwood near Sherman NY
07 18 - 07 24 SummerFest brushwood.com
Brushwood near Sherman NY
07 27 - 08 01 Kaleidoscope Gathering kaleidoscope-gathering.ca/
Raven's Knoll 50 miles west of Ottawa in Ontario Canada
09 16 - 09 18 Mabon Mountain Mysteries mountain-mysteries.com
Heavenly Acres Campground, Stanardsville, VA
Troops out west, we're sorry; it looks as if we won't be making it this year. Nor will we be carrying a vast variety of books to festivals. Watch this site for updates of a happier tone.
About the School of Wicca
Yes, the Church and School is still teaching its courses and signing people up. No, we have not updated the website. The only way to sign up today is to download the application form from the website and send it with check or money order to the School via snail-mail. For a variety of reasons, the School is not handling credit-card transactions.
Faithful students and friends already know full well not to expect prompt replies to their e-mails. The volume of such messages incoming is simply too great for us to reply this minute to that e-mail. We do a lot of humility here in Hinton.
Of course students come first; but the students too know that we do not teach by e-mail. After trying out the net, we believe that the good old USPS allows more time for contemplation and for meditation on the themes and ideas than the instant turnaround of the e-mail system.
You must find your own answers through meditation and not be satisfied with the shallow answers, the glib one-liners, and the blue balls of fire you may get from other sources such as occult books and on the web. Craft precepts are radically different from the sick, twisted ideas in this western culture; thus they need time and re-reading and pondering to sink in to any meaningful depth in your mind.
Yes, we're old-fashioned. But to offset that you have the fact that the School has had some 60,000 students internationally and that it has been around for a very long time ... so deal with it.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is often touted as a solid and positive plank in the otherwise often negative platform of Christianity. To our jaundiced view, though, it is one of the most negative (and in some ways despicable) elements of an often dangerous and negative set of teachings.
We all know and recognize most of those teachings. The ironic thing is that in this nation's "red" states--where fundamentalist Christianity may be at its densest--such patterns as repeat pregnancies among unmarried teens are at their highest. You see, the girls often find Jesus; at least they profess to find him when they learn they're pregnant. Then they're forgiven. And then, of course, once they're washed in the blood of the lamb, they can go out and "sin" again ... all on the tax dollars that you, and we, work so hard to pay.
Some questions occur.
1. Who decided that sex between consenting people was a "sin"? A search of their black book reveals no prohibition against copulation between consenting people who are not otherwise under contract.
2. Are we to believe in parthenogenesis, or are we to trust the word of a smart Jewish girl who found herself in trouble? Was Jesus simply a bastard, born out of wedlock?
We would probably all agree that it's not nice to cause death and mayhem; however, in the American justice system oftentimes death sentences are commuted and even paroles granted to those who claim with gasping to have "found Jesus", especially if the gaspers make noises signifying remorse. The forgiveness gene is switched on--and now that same criminal can go out and kill with impunity.
Can there be a little bit of forgiveness, or is that like being a little bit pregnant? Where do we draw the line? Doesn't that same old black book call for an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Or is this just another anomaly? --just another of those squirming non sequiturs: "But that's different!"?
Given a book purportedly written by "God" "himself" (note: him, never her) of which no word can be changed, Yvonne's persistent question nags: Which god? I've got a list of gods reaching from here to the intersection. "God" is the conventional translation of HaShem, which means "The Name". Remember what the Zohar says: "No created intelligence can know the name, so call It what you will. My god does too wear lipstick occasionally."*
How do such guidelines as "forgive your enemy" and "turn the other cheek" sit with Celts--and for that matter, with Jews? These two groups among many others reflect, "If you turn the other cheek, you are likely to get clobbered again."
That's all for now. You know we're weird and deviant; so don't expect us to forgive if you insult us. We're like the traditional Yorkshireman who has been said to carry a stone of insult in his pocket until he sees the opportunity to use it on the insulter. Just once in a while when things get beyond tolerable, we're not above doing something ... educational. And we encourage you: If you're not angry now, get angry. Aren't you paying attention?
- - - - - - - - -
* The book God Wears Lipstick is free from the Kabbalist Center
We all know and recognize most of those teachings. The ironic thing is that in this nation's "red" states--where fundamentalist Christianity may be at its densest--such patterns as repeat pregnancies among unmarried teens are at their highest. You see, the girls often find Jesus; at least they profess to find him when they learn they're pregnant. Then they're forgiven. And then, of course, once they're washed in the blood of the lamb, they can go out and "sin" again ... all on the tax dollars that you, and we, work so hard to pay.
