Archive for the Occultism Category

Blood and Fire: The Witchblood Grail

Posted in Luciferianism, Occultism, Publications, The Path of Flames with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 16, 2015 by Sypheara

It is often the case where I have to step and back and consider what is suitable to post on the blog, what crosses the boundaries of what is either too personal to share, oversteps my mark, or otherwise shouldn’t be disclosed. This was one of those posts, where that dilemma rears its head. After contemplation, retrospection and after conversing with others, I decided it would be a worthy inclusion.

This entry focuses on real Grimoires, on one in particular, and the journeys that objects empowered properly can initiate bringing gnosis to the individual. Whilst this post isn’t intended to be a review, with me focusing on one particularly powerful book as an example, it could be considered one.

Mark Alan Smith is the author who originally introduced me to the idea of the Primal Current as a cohesive path. It was upon first acquiring my copy of the Queen of Hell, an occurrence I’m quite sure was guided by Lucifer in hindsight, that I became aware that others had a connection with the same Spirits and Gods. The energies given off by that work, that book, resonated strongly with those I had been working with, and thus the identification and connection was immediately made.

Queen of Hell was certainly my first introduction to a proper grimoire. This is a word I do not use lightly. The book ‘breathed’ the current, exuded force, something I could feel simply by handling it.

This was in stark contrast to other books I had acquired in my time up to that point. Many other Occult books that I possessed,although undoubtedly consecrated or otherwise ‘activated’ in some manner were certainly not ‘ensouled’ like this grimoire was. In comparison to Queen of Hell, they felt like nothing but lumps of dull, lifeless paper.

The sheer obvious efficiency of whatever process used to ensoul these objects made me an avid and immediate collector of Marks book. Each grimoire when it arrived felt different, and denser in energy, mirroring the focus of each work. So when recently, the latest his line of work was released, as usual I felt compelled to pick it up.

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The Witchblood Grail, by Mark Alan Smith

On arrival the book gave off an incredibly deep, and powerful energy that is difficult to describe. Whilst the previous entry, The Altar of Sacrifice felt cold and earth like, this book felt dissimilar in an unsettling manner. The taste of copper in the mouth and the tingling of the skin just some of the ways this was immediately perceived.

For the next few days, this energy seemed to build. The atmosphere in the home became one like that before a thunderstorm. A heaviness and a charge seemed to build and build, and the ability to do anything was affected. Time itself seemed to slow, running like treacle, and an induced sense of drowsiness set in.

What was to follow would be an intense experience as I was pulled through the gate held within the book itself, merely by its possession. It is obvious to me now that, given the following experience, that this feeling of build up was the catalyst for this experience.

Below is the full account which was initially shared privately.

‘When I felt the need to sleep, I could feel the same energies being noticeably active. The vision, or whatever it was or best described, came sometime later in the sleep cycle as a fully lucid and describable out of body like experience, for lack of more appropriate terms.

It was a pretty horrific state of affairs. I was dragged immediately into an orbit around what appeared to be the Earth, above England initially, and was made to see traumatic apocalyptic events in sickening clarity unfolding before me. First starting with the rise of the seas, the oceans pushing in with their horrific floods. This accelerated rising of the coastline quickly began swamping cities that lay along the coast, as well as inland as the rivers swelled like writhing bloated corpses.

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Mega Tsunami, by Chris Wren/Kenn Brown

The ground then shook, giving way to seismic events which rippled across the entire surface of our planet which, in turn, triggered gigantic tsunami. These raced around the oceans, and I saw in vivid detail as these giant waveforms collided with multiple continents, racing inland and swallowing everything in their path.

This continued for some time, as I was prevented from looking away, locked in place. I then saw an approaching asteroid or comet, which as it neared the atmosphere split into 3 distinct pieces as it tumbled down to the surface. All three chunks hit, huge blasts echoing high into the stratosphere, unleashing giant shockwaves that triggered volcanic eruptions of hot swelling lava bleeding from the wounds in the earth. One slammed into the ocean, causing further gigantic waves, waves so utterly vast that they wiped out hundreds of millions, amid a firestorm raining down comprised of various debris and slicing volcanic glass.

In between these myriad shown events, i could hear a roaring, impossibly loud, voicelike but sounding like the very roar of the Earth itself. This voice was noticeably some kind of male entity, and I could feel now as my attention shifted to it that it was It that was relating not by words but some other manner this apocalyptic vision. What felt like timescales of occurrences time was sped up to vast speeds and i was made to watch, unable to do anything, for what felt like hours and hours. Occasionally I was shifted into the perspectives of those below, witnessing their deaths in myriad ways.

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Asteroid Impact, Unknown Author

Finally, I found myself on the ground. In desperation, I made for what in this experience was high ground, seemingly able to finally move and shift through this realm I had found myself in. Although I assumed it was the devastated earth at the time, there were no points of reference to confirm this.

The ground surrounding me I noticed had been charred black, and around me was a veritable maelstrom of utter fire and choking ash, as if I was walking through a pyroclastic flow. I was covered in some sort of black, paneled armour, unidentifiable in makeup that barely fought off the searching fingers of the boiling ash. As I fought against the intense wind whipped up all around me, I finally succumbed to the sheer force, and was blown sideways, or so I could determine, up into a cliffside.

It was then I realized i was in the grip of some sort of entity. The roaring of the wind i realised was the same roaring of that entity, and it now reached a crescendo. The entity now addressed me directly, in words that felt like the cracking and rumbling of a thousand earthquakes. It was a voice of pure antimony. I cannot remember the exact words from my mind what it spoke, it felt like it was seriously sizing me up, probing deep within me for some manner. I tried to initially resist, but gave up eventually. The pressure on the external form grew and grew until it was overwhelming, and i felt almost surely i would be crushed to death if i wasn’t incinerated by the intense heat this thing was giving off. I could not identify it – it did not sound like Lucifer or Belial from my few meetings with them in similar realms whilst journeying in sleep. I could not see it, unable to turn towards it as its immense pressure held me firm.

