Divination: Tarot: Suit of Rods

 Left to Right: Kawaii Tarot, Holographic Rider-Waite Tarot
and the Celestial Tarot

 There are many ways to portray the suit of Rods (also known as wands). They are related to the suit of Swords but not interchangeable. Many associate the suit of Rods as an elemental Fire suit and read it as I read the suit of Swords. As you can tell from the image to the right, every tarot deck out there has their own way of portraying the suit of Rods.

As a green flourishing stem or the star topped image of the traditional magic wand, this suit is generally benevolent in nature and tend to speak of matters of work, travel, and striving for better things in life.

This suit, I associate with Air. As such, there are many cards in the suit that reflect communication. Inverted, the Rods are not as dire portents as the Swords, but like the Swords it is full of warnings of danger, miscommunication, and ill fortune.

Divination: Rune Study - Laguz

 Dear Reader,

This week, we are looking at the rune Laguz. It is considered by many to be a feminine oriented rune because of its association with water. It is my belief that this is a modern projection onto an ancient symbol. If we pause a moment to consider that the deities associated with water in the Norse and Germanic pantheons are of masculine and feminine genders, we must conclude that this is a gender neutral rune. That is if we wish to ignore the literally fluid nature of this rune, taking that into consideration the rune is gender fluid and can represent anyone along the gender spectrum when it pops up in a reading as a descriptor of a person involve in the querent's situation.

There are three different rune poems for this rune. I suspect that there were other rune poems that pertained to it in the other Nordic and Germanic tribal cultures that were lost to history. (It is my belief that each of the tribes had their own twist on the meaning of the runes that subtly reflected their differing relationships to the lands about them.) One thing that remains consistent through the rune poems is that Laguz is discussing water and our relationship to it. Interestingly, there are archeological finds that suggest that this rune is feminine oriented and pertains to fertility but they are very few and far between (and heavily debated).

If one were to take the matter and consider this rune in the context of what of the principle deities that we know of were associated with water and fertility, we find ourselves looking at the Vanir that reside among the Aesir as hostages after the Vanir-Aesir war. Njord is a god of harbors, good fishing, and prosperity (as well as kingship). Freyja is the goddess of love, sex, war, and seidh. Her connection to water is via the kenning Mardoll which roughly translates to the light on the waters. This leads me to conclude that there are additional water associations for Freyja that have been lost. And finally, there is Freyr whose association is his wonderous ship. It seems like something someone just tacked on to his mythos to make him more interesting but it is my suspicion that the association of Freyr with ships runs deeper and that his water associations are just as strong as his earth associations. Again, I believe there is lost mythos that would prove this but the fragments that we can find just leave a tantalizing and baffling hint.

In a divinatory context, the rune Laguz can be in a direct or indirect/reversed orientation. The direct orientation is typically taken to mean that one is in connection with their source of inspiration and experiencing a smooth flow of ideas. It is conventionally associated with women, usually with some manner of sexual overtones. In the reversed orientation, this rune speaks of a disconnect from one's source of inspiration and stagnation. It can also speak of fertility problems, particularly for women. (I contend that the next rune in a reversed orientation is more of an indicator of such difficulties but I will discuss that next week.)

In my personal divination work, Laguz has spoken to me of inspiration and deep spirituality. In the direct orientation, there is the free flow of ideas and creativity. It also signifies a connection with the depths of one's spirituality. In the indirect orientation, Laguz speaks of the stagnation of ideas, a lack of creativity, and a shallow venture into the realm of spirit. At times, it has indicated coming prosperity in the direct orientation that is the fruit of the combination of hard work and luck.

Divination: Being Psychic is a Skill and a Talent.

 Dear Reader,

I've touched on this topic before. I am going to do so again because of how often I see people insisting that you have to be 'special' to be a psychic. Psychic stuff does require a measure of talent. At the same time, it is a skill that can be learned and honed. If you have raw talent and do nothing with it, you will never realize your full potential. It will just sit there in that rough shape and give vague information. 

I have seen psychics who learned their trade through a great deal of hard work. Some of the best tarot readers that I have encountered built their ability through hours of study and practice. Some of the worst ones I've met just go off the fly to rely entirely on their intuition, taking a shotgun for flies approach to answering your query. There are times where skill and talent intersect. You can get some really awesome tarot readers who have raw psychic talent that they developed and keenly honed through hours of study and practice. 

The difference between the three is simple. Your psychic who has invested study and practice despite lacking raw talent will have a dogged determination in their approach to reading. They will be relentless in their effort to draw out as much information as they can from the cards. Your psychic who is relying solely upon their innate talent will have information that is difficult to decipher and seemingly random pertaining to your query. Your psychic who has invested in building their skills and honing their talent will have the relentlessness of the psychic who learned it all the hard way with the bonus of having a deeper connection with the spiritual side of the world. The third psychic will be able to present to you the connections between the seemingly random elements that pop up in your reading.

