Isaac Bonewits at the Gnosticon Aquarian Festival III, held September 20 - 23, 1973 in Minneapolis

One of the first things Isaac said to me when he came to work at Llewellyn was to explain that his name, Bone – wits, meant “smart bones”—that he was smart.

In many ways I think he set out to live a smart life no matter what profession or subject he was interested in. When he was allowed to major in “Magic” at UC-Berkeley, he went about the streets of Berkeley wearing a ceremonial sword knowing he would be attract attention and many opportunities to explain what a magic ceremonial sword was.

I never heard that he had to explain his sword to the police, but I can imagine how he would welcome that particular opportunity!

Isaac Bonewits at a speaking engagement, circa November 1973. His topic was “Witchcult.”

So Isaac was smart, theatrical—even flamboyant —and very much an activist, politically and otherwise. In those days, the early seventies, he wore his hair in a single braid down to his skinny ass, and a single long earring. He took opportunities to wear his ceremonial robes publicly, and never lost an opportunity to assert that he was a Pagan. He was active, assertive, smart, and well-liked even by the few with whom he had disagreements—even when he made absurd statements. Only one of those remains in my memory: he asserted that the equality of the sexes included the ability of a man to produce breast-milk to nurse a baby.

Controversy was something he never shied from. Were the occasions for seeking out and generating controversy always “smart?” Probably not, but his friends knew that was part of his character. And these were the Seventies, not quite as “far out” as the late sixties in Berkeley, but Isaac played a leading role in the “establishment” of Paganism, of the New Age as new way of thinking and living, and always reminding those making claims on behalf of their beliefs of the need to support their statements with “rigorous scholarship.”

Gnostica became the leading New Age, Pagan, Metaphysical, and Occult periodical of the time—a time before its time as the market wasn’t quite ready to sustain what we envisioned and the bankruptcy of the two magazine distributors necessitated some retrenchment. But the market continued to evolve and the quality of our work together went on to establish the community we know today.

Isaac brought many voices to Gnostica and to the Gnosticons, and his leadership was immensely important in transiting the Sixties’ phenomena into the most dynamic intellectual and social movement of the Twentieth Century—that which we know as the reality of the real New Age.

I officiated in his marriage to Rusty in our backyard. It was not a big affair, but I remember Rusty saying, with amazement, that the ceremony “worked”—she felt like a bride. I guess it didn’t work too well, since that marriage didn’t last very long. And Isaac moved on from Llewellyn and the days of Gnostica magazine and our famous Gnosticon “gatherings of the tribe.” It was at one of those—the rather famous WitchMeet where I introduced the Thirteen Principles of Wiccan Belief—that Isaac officiated at the marriage of Morning Glory and Tim Zell (later to become Otter G’Zell). That marriage lasted.

Handfasting of Morning Glory and Oberon Zell Ravenheart, presided over by Archdruid Isaac Bonewits and High Priestess Carolyn Clark at the April 1974 Spring Witchmeet.

What more can I write?

Isaac was a good man, and a real New Age person who contributed enormously to what I believe to have established this New Age as a fundamental change in consciousness in which Paganism, Wicca, Magic with and without a “K,” Shamanism, and transformative technologies are seen as NEW, not just as revivals of OLD ways or the adoption of Eastern and other practices.

Isaac—as a “Fundamentalist,” as part of “the Establishment”? It takes some re-thinking and recognition of what being a pioneer and revolutionary means. Certainly Isaac was a leading member of the New Age “establishment,” and his academic and intellectual contributions were “fundamental” to taking us beyond the mere acts of rebellion that could have stultified the Movement as its beginnings.

Well, my friend, while I wish you bon voyage on your next life, I have to say: Don’t stop now, for our New Age revolution still needs your help. Keep up the Good Work and practice the Good Life wherever you are.

Love and Blessings,

Carl Llewellyn Weschcke

When metaphysicians and psychics, and even a growing number of parapsychologists and other scientists, speak of planes or worlds—physical/etheric, astral, mental, and spiritual—they are recognizing the existence of different kinds of substance. These substances are distinguished by distinct ranges of vibration.

Everything that exists “vibrates.” Our perceptions are uniquely tuned in to specific ranges of vibration that we sense with our appropriate organs—physical as well as psychic (although these psychic organs are different in structure and nature than the physical ones). Nevertheless, some psychic perceptions combine the physical organs with one of the chakras, which we can call “psychic” or etheric organs.

“Vibration” refers to movement and “vibrations” are measured by their frequency per second. Touch, sound, odor, taste, and sight are each characterized by particular ranges of vibrations, and all phenomena perceived by these senses occur within defined ranges of vibration.

The following tables are scientific and speculative. They are also visibly incomplete and beg reader input. The intention is to add the missing informational pieces to the tables below, so that we can provide a structure for our understanding of the position of Whole Person within the Whole Universe inclusive of all that lies outside of our physical perception.