Some questions occur.
1. Who decided that sex between consenting people was a "sin"? A search of their black book reveals no prohibition against copulation between consenting people who are not otherwise under contract.
2. Are we to believe in parthenogenesis, or are we to trust the word of a smart Jewish girl who found herself in trouble? Was Jesus simply a bastard, born out of wedlock?
We would probably all agree that it's not nice to cause death and mayhem; however, in the American justice system oftentimes death sentences are commuted and even paroles granted to those who claim with gasping to have "found Jesus", especially if the gaspers make noises signifying remorse. The forgiveness gene is switched on--and now that same criminal can go out and kill with impunity.
Can there be a little bit of forgiveness, or is that like being a little bit pregnant? Where do we draw the line? Doesn't that same old black book call for an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Or is this just another anomaly? --just another of those squirming non sequiturs: "But that's different!"?
Given a book purportedly written by "God" "himself" (note: him, never her) of which no word can be changed, Yvonne's persistent question nags: Which god? I've got a list of gods reaching from here to the intersection. "God" is the conventional translation of HaShem, which means "The Name". Remember what the Zohar says: "No created intelligence can know the name, so call It what you will. My god does too wear lipstick occasionally."*
How do such guidelines as "forgive your enemy" and "turn the other cheek" sit with Celts--and for that matter, with Jews? These two groups among many others reflect, "If you turn the other cheek, you are likely to get clobbered again."
That's all for now. You know we're weird and deviant; so don't expect us to forgive if you insult us. We're like the traditional Yorkshireman who has been said to carry a stone of insult in his pocket until he sees the opportunity to use it on the insulter. Just once in a while when things get beyond tolerable, we're not above doing something ... educational. And we encourage you: If you're not angry now, get angry. Aren't you paying attention?
- - - - - - - - -
* The book God Wears Lipstick is free from the Kabbalist Center
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
To Heal or Not to Heal: That Is the Question
Psychic power exists. One of its popular uses is in healing. We Frosts believe that in most cases the body heals itself, but that psychic power somehow affects the mind, which controls such things as the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the adrenals to cure the body.
In new-age, Wiccan, and pagan discussion groups, you will often hear discussions on the ethics of healing: "They need their disease to complete their learning cycle on this plane of existence," someone claims; "and if you cure them, they'll have to come back and do it again." We don't look at it that way. We think you should do everything you possibly can to help human beings, animals, and plants. If someone does have a repulsive disease and you cure it and they immediately get another equally loathsome disease, then you know that you are addressing the surface symptom and not the cause of the disease; you know you'll have to delve further and help them adjust their thinking if the real cause is to be addressed. Illness can be a very effective manipulative device; who or what is the patient manipulating, and why?
If you saw someone slip on an icy sidewalk, fall down, and break their leg, would you call for help, or would you leave them lying there? Of course there is the current non-involvement fad to overcome, but we believe that most people would seek to help.
If you had an extra hamburger and a panhandler asked you for it, would you give it to him? We hope your answers is "Yes".
Almost everything you do interferes with the life of other people. You spend money on something, someone makes a little profit, someone gets some pay; people's lives are affected. You squash a mosquito, it doesn't suck someone else's blood; it doesn't pass on a disease.
A drowning child can't ask for help, but you give it. You resuscitate her. So why wait to get someone's consent before you attempt a healing? (Never mind what What's-his-name did on the shore of the Sea of Galilee!) Why not quietly do an anonymous psychic healing? That's far better and far less dangerous to your karma than if you go in and say, "I can heal that". To be super-safe, take Yvonne's approach: Volunteer energy in behalf of the patient, but don't specify what body part it be directed to. Make your bottom line, "Let the will of the Elder Ones be done."
If you live and breathe in this world, you are part of it. When you think about doing a healing, think about it in simplistic terms, not in terms of long-range karmic debt and spiritual growth. The more you practice healing, the more adept you will become at it and the more light you will bring into the world.
Personally, I think that many self-styled psychic healers are so unsure of their craft that they will use any pretext not to try healing. When the drowning child is pulled fom the lake, she cannot ask that you do CPR. (By the way, any self-styled healer who doesn't know how to do CPR is surely worth less than doodoo.)