Now, for some people, it is intimidating to try to learn the psychic arts. The over-culture of the West views the psychic arts in a mixed fashion. There is a degree of skepticism and mockery while at the same time, people are quite devoted to their daily horoscope. The mixed reviews of the psychic arts in modern society should not stop you from learning the psychic art in question that fascinates you. All knowledge is worth having.

Hearing things: The difference between psychosis & psychic experience

 Dear Readers,

I have Bipolar II with Psychotic Features. I am also strongly psychically inclined. Hearing things comes with the territory but it's important to recognize when it is a bad thing that you're hearing things if you're psychically inclined. The first key to this is the ability to recognize your own thoughts as they flit about your consciousness. Self-awareness that is very high is more than being aware of your thoughts and the effects of your actions (as many would tout it to be). High self-awareness means you recognize the sensations that go with your mental states, you recognize your internal monologue, and you are aware of when you are projecting your internal state outward (which is usually an indicator that you need to work on processing whatever you are projecting outward and integrating it into your experiences).

Meditation is an excellent process for achieving this level of awareness. While there are a lot of different schools of meditation out there and boatloads of techniques that you can use, the one that I find is most effective is entering a meditative state and actively writing down what is going through my head. After a while, you begin to see patterns emerge in your thought processes according to your mood state, stress levels, and environment. These patterns are your internal architecture of your psyche. 

In general, the sensations of my thoughts are as though they are inside me. I am a person who thinks in words, images, and sound. It's a blessing and a curse at the same time. Nothing is quite like having a song stuck in your head on loop for an hour when you want to focus on something else. Psychic experiences like visions and hearing spirits are, for me, a feeling of an unfamiliar thought-form inside my head. It feels as though it is someone else's 'voice' in my head instead of my own internal monologue. I can not anticipate what that 'voice' is going to present next, unlike with my own internal monologue. The pattern is unfamiliar and being revealed as it is presented. Psychic experiences are bewildering at times but they do not hold the terror of psychosis.

Psychosis presents as a disruption of one's thought processes and one finds themselves operating under conditions where their mental state is clearly changed from what it's normal baseline is. Hallucinations and disrupted thought patterns are typically the hallmarks of this condition. Delusional thinking is disconnected from reality. Psychic experiences are connected with reality. Hallucinations are perhaps among the most terrifying, in my opinion, elements of psychosis. Because I reality test my experiences on a regular basis due to the fact that I grew up in a household where I was gaslit on a regular basis, this coping mechanism/habit makes me aware when I am entering a psychotic state. My hallucinations are primarily auditory. They seem to sound like someone speaking to me from approximately one foot behind me to the right. They also have the sensation that it is actual auditory input, not that it is thoughts. 

Reality testing is a very good habit to be in when you are engaged in psychic work. I verify what my psychic experiences are telling me through getting confirmation from others who are a neutral third party. I consider the legitimacy of my experience and if it bears any resemblance to what I have experienced in a psychotic state. Most of all, I examine if it fits with what I know to be true and factual/real about the situation. On my really bad days, I drop a pencil or something just to make sure that my brain is functioning properly. Fortunately, those days are few because I have a great psychiatrist who has me on a good medication regimen that has kept me from having a psychotic issue in the last several years. (My psychotic issues come up when I am suicidal due to depression. I don't recommend it to anyone.)

Most people are not quite as deeply self-aware or as regularly prone to testing their experiences because they didn't have people in their formative years actively trying to destroy their psyche. As a result, the experience of psychic visions can be terrifying when they happen and lead them to wondering if they're experiencing psychosis. For most people, psychic visions are limited to the sense that they have seen something before or prophetic dreams. It takes a good deal of effort to build the personal awareness that lets you identify when psychic information is hitting your brain. This form of direct psychic experience is difficult to master. That is why many psychics use tools like tarot cards, runes, and crystals (to name a few, the list is really long).

Using tools to confirm what your psychic experience has shown you is a form of reality testing. This is something I highly recommend. Free sites like Facade means you can get confirmation on your psychic experience from a completely impartial source. One might thing that a randomly generated computer tarot reading is not the most reliable of sources of confirmation on psychic experiences. It is, however, startlingly effective. I have been using Facade now since the late 90s and have yet to get a result that wasn't relevant.

