Witchy Update - Issue 26

Elysia Gallo Yes, it's that time of year again — time to hit the books! Even those of us who are no longer in school can fondly reminisce about the smell of sharpened pencils, the feeling of crisp, blank notebooks full of potential, and the comfortable weight of a stack of new books with a nostalgic little thrill of excitement.

As Pagans, many of us are still avid readers far beyond the end of our formal education. We always want to know more! To learn new skills, hear new stories, or meet new people on the pages of a book. Llewellyn has plenty of new releases that will do just that. (And if you are still in school, well, these will definitely take your mind off trigonometry for a spell!)

You'll meet with lots of new people and ideas through our September releases, Vampires in Their Own Words, edited by Michelle Belanger, and Goth Craft by Raven Digitalis.

Vampires in Their Own Words explores a subculture that is very close to ours in its worldview, yet for whatever reason has been kept at a distance from the Wiccan community. The time has come to break free of our stereotypes and actually learn something about them with an open mind. The book is an anthology by about two dozen Vampires who write about their own lives and experiences. And when I say Vampires, I don't necessarily mean "lifestyle" vampires who act and dress the part to get attention.

As you will see in the pages of this book, Vampires are regular people like you and me who, for whatever reason, aren't able to process and store vital energy (chi, prana) the same way that we can. While Pagans and Wiccans have a good idea of how to draw energy from the earth, from a tree, or from the moon, Vampires are simply not able to tap into this ambient natural energy around us. Instead, they can only "digest" human energy. And before you start thinking of those nasty psychic vampires (those "friends" or acquaintances who drain your life force and leave you feeling empty), there is a burgeoning Vampire community who actually recognize their true nature and are dedicated to upholding ethical codes of conduct. This means only taking energy from a willing donor — usually someone with an excess of energy or tension. Vampires, with their gift of energy manipulation, can be excellent healers as well. I could go on and on...read the book yourself to gain entrance into this fascinating parallel subculture.

And speaking of subcultures, say hello to Goth Craft! This is a book that explains that not all Goths are Witches and not all Witches are Goths (thank you!) but that, in fact, there can be a very interesting blend of the two! Raven introduces us to different types of Goths (from RomantiGoths to Perky Goths to Lolita Goths and more) and then to different types of magical practitioners (from Gardnerian Wiccans to Druids to Thelemites and more) and what they believe. The rest of the book explores the deep and powerful intersection of the two. How can you use intense emotions like sadness or despair in your magical workings? When applying extreme makeup, how can you make each brushstroke a meditation? Can body piercings and BDSM be part of your magical practice? How about blood magick? Death meditations? Working magic with Goth music on the dance floor?

Goth Craft is a book that's both serious and fun, and it's filled with photographs of people on the scene, both in color and black-and-white. If you've ever felt even just a teensy bit Goth, you're going to love this book and the depth it provides into dark (but not evil) witchcraft and magick.

In October, we have another couple titles coming up to keep your occult education in high gear: Atlantis by John Michael Greer and The Temple of High Witchcraft by Christopher Penczak.

The Temple of High Witchcraft is the fourth in Penczak's series on witchcraft. Each book is a year-and-a-day course in one particular facet of the Craft. If you haven't read The Inner Temple of Witchcraft, The Outer Temple of Witchcraft, and The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft yet, well let's just say that you might want to make sure you have a rock-solid foundation before you move on to this book. It corresponds to the element of air, signaling lots of abstract thought, logic and creativity! You will certainly be pushed to the next level in completing all the exercises in this book. It explains the Qabalah and the Tree of Life, and includes pathworking meditations for each of the spheres of this esoteric system. Again, speaking of blending subcultures — there is no law that says that Witches can't practice or at least be well grounded in Ceremonial Magick! Christopher shows that we share the same roots and that their practices can enhance ours; at the end of the book, he invites you to create an all-new reality map of your own so that you can both incorporate and transcend all the systems you have heretofore learned. This book is highly recommended for the serious life-long learner!

Atlantis: Ancient Legacy, Hidden Prophecy casts light on occult traditions surrounding this ancient myth. Greer shows how the original Atlantis story, crafted by Plato, was turned into a legominism — a symbolic story used to pass on insights and information in hidden form to future generations. In the hands of 19th and 20th century occultists like Helena Blavatsky and Dion Fortune, the Atlantis myth was turned into the story of a civilization gone mad and the minority who first struggled to save it, and then sent out seedbearers to preserve their story and wisdom for the future. Greer also proposes where he thinks Atlantis was located and what actually happened to it, based on what science has learned about rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age. While we probably won't be swallowed up by the sea at the same fearful pace as the Atlantis of legend, there is the very real possibility of the collapse of industrial civilization as we know it as the smokestacks and tailpipes of the modern world trigger runaway global warming. This is a highly engrossing book that has a wealth of knowledge to pass on. Most importantly, it gets us thinking about the information each and every one of us has to pass on to future generations.