Recently at one of the great campout conventions, a child stepped on a piece of glass but told no one. The wound became infected. One of the ‘healers' attending took her to her tent, and piled crystals on the injury. When I saw the foot, I saw the telltale thin red lines running up the leg, the sure symptom of blood poisoning. I rushed her to the nearest emergency room. They managed to save her foot and probably her life.
If you're not sure--absolutely positive--of what you are doing, don't offer to help. If you want to help, do it privately and anonymously. Nobody's karma will be involved. If you want to be a healer, put your money where your mouth is. High on your priority list put an EMT course or a nursing course.
I know that these ideas will go against the grain of many. Let me leave you with this thought: When St. Jerry Falwell refused to heal at a gigantic meeting in Argentina, the locals ran him out of town.
As always, we invite your comments. We are not trying to offend anyone or scorn their tradition, so please be constructive. Our hope is that we may all arrive at a shared understanding of what we are doing. If you know a better way and can articulate the reasons behind it, please share that better way with the community.
Blessed be. GY
In new-age, Wiccan, and pagan discussion groups, you will often hear discussions on the ethics of healing: "They need their disease to complete their learning cycle on this plane of existence," someone claims; "and if you cure them, they'll have to come back and do it again." We don't look at it that way. We think you should do everything you possibly can to help human beings, animals, and plants. If someone does have a repulsive disease and you cure it and they immediately get another equally loathsome disease, then you know that you are addressing the surface symptom and not the cause of the disease; you know you'll have to delve further and help them adjust their thinking if the real cause is to be addressed. Illness can be a very effective manipulative device; who or what is the patient manipulating, and why?
If you saw someone slip on an icy sidewalk, fall down, and break their leg, would you call for help, or would you leave them lying there? Of course there is the current non-involvement fad to overcome, but we believe that most people would seek to help.
If you had an extra hamburger and a panhandler asked you for it, would you give it to him? We hope your answers is "Yes".
Almost everything you do interferes with the life of other people. You spend money on something, someone makes a little profit, someone gets some pay; people's lives are affected. You squash a mosquito, it doesn't suck someone else's blood; it doesn't pass on a disease.
A drowning child can't ask for help, but you give it. You resuscitate her. So why wait to get someone's consent before you attempt a healing? (Never mind what What's-his-name did on the shore of the Sea of Galilee!) Why not quietly do an anonymous psychic healing? That's far better and far less dangerous to your karma than if you go in and say, "I can heal that". To be super-safe, take Yvonne's approach: Volunteer energy in behalf of the patient, but don't specify what body part it be directed to. Make your bottom line, "Let the will of the Elder Ones be done."
If you live and breathe in this world, you are part of it. When you think about doing a healing, think about it in simplistic terms, not in terms of long-range karmic debt and spiritual growth. The more you practice healing, the more adept you will become at it and the more light you will bring into the world.
Personally, I think that many self-styled psychic healers are so unsure of their craft that they will use any pretext not to try healing. When the drowning child is pulled fom the lake, she cannot ask that you do CPR. (By the way, any self-styled healer who doesn't know how to do CPR is surely worth less than doodoo.)
Recently at one of the great campout conventions, a child stepped on a piece of glass but told no one. The wound became infected. One of the ‘healers' attending took her to her tent, and piled crystals on the injury. When I saw the foot, I saw the telltale thin red lines running up the leg, the sure symptom of blood poisoning. I rushed her to the nearest emergency room. They managed to save her foot and probably her life.
If you're not sure--absolutely positive--of what you are doing, don't offer to help. If you want to help, do it privately and anonymously. Nobody's karma will be involved. If you want to be a healer, put your money where your mouth is. High on your priority list put an EMT course or a nursing course.
I know that these ideas will go against the grain of many. Let me leave you with this thought: When St. Jerry Falwell refused to heal at a gigantic meeting in Argentina, the locals ran him out of town.
As always, we invite your comments. We are not trying to offend anyone or scorn their tradition, so please be constructive. Our hope is that we may all arrive at a shared understanding of what we are doing. If you know a better way and can articulate the reasons behind it, please share that better way with the community.
Blessed be. GY
Friday, January 28, 2011
Missing an old friend
During this holiday season, as in the season of 2009, we received a post card from an old colleague and co-conspirator. I'll call him just Frank so we don't out him in case he can't afford to be outed. Anyhow, in 2009 he mailed us from somewhere in Ohio; in 2010 it came from the greater Chicago area. We welcomed those messages so full of meaningful bulletins. The drawback? He showed no return address whatever.