Egregores vs. Deity part 2/3 : Discernment

Dear Reader,

In my last post on this topic, I gave a quick run down on the major differences between Egregores and Deities. The biggest difference between the two is Egregores are limited in their responses where as Deities are not. Now, there are other spiritual things out there in the universe that will masquerade as one or the other for the sake of mischief or something nefarious. Discernment is a vital skill in spirit work. Nowhere is it more important than in determining if you are actually working with a Deity.

There are a lot of methods to test the responses to figure out if they are accurate. (PROTIP: If the being in question gets huffy about you testing their responses, back away slowly and shut down contact. They're up to something and you may not want to be involved with whatever game they're playing. If you decide to proceed with contact, do so with great caution and make sure that your protections are well in place.) It is good to get secondary confirmation on what the being is presenting you. This might be by way of verifying the information presented against what is established about the being in question. This is really useful when dealing with well documented beings.

A really useful method is to get divination done for you by an independent party that isn't involved in the situation. This is one of the rare situations where I encourage you, regardless of your experience, to get a divination session from another person rather than doing it for yourself. The reason why is because the entity's focus on you can skew the reading in their favor. Going to a person who is outside of that feedback loop can get you a good picture of the situation.

Then there is the time honored practice of reality testing. Is the entity telling you something that is realistic and probable? Can you prove some element of what they are presenting via mundane means? Asking the entity questions that it should know the answer to that are simple yes/no questions is a great way to test the waters. Be aware that some beings and Egregores are going to be sticklers for phrasing. On the part of beings, it is in their nature. On the part of Egregores it is because of their programming. As such, make sure that your test questions are ones that have absolute yes/no results (such as the eye color of your child or if it is daylight out at the time and in the location you are at).

Transmission received.

Dear Reader,

As I have said, I am a necromancer. That means that I talk to and work with the spirits of the dead. One of the dead had a message for me to share. It is getting posted here because I am sure it will get more readership. (If you know me and my family, you'll probably know who this is from.)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

What is a woman?

A woman is not her ovaries.
A woman is not her vulva or vagina.
A woman is not her breasts.

Women may have these organs. Women may not.

Where do we find a woman?

In her mind for it is from her mind that she comes forward.
Don't concern yourself with appearances.
Once we all had tails, but that didn't stop us from becoming who we are.

Heads, butts, tails, vagina, penis, these are all parts and not defining of the being possessing them.

Where do we find personhood?

In the mind, because we're just a little body hair away from being classed as great apes.

Egregore vs Servitor

Dear Reader,

I know that the headline of this post sounds like a combat scene involving Pokemon or something similar. (By the way, if there were Pokemon with those names, I might actually play the games.) These are actually two different spiritual constructs. They can in  many cases be used interchangeably but if you are going to be technical about it, they have different uses and are formed differently.

Let's start with the Egregore. You may have read about some chaos magicians creating Egregores or possibly read some really old stories about Egregores having gone astray and causing havoc. There's a particularly racist and horrible one out there about Golems, which is completely wrong about what a Golem's function is and the story paints Jewish people as horrible monsters. That story dates back to the Medieval period of European history but there are assholes who like to bring it up and use it to scare people. If you want to know about Jewish ritual magic, ask a Jewish person who is into the occult. You may get lucky and they'll actually answer a few questions. Likely, they're not going to because Jewish occult magic is a fairly closed tradition for lots of good reasons.

An Egregore is a relatively modern invention. The first recorded description of a ritual to produce an Egregore can be found in the writings of the Theosophical society and of the infamous Alistair Crowley. Some can argue that the modern ritual foundations have roots that go farther back to the writings of John Dee (the somewhat infamous adviser and court astrologer of Queen Elizabeth I). Ceremonial magic records being something of a shit-show between people trying to keep their language coded to keep 'trade secrets' and avoid the ire of witch finders, it's hard to really pin down the origins of the use of Egregores. There are documents that we still haven't been able to translate that date into the Medieval period (I'm looking at you, Voynich manuscript.) that I'm certain describe ceremonial magic as well as alchemical materials.

Egregores as they are used today are entirely different from spiritual constructs from antiquity which is why I say that they are a modern invention. In the case of an Egregore for the modern chaote, it is a construct built upon a set of rules and infused with spiritual energy and the focused mental effort of a group of people. An Egregore being developed is not that different from standard spell craft, except for the focus is on the development of a spiritual entity that is to serve a specific task and last for a predetermined period of time (in the most general sense, there are obviously differences in this from spirit worker to spirit worker).

A Servitor is a similar construct built upon a set of predetermined rules. The Servitor is created by a single individual and works for them for a specific task and for a specific time period. (The term Servitor comes from the word servant.) Servitors have been around for a long time. It is possible that the spirit familiars of witches in antiquity were Servitors. It is difficult to tell because the difference between a Servitor and a spirit familiar is subtle and most won't note it upon initial inspection. A Servitor is fueled by the repetition of focus by the caster, where as the spirit familiar has its own source of spiritual energy - themselves. Servitors operate for a single practitioner and will resist if not out right reject commands from other practitioners. Egregores are similar in this fashion but they have the capacity to interact with a wider range of individuals after a certain point of collective focus and empowerment.

Poorly constructed Servitors or Egregores can have harmful results for the practitioners and people in the immediate vicinity. Stories of seances turning chaotic are more typically cases of an Egregore getting accidentally created with out rules and limitations, thus raw psychic energy is running amuck. (Now this is where if you are working with a skilled psychic who can direct the raw psychic energy of the participants, you can tone down the chaos and actually summon the one you're looking for. It requires the ability to channel and direct the psychic energy into the summoning. But that's a topic for another day.)

Egregores can be tricky to deal with when they get out of hand. There's an old expression, don't summon something you can't lay to rest. It's especially important in handling spiritual constructs. Trapping them in a container of some sort is a traditional method of dealing with them. Banishing them is also an option but you must be prepared for them to pop back up again if the circumstances resemble either those of their generation or the summoning process. Egregores have limited intelligence. Thus they will not entirely recognize that they're not being summoned when someone who is part of the group is doing something similar to the summoning.

There are also Egregores that are part of pop culture and internet culture. They're a bit more powerful than one that is produced by a small coven. They have more intelligence because there is more psychic energy behind them and more intent poured into their existence. Thus, it may happen that someone who is attempting to work with Loki, for example, get the Egregore!Loki and things get weird. Less popular deities have fewer Egregore impersonators out there. Telling the difference between the Egregore and the actual deity you're attempting to contact is difficult. Consulting a priest of that deity or a spirit worker who is intimately familiar with the deity is advisable in these situations. A lot of the 'bad behavior' attributed to deities is actually a result of an Egregore left to run its programming in the wrong environment. In some cases, it is because of the programming of the Egregore to begin with.

New book forth coming!

Dear Reader,

If you have enjoyed my series of posts about divination, you will love my new book. It is a general guide book to the psychic arts. I set it up in a workbook format. It covers the basics of the following:

• What it means to be psychic
• Tarot
• Palmistry
• Runes
• Mediumship
• Tasseography
• Pendulums
• Psychic health and hygiene

Each chapter has an accompanying set of exercises and each set of worksheets have an answer key at the back of the book. While I designed this book for a single person to use it, it can be used as part of a psychic's entry level class for any esoteric tradition.

It will officially be for sale Friday. I have the final version on hand and will be posting pictures soon.

The title is The Veiled Witch's Handbook for Psychics: A practical guide to divination and the psychic arts. I have published it under my pen name Brythwen Sinclair. It is the first in a short series of guide books that I am working on.

The problem with precognition.

Dear Reader,

Perhaps you have experienced precognition. Maybe you're not familiar with this term for a very common experience. It is also known as déjà vu which comes from French and means 'to have seen before'. It is perhaps the most common of psychic experiences.

There's one wee problem with precognition. Context is always hard to pin down. You may have a very vivid dream and it includes details that you later see in your waking life. The trick is, knowing that precognition is about to happen and what it means is two very different things. It may be as simple as watching a pencil roll off your desk at work in the exact way you dreamed about it happening two nights before. It may be a gut feeling that something is about to happen and then watching that pencil roll off the desk. In both cases, however, you're left wondering what's the meaning behind the pencil falling off the desk?

Sometimes precognition is just random and you're not going to find a pattern in it. Other times, there is a distinct pattern that you only recognize after the fact. I think that when precognition happens with a pattern, your subconscious mind is trying desperately to warn you of something but your conscious mind is scrambling the message before it gets through.

I think that our subconscious mind has incredible capacities beyond what we really are aware of. Precognition is but one example of that untapped potential. It is my experience that keeping a dream journal helps facilitate communication between the conscious and unconscious mind. And at times, that helps me figure out when the pencil rolling off of the desk is a warning of something big about to happen in my life. But, there are times when the pencil rolling off the desk is just a psychic sound check to make sure all systems are functioning. Thus, I keep a record of my psychic experiences so that I can identify patterns and use those patterns to predict future patterns as they emerge.

I've had some success with it. I can't claim that I'm going to get the winning lotto numbers. But I can say that I have had success avoiding household messes because my precognition warned me a pot was about to boil over. Given that this was with the stove that had issues with trying to light itself on fire, perhaps that bit of precognition was enough to keep another fire incident from happening. (That stove has long since been replaced and the current one is far superior. We still keep two fire extinguishers in the kitchen because I'm mildly paranoid.)

