It wasn't until I was in college, taking a class in children's literature (OK, it was supposed to be easy, but it had tons of reading), that I read Ursula K. LeGuin's classic book, A Wizard of Earthsea. It's an incredible tale filled with Jungian overtones as well as a great version of Campbell's "Hero's Journey." It presents a concept that a lot of magickal people have taken to heart: if you know a person or thing's true name, you can use that name to have power over that person or thing. This, of course, became part of the background of the Harry Potter stories, as well as in other tales. In certain aspects of real magick this is partially true. For example, in dealing with

For those of you reading this who don't know it, I'm certified as a hypnotherapist and I'm certified to teach hypnotherapy. I'm tentatively scheduled to be teaching some of the basics of hypnotherapy at Pantheacon in San Jose, CA, February February 15–18, 2013. Many authors and speakers, including several from Llewellyn, will be there. Hypnosis and hypnotherapy have been known for a long time. There were "sleep temples" in ancient Egypt where people who were ill would be put in a trance, receive some sort of suggestions, and later leave the temples healed. In ancient India, one of the oldest books, the Mahabharata (which dates back to at least 4,000 years ago) makes statements about

In my previous post in this current series, I described how author Michael Snuffin (in this post) describes the concept of the powers of the Sphinx and how they are centered on the writings of Eliphas Levi and Aleister Crowley. These powers are: • To Know • To Will • To Dare • To Keep Silent For Pagans reading this, those powers are often called The Witches Pyramid, sometimes adding a fifth quality, to go. In this current post, my previous post, and my next two posts I’ll be discussing these four powers and how they’re associated with magick. I previously discussed "To Know" and how knowledge, in an of itself, can help you achieve change in conformity with your Will: