Spiritual traditions tend to follow a specific path: growth, stagnation, death. During the stagnation period, spiritual traditions lock down their beliefs, put them in stone, refuse to change (or are exceedingly slow to change), and attack anyone who dares to challenge the leaders' orthodoxy. We see this now in many spiritual traditions. Some major traditions even have supposedly separate organizations that attack those who dispute their power and position as head of the tradition. You can see this now in some Christian sects that cling to the past. One even has a separate "league" to protect their closed version of spirituality. The period of growth, on the other hand, is often one of

Winter has started here on the Sea of Trees in Southern California. We've had the heaviest rainfall in a decade and it's been quite cold (for us), dipping down below freezing. So I've got the heater on and I've been enjoying a lot of great reading with some fairly recent books. I'd like to share some of them with you. First, I've been overwhelmed with the amazing books by Stephen Skinner and his Golden Hoard Press titles. I especially like The Goetia of Dr. Rudd and the Veritable Key of Solomon (with David Rankine), but all of his books are excellent and highly recommended. These have never been published before and have information crucial to anyone doing evocation magick, especially