It was just then that suddenly I heard a new voice, that when it spoke sounded like a million female voices, all in accord with the other. I don’t know how I knew, but I identified it as Hecate’s voice. Again i cannot remember entirely the words in my mind, but it was along the lines of ‘Do not panic, I am beside you, follow my torches, and you will find the way’. It was then i noticed what could be described only as a tunnel of white/green light. The pressure and roaring stopped as i stumbled towards it, and, when within it, I woke with a huge start.’

Recounting this, I don’t fully understand the purpose for being shown that this vision yet, but I think it was contact initiated by them through the soul fabric of the book. The intent being, to make me face the reality of the text itself. When reading the book it is easy to read it in a detached logical manner. Even if the conclusions are accepted and understood by the mind, they do not have that immediate, visceral impact of vision. However when confronted with the power of the book itself to actually bring its reader face to face with the actual reality of the apocalypse as described, it is a whole other ballgame.

The ability for it to of its own accord cause journeying through the gates held within its material body was startling; taking you straight into its heart in a highly potent, incredibly distressing and challenging experience.Whether this was presented to me simply as a learning experience shown to me as part of my path, actual glimpse of what will happen, or both is something myself, and the reader, have to decide.

The energies have subsided now somewhat, but can still be felt and experienced when handling the book. I feel like there are avenues of exploration between its pages far more than can be read and comprehend by the eye and mind alone. For anyone who has not experienced this, I recommend you search out such works, whoever they are by, and support the people that create them. They differ so wildy from the mass production, the works created solely for profit that are as soulless as the false industry that churns them out. Hopefully purely by example I have demonstrated how they are active tools that can be used in practice, and by the very act of their possession, reveal gnosis.

~S~

Empowering Objects as Familiars

Posted in Occultism, The Path of Flames, Traditional Witchcraft with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 9, 2015 by Sypheara

It has taken along time to get here, due to issues with getting the write up complete, but finally the document on Empowering Objects as Familiars is complete.

This marks the first in a series of two works dealing with the creation of artificial familial bodies. The first entry deals with the creation of a spirit familiar, using the technique of empowerment. By using magical metamorphosis to raise up the spirit of a suitable vessel, a reliable companion on the Path of Flames is successfully raised to carry out the set purposes of the Practitioner.

In this document the creation process alone is detailed. In the future works, methods of working with the familiars created through this process will hopefully be further espoused. In this work is the first recount of my own current version of the circle creation process, based upon my own experiences merged with the version as lain out in the Queen of Hell by Mark Alan Smith to create a method that is effective for my personal praxis.

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The first pass PDF can be found at the location below, or alternatively, in the resources section.

https://theluciferianrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/empowering-familiars.pdf

With this complete, my focus now turns to the Primary Familiars Ensouling rite and the upcoming travel to Hecates temple in Southern Spain. There is certain, personal preparatory work that needs to be done in order for me to be ready to make the journey. As such,  the blog will for the meantime revert to hopefully more consistent, shorter content, so I can recharge alongside covering some smaller, but still interesting and valuable topics.

Ave Hecate,

~S~

Shapeshifting: Assuming Animal Forms (In Dream)

Posted in Divination, Folk Belief, Luciferianism, Occultism, The Path of Flames, Traditional Witchcraft with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 31, 2015 by Sypheara

Writing has finally begun on the PDF detailing the Familiar Empowerment ritual, carried out to raise the spirit of an inanimate object. This will probably be a bit of a long writeup, so I have decided to tackle an interesting side topic in the mean time.

It is well known via folklore and wise common knowledge that witchcraft is  associated with shape changing, and tales of lycanthropy  in particular are quite common to encounter when witchcraft is discussed. Actual  Shapeshifting comes in many different forms, and can be done both in the physical flesh through possession and the use of sacred plants, as well as mentally and spiritually whilst astrally travelling and exploring dream realms. A huge area of discussion, and research,  it would be quite easy to write a small essay on such a topic. As such, to keep things manageable, this particular post will focus on my own personal experiences with it rather than be a compilation of information from various sources and narrower in scope.

From these encounters, and talking to friends about them. including those who are not interested in the Occult or Spirituality at all, it becomes obvious that one of the more accessible and most experienced types of shapeshifting is encountered in dreams. Here, the journeying soul is able to quite easily morph, and change its shape, into something else. People who are good at dream recall will know what I mean – that sensation of looking down at your hands, and seeing they have transformed into something ..else for lack of a better description. Animal transformation, in either a partial or complete state, is a very common occurrence. It is often described to me by friends who have seemingly no prior experience with journeying through dreams at all – despite these instances being rarer than my own, less consistent and with less apparent ‘purpose’, they nevertheless happen and with some regularity.

In order to discuss this, I will skip any further preamble  and go straight into describing two of my most vivid experiences with commentary.

One of my more often assumed forms, when journeying,  is that of the Spider. As mentioned in an earlier post, it has become obvious to me by both dream workings and in daily life that the spider has become a totem of sorts. During astral dream wanderings, there would be times where I found myself in environments where a human form is unsuitable for travel. At this time, a conscious or unconscious choice was made to assume a form capable of navigating its environment. In one notable example, when travelling through one of the Chthonic realms, I encountered an environment that took the appearance of flesh like strands, suspended over a never ending liquid sea of crimson in some areas, that branched off into vein like tunnels. Almost instinctually, in the process of feeling myself falling, slipping down to the abyss like ‘bottom’ of the infinite cavern, I assumed the form of the spider, the transformation happening  in what felt like both an eternity and an instant at the same time.