But, keep a log, track patterns, and maybe you'll find your precognition is actually useful from time to time. And always listen to your intuition.

First Quarterly Divination Session is OPEN

Dear Reader,

As you may be aware, I perform divination. My favored tool of choice is tarot but I am skilled in a variety of divination processes. It's been a focus of my study for many years. This year, I have decided to offer a free reading each quarter of the year. This is the first session.

To qualify, please Comment below. Out of the first twenty comments, I will choose someone at random to do a free reading for. (I would use a larger number but I only have a D20 as my highest valued die in my dice bag. Also, I think die is the correct singular of dice but I'm not sure, if I'm wrong, I apologize.)

If you would like to pay for a reading, please contact me via email and we can discuss your needs and payment arrangements. I will happily trade a reading for a reading, so don't feel shy.

Commenting on both this blog and Veiled Witch's Mirror disqualifies you for this session.

Intermediate Witchcraft: Psychic Safety Lessons

Here is a link to the posts on psychic safety. I will be posting on psychic safety in the future something like a series of lectures on how the mechanics of some of this stuff works. Because if you know how your equipment works, it is easier to service and use it properly. I'll be getting into some weird topics like egregores eventually. I'm going to start out with the nuts and bolts level of basic magical 'machines'.

If we were talking about actual machines, this would be my showing you how hammers, saws, and levers work. The previous posts are simple exercises using those proverbial hammers, saws, and levers. Egregores^* and related topics would be the simple computers of magical construction. Now, just as tools can be used for various purposes beyond what they were originally intended and in the hands of a creative and properly motivated person anything can be a weapon, I know that these lessons can be taken in directions beyond what I am promoting.

Anything you do with this information is on you. Caveat emptor. I am the writer who produces the spell book. You are the one who decides if it is a coffee table book or a tool. And what you do with said tool is your karmic and moral responsibility.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

* Somewhere, I know, there is a ceremonial magician ready to pull their hair out right now. Homonculi, egregores, and tulpa are on one level more complicated than computers and at the same time, they're very simple. So, I apologize to the ceremonial magicians who are probably just this side of a meltdown over this eventually coming up. You're not the only keepers of this knowledge and I assure you that my path to it is different from yours.

Psychic Life: A Sketch and some Ramblings.

I had this post typed up and then all the text got eaten when I tried to save it. Here is a sketch of Loki that is in progress. It is on 50 lb weight paper. I used mechanical no. 2 pencil and prismacolor pens (brush and .005mm tip). I plan on filling in with colored pencils. I have a box of them in a wide array of colors from a wide array of brands (some going back to the 80s and the company is out of business). I drew this last night after getting frustrated with writing and attempting to be social on the internet. I felt like everything I was doing was going wrong. Loki told me to draw a picture, so I started this. I kinda felt a bit better about the world after that. (Please forgive my youngest's photobomb. He does this every time I go to take a picture.)

Loki and Freyr have been having some serious conversations with me. They revolve around the fact that I am not cured of my depression despite the fact that I'm beginning to feel better. Some of the conversations have been warning me not to place too high of a set of expectations and demands on myself. Some of the conversations have been encouraging me to get back to doing things that I love, like drawing. And there have been a great deal of 'If this doesn't start to get better soon, you really need to bring it up with your doctors.'

My ancestors have also been quite vocal over the last few weeks. They are telling me that I seriously need to get back into practicing magic on an everyday basis, as I did in the past. The argument is that it is going to give the extra push to help change my situation for the better because I'm accomplishing the best I can by pure willpower and mundane means. My familial ancestors have been exhorting me to not give up on improving my health and to continue to focus on things like exercise and stable blood sugar (which they say will help get some more of my bipolar issues under control and make it easier for me to sleep at night).

My spiritual ancestors have been pushing me to finish projects I started years ago and abandoned mostly completed because I was depressed. Mostly, these have been writing projects. some of them, however, are embroidery ones that I completely forgot I had. Embroidery was one of the first connections I felt to my ancestors. It seems fitting that I'm being exhorted to engage in it again as a devotional activity as well as a way to pray my anxiety away.

Godphone: Lesson Five - When you're not well.

In the series of lessons on 'godphone', I made a point of saving the most important one for last. There are many in the pagan and related spiritual practices who say that if you start hearing things, you're going through a spiritual awakening or crisis. There is a trend to sweep mental illness under the rug, because mental illness is scary and deemed, somehow, as a way to discredit spiritual experiences. This is a trend that is reckless and irresponsible. It endangers vulnerable people and denies them assistance they need because they are frequently shamed for their experiences.

