Category Archives: magic

Runes of Fire

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Fire elemental power can be seen in different ways, which include and exclude various runes depending upon the way it is perceived. In some of the earlier works about runes, the following runes were given the qualities of fire:

Feoh (primal fire), thurisaz (destructive fire), kenaz (helpful and illuminating fire), nauthiz (needfire), sowelo (sun), dagaz(daylight)

Another method of looking for the qualities of fire is by referencing the various rune poems, for example, in the Anglo-Saxon rune poems the following runes mention fire or flame or flame producing items

Kenaz, (the torch) Eihwaz (a guardian of flame) and qweorth (the fire twirl)

These two are the most common methods by most people of connecting with fire through the runes. After spending some time in contemplationg on this, I came to a third conclusion. The runes of fire by quality. In this case, it has to do with the qualities of fire. Things like radiance, heat, light, will, passion, destruction, are all qualities of fire, qualities which are also reflected in a multitude of runes. Some of these qualities might be more relevant to specific acts of magic, seeking the illuminating quality of fire instead the heating expression might be more useful in a spell to reveal things.

Kenaz – the fire of illumination, passion, inspiration, knowledge
Hagalaz – destructive fire
Sowelo – Fire of radiance, light, warmth, success, victory
Eihwaz – protective fire
Ehwaz – speed, action, impulse
Dagaz – renewing transforming fire
Tiewaz – starlight, heavenly fire, guiding light
Qweorth – sacred fire, holy fire, essential fire

You could also create a bindrune that combines these elements into one sigil of elemental fire that could serve as a key and gateway to connect with the power of fire through the runes, and maybe also be the sigil that is an elemental fire ally that could help you to channel, connect and work with the power of fire.

Elements and Runes

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The 4 (+1) elements play a very significant role in most of Western esoteric traditions and their magical experiments. Tools, directions, colors, values, correspondences are almost ubiquitous for all the elements and the numerous lists of that which goes with this, and this aligns with that. It seems almost de rigueur that people would try to make elements correspond with the runes. Much like any other system, there are also an equal number of lists which gives what elemental value to what rune (or aettir, or grouping etc…) and you could probably exhaust yourself trying to fit them all together or make them all align. Some authors have even created their own elements using the creation myths of the Norse, so you get elements like ice, venom and salt. In the end, it doesn’t seem like any of them really fit the bill for how the classic elements of earth, water, air, fire, and aether/spirit/azoth/ond really fit together with the runes. I just don’t see it being as simple as lagu equals water and kenaz equals fire and then you are left to ponder what wunjo might be or hagalaz or aethel because they don’t have a clear elemental association.

My answer to this dilemma is that the runes are not elemental in nature. They arise from that strict division. Some of them do embrace an elemental resonance, but their true nature is above that. If they are strongly aligned with any element, it would be aether/ond; the clear light of being that is beyond duality but in all dualities. That being indicated, I think all the runes can have an expression in each element. You can have the fire of kenaz, but there is also the air of kenaz, the water of kenaz and the earth of kenaz. It also applies to other runes as well. The earth of feoh, the water of sowelo, the fire of tiewaz are all areas that can be played in, played with and worked with to bring about results.

It is interesting to look at what elements get mentioned in the rune poems and to explore those runes with the strong elemental associations though. It can help to make an idea clear or how to best perform a working using those runes and what other symbolic elements need to be included.
I am going to spend the next couple entries contemplating elements and runes. Looking at the clear runic-elemental correspondences, but also exploring the not so clear ones where perhaps some runes might overlap in certain elemental affinity.

Powers of Ten

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http://youtu.be/0fKBhvDjuy0?t=22s

Maybe viewers in the USA maybe familiar with this video. It was commonly shown in many science classes in various high schools, probably across the country. I know I have seen it more then a few times. The purpose of this video is to help give a conceptual sense of how microscopic and how macrocosmic the physical universe is. At either end of those two extremes is a void.