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Red Spider Web, Artist Unknown

 

The feeling of assuming the other form once it has begun is one that is both total and overwhelming. It affects both the body, as well as the mind, and this abrupt change i can only describe as a ‘hyper real’ sensation. The physical sensation is that of new limbs erupting from your body, the compressing, contracting or expanding of your skeletal and nervous structures and it can both feel highly pleasurable as well as highly painful. The mind  and senses themselves  also experience their own kind of transformation, assuming the mental lattice of the host form. As an example as above, my vision was soon changed from regular binocular vision to what can only be described as a many coloured lattice made up of what seemed like many composite images. It was almost as if I could see around the corners of objects, seeing all their sides at once, and in the spider form I became aware of the vibrations of individual entities, and able to feel with my frontal legs for the correct direction I needed to be headed towards. The feeling was one of a maddening feeling of freedom and ecstasy, as my rational mind was entirely subsumed within that of the new form – still distinctly my own, but filtered through the new mind I found myself inhabiting. The clarity and purity expressed in mind is something that needs to be experienced – in that moment I was no longer human, all surface thoughts eliminated, acting on a pure instinctual drive to progress forward.  I pressed on, aware of a second, duller sensation, the feeling of a gnawing hunger. In this state I wandered for what was seemed like hours, descending deeper and deeper. Upon near awakening, the transformation was slowly repeated in reverse until I felt myself sucked back into my own, complete and awoken body in bed.

Whilst I have never felt i have had any special affinity with the wolf, unlike many people claim of themselves, I have found myself on occasion unconsciously assuming this form in certain landscapes. This is a differing kind of transformation – whilst the first was assumed, these second form instances have always been an unconcious or some kind of instinctual choice For example, in a recent journey, I found myself, in a large dark forest, surrounded by black spirits. The scene was not night, but a misty day, very faint golden light emanating from a washed out but golden sky. They assumed the form of wolves, and instinctively I did the same, a similar transformation experience happening as described above. My eyesight sharpened, my senses changed into that of my body form, conferring me the ability to track the other spirits by ‘smell’, or an analogue to it within that realm.  I tracked after them for many hours, as they showed me the strange sights, other creatures of their forest, and showed me how they live, as a tight knit group working in unison to survive. Once they had shown me the forest, the whole pack led on to a stream that led away from it, over a border of an azure sky, and green rolling plains. This was shown from an insiders perspective – it is only when i reached a muddy pond, did I have a ‘disconnect’ – where the human mind pushes forth for a split second with its own powers of comprehension. Tasting the muddy pond caused me to spit silt, as the liquid went from  refreshing to disgusting ans my consciousness and sense of taste began to return to their original form. Again i felt the withdrawing back into human form, again slowly awakening.

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 Forest, Artist Unknown

What is interesting is that just days later, wolves were an integral part to one of the local groups Sabbat rites, to honour a core member of the group who had passed away, and who heavily identified with wolves. It almost seemed identical in theme to my own dream. Such oracular like occurrences leave a very strange feeling indeed, regardless of how many times I seem to experience them.

In more advanced work of my own Path, when penetrating the deepest realms, it is said that the only way to survive the harsh landscape which presents itself is to take the form of a scorpion – the only creature that is able to successful navigate and survive there. Whilst this is a trial I have not personally undertaken nor come face to face with, it is remarkably similar to my own experiences of travelling the tunnels mentioned above in spider form. It is said this is absolutely necessary – otherwise the actual astral body / soul of the seeker will face grave and possibly permanent injury.

I am interested in what you my dear readers might have also experienced. Whether inside or outside of dream, it would be great to hear your stories. I must again say that transformation / assumption of these forms outside of dream, it is not something I have yet pursued actively, but there is certainly many precedents for it I can find it many magickal texts.

On that note, I leave you with a final peek at the new doll body which I hope to be a new home for the primary familiar – further images will be shown before the binding process is done, as I want to complete the physical preparations before I go ahead and do the working. This will be a separate, if related process to the other working. Where as the other was to uplift, almost in some ways creating of a spirit, this will be binding a current spirit to this matter – as well as to the weak, spirit matter which already makes up the object.

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New doll body, Self taken image

Thanks for reading as ever,

Ave Hecate,

Beloved Queen of Hell Heaven and Earth,

Ave Lucifer, 

Dark Solar Lord of the All Illuminating Flame,

Ave Belial,

Dark Horned Prince of the All Flesh of the Earth

Ave to the Witch Gods and Witch Kin this Night

~S~

Update: Second Doll Familiar

Posted in Occultism, The Path of Flames with tags , , , , , , , on February 1, 2015 by Sypheara

Just a small post, but one i’ve been looking forward to making this past week.

I have finally completed the second of the doll familiars, raising the spirit of this clay up to act as my secondary familiar (the first was empowered for someone else). It was sourced from the same artist as mentioned previously, whose work I am a very large fan of!

The actual write-up for this process has began in the usual physical  journal form, and will be writing the basic outline of my take on this process as soon as is able. It will be great to get this online, as the process and practice I feel is intuitive – the knowledge comes from without, from the spirits and when put into practice and manifested, basic but effective.

I have unfortunately however broken my thumb, so it might take awhile to get it into a document format that I am happy with as it has made typing difficult. This is doubly true in such workings: I have to effectively depersonalise my notes, to ensure that the framework survives intact whilst ensuring that it is distinct from my own familiars. Actually working and forming a further relationship with the new familiar and sorting out my own practice also has to come first, but thought it would be worth detailing what is on the way and that progress is being made.

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Doll prior to Empowerment (picture and doll by Majestic Thorns)

I have also noticed that recently several more people have followed, commented on the blog, and gotten in touch via email. It is always great to speak to more people, whether of differing traditions or those specifically interested in Luciferianism and the Path of Flames. I’d like to thank you all for the support and interest, and look forward to speaking to you all further. May the new year bear fruitful works for us all!

More updates soon!

~S~

Thoughtform Theory and Its Innate Limitations

Posted in Occultism with tags , , , , , , , on December 31, 2014 by Sypheara

I didn’t expect to making this particular post, but something has been nagging at me to discuss for awhile, and I think it bears bringing up. However, before I launch into it, I would first like to say I hope everyone had a good Winter Solstice. My on solstice was a personal and introspective one, and I got a lot of of it. Hope others did also. With that said, I’d like to move into the next topic.

This topic is the occult belief, and its modern interpretation, surrounding thought forms and through them, eggregores. For those who are not familiar with these terms, I will give a brief and very shallow overview of them below.

The idea of thoughtform originates from Tibet, from Buddhist belief. A thoughtform or ‘Tulpas’ as they are known are described as a being, object or some other such form that is created through the application of both mental and spiritual willpower.