Some are going to despise me for this, but there is a written record of mystics who have gone through serious mental illness. You can find this extensive record in the writings of various Christian mystics. St. John of the Cross, for example, suffered debilitating depression (and I suspect post-traumatic stress disorder) after being imprisoned upon questionable pretenses due to friction within the Carmelite order during this period. Out of this experience came the luminous poem The Dark Night of the Soul. It was but one of many spiritual and theological writings that he had completed, perhaps the most famous of them. St. Teresa of Avila regularly endured illness and in the midst of these periods of illness had ecstatic spiritual experiences. There is also the books written by St. Thérèse of Lisieux and Dame Julian of Norwich which speak of their spiritual experiences by way of illness. (I recommend the long form of Dame Julian of Norwich's work.)

In the cases of St. Teresa and St. Thérèse, deep anxiety was held over the concept that their spiritual experiences were delusion/temptation from the devil. It was only after a great deal of discussion with their spiritual advisers and the persons who were helping them with their illnesses that it was established that these were not false experiences or fever dreams. The external reality check provided by these third parties were vital to authenticating the experiences of these women, especially in a period of history when the Inquisition was quite busy looking for more victims. (St. Teresa had to seek protection from the Inquisition. The punishment of St. John came out of a conservative sect of the Carmelite order and the Inquisition's activity.)

Hearing voices out of the blue is alarming, if not terrifying. The first thing to do is test the veracity of your experience. While many would claim this is show you lack faith, it is vital to your sanity to confirm or deny the reality of what you are experiencing. It could be as simple as looking away and then back at the vision before you. It could be as simple as holding up a mirror or looking for a reflection on a reflective surface near you. More complex reality testing can be anything from trying to drown out the sound you are hearing with your own thoughts to asking another person if they heard something. You don't have to specify what, it could be as simple as asking if they heard someone call your name.

When it is difficult to distinguish between reality and what is not real, this is when you should consult with a medical professional and a spiritual counselor. The medical professional can assist you in handling what physical illness may be causing these experiences. At times, audio distortion of ambient noise can come off as sounding like a garbled version of someone trying to talk to you all because of an earwax build up, for example. In the event that you are suffering from some form of mental illness, such as hearing people in the room when there are no signs of it and your spiritual counselor is noting signs of mental illness when you are meeting with them, medical assistance can actually make it easier for you to access your spiritual resources. With the right medication, mental clarity can be achieved and genuine mystical experiences will persist and possibly become more profound.

Being unwell can be disorienting and distressing. It can lead to a spiritual crisis or a spiritual awakening. It is, however, separate from spiritual awakening or crisis because it involves the strictly biological processes of your body. Spiritual awakening can be prompted as a coping mechanism, as per St. Thérèse following the death of her mother delving deeply into her devotional relationship with Mary. It can also be a part of how you are processing the experience of being unwell, as in the case of St. Teresa. In either case, follow three steps: observe the experience, reality test the experience, and get a third party opinion. If any manner of spiritual experience causes distress, or occurs in concert with distress, seek out assistance in handling said distress.

Postscript:

I personally have experienced hallucinations and mystic visions. From my experience, they are two different things and involve two different thought processes. Also, the gods find more ways to talk to you than just literally talking to you. Sometimes it is a person turning to you and answering a question you were just thinking about before resuming a conversation with someone else about an entirely different topic. Sometimes it is things mysteriously appearing when you need them or vanishing to a completely different place in your home when it was literally right in front of you before your turned your back. When I am ill and experiencing hallucinations, it gets confusing at times. Thus, I find the deities using other methods to talk to me. (Yes, that has included avatars. And yes, it was creepy and amazing and awe inspiring when it happened. Awe in ALL sense of the word.)

Godspousery Notes: I AM good enough?

It has been a challenging couple of months. Between dealing with sickness, schedule changes, new habits, and medication changes, it has been difficult for me to sit down and write here or do much else faith related in a concrete sense. I was feeling upset over this and viciously questioning my value because of that sense of upset.

I would be lying if I said that my poor self confidence didn't have an impact on my relationships. The worse I get about how I treat myself, the worse I do in recognizing that I am loved. It's a nasty cycle, I don't recommend it to anyone.

I was going around in circles on the matter because of uncontrolled anxiety issues. Earlier this week, I was sitting and staring at my altar. I was struggling with the idea that I had to do my devotions 'just right' or not at all. I was questioning my worth really hard. As I was sitting there questioning if I was good enough, Loki plopped down on the couch beside me. (Random aside, it is always a little strange when they do this. You are sitting there on the couch with no one physically beside you. Then you feel the couch do this little bounce thing as if some one physically sat down, but no one is technically there.) He looked at me for a minute and said, "You're doing it again."