COVR Award Winners

Llewellyn won several COVR awards this year. Awards were presented by the Coalition of Visionary Resources at the International New Age Trade Show (INATS) in Denver, Colorado.

Winners included Amber K and Azrael Arynn K's RitualCraft voted Best Wiccan/Pagan Book and Book of the Year. The Enchanted Cat by Ellen Dugan was awarded Best Magick Book. And, I know some of you are Tarot readers out there, Mary K. Greer's 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card won in the Divination category.

Congratulations to them all!

As a special bonus, all three of these COVR award winners are on sale now in Llewellyn's On-Line Bookstore.

Llewellyn's Samhain 2007 YouTube Contest

Finally, here's the most fun of all. Llewellyn is holding another Samhain contest! If you remember, for the last Samhain contest we invited you to tell us about your favorite Halloween costume and why. Attention all techno-pagans! This year, we are raising the bar significantly.

We are asking you and any other Pagans, Witches, and Wizards you know to upload a video of yourself performing a short Samhain spell or ritual to our YouTube group, Llewellyn's Samhain Contest 2007.

Do you invite your Ancestors for dinner? Split open a pomegranate? Perform a special type of divination? Carve pentacles into your pumpkins? Share with us — and with the world — what real witches do on Halloween. Be it reverent or mirthful, let's show the positive side of our enchanting path.

To enter the contest you'll need to be a registered YouTube user so you can join our Llewellyn's Samhain Contest 2007 group. The next step is to create a truly unique and amazing video of a Samhain spell or ritual. When your masterpiece is ready, upload the video to YouTube and start spreading the word! Please limit videos to 10 minutes if possible.

Click here for details on how to enter, information on voting, contest guidelines and other legalese mumbo-jumbo.

What is the prize, you ask, for this interactive contest? Well, first of all, there's all the fame and glory that comes with being a YouTube star. (OK, that was a joke.) The lucky Pagan or Witch who creates the video receiving the most votes will win three Llewellyn books of their choice and receive a fabulous gift basket filled with candles, incense, herbs, and ritual supplies from the gang here at Llewellyn. Please make sure your YouTube contact information is up-to-date so we can notify you via the website and get your shipping address.

Besides the great prizes, we'll also post a link to your video when we announce the contest winner in a special Halloween message to Witchy Update subscribers on October 31, 2007.

Even if you're not entering the contest, please check our Llewellyn's Samhain Contest 2007 group often to cast a vote for your favorite video from August 29, 2007 until October 29, 2007!

Until then, enjoy the bounties of the approaching Autumn!

Llewellyn Journal Articles

Wondering in the Dark
by Gail Wood

The moon shines in our skies in various phases, from one of full light to completely dark and to just a sliver. On the first day this article appears will be the New Moon, a time when the moon reappears out of the darkness in a slim, sharp crescent. In ancient times, the peoples of the world waited out the dark moon times and celebrated the reappearance of the moon, in newness. To them, it was a reaffirmation that their gods still loved them and that life would continue.

The three days preceding the new moon is the dark moon phase, a time when many--even witches--say it is a time to forgo meditative and magical activity. If you have read my book, Rituals of the Dark Moon: 13 Lunar Rites for a Magical Path, you will know that I believe and know that the dark moon phase is a time to move deep within to find our own radiant magical selves. Often the darkness hides things from us, things we don't wish to see. Some things remain hidden and neglected unless we move inward to explore our own mystical selves.

When we bravely take that inward journey, we find not only the things that frighten us but also the things we didn't understand. These can be unappreciated gems of love, forgiveness, or compassion. Looking through eyes not blinded by light but filled with the dark wonder of it all, we can gain and regain our undiscovered treasures.

Click here to read the full article.

Shamans, Saints, and Sages: What is a Spiritual Hero, and What Does it Take to Become One?
by Roger Walsh

Throughout history, certain extraordinary individuals have lived, loved, or excelled so well that ordinary mortals have regarded them with awe and bewilderment. These are humankind's heroes, the healers, helpers, saints, and sages who exemplify our untapped potential. Ordinary mortals have wondered and puzzled about them, venerated or even worshipped them, and often felt that they must be more than merely human, even when the heroes themselves made no such claims.

"Are you a God?" they asked the Buddha.

"No." he replied.

"Are you an angel, then?"

"No."