Hey, Frank, where are you? We'd love to resume auld acquaintance--not in New Bern but from here in Hinton. Do please let us know a return address so we can pester you as of old, won't you? Old friends can be cherished friends.
So for now, blessed be. Know that we are eager to exchange updates. GY
Hey, Frank, where are you? We'd love to resume auld acquaintance--not in New Bern but from here in Hinton. Do please let us know a return address so we can pester you as of old, won't you? Old friends can be cherished friends.
So for now, blessed be. Know that we are eager to exchange updates. GY
Thursday, January 27, 2011
History (not as wished for)
Reference blog titled "To Every Thing There Is a Season, and a Time to Every Purpose under the Heaven"
Source Science of Metaphysical and Occult Philosophy -- smopblog.com/?p=81
We urge everyone to read John R. deLorez' blog referenced above. de Lorez has given us a survey of where the thing loosely called "the community" finds itself today. As he points out, the community has become (to use a courteous euphemism) eclectic.
As often happens, there are two sides to the coin. The good side is that everyone is enjoying themselves without too much mental effort. The bad side--in our curmudgeonly opinion--is this: A lot of people are skimming some kind of surface without realizing the harm they can do to themselves and to others when they play Witchy-Poo. To put all this into perspective, we ourselves often give a presentation we call "99 Ways Good Witches Go Bad" based on our book "Good Witches Fly Smoothly."
Gavin received his training in England from an old-line coven in Cornwall. It took a small group of neophytes almost two (2) years of quite rigorous training to qualify for initiation. That training required attendance at various lectures both in London and in the provinces, given by noted figures in many fields, as well as other assignments fine-tuned to each student personally.
The quality of those lectures was amazing. Some were held at the British Psychical Research Society's quarters; some were at colleges and universities. He cannot remember any that were held in someone's living room. Thus he witnessed from the get-go the value of learning from people who had been specialists for years in their respective fields.
In the United States in 1968, when we first founded the Church and School of Wicca, there was a high level of genuine interest in exploring a spiritual path. We rapidly went from zero to an international student body of 2,000 enrolled in the School's correspondence course. About 70 percent of them dropped out when they found that we expected them not only to read a lot of obscure books, but also to do experiments. The books were so difficult to obtain that we imported many from Europe and started a School lending library from which students could borrow the texts we recommended.
As the years have passed, fewer and fewer students are willing even to read the required texts. So we simplified the course by allowing two tracks: one for those who sought to earn initiation, one for general information. Today about 70 percent of the students do only the general-information sections--that is,with the notable exception of foreign students and American inmates. They still want to learn everything they can. In the United States the instant-gratification phenomenon has (at least in our curmudgeonly opinion) ruined what had been a good thing with a high level of esoteric scholarship.
Today every self-respecting bookstore has a shelf of easy-read paperbacks explaining multifarious "Wiccan" "traditions" and how-to books on the occult, often from authors who have had maybe one minor spiritual experience. This means that many good people never do much experimentation and rarely dig deeper. In working with groups at our presentations, we are repeatedly dismayed when attendees simply don't know even the most axiomatic of basic procedures and guidelines.
When we founded the School of Wicca, we made a conscious decision that Wicca was for everyone and thus should be, if you will, hidden in plain sight. The Craft should not be the sole property of a self-appointed aristocracy of occult "leaders". That meant we advertised in widely-read media ranging from Cosmo magazine to the National Enquirer. We summarized our thoughts on this topic in the last lecture of our correspondence course, that became the nucleus of Chapter 12 in our infamous book "The Witch's Bible". That chapter is essentially a rant. It asks, "Whom can you believe? Surely not the people who make a profit from having you kowtow to their almighty will." The rant included priests/clergy paid by one conventional church or another; it included physicians paid by Big Pharma to push new products; it included publishers; it included many other people who, though they purport to be sincere, in fact make a profit from keeping you in the dark and by using "innerspeak", the jargon of the inner circle, to maintain their precious us-over-you situation.
For all of recorded history, there have been persons who manipulated others by claiming, "I know something you don't know" and "You're not ready to know that yet." The ploy works on the second-grade playground, and it works all too well in the field of spiritual/magical/occult pursuits.
Based on this statement, any thoughtful person can see immediately that people should be very suspicious of our words; and we told seekers that the only person whom you can trust is yourself. Then we quoted Mohandas Gandhi:
"Divine knowledge is not borrowed from books; it must be realized in oneself. Scriptural texts cannot supersede reason. The principal books are doubly distilled: They come from a human person and have now been interpreted and translated."
