Home. If ascension spirituality can be summed up in one word, it is the word home. For many in ascension spirituality, the ultimate home is reunion with the source of all, merging with the godhead in eternal bliss. When working in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I wandered through an esoteric bookstore in Harvard Square. On the front table I came across an interesting book by Bob Frissell titled Nothing in the Book Is True, but It’s Exactly How Things Are. I thumbed through it and saw a picture of a strange geometric form called a star tetrahedron — two interlocked tetrahedrons (four-sided Platonic solids) forming a three-dimensional Star of David.
I visited the bookstore often, and there was something compelling about the image of the star tetrahedron. Each time I would pick up the book and read a little more, still leaving it there. Eventually I felt honor bound to buy the book because I had read so much of it in the store. I took it home and read it cover to cover, and learned this strange shape that triggered a longing for home in me was the basis of a meditation known as the merkaba.
When the student is ready, the teacher truly does appear, and soon I found a teacher who taught the merkaba meditation, though in a different form than outlined in the books I had read. I had amazing experiences with the meditation itself, yet found myself between two worlds, with one foot in this exciting-yet-scary paradigm known as ascension. During these workshops I was bewildered because I felt that everybody had some secret knowledge I lacked and they approached it with a certainty that amazed me. Our discussions were of angels, aliens, government conspiracies, and lost civilizations, not in a mythical or archetypal sense but in the literal meaning. The best science-fiction shows seemed tame by comparison. I had come with a strong foundation in Western magick, and I perceived many inconsistencies in these new doctrines. They seemed to lack a cohesive center. Yet the techniques worked. They were healing. They were transformational.
I initially pursued the merkaba meditation because all this new information had me almost convinced that the end of the world was near, and those who knew this new meditation could “ascend” to the next level. The process triggered a lot of fear in me, but showed me just how much fear I had left to heal. Love, however, is the true purpose of the merkaba meditation, and through diligent practice of it, the entire focus of my life and spiritual practice shifted to love. It reinforced the basic teachings I had learned as a part of witchcraft and ceremonial magick — that love is the true source of magick — and completely refocused my magickal practices. If home was the first word I associated with ascension practices, love was the next word, even more important than the first. My life began an amazing transformation. I left the business world and found myself in the strange position of pursuing metaphysics full time — writing, teaching, healing and doing psychic readings as my main source of income.
As I continued my practice, I found people from similar Earth-based spiritualities coming to me for teaching in ascension work. They wanted my point of view. They, too, were drawn to the techniques and concepts, but wanted to know how I reconciled all this seemingly new lore with more traditional material. The path of the mage or witch is not contrary to that of the lightworker. In fact, in ages past, those who practiced what we today call lightwork would have been hunted and killed for being witches. If you look in the New Age section of a modern bookstore, you will find works on everything from witchcraft and crystals to aliens, astrology and angels. These subjects have more in common than most practitioners realize. Anyone devoted to the divine, to the healing of people and the world, and to enlightenment is involved in the work of ascension, though we might each have our own personal definition of that ultimate homecoming.
In the final analysis, ascension is a magickal paradigm for enlightenment that draws on the world’s ancient wisdom. Through your thoughts, words, and deeds, you create your reality and determine the world in which you live. Magick is the process of continually re-creating your reality to manifest your true divine will. Will you use magick to “ascend” to the highest possibilities of our global home, or get stuck in the mire?
Now the same questions I once posed are asked of me. I am asked to show how all of these spiritual traditions flow from the same fount, the same divine source. My answers are based on my own experiences and understanding, as well as my research. The teachings that form the basis of this book are certainly rooted in my perspective as a gay, male, American witch practicing lightwork. Included are many views and traditions that I see as influences on the ascension paradigm, though my emphasis will be quite different from that of other lightworkers. Some might even consider these traditions controversial in relation to ascension. I strive to make sure the contributions of the Western ways, of magick, are included in this amalgam of world wisdom. I wrote a book that would answer my own questions and explain the things I didn’t understand when I began this new path. My life as a witch influences my worldview of ascension, just as Christian mystics paint a portrait of ascension with a strong Christian-centered flair, or Eastern mystics color it with Hindu and Buddhists tones. Remember that all the world’s wisdom flows from that same divine fount, and it is through that source, through that love, that we all return home.