"Then what are you?"

Replied the Buddha, "I am awake."

Click here to read the full article.

Celebrating the Harvest Sabbats
by Edain McCoy

One of the greatest summer pleasures of my youth was taking a drive with my parents and brother through the August countryside, stopping for fresh produce the farm families sold at the roadside for what seemed like spare change. Produce on the vine in the morning came fresh to the table in the evening. Nothing else tastes quite so sweet as that first taste of the first harvest from the fields of your homeland.

When I first began doing research for the book that would become The Sabbats: A Witch's Approach to Living the Old Ways, I was astounded to discover that both the autumnal equinox as well as what we now call the first of August have been celebrated as festival days of the harvest season across Europe and in North America. Community corn shucking, Harvest Home feasts, and even the American and Canadian Thanksgiving celebrations arose from the Pagan traditions of the harvesting times.

The first cultivation of food plants, or what we think of as farming, came into being about 12,000 years ago. The ability to grow food products had a dramatic impact on the human way of life. Farming meant clans and tribes could settle in one area, creating communities and commerce. Rather than living a nomadic life of stalking herds of edible animals, people could settle in one place and venture out of their growing communities to forage only when hunting and the gathering of non-farm plants were needed.

Click here to read the full article.

The Spiritual Wisdom of Harry Potter?
by Christopher Penczak

With the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, being released soon, much interest is growing in the media and public concerning magick, witchcraft and wizardry. Being a public witch and author, I'm often asked how "real" the world of Harry Potter is. Kids go away to a magickal boarding school, fly through the air, and face all sorts of otherworldly creatures. How real do you think it is? But what they really mean is: how real, how accurate, is the magick being presented in the Harry Potter series?

While I'm happy to know that the popularity of the Harry Potter series is both getting people to read and getting people interested in magick, I'm sorry to report that the magick of Harry Potter isn't very real. Yes, I do realize it is a movie, and movie magick, even the most respectful movie magick, has to have some extra oomph to it. People want to see lightning bolts and fireballs fly from fingertips, even though I know of no living witch or wizard who can physically perform such acts. It's part of the movie's excitement, and our sword and sorcery epics must be able to compete with lasers, light sabers and other spectacular special effects.

Click here to read the full article.

The Natural Witch and Intuition
by Ellen Dugan

In my new book, Natural Witchery: Intuitive, Personal & Practical Magick, I define a "Natural Witch" as a practitioner who intuitively senses the magick and the spirit inherent in all things. Natural Witches are practical, down-to-earth, and keep their magick personal by adding a little something extra to the spellwork. What's the little something extra? It's intuition. It's the spark of their own personalities, and a celebration of individuality.

Magick is not only the act of working in harmony with the four elements and the natural world; it also involves listening to your intuition. Intuition does not arrive with a swirl of pixie dust and an enchanting chime of harp strings. No, it's much more basic than that. Intuition is simply always there. Intuition is sometimes referred to as the sixth sense. It is also defined as a quick and ready insight and immediate apprehension or cognition. It's that old "gut hunch" feeling. Or when you "just know". This impulse comes from the primitive part of our brains, the survival instinct. This force communicates vital information from a different level of consciousness, sometimes in dramatic ways and at times in mundane ones.

Click here to read the full article.

Excerpt

Autumn Equinox
by Ellen Dugan

One of the modern names for this autumn sabbat was taken from the Welsh god Mabon. The story of Mabon and his mother, Modron, is as follows: Mabon was taken from his mother as she slept when he was only three nights old. Modron's cries of anguish were so great that a search or quest commenced to find the missing child. At this point the story ties into the Arthurian legends as some of King Arthur's knights, or the king himself, take up the quest to find Modron's son. They eventually rely on the wisdom of the five wisest animals to help them: the blackbird, the stag, the owl, the eagle, and the salmon.

Eventually the child was discovered to be quite safe. He had been sleeping in his mother's womb or, depending on the version of the story, resting in the Underworld. In a plant analogy the child was resting just as a seed must rest beneath the earth before it can face the sunlight and brave the challenges of sprouting, growing, and flourishing. Now that Mabon's time had come, he was ready to face the world as God of Light and to be reborn as his mother's champion.

This mythology eventually became wrapped up and associated with the celebration of the Autumn Equinox. For many Wiccans and Pagans this is a bit of a puzzle. How did this sabbat end up with this name, anyway? I never really did come to a conclusive answer. But it sure does make me wonder . . . maybe that's why there are so many different titles and names for this particular sabbat today. However, no matter what name you call this sabbat, the Autumn Equinox is a magickal time of balance and plenty.

Click here to read the full excerpt.