Alexandra David-Néel, a Belgian-French explorer and buddist was one of the first to record observations of these practices in the early 20th century. She wrote about how any human, divine, or demonic being may be possessed of the ability to create thoughtforms or Tulpas as described by Buddhist practice.

These creations usually begin existing solely in the mind of the participant, but may also begin to interact with the physical world around them and to start becoming physically manifest. Alexandras writings go on to explain and expand on this, not just detailing how these creations begin to exert influence on the material world outside of the mind of its creator, but also demonstrate external agency:

“Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker’s control. This, say Tibetan occultists, happens nearly mechanically, just as the child, when his body is completed and able to live apart, leaves its mother’s womb.”

This concept was taken onboard in Western Occultism, and eventually through logical expansion and extension of the idea, the concept of the Egregore was born within the groups such as the Golden Dawn. This concept was the logical extension of the thoughtform from an individual to a group. The most well known and documented group thoughtform / egregore is arguably GOTOS, created by the Fraternitas Saturni, as their group thoughtfrom. In the words of Stephen E. Flowers, this particular egregore was created for a particular purpose:

‘Through the experience of the GOTOS the Saturnian Brother or Sister is able to feel directly the qualities of personality that he or she is expected to develop as an initiate of the FS: compassionless love, willpower, resolution, severity (with him- or herself and others). These are developed in order to create the conditions for higher spiritual development through mastery of oneself and the environment. In other words, these are the characteristics of the Saturnian magician.’

In the above example, the egregore was created for a distinct purpose: to embody the ideals of the lodge. Egregores can be created for many reasons, Some even say that just like normal thoughtforms, they can even be created unconsciously and embody the group collective mind without their knowledge. Again, these can split off, appearing to eventually begin to exhibit independence and a life of their own.

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GOTOS Egregore of the Fraternitas Saturni, Artist Unknown

Whilst I believe that the concept of both Thoughtforms and Egregores is both useful, interesting, and even validated based on my own personal experience with personal thoughtforms, it is possible for one to take the above concept too far to the point that one begins to encapsulate and explain away a whole category and hierarchy of spirits as being thoughtforms rather than having a non human origin.

This is a particularly problematic when it’s taken to it’s absolute extreme. This is when materialist occultists (ie those believing all magick and the supernatural has a psychological origin) begin to explain all spirits, including the Gods, as memes that exist within a collective consciousness, rather than being external in both existence and action, to explain the effects these types of beings can cause, even the apparent external and independent actions that highly developed egregores and thoughtforms can exhibit.

By explaining the Gods and Spirits away in a purely psychological manner, one robs them of both their agency and identity – and lowers them to the same level as the human organism and soul. It also conveniently removes any responsibility one has to the world and spirits around them, due to believing they are entirely created by the human mind.

This is the position I have been seeing some in the Occult/Pagan community take recently when in discussion with them, and I find it alarming on multiple fronts.

Firstly, when we take a look at the Western Esoteric Tradition as a whole, especially the Grimoires, we see a very clear picture painted – these spirits are other, external to us, with their own values, qualities, and natures that are totally independent of any human being. This is echoed throughout, from the heavily Christianised forms, through to greek/roman practice, to Babylonia and Sumerian and all the way back to our earliest shamanistic practices.There is no concept of the thought form entity as being internal or even existent – spirits are stressed as being able to interact with the physical world, and have their own agency, and their relation to humans are as external entities. As such, all knowledge related to Spirits and the Gods that has survived in our own traditions heavily implore us to treat these beings with respect and caution, with folktales and occult teachings centred around humanities place within the spiritual hierarchy and how that affects the way in which we can work with the different classes of spirits.

Secondly, such a view also contradicts the traditional buddhist teachings on thoughtforms itelf. By trying to explain around or away the religious and spiritual approaches and teachings of buddhist teaching and the luggage that comes with it via psychobabble and pseudoscience I find distasteful, When it exists within its context thoughtforms as an addition to a complete worldview makes sense: when it it is taken out of context and every spirit is attempted to be shoehorned into being a thoughtform, problems arise. Buddhism contains within it its own hierarchy of spirits, and a distinction is made between these beings and thoughtforms, a fact which is usually conveniently discarded when thoughtforms are taken on its own as an occult idea.

Thirdly, from personal experience, this leads to a very magickally solipsistic world view, where the individual becomes so enamoured by their ‘internal’ world ie ego building they become trapped in their own self imposed hall of mirrors, unable to see how magick can be used to root them into the world around them and give them tangible means by which to influence and move through it. Thoughtforms and Egregores are an interesting phenomena and can be used to build secondary familiars – guides and helpers that can be perfect in helping with this, as long as we realise their place in the spiritual hierarchy.

But by  believing everything is a thoughtform, and therefore that all spirits and the Gods created solely by the human race are egregores, it is easy to incorrectly conclude that through simply being human we have all the keys to the proverbial castle – that we just need to ‘think it’ and that therefore it will be as it all exists within us or some other such nebulous statement. After all in such a belief system we OWN the Gods and Spirits, and can therefore do as we please. They are subject to our will and we can therefore model them into anything we damn well please. This is of course manifestly ridiculous – they defy such pidgeon holing, their voices speak through and reveal the cracks, telling us that they, the Gods and Spirit,s come from ancient external archetypes, older than the human race, carried in our physical genes, mental maps down to our own spiritual makeup. Thus they reveal the truth themselves in time: We are made up of them, rather than the other way around. In later works, we do come across a concept of the Collective Subconscious in works by famed psychiatrist Carl Jung, I believe this is often both misinterpreted to ascribe the Gods as Archetypes and thus ‘unreal’. Even if we were to believe that the Gods are identical to Archetypes, a claim itself which would require substantial proof, that would not suggest they are ‘unreal’ at all, but in fact just by circular logic prove that they are physical agents with the power to physically effect the world around us. Neither would it suggest that we created them as Egregores – more that they have always been, and we rely on them for some of our most fundamental make up at the spiritual/mental/physical level as human beings.

Collective Unconcsious

Collective Unconcious by Solongo Monkhooroi

It is also interesting to note that many that believe the Gods are all egregores somehow also believe that simply willing with these mental constructs in mind has the power to affect physical change without any way of explaining how a construct that lives entirely in the mind can affect physical change. This to me is quite telling. It is plain truth to state that will without means to exercise it is useless – and on top of this it is self evident from looking at wider society that simply being human confers no access to extraordinary occult power, ability, or even connection . All these have to be worked for, the correct, physical lines of access opened, through constant work, effort and striving.

As such, I believe that it is a mistake to assume all of the Spirits and Gods are explainable as thoughtforms. By describing the Gods and Spirits away by stating they exist solely within the human mind, one robs them of both their agency and identity – and lowers them to the same level as the human organism and soul. It also conveniently removes any responsibility one has to the world and spirits around them, due to believing they products of ourselves.

This can be dangerous, as it is then much easier to treat occultism and magickal practice as nothing more than some kind of imaginative play, that a child would engage in, without tangibly real risks and consequences. Gods and Spirits, when approached, have their own reasons, usually individual, for wanting and needing to interact with human beings. With the mindset that they are only mind constructs, we soon lose the ability to work with them in a meaningful and tangible way. Many will be offended, and may even turn against the practitioner in question in order to bestow upon them a harsh but needed lesson.

This is, ironically enough, even more dangerous when we consider thoughtforms and egregores as a class of spirit although being produced by a host being, capable of becoming an independent entity.. As soon as we begin to believe they are only psychological in nature, it is easy for people to wonder why once the budding process is complete, the construct is no longer under their complete control, If the thoughtform is causing issues and needing to be removed /.dismantled, it is highly like someone approaching it from the perspective of it all being psychological will be entirely unable to deal with the problem at large. It will become apparent very quickly that simply ‘willing’ the construct away is useless – has taken on its own external existence and effective means of exorcism will need to be applied to ensure it is properly dealt with.

By attempting to explain everything away in psychological terms, we create a disconnect going forward from ourselves and the world around us placing an artificial barrier between us leading to ineffective practice at best, and dangerous practice at worst. I just hope that others become aware of this, and think before trying to fit round pegs into square holes.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to thoughts and comments! It was a difficult one to attempt to explain.

~S~

Samhain Ritual Write-Up: The Dead Supper

Posted in Divination, Heathenry, Necromancy, Occultism, Paganism, The Path of Flames, Traditional Witchcraft with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2014 by Sypheara

With November fast disappearing, I have finally been able to complete the writeup for the PDF version of the Rite that was undertaken this Samhain. It was a powerful one,  that both me and my friend, Kagekabuki, put together for a local pagan group.

Rather than wax and wane on, I will instead let the introduction I have written for it describe the rite fully. The download link can be found in resources as well as below:

Samhain – The Dead Supper

This ritual is written for performance on the night of Samhain, and is a variant on the traditional dead supper ritual carried out by many groups and covens. It was first performed on Samhain night in 2014, where it was successful in evoking the gods and the mighty dead, as well as directing the participants downwards to experience the celebrations being held within the underworld. 

The the main focus of this ritual falls heavily on the hallowed dead, of peoples spiritual lineage, and requires an active involvement by participants to connect to these spirits. The ritual requires two leaders, ideally one male and one female. The presiding Gods of the ritual that will be invoked are Hecate/Lucifer, and Woden/Hel, with the Path of Flames being the route the powers are accessed.

Although the crossroads where The Path of Flames cross with Germanic Paganism may be obscured, it is a syncretic bond that arose out of the combination of two lines of practice, that was divined to be acceptable / encouraged by the Gods in question themselves. People who are interested in running this ritual are encouraged to carry out a divination of their own to detect/perceive this relationship to settle their minds if they find it a concern.

The ritual itself makes use of the usual circle, invocation and building of the energies, followed by a ritualistic descent to the underworld, a dead supper and possibly a guided meditation. The guided meditation aspect must be worked / recorded by the leaders of the ritual before its carried out in ideally a joint working, on the 30th of October, the night before it is to be performed.’

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An example of the main altar used for this rite from Samhain 2014

As mentioned in the PDF, I’d like to thank the people who took part, as well as Kagekabuki for helping me get everything together and running the ritual alongside me. Please take a moment to visit her blog, which is unfortunately in that place we do not name.. Tumblr!

http://the-wyrd-wanderer.tumblr.com/

In other news, I will be spending the next month or so on personal workings with the new doll i received, to empower it as to become my secondary familiar. I hope to detail this, as well as provide images before the empowering ritual has been performed.

The spirit residing within it has already offered its sigil, so the process should be an intimate and rewarding one. The body for the primary familiar is finally on its way.

Thank you for reading, I hope everyone had an enjoyable Samhain, and I look forward to the Winter solstice!

~S~

Countdown to Samhain

Posted in Folk Belief, Luciferianism, Necromancy, Occultism, Paganism, The Path of Flames, Traditional Witchcraft with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2014 by Sypheara

Hello all, hope this post finds you well.

With Samhain approaching, I have become incredibly busy. I have another Doll body on the way, a second to source, and a ritual for a rather large group to run and prepare. All this alongside also ensuring my own personal notes and writing is kept up to date!

As such, I hope to have plenty to post soon, but unfortunately most of it is likely to go up after Samhain is over with. This is no bad thing really, as it’s a time when we should be in touch with our Gods and Ancestors and our Loved Ones and Communities, rather than lost amongst a digital fog which consumes most of our attention the remainder of the year far more than it should.  (I am definitely guilty as charged).

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Samhain Altar – Author unknown

I wouldn’t post if I was completely empty handed however. I recently wrote a ritual based loosely on my very first ritual with Lucifer I undertook several years ago. This was written for an acquaintance that wanted to contact Lucifer with a means of taking him on as a patron for self empowerment. Whether this person went and performed the ritual I do not know as I never received any contact to confirm the fact.

