01
Jan
2025

Sorcerer’s Shelf Magick & Occult Reading Challenge for 2025

John Ryland Library - Free to use image - Dry brush photo filterI’m starting 2025 off with The Sorcerer’s Shelf Reading Challenge. The idea is to provide a series of prompts suggesting different types of magick/occult books to read, encouraging people to explore works they might not have tried otherwise. It’s easy to unintentionally fall into the habit of reading within a narrow range, sticking to familiar authors, topics, or traditions, simply because we gravitate toward what we already know and may not realize the wealth of fascinating occult traditions, histories, and practices explored in other works. Hopefully this challenge will provide a few nudges to reading something that might have missed otherwise.

Join the challenge with me on StoryGraph

You’ve probably seen challenges like this before on other topics. Instead of giving specific book recommendations, it provides prompts like “Read a book that was written in the 60s or 70s” or “Read a magickal biography.”

The basic challenge involves 12 books over the course of the year (intended as one book per month, but with wiggle room for scheduling). There is also an advanced challenge that offers a longer list with 10 more options for those who read a bit more. While I recommend using the 12 base options, feel free to substitute any prompts from the advanced challenge to customize your experience.

One of the main reasons I recommend following the 12 base options is that the point of this challenge is to push yourself to read books you might not otherwise pick up. If you look at a prompt and think “Enh, I don’t want to read anything like that” – that’s exactly the kind of book you wouldn’t read otherwise, so go for it. If you feel you might not have the time and/or energy for twelve books throughout the year, you can reduce the list to an appropriate amount. Though in that case, I encourage you to challenge yourself – we often have more time and energy than we think when we set goals and intentionally prioritize our time. Give it your best regardless!

Basic Challenge:

  1. Reread a magick book you found valuable 
    Sometimes rereading a book years later, with more experience and knowledge, you catch things you missed the first time. Reread a foundational text with a few more years of practical experience, or something that interested you but you never really got into. 
  2. Read a book about magical traditions tied to a specific geographical location or landscape (Bonus points if it’s local)
    Explore how the land shapes magical practice, whether it’s Appalachian folk magick or Himalayan magickal traditions. If your practice/belief isn’t from your area, try to find a book about the traditions that were in your area historically.
  3. Read a book about a tradition from a culture you’re unfamiliar with (the less you know, the better)
    Push beyond your comfort zone and explore completely unfamiliar magical systems. If you’re well-versed in European traditions, maybe explore Ethiopian or Thai magical practices.
  4. Read a book about magical practices that developed within or alongside a major religion you’re less familiar with
    What esoteric versions of different religions/beliefs are there that you aren’t familiar with? Christian mysticism, Islamic Sufism? Organized religions often have magickal (folk) traditions that exist alongside of them, look to see what’s hiding on the edges.
  5. Read a book you’ve always written off as simple/fluffy/silly/wrong
    Challenge your preconceptions. Maybe you’ve dismissed crystal healing as too newage or thought a specific author was too fluffy – now’s the time to give it a fair chance, and as I often say, sometimes you can learn as much from disagreeing with a bad book as you do reading a good book.
  6. Read a magical biography
    Learn from the personal journey of a magical practitioner. This can be autobiographies or biographies of modern folks (DuQuette or Crowley for obvious examples) or hagiographies of older saints and mystics. Like an author but don’t know anything about their life? See if there is a biography out there.
  7. Read a new book from an author whose work you like
    You’re familiar with the author and their works, so it’s a safe bet, but read something by them you’ve never read before
  8. Read a book about magical traditions in urban environments or modern contexts
    Explore how older practices adapt to contemporary life, like apartment altars or digital divination. How do you practice a nature religion in a jungle of steel and concrete?
  9. Read a book written in the 60s or 70s
    The 60s/70s laid the stage for a lot of modern Newage beliefs and magick, and was central in more modern synchretisation and introducing people in a shrinking world to traditions they haven’t heard of before. (Hey, that book from the 70s about Buddhism might not be accurate, but it’s an interesting historical look at how people (mis)understood it at the time.)
  10. Read a scholarly or academic work about magical practices
    Dive into a more rigorous analysis of magical traditions. This might be anthropological studies of shamanic practices or historical analysis of grimoires. If you’ve never come across them you’d be surprised how many university presses have books that are about magick or magick adjacent, take a more scholarly look at your traditions or one that interests you.
  11. Read a book that was originally in another language
    Whether it’s about a tradition you’re familiar with or not, it can be interesting to see how it is framed differently by people in another language.
  12. Read a book that focuses on a single specific tool, symbol, or practice
    Rather than broad overviews, explore one topic extensively – like an entire book dedicated to the history and use of candle magick, or a deep dive into scrying, or a single practice.