However, the main purpose of this video is more the concepts of scale, and applying that to ones magical and spiritual work. It seems kind of mind-blowing, but so far I have found it to be incredibly effective and also very sublime.

It is mostly a visualization, but one that can be included in any ritual or spell or technique. The main areas that I have experimented directly with is healing. Visualzing a healing symbol imprinting itself onto the very atoms of a being, then the molecules, then the DNA chains, then the cells, the tissues, up to the level of regular experience. Each symbol is sending healing energy, with each level there being trillions, billions, millions of symbols repeated again and again on each level until there is the one symbol existing at every day existence. I found at least that it seemed to help speed recovery.

From the opposite end, you can continue to send energy, concept, a vibration until it fills all the space around you, your home, your block, your neighborhood, your city, county, metro area, region, country, continent, hemisphere, world, solar system, galaxy until all space is filled with light, or love, or peace, etc… You could just as easily focus on more challenging concepts like entropy or death, and perhaps tie that into dark matter and black holes, but touching on galactic concepts can be a major mind trip and a brush with enlightenment.

You could pair the concepts with the Underworld, perhaps a sacred quantum chthonic realm, or a holy galactic celestial world, and bring their energies down into. The roots of the Tree and it’s branches can far out reach the physical touch of men, but the conceptual can move to it’s very tips. Bringing both down into the mid-realm, the world of form and substance can bring on a heady rush of enlightment, but also give energies that can be effectively channeled for any number of purposes.

I am sorry if this seems a little vague or unclear, but it’s a concept I am playing with in my personal work and contemplation.

Where the Hel have you been?

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Ok ok, I get it. I haven’t posted in a while. At first I was severely lacking for inspiration, then I was sick, and now I am just being lazy and creatively blocked since I just don’t know where to begin. I have been posting occasionally over at Hoodoo Crossroads, on topics related to the practice and application of Conjure, but things here have been, well, quiet. This heat wave hitting the Greater Los Angeles area just isn’t helping right now either, as it makes it too hot for me to think, or at least I feel that way.
Then there is also the work side of it. Having something to write about, because I am doing something, and I have been, it is just the process of coming to a better understanding to where I can express it clearly in words. No, it’s not a deep mystical experience but, as with all kinds of spiritual work, walking it and talking it isn’t always easy.

Psychic

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Definition of psychic
1: of or relating to the psyche

2: lying outside the sphere of physical science or knowledge : immaterial, moral, or spiritual in origin or force

3: sensitive to nonphysical or supernatural forces and influences : marked by extraordinary or mysterious sensitivity, perception, or understanding

Definition of psyche

[Greek psychē]
a : soul, personality
b : mind 2
Origin of psyche
Latin, from Greek psychē soul

-From Merriam-Webster

For a long time, I have avoided the word psychic. It was a word that I felt never applied to me, mainly because I don’t see dead people, I don’t read minds, and I don’t know the whole of a person before I even talk to them. But I do have gifts, gifts that do make me sensitive to extraordinary or spiritual forces. It is from those gifts that I sought out to magic and to study all its forms, and I am on the spiritual and magical path that I am on.

Lately, I have been pondering what it means to be psychic. This is a term that I see often, usually in relation to being a reader, ie “a psychic reader”. The popular connotation seems to be one where people have great expectations of someone who claims to be psychic. Readings a persons mind, knowing almost everything about them, and vivid exacting predictions of the future are the most well known examples of what people expect from a psychic, at least if they have never been to one. Of course, all of this is suppose to happen the instant the client walks into the room and sits down to the table where the psychic reader is plying their craft. As many ads for readers indicate, there is a slight promotion of these traits, at least to attract clients, from regular ones to one-timer who come out of curiosity or desperation.

