I found this prayer not in some
medieval book or carved on the wall
of an ancient castle but written in ballpoint pen on a page torn from a
diary and left - along with scores of similar pleas - on an ancient
pile of stones in the Forest of Broceliande in Brittany.
Archaeologists say that this is
the grave of a Neolithic hunter, but
local tradition says that in this forest dwelled Vivien, the Lady of
the Lake of Arthurian legend, and that here, having seduced Merlin in
order to learn his secrets, she ensnared him with his own spells. The
stone pile is known as Merlin's tomb, and each year hundreds visit the
site to thank the wizard or to ask for his aid. When I visited the
tomb, prayers - written on scraps of paper or card - were squeezed into
gaps in the stones or pinned to the tree that shelters the tomb.
Whatever the origins of the
tomb, it has been transformed into a
source of power. For this badly signposted spot, a short walk up a
muddy track from a cramped, rough car park, had a tranquil, spiritual
air that you might expect at a great cathedral or far more impressive
stone circles. Such spots unleash the magick inside us. But even if you
never visit Brittany or Stonehenge at sunrise on Midsummer's Day, you
can still make use of your own magick.
This is a book about white
magick and witchcraft as sources of
wisdom, healing and positivity. Like Native American spirituality, to
which true witchcraft is akin (some say both were carried by the people
of Atlantis), the practice of white magick is based on the belief that
that all life is sacred and interconnected in an unbroken circle. For
example, every fully grown birch tree - defined in magick as a tree of
new beginnings and regeneration - breathes out enough oxygen for a
family of four and absorbs the carbon dioxide that we exhale,
transforming it again to life-giving oxygen. And this sacred spark of a
common source of divinity is contained not only by trees, but also the
stones, the animals, the people and everything else on the Earth and in
the waters and the sky.
Our higher selves, our souls,
are influenced by the cycles of the
Sun, the Moon, the stars and the natural world on a deep spiritual
level. We can draw down their energies into ourselves to amplify and
replenish our own, like tapping into a cosmic energy supply rather than
having to recharge our powers from our own, separate dynamos. Through
them and through us courses the universal life force, known as ch'i to
the Chinese, and prana in Hindu philosophy. It is a source upon which
we can draw not only nor primarily for specific needs, but also for
energy, harmony and connection with others, the world and the cosmos.
It is an energy that can permeate every aspect of our being.
A Very Special Spirituality
Witchcraft and Wicca (one of the
major forms of witchcraft) both
derive their names from the Anglo-Saxon words for wisdom; 'witch' is
from the old English word wita, meaning 'wise' and the Wicca were the
wise ones. Witchcraft is said to be the oldest religion in the world.
It is the indigenous shamanistic religion of Europe that has, in spite
of ferocious persecution from the fifteenth to the seventeenth
centuries, survived in the folk tradition of many lands and through
families who kept alive the old beliefs and worship of the Earth and
the Moon Mother.
Not so many centuries ago, our
ancestors burned yule logs at
Christmas as a symbolic gesture to bring light and warmth back to the
world on the mid-winter solstice at the darkest time. They danced
around the maypole on May morning, the beginning of the old Celtic
summer, to stir into life the Earth energies in a sacred spiral
pattern. These rituals go back into the mists of time and appear in
similar forms in many different cultures and ages. Today, however, too
many modern societies have lost the sacred connection and scorn such
gestures as superstition, treating the skies, the Earth and the seas
merely as a larder, fuel store and garbage can. Once, things were very
different, as Black Elk, the Sioux shaman, explained:
'In the old days when we were a
strong and happy people, all our
power came from the sacred hoop of the nation and, so long as the hoop
was unbroken, the people flourished. The flowering tree was the living
centre of the hoop and the circle of the four quarters nourished it.
The East gave peace and light, the South gave warmth; in the West,
thunder beings gave rain and the North with its cold and mighty wind
gave strength and endurance.'
And so the Earth was respected
as the sacred mother, giver of life
and crops, to whose womb the dead returned. It is no accident that the
Sioux Medicine Wheel and the Celtic Wheel of the Year are so similar in
formation and purpose, linking all life to the cycles of nature. So if
we are to use magick in a positive way, we must remember that it brings
responsibility along with benefits.
Magick And Knowledge
White witchcraft is essentially
the process of drawing on ancient
wisdom and powers via the collective mind that we as individuals can
spontaneously but unconsciously access in our dreams and visions. In
magick, we can use rituals and altered states of consciousness to
access this cosmic memory bank at will and in doing so, some believe,
draw on the accumulated powers of many generations, especially in
healing magick.