I feel it is in a decent place to share, and a good thing to post given the season. For those interested, this Monday would be excellent to perform it, or even period over the Samhain season due to the Sabbat being within the moons Waxing phase. Please make sure to read it fully, including the calls, to understand its intent.

It can be found at the following link:

Seven Day Ritual for Unleashing the Black Fire

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Gustave Doré -The fourth horseman, Death on the Pale Horse (1865)

With that said, forgive me for being brief, and  I hope you all have a great and productive Halloween and do the Hallowed Dead proud!

~S~

 

Basic Altars and an Update on Publication

Posted in Occultism, Paganism, The Path of Flames, Traditional Witchcraft with tags , , , , , , , , on September 4, 2014 by Sypheara

With August falling off the edge without a solid entry, due to work and endless sword seminars, I thought it would be a good idea to get  around posting something i’ve been meaning to get around to for awhile.

First off however, I would just like to state that I received a reply from the editor of the anthology I submitted an entry to, and he has confirmed that my article has been selected for publication! As such, hopefully once i’ve seen it in its final form and cleared it, I will be able to link and recommend the finished product, as I will be unable to share the article publicly until one year after publication in print. It is really encouraging to get something possibly published, and might mean an easier job in getting any further works into print in the future.

The topic of this post however will be altars, specifically, mine in regards to Hecate and the other witch gods. I often get asked about my altar set up, and usually the answer has been pretty simple: It is basically an amalgamation of everything that I have come across, have made, or otherwise possesses some occult virtue alongside offerings to the Gods.

It must be said before I go any further that this post, in regards to my own altar, is going to be picture light. I will be illustrating my post where possible with existing pictures of Hecatian altars that belong to others that are publicly available on the internet. I myself do not agree with taking pictures of a space that is for personal use in regards to communing with the Gods. As a sacred space, I feel it should be kept private, and viewed only by ideally oneself, other practitioners, and very close family members at the most.

This is my own personal taboo, but interestingly, both Mark and several other practitioners I talk to have mentioned this to me only recently as either a warning that this shouldn’t be done or that they personally also don’t share pictures of their own altars. I respect and understand why others feel differently however, even if I don’t necessarily agree, and they do serve an educational purpose to those who wish to construct their own.

 

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Altar of Hecate by Zingaia 

Without further ado then. Altars can be small or large, simple or complex, or anything inbetween. My own altars for the last few years have served primarily as a stop gap – somewhere I can practice and give offerings, as a practical space, with the hopes of in the future creating a more empowered altar that would serve as the ideal replacement. Due to the fact I had no permanent residence, or would often have little to no privacy for occult work whilst watched over by religious types that disagree with my practices, these have been small, compact, and easy to relatively easily deconstruct. These are the ones that I now will detail.

The altar itself is a small, round circular table upon which is laid a very basic red altar cloth. This is more for practical reasons than anything else, due to the amount of incense I burn and the capacity of things to spill. This is about one metre high from the ground, so a relatively low table.

The most important part of my altar, arguably, are the central fetishes. These are the objects that in the main, help channel Hecate and  the other Witch Gods. The main two are talismanic – that is, in some manner constructed by myself to be suitable for their purpose. There is a statue of a dragon with an inset green geode, that has been consecrated and empowered to act as a central focal point. Alongside this, is my spirit box which I have detailed the construction of elsewhere on this blog. This box acts as an even arguably stronger link that the main statue, and links the altar to the Witch Gods to which it was created as well as the mighty dead, with Hecate being prime and first.

The box itself sets upon a sigil of the three crossed staves, and the the geode of the dragon often contains small pieces of paper with prayers, requests, questions written on them and folded up into the crevice so they can be charged. Once an answer is given, these are burned in the open air with thanks and libation.

Alongside these two talismanic objects are things i have just seemingly ‘acquired’, based on intuitive judgement, If you keep your own altar, and work with the spirits, you’ll understand what I mean by this. Sometimes you are just compelled t acquire a certain object for its use upon the altar, some internal ‘voice’ tells you it is required or desired.

These central fetishes are supported by a ring of 36 brass skeleton keys, all of which have again been consecrated and arranged around the box. These help strengthen the links further to Hecate and her Key Bearing /Master of Locks and Doorway  aspects, and I intend to use them in important workings in the future.

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Altar of Hecate by an Unknown Practitioner

Alongside these objects, are several others i have just seemingly acquired. Working with an altar dedicated to the spirits seems to attract all sorts of associated objects over time. A non exhaustive list would be the following:

+A salt dried piece of driftwood that acts as a wand, given by the sea in return for my first pentacle, which i lost upon being gifted the branch. It compelled me to take it, and it has acted as my primary tool since acquiring it. It will be further enhanced and worked with in the future, but it gives off an energy which means I feel like I have little to do to it.

+3 stones, 1 quarts, 1 feldspar, and 1 moonstone. These act as further enhancers, and have been placed around the box alongside the keys.

+1 large tree seed of unknown origin. Placed as above.

+1 piece of grave stone, bought from the spirits at and collected from the local graveyard.

+1 glass encased spider corpse, due to my affinity with the creatures on a spiritual level.

+1 dagger, that came into my possession and consecrated, that is used in a multifaceted manner.

+ Several bits of red string left over from the box consecration ritual

On top of these, the practical tools for giving offerings and the offerings itself exist upon the table as follows:

+2  incense burners, one large, one small.

+3 candle holders, sitting atop the three main sigils of the witchgods.

+3 Glass bottles contain a water and pepper mixture corked.

+1 mug containing a suitable libation, usually black coffee or some form of alcohol

+1 glass jar, containing a mix of water, pepper, and numerous essentials oils that are mixed in with it (usually patchouli + others) used to feed tools and the box and as an offering in itself.

+1 ash holder, for containing all the burnt ashes, as they can be used for a multitude of purposes.

Working with this altar is very simple – every week the ingredients are changed on a Monday, and any libations are poured away around the thresholds of the doors in entrance to the house. This fortifies the protective shield around my own home, and feeds the genius loci. Any left over solid offerings that may have been given in addition to the above are taken to the nearby graveyard or a wooded area of seclusion and left there.

