New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
Though magic may appear to be about fancy paraphernalia and items collected from hidden places in distant lands, my experience is that some of the most powerful magical items are highly practical and in plain sight in our everyday lives. For example, one of the most potent magical tools I've encountered is found in the personal productivity section of bookstores: a daily checklist. In this context, it's a checklist with areas for tracking my ritual and meditation practice each day, both in terms of whether I completed them and how well I performed them. I know that even the notion of this may seem extreme to some of you, and I relate. I began practicing magic in childhood, and by the ...
If you have to make a choice from two or more options, this is a good spread to use. First place two cards representing the question and the querent's position in this situation. Then split the deck into as many parts as you have choices, and from each take one card to represent the outcome of that choice. After studying each option and its outcome, using Gestalt techniques, draw an additional card for any choice where you are not clear as to the result. These clarification cards should provide greater insight. If there are any choices that still have unclear results, draw yet another card for each, up to three cards. By this time you should have discovered the most favorable choice. If ...
As a young child, in my native Puerto Rico, I lived most of my life under the towering power of the Catholic Church. I attended Mass and took Holy Communion every Sunday. I went to confessions on Saturday evenings, accompanied by my mother and other relatives. Thursdays were devoted to the Twelve Stations of the Cross, which we followed in the steps of Jesus. There would be two or three additional early masses during the week. The Mass was said in Latin, and it was beautiful. I still miss the Latin Mass, and I feel very strongly that one of the many mistakes made by Vatican II was to eliminate it from the Catholic liturgy. The congregation knew by heart the answers to the officiating ...
The merging of Christianity and Paganism is a relatively new concept, one rarely talked about and one that stirs much controversy. As more and more people speak out about their love of both Christ and of the Goddess, it becomes apparent that the practice of Christian Witchcraft is no myth. It is real and it makes sense most in the celebrations that both Christians and Wiccans share. The feast days of the Christian and Wiccan calendars are closely linked both in date and meaning, which gives the Christian Witch the greatest of gifts: a way to honor her Christian tradition in the light of a Pagan practice. I offer you here a little bit of history on the development of the feasts that Pagans ...