So you might think that we immediately condemned ourselves and our thinking. In response as our defense we have to say that
(1) our work is not just our work but also the work of over 40,000 students and
(2) the School has never made a profit and
(3) indeed we live under a vow of poverty.
Recently we have been encouraged when people whom we meet on the festival circuit ask for some of our older presentations. Those seekers are highly interested in such topics as Hinduism, the Sephiroth, multifaceted meditation, and astral travel. Perhaps more people will continue with their eclectic path but will add time for experimentation and having their own epiphanies without longing for whiz-bangs and blue balls of fire, or for thumb games.
Regrettably another phenomenon has seemed to overtaken part of the community. It can be variously described as smooth-below-the-waist or Christo-paganism. We see it in people who have failed to distinguish between reality on the one hand and on the other hand the cultural assumptions in which so many are trapped.
In time past much of the community followed the old ways and had great success with astral travel and with sex magic (the use of natural energy to affect future events); though now, of course, to be politically correct we should call that force "gender-difference" energy--and even this term doesn't work for our GLBT friends. Ay de mi! Sorry, troops.
This current trend has gone way too far. Currently many Wiccans are so smooth below the waist--so politically correct--that they have changed even the Charge to the Goddess, removing politically incorrect phrases such as "Ye shall be naked in your rites and ye shall make the game of love."
How often do Yvonne and I have to sit in lectures which are quite frankly trash? Those self-important utterances include such blatant falsehoods as these two:
(1) Jules Michelet's book "La Sorciere" was titled "The Sorcerer" and
(2) Wicca was founded by Gerald Gardner and i am a member of the oldest Wiccan group founded in 1975.
Because of our objections to these most glaring of the "mistakes", many people decided "those Frosts" are dangerous and should never be invited back.
There's no market for truth.
As Yvonne and I sit here in our living room dictating these thoughts, without even standing up we can look around and see hundreds of books, ranging from shelves of dictionaries, to philosophy, to maps ancient and modern, to a whole shelf of our own books. None are trash. All are dog-eared from continuous use. Unless there comes an upsurge in scholarly and experimental work, then the community has lost it. Do we want that to happen? Or are you willing to ditch the yellow-press books and the woohoo internet sites, and listen and try things?
We have hopes. We are seeing some small groups around the country who will listen and will strive; but they're few and far between. In fact we two can successfully do more experiments with Christians, in their church basement meetings which are alternatives to the official service, than we can with many self-styled pagans. What a sad state of affairs.
Source Science of Metaphysical and Occult Philosophy -- smopblog.com/?p=81
We urge everyone to read John R. deLorez' blog referenced above. de Lorez has given us a survey of where the thing loosely called "the community" finds itself today. As he points out, the community has become (to use a courteous euphemism) eclectic.
As often happens, there are two sides to the coin. The good side is that everyone is enjoying themselves without too much mental effort. The bad side--in our curmudgeonly opinion--is this: A lot of people are skimming some kind of surface without realizing the harm they can do to themselves and to others when they play Witchy-Poo. To put all this into perspective, we ourselves often give a presentation we call "99 Ways Good Witches Go Bad" based on our book "Good Witches Fly Smoothly."
Gavin received his training in England from an old-line coven in Cornwall. It took a small group of neophytes almost two (2) years of quite rigorous training to qualify for initiation. That training required attendance at various lectures both in London and in the provinces, given by noted figures in many fields, as well as other assignments fine-tuned to each student personally.
The quality of those lectures was amazing. Some were held at the British Psychical Research Society's quarters; some were at colleges and universities. He cannot remember any that were held in someone's living room. Thus he witnessed from the get-go the value of learning from people who had been specialists for years in their respective fields.
In the United States in 1968, when we first founded the Church and School of Wicca, there was a high level of genuine interest in exploring a spiritual path. We rapidly went from zero to an international student body of 2,000 enrolled in the School's correspondence course. About 70 percent of them dropped out when they found that we expected them not only to read a lot of obscure books, but also to do experiments. The books were so difficult to obtain that we imported many from Europe and started a School lending library from which students could borrow the texts we recommended.
As the years have passed, fewer and fewer students are willing even to read the required texts. So we simplified the course by allowing two tracks: one for those who sought to earn initiation, one for general information. Today about 70 percent of the students do only the general-information sections--that is,with the notable exception of foreign students and American inmates. They still want to learn everything they can. In the United States the instant-gratification phenomenon has (at least in our curmudgeonly opinion) ruined what had been a good thing with a high level of esoteric scholarship.