Advanced Challenge:

  1. Read a book about magical practices revolving around resistance, survival, or marginalized communities.
    This can be a book about the historical use or evolution of magickal practice in revolution and resistance, or maybe something a bit more current about using magick as a form of resistance.
  2. Read a book about creating your own magical tools, spells, or rituals
    Read about developing your personal practice or making Golden Dawn style wands or designing your own rituals or daily practice.
  3. Read a book that combines two seemingly unrelated topics
    It’s a bit cliche in some cases, but look at books on things like quantum physics and magick, or psychology and tarot, biology/neurology and mystical experiences.
  4. Read a book written by someone who later dramatically changed their views or practices
    See how thoughts and people change. Maybe you’ve only read an author’s early work on chaos magick, so check out their later works on tantra. Did they convert, or change their mind about what demons are?
  5. Read a book focusing on a form of divination you’ve never seriously studied
    Branch out beyond familiar divination methods. If you’re comfortable with tarot, try geomancy or bone throwing.
  6. Read a book about dreamwork or the use of altered states in magical practice
    Explore consciousness-expanding practices, from lucid dreaming to trance work and meditation techniques.
  7. Read a book about the magical practices of a specific historical time period or event
    Magical practices during the Renaissance or Victorian spiritualism, the state of Sufism during the Abbasid Caliphate.
  8. Read a controversial or critiqued book in your field that sparked significant debate
    Is the text misunderstood? Or is it criticized for a reason? Has it been discredited? Is there still value?
  9. Reread a book you read and disliked over a decade earlier
    Give past readings another chance with fresh eyes and more experience. Your perspective might have changed significantly, or have more insight on why the book was bad the first time. 
  10. Read a book attempting to combine two different traditions/practices (especially if they should not be combined)
    Explore how different magical systems can work together, like books combining Norse runes with chakra work or Egyptian and Celtic practices. The more unexpected the combination, the better.

Challenge yourself! Let me know what you’re reading, if you’re cataloguing this challenge on any book/reading tracker site let me know, I’d love to follow along and see what other people are getting into.

Join me taking the challenge on StoryGraph

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick, 0 comments
27
Nov
2020

Reviving Tarot Decks – Fanning Powder

Today on Kraft Time with Kalagni: How to save a tarot deck from sticky clingy doom.

 

Sometimes after a lot of usage tarot cards get harder to shuffle and deal, the cards start clinging to each other, they pick up oils from skin and the finish wears down, and they don’t glide smoothly over each other. This can happen right out of the box too, some cards are printed on a lower quality card stock, and that causes the cards to stick together and be unshufflable. This isn’t just an annoyance, this can impact your ability to do readings. When cards cling together you tend to get break cards, cards that don’t cling the same so when you shuffle or cut the cards you’re more likely to deposit that card on the top or bottom of the deck. Sometimes when a card shows up three times in three days it means something, sometimes it just means your deck isn’t shuffling well.

 

This isn’t the end for your deck, and it isn’t even that hard of a fix, but it seems like not a lot of folks know how to save the deck.

 

Here are two before pictures. This is me attempting to fan out my tarot decks. This is the best I could manage after a few attempts, and for those who don’t know, I used to be a performance magician and practiced in flourishes, this is not a lack of skill, it’s the cards, honestly. But you can see the cards clump together, even trying to fan them apart they stick in large sections. If you were to shuffle these decks those block sections of the deck would tend to stay together.

 

 

 

The secret to refreshing cards like this is a product called Fanning Powder. Fanning Powder is a powder created for just this purpose, it’s applied to cards to allow them to fan better and work better for flourishes in close-up card magic. I’m not going to recommend a specific brand, my favourite brand went out of business, the one I used here was literally just the first one that came up when I googled. There shouldn’t be much difference between brands. (Note: Sometimes people recommend alternatives like corn starch, but that usually doesn’t end well.)

 

Applying Fanning Powder to a deck, and cleaning them off is very simple, and in 10-15 minutes you’ll have an old deck as good as new, or a new clingy deck shuffling better than ever.

 

To start you need a large storage zipper bag, you can also use small garbage bags. I prefer zipper bags because the zipper is useful for sealing it, and I like to see the cards while I do this. Put your cards in the bag. Really in this case I should have done this in at least two batches, these cards were too big for all 78 in the bag which made it difficult to manage. I recommend tossing, dealing, or dropping the cards into the bag one-by-one, just to spread them out a bit and reveal more of their surface, it makes the next few steps easier. Most decks should be divided into half or thirds for this, you can do an entire deck at once, but that makes more work.

 

 

Now sprinkle a generous helping of Fanning Powder. It’s cheap, don’t worry about wasting it. I find it’s an odd material, it needs a lot to work, but a little goes a long way. What I mean is it doesn’t actually take much to be effective when it’s on the cards, but you need to put a lot in the bags to ensure it covers everything. You can save what is leftover if you want, but personally for how cheap it is, and how rarely I need to use it, I find it’s not worth the hassle of saving.

 

 

 

Once there is a generous dusting of the powder, seal the bag, almost the entire way. When there is just a little bit of open space in the zipper, blow into the bag. Don’t blow too hard, you can pop it, but blow it up enough that there is plenty of room inside for the cards to shake around. Close the zipper, or tie the end if using a garbage bag. Now shake the bag around. Keep shaking it until you have a dusting of powder over all the cards. If there is too much on some cards, don’t worry, if there isn’t enough on other cards, don’t worry. This generally balances out in the end. Just keep shaking it around to try to get something on every card. Sometimes I like to pinch a few cards through the bag, and hold them out of place while I shake the rest of the cards, just to make sure they’re really mixing around in the bag.