This cosmic consciousness - or
Great Mind or akashic record, as
theosophists call it - is perhaps what made it possible for pyramids to
be built at almost the same time in lands as far apart as Egypt and
South America, and for shamanism to follow similar patterns in
unconnected continents. By accessing this source of power, we may
create a ritual or use certain crystals without consciously knowing
their significance, only to find out that our invented spell closely
resembles one from another time or culture; we know how to heal without
being taught.
Gaining such knowledge has been
described as 'inner-plane' teaching
and if you can trust your own deep intuitions, you need very little
formal teaching about magick. If you
scry at the full moon or during one of the ancient festivals, by
looking into water and letting images form, this deep wisdom will offer
solutions to seemingly impossible dilemmas.
The practice of witchcraft
demands great responsibility, for you are
handling very potent material when you deal with magick. The benefit is
that by focusing and directing your own inner powers and natural
energies you can give form to your thoughts and needs and desires and
bring them into actuality. The more positive and altruistic these
focuses are, the more abundance, joy and harmony will be reflected in
your own world.
Magick And Giving
It is said that if you smile in
London in the morning, the smile
will have reached Tokyo by evening. This principle, which lies behind
all white magick, has been named morphic resonance, and has been
investigated for several years by the Cambridge biologist Dr Rupert
Sheldrake, author of a number of excellent books based on his extensive
research into psychic phenomena. Dr Sheldrake suggests that as animals
of a given species learn a new pattern of behaviour, other similar
animals will subsequently tend to learn the same thing more readily all
over the world; the more that learn it, the easier it should become for
others.
So if we carry out positive
magick and spread goodwill, then we
really can increase the benign energies of the Earth and cosmos. Even
banishing or binding magick can have a creative focus, diverting or
transforming redundant or negative energy, for example by burying a
symbol of the negativity or casting herbs to the four winds.
Magick And Responsibility
True magick is not like a cake
in which everybody must vie for a
slice or be left with none: it is more akin to a never-emptying pot.
Like the legendary Cauldron of Undry in Celtic myth, the more goodness
that is put in, the more the mixture increases in richness and
quantity. The Cauldron of Undry, one of the four main Celtic treasures,
provided an endless supply of nourishment, had great healing powers and
could restore the dead to life, in either their former existence or a
new life form.
Located on the Isle of Arran, it
could be accessed by magical means
or through spiritual quests, and many scholars believe it was the
inspiration for the Holy Grail. But when using magick, you should take
only as much as you need and perhaps a little more; you should not
demand riches, perfect love, eternal beauty, youth, a fabulous job and
a lottery win or two.
So, magick does not provide a
help-yourself time in the sweetshop.
The results could be like eating three times more chocolate than you
really want and then feeling very sick. You cannot give the gods or
goddesses your shopping list and then sit back and wait for Christmas:
the divinity is within you to be kindled, and so you need to demand of
yourself far higher standards than someone who believes in the
forgiveness of sins.
If you do wrong, you cannot just
say sorry to the godhead and carry
on without putting right the mistakes or at least learning from them.
Confession may be good for the soul, but magick demands more than that:
you've got to live with the consequences of your deeds, words and
thoughts because the power of a blessing or curse may be even greater
on the sender than on the intended recipient. You must also ensure that
you cannot harm anyone in the process of getting what you want. If you
do spells for revenge, then the effects will rebound on you threefold.
Effort And Will-Power
Magick is not like the magic a
conjuror uses to bring a rabbit out
of a hat: that kind of magic is just a trick, which relies merely on
the art of illusion. White magick is much more than that. It is
intensely exciting because it means that we can extend the boundaries
of possibility, recalling the psychic powers of childhood when we could
span dimensions as easily as jumping across a puddle. We can increase
our personal magnetism to attract love and luck and regenerate the
innate healing abilities both of the human body and the planet.
What magick does not do is
provide quick fixes with a twinkling of
Stardust. It does not produce a faerie godmother, who turns up with a
shimmering frock and a platinum credit card to pay the taxi fare home
if the handsome prince is short of money and the faerie coach has
crumpled into a pumpkin.