Today every self-respecting bookstore has a shelf of easy-read paperbacks explaining multifarious "Wiccan" "traditions" and how-to books on the occult, often from authors who have had maybe one minor spiritual experience. This means that many good people never do much experimentation and rarely dig deeper. In working with groups at our presentations, we are repeatedly dismayed when attendees simply don't know even the most axiomatic of basic procedures and guidelines.
When we founded the School of Wicca, we made a conscious decision that Wicca was for everyone and thus should be, if you will, hidden in plain sight. The Craft should not be the sole property of a self-appointed aristocracy of occult "leaders". That meant we advertised in widely-read media ranging from Cosmo magazine to the National Enquirer. We summarized our thoughts on this topic in the last lecture of our correspondence course, that became the nucleus of Chapter 12 in our infamous book "The Witch's Bible". That chapter is essentially a rant. It asks, "Whom can you believe? Surely not the people who make a profit from having you kowtow to their almighty will." The rant included priests/clergy paid by one conventional church or another; it included physicians paid by Big Pharma to push new products; it included publishers; it included many other people who, though they purport to be sincere, in fact make a profit from keeping you in the dark and by using "innerspeak", the jargon of the inner circle, to maintain their precious us-over-you situation.
For all of recorded history, there have been persons who manipulated others by claiming, "I know something you don't know" and "You're not ready to know that yet." The ploy works on the second-grade playground, and it works all too well in the field of spiritual/magical/occult pursuits.
Based on this statement, any thoughtful person can see immediately that people should be very suspicious of our words; and we told seekers that the only person whom you can trust is yourself. Then we quoted Mohandas Gandhi:
"Divine knowledge is not borrowed from books; it must be realized in oneself. Scriptural texts cannot supersede reason. The principal books are doubly distilled: They come from a human person and have now been interpreted and translated."
So you might think that we immediately condemned ourselves and our thinking. In response as our defense we have to say that
(1) our work is not just our work but also the work of over 40,000 students and
(2) the School has never made a profit and
(3) indeed we live under a vow of poverty.
Recently we have been encouraged when people whom we meet on the festival circuit ask for some of our older presentations. Those seekers are highly interested in such topics as Hinduism, the Sephiroth, multifaceted meditation, and astral travel. Perhaps more people will continue with their eclectic path but will add time for experimentation and having their own epiphanies without longing for whiz-bangs and blue balls of fire, or for thumb games.
Regrettably another phenomenon has seemed to overtaken part of the community. It can be variously described as smooth-below-the-waist or Christo-paganism. We see it in people who have failed to distinguish between reality on the one hand and on the other hand the cultural assumptions in which so many are trapped.
In time past much of the community followed the old ways and had great success with astral travel and with sex magic (the use of natural energy to affect future events); though now, of course, to be politically correct we should call that force "gender-difference" energy--and even this term doesn't work for our GLBT friends. Ay de mi! Sorry, troops.
This current trend has gone way too far. Currently many Wiccans are so smooth below the waist--so politically correct--that they have changed even the Charge to the Goddess, removing politically incorrect phrases such as "Ye shall be naked in your rites and ye shall make the game of love."
How often do Yvonne and I have to sit in lectures which are quite frankly trash? Those self-important utterances include such blatant falsehoods as these two:
(1) Jules Michelet's book "La Sorciere" was titled "The Sorcerer" and
(2) Wicca was founded by Gerald Gardner and i am a member of the oldest Wiccan group founded in 1975.
Because of our objections to these most glaring of the "mistakes", many people decided "those Frosts" are dangerous and should never be invited back.
There's no market for truth.
As Yvonne and I sit here in our living room dictating these thoughts, without even standing up we can look around and see hundreds of books, ranging from shelves of dictionaries, to philosophy, to maps ancient and modern, to a whole shelf of our own books. None are trash. All are dog-eared from continuous use. Unless there comes an upsurge in scholarly and experimental work, then the community has lost it. Do we want that to happen? Or are you willing to ditch the yellow-press books and the woohoo internet sites, and listen and try things?
We have hopes. We are seeing some small groups around the country who will listen and will strive; but they're few and far between. In fact we two can successfully do more experiments with Christians, in their church basement meetings which are alternatives to the official service, than we can with many self-styled pagans. What a sad state of affairs.
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