 

Once that is done put the bag aside for a minute or three, the powder is fairly fine and if you open the bag right away it will float out, so give it a minute or few to settle down if you don’t want a cloud of fanning powder everywhere. All that is left is to wipe the cards down. Just put them down on a towel or something, and just wipe them off gently with a cloth. A little powder can go a long way, when you wipe the cards off you won’t even be able to see the powder. You’re not trying to wipe them clean, just gently wiping off the dust. (When you do it the first time, and you’re not sure if you’re wiping too hard, just wipe off three or four cards, and then stack them and move them around, if they glide easily you’re good, if not just toss those cards back in the back and be less thorough next time you wipe them down, but honestly it’s hard to wipe off so much powder that it doesn’t work.)

 

And you’re done. You can put the cards together, give them a shuffle or spread a fan and see how smoothly the cards move now. The powder can last a long time too, so you probably won’t need to refresh a deck for several years.

 

You can see how smoothly the cards fan. An old tired deck, and a nearly impossible to shuffle new deck, now gliding smoothly and perfectly. Hopefully this helps save a deck or two out there.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
28
Sep
2020

Review: The New Aradia: A Witch’s Handbook to Magical Resistance, edited by Laura Tempest Zakroff

The New Aradia: A Witch’s Handbook to Magical Resistance, edited by Laura Tempest Zakroff

Revelore Press, 2018, 9781947544161, 106 pp

Magick has long been the domain of the downtrodden, the oppressed, and the otherwise powerless.

“And thou shalt teach the art of poisoning,
To poison those who are great lords of all;
To make them die in their palaces;
And thou shalt bind the spirit of the oppressor.”

Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, 1899.

Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is one of the most influential books on modern witchcraft, laying the mythic framework for a lot of systems that came after. In the text it is abundantly clear that Diana and Aradia, gods of witchcraft, are on the side of the average person, the weak, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, and forgotten.

One hundred and twenty years later Aradia, both the god and the gospel, still inspire witches. The New Aradia: A Witch’s Handbook to Magical Resistance was the result of such inspiration. Over 25 witches of different stripes, including such names as Laura Tempest Zakroff, Christopher Penczak, Storm Faerywolf, and Ivo Dominguez Jr have contributed to this handbook.

Following the message or Aradia to poison the great lords and bind the oppressors this book is a collection of short pieces from a variety of authors on a variety of topics that connect back to the theme of magical resistance. Using our magick not (just) for personal work, growth, and gain, but using our magick for the good of our society, to protect those crushed by the boots of power, and to strike at those who wear the boots.

Are you a protestor in our modern social revolution? Are you an activist fighting the injustices our societies are built upon? Are you a worker trying to build a better, more fair world? Do you love someone who can be described by those statements above? Then this is a book you need. 

The book contains invocations to Aradia, to call on her power and her justice, a call to protect and inspire us, to strike against the oppressors of our world. There are workings intended to heal and purify our damaged lands and societies, to bless, heal, and cast out evil and delusion from the places of justice, to bring light and wisdom back into the systems meant to serve and protect us. There are a few sections on useful plant allies for those fighting for magickal justice, and oil recipes to support your work. Acknowledging the reality of protesting injustices there are spells to win court cases when unjustly detained, or spells to protect yourself against violent counter-protestors, or to hide from those who would harm you. Several sigils and spells for protection, house cleaning, and reclaiming our power are throughout the book.There are several pieces that are more of the philosophy of The New Aradia, discussing the history and importance of social justice witchcraft.

This book is short, but to the point, no fluff or padding. Due to the eclectic nature of the authors, and the topics and perspectives of their writing this book is bound to have something for anyone seeking to turn their magick against inequality, injustice, and oppression. It’s a great handbook and guide for social justice witchcraft, the pieces are short, but pithy and powerful, written for a variety of skill levels and levels of involvement. In our current world, with the growing spectre of facism, the widening gaps of income inequality, racial and social tensions that have been simmering for decades boiling to the surface, and ecological breakdowns, this is a valuable little book is essential for witches and other magickal practitioners seeking to join the fight.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
01
May
2020

How She Came to the Earth, and Returned to the Darkness

Otherwise known as ‘The Story of Star Goddess and Star Dragon.’
 
 

Star Goddess. 2020.
Original photography by @n8rayfield
Photo manipulation by Kalagni

 

She was first, first created before all creation; within her illimitable being were all things. From out of herself, the first darkness, she divided herself, into darkness and light she was divided for love’s sake. Luciferrus, her brother, her son, herself, and her other half, was the light of the worlds.

 
All things were made by her, and of her; the great spirits of the stars, humans upon the earth, giants which were of old, and they who dwelt in the dark of the below.
 
She longed for the return of the light, but Luciferrus fled from her. He was the light that flies into the farthest reaches of the heavens.
 
She went to the Patres Principis, the Matres Aeternitatis, and the Filii Deorum, she lamented her separation from Luciferrus, wanting the darkness to swallow up the light. These great spirits praised her and told her that to rise she must fall; to become the great goddess of her nature, to obtain the light, she must become a mortal.
 
And it came to pass when the world was formed, she went on the earth, as did her brother, her son, her other half, the light. She taught sorcery upon the earth and came to know her brother, her son, her other half. Her sorcery spun the lives of all humanity, all things were spun from the wheel of her being. Luciferrus turned the wheel. She was crowned Queen of the Witches by all the folk who were other.
 
She was divided, and she was united, and she birthed herself as a great daughter upon the earth. The great year of existences turned, and it came time for her to become herself once more. To shed her mortality and limitations, and to ascend back to the first darkness.
 