Looking at the definitions of psychic, and the words it is derived from, the potential of being psychic is a completely different thing. At least by one meaning, psychic and magic could almost be exchangeable words, as they both are nouns relating to phenomena that lies outside the sphere of physical science and knowledge. As an adjective, psychic can take many forms. Sensitivity to nonphysical or supernatural influence, or an extraordinary sensitivity can relate to many things. It isn’t always about being able to read minds, see the future, or knowing information without physical access. Sometimes it can just be an innate sense to danger, or a sense of what action to take, either to insure success or just have a fortunate day. That same sensitivity could relate to the root word of psychic, the word psyche. As psyche means soul, personality, or mind, a psychic person could just as well be someone whose soul, personality or mind is perhaps one of their stronger qualities. That greater talent in psyche might cause one to seem to be the other kind of psychic. As the strength of your soul, mind, or personality, gives one the ability to perceive with extraordinary sensitivity, or to originate things from a non-physical source.

At least by that meaning, almost everyone is “psychic” as many people seem to tap into moments where they are aware of, or connected to influences that come from a nonphysical source. It is those who are gifted with connections above and beyond the infrequent and mild sensitivity that some people feel that are more renowned, and sometimes more haunted by their gifts. I have met a few people who have told me of childhoods lived in fear, from going out in public where the thought of every person they encounter is made clear to them, from happy people, to scary thoughts of neighbors. Another who has difficulty sleeping throught the night because it seems every ghost (and I mean by that a spirit of a deceased human) comes visiting them, drawing attention to itself for some unknown reason. Many of these people just want a normal life, and so they never develop those gifts, but their gifts never decrease either, except through numbing the senses, often through alcohol, drugs, or other additive and destructive behaviors.

Of course, forever every one person haunted by psychic gifts, it often seems that there are more with very slight gifts who are trying to develop and improve them. I can’t say I have ever met someone who managed to work their slight gift into great gift, but I have seen plenty of people make the best of their slight gift, and turn into something useful and practical, which served them well, and helped make their lives better. I think, that is of course, one of the great keys to being a really great psychic, as within any talent, gift or interest. It can only improve with practice and application. Much in the same way that Einstein wasn’t a genius, but yet he revolutionized the science of physics, and how people understand the world through physics, so can a person with average gifts, become a great and recognized psychic, reader or spiritual worker.

Psychic?

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Definition of psychic

1: of or relating to the psyche

2: lying outside the sphere of physical science or knowledge : immaterial, moral, or spiritual in origin or force

3: sensitive to nonphysical or supernatural forces and influences : marked by extraordinary or mysterious sensitivity, perception, or understanding

Definition of psyche [Greek psychē]

b : mind

2 Origin of psyche Latin, from Greek psychē soul

-From Merriam-Webster

For a long time, I have avoided the word psychic. It was a word that I felt never applied to me, mainly because I don’t see dead people, I don’t read minds, and I don’t know the whole of a person before I even talk to them. But I do have gifts, gifts that do make me sensitive to extraordinary or spiritual forces. It is from those gifts that I sought out to magic and to study all its forms, and I am on the spiritual and magical path that I am on.

Lately, I have been pondering what it means to be psychic. This is a term that I see often, usually in relation to being a reader, ie “a psychic reader”. The popular connotation seems to be one where people have great expectations of someone who claims to be psychic. Readings a persons mind, knowing almost everything about them, and vivid exacting predictions of the future are the most well known examples of what people expect from a psychic, at least if they have never been to one. Of course, all of this is suppose to happen the instant the client walks into the room and sits down to the table where the psychic reader is plying their craft. As many ads for readers indicate, there is a slight promotion of these traits, at least to attract clients, from regular ones to one-timer who come out of curiosity or desperation. Looking at the definitions of psychic, and the words it is derived from, the potential of being psychic is a completely different thing. At least by one meaning, psychic and magic could almost be exchangeable words, as they both are nouns relating to phenomena that lies outside the sphere of physical science and knowledge. As an adjective, psychic can take many forms. Sensitivity to nonphysical or supernatural influence, or an extraordinary sensitivity can relate to many things. It isn’t always about being able to read minds, see the future, or knowing information without physical access. Sometimes it can just be an innate sense to danger, or a sense of what action to take, either to insure success or just have a fortunate day. That same sensitivity could relate to the root word of psychic, the word psyche. As psyche means soul, personality, or mind, a psychic person could just as well be someone whose soul, personality or mind is perhaps one of their stronger qualities. That greater talent in psyche might cause one to seem to be the other kind of psychic. As the strength of your soul, mind, or personality, gives one the ability to perceive with extraordinary sensitivity, or to originate things from a non-physical source.

At least by that meaning, almost everyone is “psychic” as many people seem to tap into moments where they are aware of, or connected to influences that come from a nonphysical source. It is those who are gifted with connections above and beyond the infrequent and mild sensitivity that some people feel that are more renowned, and sometimes more haunted by their gifts. I have met a few people who have told me of childhoods lived in fear, from going out in public where the thought of every person they encounter is made clear to them, from happy people, to scary thoughts of neighbors. Another who has difficulty sleeping throught the night because it seems every ghost (and I mean by that a spirit of a deceased human) comes visiting them, drawing attention to itself for some unknown reason. Many of these people just want a normal life, and so they never develop those gifts, but their gifts never decrease either, except through numbing the senses, often through alcohol, drugs, or other addictive and destructive behaviors.

Of course, forever every one person haunted by psychic gifts, it often seems that there are more with very slight gifts who are trying to develop and improve them. I can’t say I have ever met someone who managed to work their slight gift into great gift, but I have seen plenty of people make the best of their slight gift, and turn into something useful and practical, which served them well, and helped make their lives better. I think, that is of course, one of the great keys to being a really great psychic, as within any talent, gift or interest. It can only improve with practice and application. Much in the same way that Einstein wasn’t a genius, but yet he revolutionized the science of physics, and how people understand the world through physics, so can a person with average gifts, become a great and recognized psychic, either as a reader or spiritual worker.

An invocation of the runes

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Hail Rune Wights of the Nine Worlds, Hail to the Hidden Runes, Interpreted signs, the many symbols of Might and Power, by great singer painted, by the high powers fashioned, graved by the utterer of Gods, Hail cosmic runes, bright runes, Holy runes, Hail Luck staves, Wyrd staves, Spell staves, Hail Mind runes, Hail Dream staves, Hail Speech runes and Song runes, Hail Joy Runes and Victory Runes, Hail Wealth Runes, Hail Thief Staves, Hail Birth runes, Blood runes, and limb runes, Hail Health staves, Hail Sea runes, Earth Runes, Fire Runes, Sky Runes, Hail Wind staves, Water staves, Rock staves, Flame staves, Hail Death Runes, Black runes, Hel Runes, and Conflict Runes, Hail Murk staves, Deception staves, and Evil staves, Great Rune Wights, Your weal I win, your boon I obey, your good I happily gain, Hail to the speaker, the knower, the listener, Use what you have learned

copyright Br. Christopher 2010

Loving it up

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Tonight, I spent a good amount of time making various love products. Love bath salts, true love powder, love incense. I feel all kinds of loved up.

As I sat there making these products, each very different from each other in ingredients, I noticed some things. In my experience of love products they tend to three (3) certain types of scents. Those scents are sweet, floral, and musky. All three can be present in one product, but it is interesting to separate out the three into different products.

In this case, the Love bouquet bath was floral. As the strongest scents within it are lavender and rose, it makes sense. It was kind of refreshing because of that, and uplifting, like the feeling of new love, sweeping into your heart. The sparkle of infatuation and affection, or the sparkly new “I feel pretty and also a little twitter-pated” as well.

With a different scent was the True love powder. This just smelled sweet, a little green, but there was this vague, indescribable candy like smell. I don’t really know where it came from (as I didn’t really add any essential oils) and none of the herbs really seemed to smell like that either as I was measuring them out. Something about the process of grinding it up and mixing it together seemed to release this scent that wasn’t there before. That, or the Powers of Love were gracing me with their presence, which I don’t mind at all.