Levels of Consciousness, Soul & Spirit, and the Whole Person

The above diagram is taken from The Sword & The Serpent, by Denning & Phillips

The Evolutionary Plan of the Psyche

The above diagram was taken from The Sword & The Serpent, by Denning & Phillips

Do you have any further information on vibratory rates to add? The more information I gather, the more complete these tables will be. Any and all input is greatly appreciated.

When metaphysicians and psychics, and even a growing number of parapsychologists and other scientists, speak of planes or worlds—physical/etheric, astral, mental, and spiritual—they are recognizing the existence of different kinds of substance. These substances are distinguished by distinct ranges of vibration.

Everything that exists “vibrates.” Our perceptions are uniquely tuned in to specific ranges of vibration that we sense with our appropriate organs—physical as well as psychic (although these psychic organs are different in structure and nature than the physical ones). Nevertheless, some psychic perceptions combine the physical organs with one of the chakras, which we can call “psychic” or etheric organs.

“Vibration” refers to movement and “vibrations” are measured by their frequency per second. Touch, sound, odor, taste, and sight are each characterized by particular ranges of vibrations, and all phenomena perceived by these senses occur within defined ranges of vibration.

The following tables are scientific and speculative. They are also visibly incomplete and beg reader input. The intention is to provide a structure for our understanding of the position of Whole Person within the Whole Universe inclusive of all that lies outside of our physical perception.

Levels of Consciousness, Soul & Spirit, and the Whole Person

The above diagram is taken from The Sword & The Serpent, by Denning & Phillips

The Evolutionary Plan of the Psyche

The above diagram was taken from The Sword & The Serpent, by Denning & Phillips

No single view of either Macrocosm (the Universe as a whole) and the Microcosm (the Human as a whole) can comprehend all there is. A Qabalistic approach provides another perspective.

Action on the physical plane/world requires a physical body. We are misled in believing that thoughts, emotions, and aspirations all arise from the physical brain and have no substance of their own or any need for bodies. Instead, we do have an astral body, a mental body, and a spiritual body. And, actually, there are still higher planes and bodies, but they are not pertinent to our subject in this book [the upcoming Psychic Empowerment: Tools & Techniques, by Carl Llewellyn Weschcke and Joe H. Slate, Ph.D.].

Just as we act, feel, think, and aspire while centered in the physical body, so can we act, feel, think, and aspire when we are centered in the astral body, or in the mental body, or the spiritual body. Yet, each body has particular limitations and particular abilities. In the physical body, you cannot think yourself to a different location, but in the astral body you can. In the astral body you cannot reach out and move a physical object as you can with you physical hand. (Actually, you can using your mind by projecting an astral hand, and using special techniques that bring etheric substance—which is a higher vibratory part of the physical—into the astral body, but these techniques usually require training and discipline, as in certain practices of yoga, the martial arts, shamanism, and forms of African and Western magic.)

What you can learn to do is to center your consciousness in the astral body, and use it as a vehicle, just as you normally use the physical body as a vehicle for your conscious mind. Think of it as a vehicle made of a different kind of substance and using a different kind of fuel.

Ted was a good friend, a good author and an inspiration.

Some people have a natural charisma, and Ted had that but it was his self-honesty and sincerity that brought him a loyal following. Ted’s success never went to his head. He remained forever true to his inner convictions and was devoted to using the medium of his books and talks to communicate his knowledge and beliefs, and to inspiring millions to follow his path. Altogether, Ted’s books published by Llewellyn have sold more than 2 million copies since his first book, Simplified Qabalah, in 1987. He also published with his own press, Dragonhawk Publishing.

All his books were, and are, pioneering. Animal Speak has sold nearly 500,000 copies since September 1993 and remains a bestseller because it speaks deep truths without cumbersome scholarship. Ted wrote from experience, both actual work with real non-human life and his deep inner perceptions. Ted loved his animal world and his books teach us to become attuned to our own spirit animals.

Ted was also an occultist, although her rarely used that word. His writings on Qabalah had the freshness of personal experience and were crafted to bridge from otherworldly mystical to the more friendly and enchanting world of the fairy, the spirit of the forest, and the beauty of the inner child and the outer child’s joy of life and natural ability to cross over to the inner landscape that is as real for a child as hard physical reality is for the adult.

And Ted did write books for children as well as for “grown-ups”—some of whom may have re-discovered that inner world of enchantment and the real alternative world of the fairy.

Ted isn’t gone; he will live with us for a long time to come. We have all lost a real friend in his passing but his spirit will remain close to us. We express sympathy to his wife, and to all who loved him including “creatures large and small” and of this world and another.

Blessed Be, Ted. Blessed Be all your family and many friends.