In the great year, the shapes of the earth had changed, the stars had drifted, and the way to the heavens was lost to her. She searched upon the mountain tops, but could not find a way to the heavens. She searched within the earth, finding stars reflected in the darkness beneath, but not a way to the heavens. The gates had been closed. She travelled to the witches, who knew not yet the way to the heavens. She sought out the Patres Principis, the Matres Aeternitatis, and the Filii Deorum, but these great spirits too were barred from the heavens and knew not the way.
 
She went to the desert place, riding a humble beast of burden. She petitioned the stars to welcome her home but heard only her echo. She called her mount to her side and sang enchantments. As she sang the beasts of the wild came to prey upon her mount. The mount cried out, others of their kind came and surrounded them; watching and guarding against the beasts of the wild.
 
She reached into the heavens and plucked a handful of stars. One by one she blessed the stars. One by one she placed the blessed stars upon her mount. Fourteen stars beyond, shining in the heavens, fourteen stars within, reflected in her mount. The tongue, the eyes, the skull, the horns, the spine, the claws, the wings, the feet, and the tail. Fourteen stars above, fourteen stars below, but only fourteen stars, for whether above or below, beyond or within, they were the same stars. From her mount, she forged the dragon of the starry abyss, the ageless serpent of the star-jewelled cleft, seen in the sky-mirror of eternity.
 
The light of the star-forged dragon terrified the beasts of the wild, who struck out in fear and confusion. They killed the beasts of burden protecting the dragon, and in the birth pangs of the stellar serpent they struck a mortal wound to the unarmoured heart of the dragon, before being consumed by the starlight.
 
The light of the star-forged dragon shone across the world, the Patres Principis, the Matres Aeternitatis, the Filii Deorum, the folks who were other, and all the witches saw in the brilliance of the stars, the original glory of she who taught them.
 
The stars within and the stars beyond, the single flame of union. The light of the star-forged dragon, the light of the fourteen blessed stars illuminated the vault of the heavens, tracing the borders of eternity and infinity. The fourteen blessed stars within and beyond revealed the gates of the heavens.
 
She mounted the wounded dragon, the great beast of darkness and stars. With wings of fire-feathered starlight and wings of mist-feathered infernal light, the dragon mount carried them skyward. As they rose heaven-bound her wounded mount bled, leaving behind paths of blood and starlight, paths only the wise ones could perceive, and traverse.
 
The ways of the stars and the gates of the heavens laid open before them. They reached the farthest reaches of the night sky. With her blessing, she let her faithful mount reside in the heavens, made immortal by becoming the fourteen stars. Residing in the heavens to watch over the earth and the ways of the stars.
 
From the farthest reaches of the night sky, the edge of eternity and infinity, she could remember herself once more and stepped into the first darkness to become the nothing she always was.
 

This is a new myth, but as Grograman says in The Neverending Story “A story can be new and yet tell about olden times. The past comes into existence with the story.” From the moment of creation, it has always existed. This is a new myth, based on old myths and modern recensions of old magick.

I had been undertaking a year-long magickal ordeal, but after eight months I felt as if I get very little from the practice. I’ve done big long intensive ordeals, ones that demand a lot more of my time, energy, and soul. I do some form of Buddhist retreat every year now, I’ve performed a pretty close-to-the-text Abramelin, I’ve made up and followed my own cycle of spells and growth. I don’t think it was an issue with performing such an ordeal, just this one wasn’t working for me, we didn’t click, the fire never caught, it was mostly routine. Divinations confirmed it wasn’t worth me continuing, but also said things didn’t look good if I stopped it either. Bored if I do, damned if I don’t.

My friend Sara gave me a reading. (As an aside if you’re looking for someone to get a reading from I can’t recommend Sara highly enough) She gave me a wonderful piece of advice that I would never have thought of. I can’t just switch from the current ritual ordeal to a new practice, I have obligations to the ordeal, and I need respectfully relieve myself of the obligations to direct that dedication into the new practice. The advice was that in order to make this transition, I had to come up with a story that illustrated this transition of practices and brought them together. I would have never thought of such a thing. I’ll confess whenever I work through a magickal book I almost never do the journalling exercises, I’ve never found them that useful. I wouldn’t have thought to make a story.

At first, I saw it just as an intellectual exercise to symbolically link the practices. But as I wrote I became, dare I say it, inspired? It stopped being me constructing a myth, and became a myth that seemed to pour forth from my mindstream.

This myth is heavily inspired by the myth of Diana from Leland’s Aradia: Gospel of the Witches, and ritual cycle from the Dragon-Book of Essex. Elements from both were woven together around a new myth. What I have to say surprised me was just how much magick there was in crafting this myth. As I said, I saw this just as an intellectual exercise but I found there is deep magick and wisdom in stories I had overlooked.

For the first time, I think I really grokked why in so many cultures the shamans and sorcerers are also the storytellers. There is magick in bringing a myth to exist. Writing this myth I felt the energies I had locked in the old routine releasing. Energy I was unaware of being held up in this magickal routine was released, and returned. But as my oaths were returned this energy shifted into my new practice. While I did the intellectual work of designing a ritual to shift between the old and the new practices, the deeper magick of that shift was bringing the myth to be.

In the end, I honestly feel as if the mythcrafting did more of the releasing and shifting of energy than the ritual that I had designed to do just that. I wouldn’t have expected that, but I see now perhaps I didn’t give enough credit to the power of poems and myths.