At which I sighed and mumbled something to the effect of "I know. I can't seem to stop it for some reason." He stretched, closed his eyes, and then asked me what the gravitational rate was on the planet Earth. I answered 32ft/s/s. His next question was "Why do you worry about gravity changing? Are you planning on crashing an asteroid into Earth? If so, what exactly is your plan to do so, because this sounds interesting." I shot him an annoyed look when Ingvi spoke up from the doorway with a droll comment about if the asteroid was going to be named guilt.

"We love you. That should be enough. Not quibbling over good enough. No one is 'good enough' and no one is 'bad enough'. It doesn't come into the equation," Loki said before I could come up with something to say, "You're looking for an asteroid that does not exist. Your calculations are in error, Ms. Physicist. To be precise, your accounting for something that is a false result. Like the planet Vulcan. There is no evidence for it. You must adjust your theory."

I wanted to bicker, but I recognized that it was my pricked pride there. So, I was quiet. Ingvi said something sassy about being stunned by my silence. Loki chuckled. I rolled my eyes and tried to summon some form of sass to respond with, but they had rather effectively shut down pretty much any argument I would have had by rendering it as "But, this is wrong, I KNOW it is." I am not sure if it was pure coincidence that the daily anti-anxiety medication prescription got approved that afternoon or not. But, I found myself knocked back on my heels a bit with their very succinct and complete rebuttal of any and all arguments of how I'm not 'worthy' or 'deserving' of their love. That's just been rattling around in my head since.

Godphone: Lesson Four - Dissonance & Mental Noise

Godphone is often considered to be a wonderful thing. When it works, there is this idea that we have complete confidence in it and that we will always know when it is correct. It is not so simple. If I have not made it clear before now, this form of divination requires a great deal of self examination and a very deep knowledge of oneself. Even with experience and a great deal of practice, there is a significant amount of time where time will be spent just looking at the information and questioning it.

It doesn't help much that Western society tells us that it is alright to talk to the Divine but when it answers back, we must be experiencing psychosis. The subtle narrative that is built up around us by society at large that tells us this 'truth' invades our thought processes. As much as we may wish to set it aside and sincerely believe that this 'truth' is not actually an absolute truth, there will be an echo of it. It leads to us questioning our experiences pretty hard. A measure of skepticism is always useful in magical studies, it helps keep us out of serious trouble, but at some point there needs to be an acceptance of the 'absurd' when Occam's Razor winnows it out as the only answer that makes sense.

The best way to describe the effect of the cultural attitudes that serve to make it difficult to engage in pretty much any form of magical study, in my experience, is that it is mental noise. It is that background hum which we generally ignore but when we are put in a situation where ignoring it is not an option it turns into an overwhelming cacophony. Mental noise sometimes presents as your first reflexive thought upon something. Other times, it is a persistent sense of doubt that leads you to question what your senses and intelligence is telling you to be the case.

There is a meditative exercise that helps reestablish the ability to put aside the background noise of the attitudes which were steeped into our education. It consists of visualizing some sort of device making noise with an adjustable dial or other control. As you turn the control to a quieter setting, envision the mental noise decreasing to a more tolerable state. It sounds like a silly exercise. It is, however, surprisingly effective with some practice.[1]

The other major challenge that isn't really talked about with mentally based magical disciplines is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is something of a thorny problem. Everyone has it for some reason. It is generally fairly hard to overcome. It is a case of one's thinking conflicting with evidence presented to them, resulting in the evidence being rejected somehow in favor of preserving the initial idea (which is usually fairly heavily entrenched).

A good example of cognitive dissonance in action is politics. (Now, this is not going to be a political post, but this is probably the most accessible example I can think of right now.) Imagine, if you will, a person who habitually votes for a given political party. They strongly identify with said party to the point where they have memorabilia and actively work to encourage others to associate with this party. This is something that is a part of the way they view themselves and they are quite happy and proud of this. Now, a person running for office in their region is supporting legislation that runs directly against this individual's personal interests.

How do they handle this challenge to their idea that this party promotes their welfare? They will reject the idea that the legislation even exists, in some cases. In other cases, they will deny that it is actually harmful to themselves personally (including people like themselves as being immune from harmful said effect). They will try to excuse said harmful legislation as a minor component of a larger, more beneficial action. The list of ways they try to justify their continued support of the politician supporting the harmful legislation is long and varied.

All of those methods, however, fit the same pattern of behavior. When presented with information that threatens their identity or their belief, they deny said information and reject it. This is often followed by some sort of assertion that their belief is valid. Unfortunately, the only way to address cognitive dissonance is by continually challenging it. It is difficult and in many cases, it leads to very uncomfortable situations.