After the candles and incense
have burned through and we sit,
exhausted but exhilarated after sending our wishes to the cosmos
through dancing or chanting, we then have to use every effort, every
talent at our disposal, to make those wishes come true on the earthly
plane. The psychic kick-start provided by the magick must be used to
translate the magical thoughts into actuality. So we must work overtime
with new enthusiasm and inspiration to get that project finished, send
off to the publisher that typescript that has been gathering dust, do
whatever it takes to help ourselves to get the results we desire.
My late mother would always say
if I asked for extra funds, 'Money
doesn't grow on trees'; and this holds true even in the magical world.
Money, success and opportunities have to be generated and earned. We
need to add our own will-power to the power we have drawn on.
What is more, under the cosmic
profit-and-loss scheme, if we ask for
a psychic overdraft, we must give back, if not immediately, then at a
later date. So when your finances are better or your immediate troubles
are passed, you should make a small donation or give time to a
worthwhile cause connected with the area of the spell. This balances up
the account whose cosmic energies you tapped into.
Many shamans or witches demand
some sort of payment for services,
and this is not from avarice, but because all too often if something is
not paid for, it is not valued. So be sure that you pay the shaman
-especially the cosmic one. This is grass roots magick, but it works.
Magick For Your Needs
'Enough for my needs and a
little more' is another of the maxims of
this incredibly moral craft, as I mentioned earlier. You would be
amazed the number of times I am asked: 'Okay, if you are a witch, how
come you can't predict the lottery numbers?' The answer is that it all
comes down to need: and do I need a million pounds? True, like any
mother of five children I lurch from one financial crisis to the next
and when things get really dire, perhaps I could magically bring
forward an anticipated payment or attract an unexpected windfall from
abroad. But I don't really need a million pounds. And what about the
negative effects? If I became incredibly rich, I would almost certainly
lose the incentive to write. Credit card bills are a powerful focus for
creativity. And, of course, my kids would never get out of their
satin-sheeted beds.
Lotteries are generated by human
hands primarily for the purpose of
making money for their creators. They really are random affairs and so
it often happens that it is the wealthy people who win even more money
- although that does not necessarily bring happiness.
Casting your needs into the
cosmos and trusting they will be met
does work, but not if you are expecting magick to compensate for an
unnecessary shopping binge. Nor, after a period of overeating and no
exercise, can you expect a miracle diet to work so that you shed a
stone in two days while still eating chocolate. Spells tend to work
best when there is a genuine need, generated by real emotion and linked
to determination on a practical level.
The Rules Of Magick
Magick is not beyond or above
life, but a natural though special
part of your world. It is about not leaving fate, your fate, to any
guru or deity, but shaping it with your own innate power, the power
that emanates from some higher being, goddess or god, energy source,
what you will - the divine spark within us all. There are no absolutes
in magick, there is only what works for you and enhances your innate
wisdom and spirituality. You should use this book as you would any
other DIY guide and adapt its suggestions to suit what is right for
you. Choose whatever you feel are the most appropriate herbs, crystals
or even entire rituals for your specific purpose.
There are provisos, however. You
must always remember that the form,
the words and even ultimately the associations of particular oils,
incenses and planetary hours are not what really matters. The truly
important thing is that you should keep to the basic rules of
witchcraft that are quite as strict and twice as hard as any
conventional religion. These are rooted in wisdom, compassion, honesty,
honour and common sense and are summed up in one short phrase: 'An ye
harm none, do what ye will'. Put in modern-day language, this means,
quite simply:
'Do whatever
you like as long as you don't hurt
anyone.'
Simple, did I say? It is in
practice incredibly hard to harm none,
especially if you are seeking promotion, fighting against an injustice
or struggling to survive. But it may help you if you remember the other
equally vital law of witchcraft, the Threefold Law. This states that
everything you do to others, both good and bad, will be sent back to
act on you with three times its intensity and strength. So, if you act
always and only with positive intent to help and heal, you will
automatically receive all manner of good things and you should become
truly wise and happy.
According to the rules of
magick, as I said earlier, you cannot be
angry, mean or cruel and then expect to say sorry to a deity and have
the slate wiped clean. Magick is about taking responsibility for your
own actions all the time and that is incredibly onerous. But, on the
positive side, the results are equally potent, and if you can learn to
tap into the source of light and life and joy, you will amaze yourself
and others by what is possible. Thus will your psychic powers also
spontaneously unfold and guide you in your everyday world, increasing
your spiritual power and wisdom.
The magick is within you, so let
it flow and make the world a better
place.