I want to thank Sara for literally being the inspiration for writing this, without your insight, I would have never thought to make a myth. So thank you to the great poet witch.

And a thank you to Polyphanes for putting up with my strange Latin questions.

As of today the Star Dragon has ascended into the Heavens to return the Star Goddess to her rightful place as Nothing.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
14
Jan
2020

Starry Path: Classes of Spirits

In the Circle of Descent* I mentioned in passing that the ritual might call the guardians, or it might not. I wanted to write a post about the guardians, but before I can explain them I should elaborate more on the primary classes of spirits for context.

*(I can’t believe I posted that a year ago. I really need to post more about the Starry Path)

There are three main classes of Stellar Spirits on the Starry Path. (There are many classes of spirits, but these are the three main classes that are specifically related to the Stellar aspect of the Path)

The first class are the Pure Ones, sometimes just (more pretentiously) called the Pure. These are the spirits who descended from the stars, they were not born into physical forms, but forged their own. (I don’t under that process, at best I suspect if taken literally they made something analogous to a Body of Light, but I’m wary of taking anything they reveal too literally) They have touched our world, but in many ways they have not been touched by it. They were the first of the spirits to arrive. They are also the spirits who reside in the stars when you begin communicating with them. Not surprisingly, of all the classes of spirits they’re the least “earthly” in terms of focus and abilities. Scrying the spheres, and things like that, they’re great helping with that. Practical earthly things like jobs, money, and love, they’re not useful there. 

The second class are the Ensouled. In the speech relayed by Tzotzorah that I posted earlier he mentions that some of the spirits died, that their forms could no longer sustain them. These were the Pure Ones, and those who decided to remain spirits are still the Pure Ones. But Tzotzorah called to the deceased and sang them back into life, into new bodies, reincarnating into (mostly) human forms. These former Pure Ones who reincarnated into the flesh are now the Ensouled. This process changed something, in their first incarnation they were something different, something special, but those who continued to reincarnate became more human in their form. Even those who only wore flesh once have been changed by this, they are not Pure Ones, but something different. Again, I do not understand the full process, and have trouble integrating some of it literally, but this is how the spirits have explained it. The Ensouled were born into human bodies, but something in them made the bodies more than human to deal with their nature. It wasn’t simply another species of soul born as a human, but their nature actually changed the human forms they were born into.  (This becomes a bit more confusing, because the Pure Ones are connected with specific stars, but so are the Ensouled. The Ensouled are not “in” the star anymore, so you can have the same spirit both Celestial and Earthbound, both Pure One and Ensouled.)

The last class are the First Born, or in some cases just the Children. The Ensouled were not quite human, but yet still human, and in some cases mated with humanity, but as the Ensouled weren’t exactly human, neither were their children, the First Born. Even within the Path the First Born seem to be a bit of a mystery. The Pure Ones were the spirits who descended and forged themselves bodies, the Ensouled were those spirits who incarnated into humanity, the First Born are the children of the Ensouled but what their spirit is is unclear. Their souls were not just Ensouled incarnating again, their souls were something else, from somewhere else. I don’t know if the spirits don’t know, or if they don’t think I’m ready to know or something, but they will not tell me the origin of the spirits of the First Born. So while the Children are a specific class of spirits on the Path, even the spirits of the Path don’t seem to know who or what they are and where they came from. (I’ve also had it implied that a very few Pure actually mated with humanity, their children are also called First Born, but a little different from the rest)

It seems obvious to me that the three classes also represent layers of subtlety and physicality. The Pure Ones are pure spirit, the Ensouled are spirit entering matter, and the First Born are even more physically oriented, or closer to matter. This also serves as a good guideline on which class of spirit should be called for what intent; more physical oriented magick is the domain of the First Born, while purely spiritual/energetic/astral magick is of the Pure Ones, that which lies between belongs to the Ensouled.

The First Born continued to mate with humanity, but only they were unique. Their children were more human than them, but still carried their blood. This is clearly analogous to the angelic bloodlines in some systems, the witchblood of some traditions, the continuation of heavenly blood in earthly forms, which in turn allow us to do our magick. Nothing unique, just a different coding of the mythos.

The Guardians of the Directions are the First Born. It makes sense that the mostly earthly of the spirits would be those that protect us on this level. Over the years I’ve been given two brief pieces from the spirits about the First Born and their role as Guardians. This is the type of text I mentioned that was written as close to verbatim as possible to what the spirits told me.

We made our pact with you long ago
Generations before history it was forged
In fire, iron, and blood
Our covenant is carried in your blood
You require no protection from us,
We are bound to peace.
You call our Children to protect the space from outside
And to focus our gaze within

and

Call upon our Children to watch the space for they are the bridge between, they are not the stars that we were, we are not the dust of humanity. They are the bridge, they are the connection point, thus they watch the circle from without. Beyond that they bridge us, they are our descendants, and your ancestors, stretching far enough back, awaken within you the fire of our blood.

You can see in both cases, they don’t just guard the spaces, they can serve as conduits for connecting us with the Pure Ones or the Ensouled.

There are six directional guardians. Despite being First Born, their forms don’t necessarily seem totally (or remotely) human, this is just a depiction of their spirit, not their form on Earth. I will introduce more about them in a later post, but for now needed to set the stage, so to speak, so people could understand the context of these spirits.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
06
Jan
2020

Deep, Not Wide

I said in my recent post Shake It Up that it’s good to try something new to stretch yourself. I also said I’d make a post contradicting that, and that would be this post.