I ensure that my altar is kept private, and when necessary, it is quickly dismantled with each object being carefully and respectfully packaged away until the interference subsides and it can be rebuilt.

Things are added to the altar on an intuitive basis, either due to containing there own natural power or added as part of a talismanic construction on my own part.

By adding and growing and interacting with our altars, we work closely with the Gods and Spirits, creating a personal space of connection between us and them. Hopefully this post has illuminated my basic setup. Going forward, I hope to construct a much better, more permanent altar which I will detail the creation of and share if possible in the form of a document.

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Outside Altar by Unknown Practitioner

Thanks again for reading, and I look forward to the next post. Soon, Samhain!!!

Ave Hecate!

~S~

Awakening Clay: A Test

Posted in Occultism, Paganism with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2014 by Sypheara

The work on the essay/article continues, with feedback now being provided by the editor. The initial reaction was quite positive, and based on feedback by others, I am confident  that the article after some edits will be accepted. Work remains to be done to ensure it can be framed within the context of the overall anthology, and with not being aware of other submissions or what they bring, this probably means it needs more than a bit of refinement.

In other news, I have been writing up contact with the familiar, as well as other occurrences that have been happening in my home due increased contact with it and another spirit (see below) i was taking care of for several days. Hopefully this will make the doll ensoulment process easier, more successful, and worthy of a similar write up as my spirit box for the Mighty Dead. Ongoing house redecoration for the meantime means it is not possible to construct the level of permanent altar i want to yet, so this work is ideal for the inbetween time before that work can be begun in earnest.

To this end, recently an opportunity presented itself to work with a doll made out of clay and fabric, as well as do several crossroad workings. The doll in question caught my eye when browsing one of my favourite artists sites (links at bottom of post to her amazing work), and it seemed to exude a certain amount of intensity in its construction. Due to this coinciding with the other halves birthday, i decided to acquire the doll, and activate it to the best of my ability, raising it’s own awareness in ritual. The expected payment of this process by its spirit, its assigned mission to look over and guard the person she was being gifted to. This was far less intense a working than anticipated, as upon receiving the doll, it felt far more active than I had ever have anticipated. It had also already been named, receiving the name of Persephone by her maker.

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The doll prior to the empowerment ritual

The actual process was quite simple, with the same sigil work, and invocationary elements as used for my own workings with my own familiar and Hecate, Lucifer and Belial. Their sigils were empowered in the usual manner, and the doll seated upon a crossroads sigil similarly empowered. This was followed by a period of intense focused visualisation and communion with her, with a contract being drawn up in blood. That intensity prevailed through the entire ritual with her, with a marked degree of seriousness and willingness to work with me. I thought that it would have been a relatively sedate affair, but it proved otherwise, and it definitely felt like at points the developing spirit directed affairs at hand.

This was followed up after the gifting  of the doll at the crossroads after it was accepted, and the care of her passed over out of my hands. The promise written and sealed was thus committed to the Gods in Fire and the main libations preserved from the night alongside fresh offerings given in love.

The process has allowed me to gain some valuable experience. These objects, when produced by hand, seem to contain an innate level of awareness much higher than expected, alongside a certain ‘level’ of intensity that is difficult to describe until worked with. After empowerment, whilst the object was still in my home, it was noticed that an increased level of interesting activity was occurring including the movement of solid objects when the house was empty. Whilst it could have been done by either familiar, this activity seems different from the physical activity my own familiar has been using to on very rare occasions get my own attention. So it is interesting to note as a possibility.

Furthermore, this has made me interested to see how this compares with the doll body being procured for my familiar,  as it could affect the method I have in mind.

Although short and sweet, I hope this has been an interesting read. I’d like to give a shout out to the doll maker, who can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MajesticThorns and https://www.etsy.com/shop/MajesticThorns respectively.

Readers who have also ready my small entry on Datura, posted sometime last year, might recognise the artists style!

~S~

 

Arachnida as Totem and Overcoming Irrational Fear

Posted in Folk Belief, Luciferianism, Occultism, Paganism, The Path of Flames with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2014 by Sypheara

I wasn’t intending to write another post so soon, but with it being the anniversary of the blog the other day I felt motivated to write  another entry on a topic i’ve wanted to cover for awhile.

Spiders have always fascinated me. From a young age, I can remember being simultaneously fascinated and terrified by these eight legged creatures. As a self professed arachnophobe, I struggled like many others with my crippling  fear over the appearance of these creatures.

In one terrifying instance I can remember, clearly, was when one day I put on an item as a child, without checking it. I was rewarded with several, not one, but several of the creatures crawling all over my skin, in a desperate attempt to escape from what I can only assume was a life or death situation for them. The experience of their legs crawling across my skin had me literally petrified, unable to move or swat them off until they ran off and away from my body.

As I grew up I did not really confront this fear, even due to it being mostly irrational being from a part of the world where spider bites are almost always harmless due to the cold winter conditions limiting the types and sizes of arachnid that can survive. However, I did continue to find them,  and the power they held over me, very interesting but would be unable to watch, or read about them, for prolonged periods of time.

It was only as I started on my path that I decided to confront these fears in some manner. I forced myself to research them, to observe their pattern of behaviour, to turn them from a object of repulsion into one of reverence. In my own path, their are many spirits which are spider like, or linked to spiders, and it was through this association and encountering them that overtime I was able to accomplish this goal and realise just how potent and important these creatures are both physically and spiritually.

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Inverted colour version of a picture of a Mouse Spider taken by Fir0002 (link in image)

The spider features in many myths and legends throughout the world, usually present in one form or another. Their fearsome appearance and behaviour, coupled with their amazing web weaving skills, has inspired a myriad of stories about spider spirits and gods in all shapes and sizes. They appear in a malefic form, as well as benefic, and these often cross over in many varied ways.

For example in Japanese folk belief spiders make an appearance as Yōkai – spirits known as Tsuchigumo and Jorōgumo – that would lure their victims in to be devoured, concentrating on the predatory aspect. Interestingly, the Jorōgumo, a spirit that is said to reside at Jōren Falls as guardian, is also said to save people from drowning using it’s webs.