The final product, my Love incense, is a mixture of deep, heavy, musky smells. Patchouli figures strongly in this mixture, as does myrrh. My intent was something that is bit more sexy and seductive, and in a sense a bit more masculine, as floral scents are seen as being feminine, darker and muskier scents are seen as being more masculine. Suffice to say, I love this incense. It’s deep, it’s rich, and given time, I think it will develop some great complexity of scent. But I think it needs a lot of time to do that. I am going to give it a test run tomorrow though, just to see how it smells at the beginning. I have actually been sitting on the compounding of this incense for a while, as I made an oil from this recipe long ago, so I am curious to see how it comes out when I burn it. The oil I love as well, and as it is primarily rich, luxurious fixatives, it is really long lasting, and can be a little strong for some people. As it’s all botanical essential oils, I am impressed that it can last all day, while some of my other mixtures seem very fugitive in comparison.

Love, Love, Love, is really all I need right now.

Experiences with subtle anatomy

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One of the methods that I use in working with runes is meditation. I find it works really well for me, and in clearing my mind, it helps to clear everything else out.

Part of my meditation is reciting part of the Havamal, followed by a quick bit of runic galdr, going through the futhorc from Feoh to Gar. It’s pretty calming, and in allowing my voice to sing, sometimes keeping it even through it, sometimes varying pitch and rhythm with each rune, I feel a strong connection, and affirm that connection to the runes every time I do it, almost every day. As I sing their names, I visualize a circle of energy that forms around me, usually ruby red in color, which the runes emerge from and return to. When I reach Gar, it sits at the axis of this circle, and it’s points become kind of spokes, joining with it and forming a wheel.

When I originally started doing this, I noticed that at first, the runes seemed to be coming to my third eye center and then the circle would stabilize around my throat/shoulders. For the past month though, it has seemed to be operating at my solar plexus, and the intensity of the red was brilliant and shining. This past weekend, it moved back to my throat one day, the next day it climbed up to my third eye/crown, where the circle then became a shimmering/prismatic white, it seemed like a halo or crown sitting on my head, blazing letters of flaming light. This morning, when I reached the end of the rune galdr, the circles formed at every energy center I work with (which is five, root, solar plexus, heart, throat, eye/crown) and then starting from the base, and going up, each Gar came in, rippling up the central channel that unites them. They all seemed to be turning at different speeds, and felt like different colors (although I didn’t necessarily take the time to perceive them all) they all felt harmonious and unified together.
I am not sure what it all means, if anything, but it was a really awesome experience to have.

Atheism and Magic

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Recently, on a elist that I am member of, in a discussion about magical ethics, the conversation turned to the idea of religion, faith, and their relationship to magic. In the discussion, the subject was brought up of how a friend was a declared atheist, but believed in ghosts, because in her twenties, she lived in a severely haunted house and experience that reality first hand. So, while she didn’t believe in God or gods, she did believe in ghosts, and spirits. This puzzled quite a few people, but it seemed perfectly reasonable to me. I also indicated that an atheist could also practice magic, and also not necessarily believe in God or gods. Quite a few people seemed puzzled by this.

The example I that used is my awareness of the magical practices belong to various Buddhists sects, while many Buddhists that I have met, have indicated that they are atheists. That is, they don’t believe in God or gods. To be perfectly honest however, I have never met a magical practitioner who is also a serious atheist. I also pointed out that someone can be an atheist, and belief in spiritual realities, while someone who only believes in material source, causation and reality, will most likely be an atheist as well, but being an atheist and being a hard materialistic empiricist is not the same thing.
As far as the Buddhist thing goes, I am a total outsider, and I really have no other claim then a few experience with friends and acquaitances who have identified as Buddhist. I have also never met anyone who was an atheist, and also practiced magic (of any kind per se). I myself, am not an atheist either, so for the most part, I am playing the devil’s advocate here. But this lead me to the thought and decision to ask the question. Is there anyone, or has anyone ever met anyone who was a declared atheist, but also practiced magic of some kind or another? I would really like to know, and I rather hope I can meet a person like this, because I really want to ask him and converse with him how he espouses his cosmology, and how magic works for him