One piece of advice from my magickal training that always sticks with me is : Deep, not wide.

So simple and unassuming, but really good advice if we bother to apply. We live at a time with unparalleled access to information on magickal and religious traditions the world over. This is such a wonderful opportunity, but also a trap we can too easily fall into.

I’ve talked before about how “Your Tradition Can’t Beat Mine” That it is good sorcerers, not traditions. “Now, don’t get me wrong, some traditions have different advantages and niches. Want to evoke a spirit, I think Ceremonialism is the route, want to invoke a spirit, I think Buddhism has that down, want to be ridden by a spirit, get thee to a Santero’s house. The thing is these advantages are only there for people who have the capacity to use them, some hypothetical good sorcerer.”

Sometimes we, and I’m included in this, spread ourselves too thin between traditions and practices we are trying to learn. We get a breadth of knowledge our magickal ancestors could only dream of, but to an extent we sacrifice depth to get there.

It’s easy to jump from tradition to tradition based on what we’re trying to learn, and again there is a benefit to that. On the other hand, each magickal tradition is more or less a complete system of magick and probably has a way to do everything you’re learning in another tradition, it’s just not as emphasized or specialized.

The advice “Deep, not wide” is specifically about depth of practice and understanding. Test yourself with two limitations for a while, and see how that changes your understanding. 

First if you’re thinking of learning a technique from another tradition; stop and try to figure out how your main tradition would do it. Does it directly have a similar practice? If not how can you make such a practice that fits in the model of your tradition. Instead of learning how the other tradition does it, think about how it should be done in your tradition, what would a similar practice look like in your tradition? Once you’ve learned that go back and look at other traditions, but looking for it, and analyzing it gives you a much better understanding in general than you would pick up from another tradition’s take. Since you understand your system, you’ll be able to see a depth and nuance that would be lacking if you just learned a technique from another tradition. 

The second is try limiting your practice for a while to one practice, regardless of what your goals are. This can require some thinking, it might be hard to think how your work with a wealth deity could be used for defense, or how an offensive spirit might be used to assist in healing. There is usually a way around these things. Again, it makes you think about the practice in a deeper way, giving you more insight in general and to your tradition than you would have picked up doing other practices. Both these limitations serve the same purpose, forcing you to think deeper and differently about your practices.

Go out and learn as widely as you’d like, but every once and a while test yourself, restrict yourself, and see how much more you understand by the time you are done.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
02
Jan
2020

Madison Seminary Ghost Investigation (Part V – EMF Detectors, Domras)

[Final Entry of this series of posts]

Now at some point after that I was handed someone’s EMF detector (we weren’t hunting ghosts with tech stuff, but we had two recorders and two EMF detectors just in case something came up). I went downstairs to the “home base” and put my domra hat, damaru, and the EMF detector on the table.  Now the home base room is the entrance to the seminary in the back, it’s basically where you dump your stuff, has a coffee marker for guests, etc. It’s also a bit “removed” from the rest of the seminary, it’s been warded so the spirits don’t wander in, that way there is a room that’s off-limits if someone is getting overwhelmed by the experiences. They have also checked out the room in terms of EMF, and there are no floating EMF points, and nothing to set off the detectors unless you’re against a wall following the electrical system. I toss all my stuff on the table and go outside to chat with folks. Suddenly one of the our group runs out, calls my name, and tells me I have to come see something. I run inside and the EMF detector is going wild. It’s sitting on top of my hat, on the table. There is nothing metal in the hat, all fabric.  A friend picks up the detector, it stops, puts it back on the hat, and it starts again for a bit, and then stops. After some giddiness, I head back outside, a few minutes later I’m called in, it’s doing it again. This time we took another EMF detector and as it got close to the other one, it started going off, showing something was happening, it wasn’t batteries dying or a frayed wire or whatever. Then they both stopped. We put the EMF detector on my drum. I went outside, and was called back in a few minutes later, it going wild again. Damarus don’t have metal in them, they’re wooden frames with leather heads, mine has a small ring of metal for some tassles, but that’s it. There is nothing in the damaru or on the table that should be setting off the EMF detector. At this point it seemed like the EMF detector would run until someone obviously paid attention to it. It continued to do this off and on for half an hour, no one, my group or the tour guides had a good explanation. Sadly most of my group, myself included, were a bit fried, we’d been at this for five hours, this coupled with the room ward made it hard to sense. Were there spirits who were looking at my ritual items? The behaviour felt like little kids, like they were poking at my stuff until we paid attention and they’d run off. Was it actually my ritual items still carrying/releasing energy from the ritual? Not sure, but it was definitely interesting.

While my friend won this night in a contest, we have already been making loose plans to come back next year. If you can make it out to Madison Seminary for an investigation, or if you want a place to really test your skills, I really have to recommend Madison Seminary. When I heard it labelled as the most haunted place in Northeast Ohio, that felt like a horribly gimmicky statement. After spending six hours in it though, I can say it definitely earns that title, and if it’s not the most haunted place in all of Ohio, it would still definitely be in the running.