In other instances, the web weaving and instinctual intelligence of the spider gave voice to other emanations in the form of trickster gods linked with creation. These include such revered spirits and Gods as Anansi, god of all knowledge of stories from Western African belief and and Iktomi from Lakota Native American belief, a similar spirit who was also responsible for originally inventing language and stories, names and games before being made a spider for his trouble making ways. Another example would be Nareau or Lord Spider, who is found in the creation stories of the Kiribati people. In their stories, it is this timeless spider that lived in the eternal ‘Darkness of the Embrace’, before it gave birth to the world from a mussel shell.

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A Modern Interpretation of Iktomi by Naomichanart

Not surprisingly these spider spirits also seem to have some degree of oracular ability, able to give advice on the future or as omens as appearing as physical creatures. In the case of Iktomi, it was said he provided a prophecy that told that ‘would spread his web over the land’, which some who believe in him believe has come true in the form of the modern internet. In addition, when hiding from the English after a case of another military defeat, the future king of Scotland Robert the Bruce was apparently inspired by the spider which seemed to indicate to him his goal was attainable, due to its resilience and persistence. He would later to go on to win Independence of Scotland from England.

It’s also of note to see that that in the majority of these beliefs, the spider is not seen as a purely ‘evil’ force – but also not one that can be trusted nor necessarily understood in a transparent way by the humans with which it interacts.

The spiders web has also often been used to describe the concept of the make up of the spiritual universe or multiverse.  One example of this would be the teaching of Indras net in the Avatamsaka Sutra, which is a concept which could be comparable to a spiders web.

‘Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net that has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in all dimensions, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring. ‘

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Seal of Asmoday

In my own practice, many of these beliefs are definitely present in some form or another. They are emanated in different manners, and there are many Spirits, Gods and Goddesses that can take on the form of Spiders. Examples of these would include the daemons Asmoday and Lilith, to name but a  few. Lilith is a prime example – as the ruling Goddess of Gamaliel. Gamaliel is a realm associated closely with intense physical pleasures, which can border on the extreme. As a realm known for its vampiric qualities and spirits, and described as a network of bloodied tunnels, it is unsurprising that the Goddess takes on such a form which matches her realm closely.

It is from this realm where the lesser spider spirits from my own experience seem to descend when the phase of the moon is just before or after the new moon, when only the barest of threads of light illuminate the sky. These spirits are great hunters, and make no mistake, predators, which help clean the Earth of parasites of all kinds – human and non human. I believe have only ever encountered one fleetingly, in a dream state,  and it appeared to be more of the hunting spider type than one that relied on webs to catch its prey. It radiated a strength of purpose and presence, and spoke in a silkish, deep voice. Whilst not detecting any malignance, it certainly had a certain aggressive to its disposition.  It was interested in how or why I had stumbled across it, and it considered me intently for awhile, questioning me. After several minutes conversing with the thing,  it climbed away back into invisibility, seemingly satisfied with my answers and identity. I believe that these spirits could be excellently guardians if correctly approached, cared for, and used for temporary periods only and it is something that I am excited to explore in the future.

An excellent first hand account was given English writer and graphic novelist Alan Moore in an interview with Jay Babcock for Arthur magazine, in which recounted his own encounters with  Asmoday. This being appeared as a spider that was able to distort space and time within the vision which he received. He went on to detail this  :-

‘I also had an experience with a demonic creature that told me that its name was Asmoday. Which is Asmodeus. And when I actually was allowed to see what the creature looked like, or what it was prepared to show me, it was this latticework…if you imagine a spider, and then imagine multiple images of that spider, that are kind of linked together–multiple images at different scales, that are all linked together–it’s as if this thing is moving through a different sort of time. You know Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase”? Where you can see all the different stages of the movement at once. So if you imagine that you’ve got this spider, that it was moving around, but it was coming from background to foreground, what you’d get is sort of several spiders, if you like, showing the different stages of its movement.

Now if you imagine all of those arranged into a kind of shimmering lattice that was turning itself inside out as I spoke to it, and I was talking to my partner at the time and sort of saying, This thing’s showing us it’s got an extra dimension I haven’t got, and it’s trying to tell me that it’s good at mathematics. [laughter] It’s vain. There’s something fourth-dimensional about this. This is all stuff I was actually saying at the time, while I was having the experience, which was pretty extreme.

Anyway. Over the next couple of weeks I started researching Asmodeus and found out that actually, yeah, he’s the demon of mathematics.’

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Asmodeus by Alan Moore (1994)

As a form which has held so much power over me, with the ability to both inspire and terrify me in equal measure, has recently seen me begin to take on the Spider as a source of power, as a worthy totem. I do not mean this in the modern interpretation as a spirit guide – whilst it is certainly possible for a familiar to take this form I cannot claim to be working with one that does.

Instead I mean it as an icon that i have identified with, a body form I have also once or twice attempted to take the form of in dreams to become, to gain power through association with these incredible creatures and spirits. This has seemed to be a natural process, something I have been drawn to which is an inherent part of my own psychology and soul make up.

So that to that end I continue to research this avenue of experience and go in search for the humble spider, and encourage others to do so as well. They have much to offer, and much to teach, and an important role to play in both the physical and spiritual world. I wish more people would treat them with respect, rather than simple reactionary abhorrence. Whilst they still have the power to startle me, it is great that I can finally accept these creatures and spirits into my life.

To this end i encourage others to also turn their own fears into strengths where possible through internalisation, whether that fear is is arachnophobia or some other  phobia.  Through encountering these and making them a source of power rather than allowing them power over us, our growth is rapidly expanded. Through such a process the journey empowers us, and may allow us to reconnect to an area of experience and encounters denied to us by our inability to overcome ourselves.

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Another stowaway hidden in my martial arts clothes

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Further reading on Spiders and Moths

I hope this has been an enjoyable entry, as as iterated it’s an important one to me i’ve wanted to highlight for awhile. Anyway, back to writing the essay for so it can be submitted in good time so wish me luck!

Best regards,

~S~