Posted by kalagni
12
Dec
2019

Madison Seminary Ghost Investigation (Part IV – Silly Shadows, and Chöd)

For a more amusing side story, myself and two others decided to investigate a room down the hall, where the figure approached from. There were more children down there, peeking around corners and door frames. We were in the one corner room, trying to get one of the children to come talk. I’m sitting in the window sill, one of us on the floor, and one against the wall. The door opens into the room, and from where I’m sitting I can see between the door and the frame into the hallway, and as we talk, I keep seeing a shadow obscure the bottom of that crack between door and frame, like a child sneaking around the door to look in. It is very clear, I think it might actually have been physical sight. So I tell me friend to come sit where I was, and I shine a flashlight to the spot I keep seeing the shadow, I stand up walk into the center of the room, keeping my flashlight on, explaining what I’ve been seeing, and I want his take. I turn off the flashlight, and suddenly where there was just a blank wall before is a very dark humanoid shadow, clearly with a hand reaching out. For a split second I freak, I jolt, my heart jumps, holy fuck that’s the clearest shadow/spirit I’ve ever seen. For a split second. Then I realize, it’s my shadow, when I had the flashlight on you couldn’t see that light was shining in from the other window against the wall, and I walked right into the path of that light, but my flashlight hiding it and the shadow I was casting. So one the light was off, suddenly there I was against the wall with the light from outside. It gave me a good laugh about myself. No real moral, just remember don’t take yourself too seriously, and laugh at yourself.

All evening I have been on edge a little and honestly mildly frightened, like I said, unlike me, and I wasn’t alone. People in our group would go to the bathroom in pairs because we didn’t feel safe in those halls alone. I should mention that this group is largely experienced people, this isn’t our first haunting, but this one definitely got to us.

Finally I decided to do what I planned on doing as soon as I was invited. Padampa Sange said to Machik Labdrön, the founder of chöd my main Buddhist practice “Go to the places that scare you.” Chöd is about feeding spirits and demons, but it’s not a light or gentle practice, you don’t just do it at home, you’re to do it in cemeteries, charnel grounds, haunted places, “the places the scare you.” So I went up to the fourth floor, where I had the strongest impressions, I had my one friend accompany me, per my rule about being alone, and I explained that in chöd it might look like the spirits are attacking me, but for him not to worry unless I start showing clear physical distress.

I put on my domra, a type of ritual visor worn in chöd, it both hides my eyes from spirits so they aren’t scared away, but also distorts my vision enough that it makes perceiving spirits easier. I then began to play my damaru (drum), and sing. Chöd is a musical practice, while all the ritual work is going on you’re singing to the spirits, both explaining what you’re doing, and generating the force of it. Chöd is interesting, it’s definitely good at getting the attention of spirits, and it did just that. All the spirits in the room just kind of stopped for a moment, and turned to me, and approached. As the ritual went on, more and more spirits came, a steady stream of them came up the stairs into the room, but it wasn’t just the spirits of the haunting as we think of them, the inhuman spirits came too. Astral parasites and lower critters came in, more complex humanoid but clearly not human spirits came out, spirits of the land, and inhuman spirits that have just been attracted to the place. Afterward my friend said he was glad they were all focused on me, cause at one point he felt like spirits were literally crawling over him to get to me. I continue the ritual, the air becoming dark/bright with layers of spirits. I’ve done chöd in cemeteries and haunted places, but never have I experienced such a turn out. After quite some time of ritually feeding and offering the spirits, I had to stop. There is only so much I can do, and there were so many of them. The feast ends, the ritual ends, and the spirits disperse. I’m confused/startled for a moment, because my friend is still in the room, but so are several of our other friends, and two of the tour guides. With all the spirits coming up the stairs I didn’t notice a handful of bodies came up too. The room felt calm (according to the others), you could still feel spirits and activity, but it was calmed, contented, gentler.

With chöd you’re to go to the places that scare you, but chöd is a practice of fearlessness, throughout the ritual you access the realization that you are ultimately indestructible. For the rest of the evening (the last hour or so) I had no qualms moving about the seminary on my own, while I still felt everything I did before, the sense of fear and maliciousness just slid off me. So I did also wander for a while on my own, because it’s one thing to feel that way, it’s another thing to make sure that the feeling remains when put to the test.

Posted by kalagni
14
Nov
2019

Madison Seminary Ghost Investigation (Part III – Pain and Predator)

Finally we go up to the fourth floor, and the perceptions just got louder. The fourth floor was for the worst medical cases (put high up, out of sight) and the asylum, and it was pretty active. I couldn’t really sense a single spirit, but there were definitely many there. It’s then that I spot a chair in the corner, now apparently it’s not part of the original furniture, but the current owner tries to buy appropriate furniture for the time/place to furnish the seminary. It’s a chair, metal arms, and moveable metal plates to support the head…or rather restrain it. It’s not /the/ chair, or the /right/ chair, but it’s close enough to trigger, as soon as I see it, I’m perceiving the woman restrained in the chair. The impact wasn’t a hammer, it was whatever was used to perform her lobotomy. According to the owner they don’t have any specific record that matches that, but considering the history of abuse/malpractice it is totally plausible.

 

The other side of the fourth floor has a different feeling, same sad anger, but less spirits, but clearer spirits. Specifically a doctor who felt like a fucking movie villain evil doctor. He was centered on one specific room. The room had a marble slab on the floor, and an old medical table/chair with stirrups. This chair was also not original, the original was gone when the current owner bought the place, but according to local police there was originally such a chair/table there. It was designed with arm restraints with the arms stretched out wide, and the legs restrained open at 45 degrees…yeah…cheerful. What was original in the room, was the marble slab, the tour guide explained the slab was under the original chair, and one of my friends mutters in a slightly tranced voice “because it’s easier to clean blood off than the wood.” You can imagine the warm happy feelings we were getting from the chair…ugh. I had a sense that he was somehow projecting into, or controlling other spirits, specifically the murderer and custodian, I don’t know how/why, if it was something that started in life, if it was conscious, or what, but it seemed like he tended to stay in that room, but projected out as the shadow figure who was also the murderer and custodian.

 

After the tour we went outside for a bit to regroup and then decide how to split up. My group went up to the third floor, and encountered some children. They were scared, not of us, but “him,” the custodian shadow figure. One of our group tried talking with the kids, reassuring them that they were safe. They were in the room with the kids, someone stood in the doorway, and I stood in the hall, at the junction of a T-intersection. I couldn’t pick up on the kids responding, but from what I could hear of my friend talking it sounded like the kids were starting to open up. Then one of our group members got really freaked out, and as I scanned the hallway, suddenly it got dark, it looked physically darker, and approaching us. In front was the shadow custodian, looming eight feet tall. As it got closer you could hear my friend asking the children what is wrong, and then steps out to see it. As the kids started to open up, the custodian came to stop it, observing him and the kids I got sudden flashes of sexual abuse. My friend stood up to the figure, as he approached the figure shrank to a more normal height, he couldn’t maintain that illusion when being confronted. My friend had words with him, and when he took a step closer the shadow figure split into two that ran in opposite directions. This was something I thought I saw the murderer from downstairs do, which lends to the weird thing of the spirits blurring into one. The kids were gone now though.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
01
Oct
2019

Madison Seminary Ghost Investigation (Part II – Bouncy Floors and Blair Witch)

This is the second part of my night at Madison Seminary.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

There is a room that my group of friends nicknamed the bouncy floor or bouncy castle room. According to our tour guide there is a (currently) unsubstantiated story that a woman was murdered in the building, and buried under the floor in this room. We called it the bouncy floor because the ground didn’t seem right, like it was soft and bouncy, meaning this in an energetic sense. It was odd to try to ground through, it felt like being on the second floor of a building, despite the fact we were half underground. We came back to this room later as a group, with a sleeping bag. One of us laid on the ground, supposedly where the body was buried, and we tried talking with the ghosts. Surprisingly we were getting flashes of both the victim, and the murderer. We asked questions, and dialogued with the spirits, occasionally get answers and talking out. From what we could get from this encounter the young woman was murdered, it seems like she was raped by someone who worked in the building, at what point in the history it was hard to say. She was pushed down the stairs in an attempt to shut her up, and prevent her pregnancy from being discovered. It didn’t work and she was strangled. That all came through fairly clearly, and was corroborated by local legend at least. But when someone asked about her being buried in that room she said to me “You won’t find me” and I got a strong flash of a tree in the backyard of the property, where she was actually buried. Unfortunately there is no evidence for that one way or another, but talking with a psychic friend who had also investigated there, she mentioned the perception that someone was buried out back under a tree. There is no evidence for this as of yet, but was interesting that we picked up the same thing independently.

 

We continued the tour, it’s a rather large, four storey building. The second floor was just permeated with general creep and ick, but I honestly got very little distinct, flashes of those little astral remora, dark quick shadowy parasites. Nothing major or immediately dangerous, but a lot of them. It was on the third floor that I really started picking stuff up, I don’t know if it is more active, or I was opening up more, but I started getting more distinct impressions. Children, lots of children, mostly scared, a few brave enough to try to observe us, a creepy shadow figure who I think was also the murderer from the bouncy room. He was a custodian at some point in the building’s history. He was odd though, because he felt “blurry”. It sounds odd (cause the rest of this post is normal as can be) but I almost feel like there is a shared “ghost” in the build among a few identities. I think the doctor (yet to come), the custodian, and the murderer, were all separate people in life, but in death the line between their spirits has become blurry somehow, almost like they’re becoming one, either by nature of having a resonance, or possibly by design of one of them.

 

The old woman was growing stronger in my mind, but we still haven’t actually encountered each other. We get into this one room, they call “The Blair Witch Room” because it has this strange wooden frame in it that reminded them of the movie. Now Madison is a horseshoe shape, and this room was on the far end, and had windows facing into the horseshoe. While in this room I “hear” a squeaking noise, like a squeaky wheel, and I look out the window, across the courtyard to the other side of the horseshoe. Then up one floor, there is a low window, and I finally see her. The old babbling woman, she is waving at me across the courtyard…but she seems to be unaware of it or doing it oddly. It’s hard to describe, she was clearly waving to get my attention but…it was almost like she didn’t understand how to wave or why it would get my attention. I also got the sense of a strong sharp impact on the top right side of her head, like an impact, tight and strong, my first thought was hit with a hammer.

 

I mention this to the one tour guide, just asking if other people have seen that, and she smiles telling me to ask the other tour guide. This was both a hit and a miss. While no one has ever really mentioned seeing her wave from that window (facing into the horseshoe), when the fourth floor was an asylum and for the worst medical cases, the women often sat in the front windows facing out of the centre of the horseshoe, waving at people on the street, and some have been seen to continue that in death.

Posted by kalagni

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