In handling cognitive dissonance, we must remember that we are manipulating something of a protective function of the brain. It serves to help us cope with difficult situations until we can process them or disregard them. Thus, when you encounter it, seriously question what it is working to 'protect' you from. Also, remember that mental noise and cognitive dissonance is not an inherently a bad thing. They can present some challenges to building your skills and make it difficult to godphone, but they can serve useful functions as well.

Godphone: Lesson Three - Filtering & Isolating Thoughts.

After too long of a wait, I am returning to the Godphone lessons. Way back in January of this year, I posted lesson one. It discussed the necessity for inner silence and gave some suggestions for how to cultivate that type of state. Lesson two was posted in July and discussed how to determine the authenticity of what you impressions are showing you. I realized as I reviewed my notes for this series of divination posts, I skipped over something important. That was how to filter out distractions and unrelated thoughts, as well as how to isolate the thoughts that focus upon what your divination session is attempting to accomplish.

Most any exercises you encounter regarding meditation encourage the practitioner to be mindful of their thoughts but not consumed by them. This is fairly close to what the ideal divination session that is based in mental discipline strives to achieve. As I mentioned back in lesson one, the 'catch and release' practice of thought tracking is a helpful way to monitor what passes through your mind during a divination session. The first step in any of the exercises is to become aware of your internal monologue. This internal monologue is not necessarily you speaking to yourself. It can range from thoughts framed as sentences to images to emotional impressions or physical sensation. The itch on the nose that distracts me from my meditating is as much a part of my internal monologue as the question if I fed my fish this morning.

When you become aware of the thoughts that run through your mind as you attempt to become quiet and listen closely, it can be overwhelming and difficult to pick out what is part of your internal communication with yourself and what is not. This is where filtering your thoughts becomes crucial. Over the course of multiple meditation sessions, learn to identify what types of thoughts pass through your mind. As they arise, identify them and assign them to their correct category. The itchy nose becomes a passing body awareness and is filed in the same mental box as your awareness of your clothes. The worries about if the bills got paid or the pets have been fed go into the anxiety box, for myself that is it may be different for you. Over time, you will find that as a thought presents itself, you can identify and mentally set it aside for later faster. This frees up our mental focus so that you can sift through these thoughts until you find the one that fits what you need.

Isolating a thought is not complicated. It is actually the next logical step after filtering your thoughts. once some skill has been acquired at filtering your thoughts, you can move from examining each thought alone to looking at the larger category they fit into. When you seek to isolate a category, your focus moves to disregarding the thoughts that are not part of what you are contemplating. If you are engaged in simple meditation with a focus, your isolating the thoughts pertaining to the focus and setting aside the others. In the case of divination via mental exercise, your focus is on communication with deities, the dead, or other spiritual entities. Godphone is focusing exclusively upon deities.

The thoughts that are attached to deities will be intrinsically different from your running inner monologue. It may be as though it is a voice is quietly speaking to you or that you have sensations that are unusual compared to the base line of your inner monologue. For some people, they will have impressions of a figure doing things. Others will be shown something like events happening. And yet other people will simply have strong emotional pulls towards something. In the case of someone having impressions that are of someone speaking to them or otherwise engaging their five senses, it is something happening within the mind's eye. There is, generally, no instances of a person appearing to the psychic as though they were physically present and visible to the eye.

The instances where deities, the dead, and other spiritual beings appear to the eye like any other person physically present are rare. There are more frequently signs given in the physical sense that only make sense in the context of the conversation being had with the spiritual being in question. Thus, a devotee of Freyja may be seeking reassurance that they are engaged in something that she approves of. While they may have the impression of Freyja smiling with approval, they're not likely to see a physical manifestation of her standing before them. Instead, it may be finding a falcon's feather laying on the sidewalk when the step out their front door in the morning.

With all divination, seeking out confirmation of what is learned is appropriate. Even as your discernment improves with experience, it is still good to regularly make sure that what you are perceiving is accurate.

Godphone: Lessons & Ephemera

A series of posts discussing that popular topic of Godphone.

Introduction This post explains what 'godphone' is and gives an introduction to some of the concepts behind it.

Can it be taught? This post discusses if 'godphone' is something based on innate talent or if it is a skill that can be acquired.

Lesson One: Inner Silence This post presents the first basic skill required to engage in the practice of 'godphone'.

Lesson Two: Determining Authenticity This post addresses the questions of if godphone is accurate or authentic.

Lesson Three: Filtering and Isolating Thoughts This post addresses the second basic skill required to engage in the practice of 'godphone'.

Lesson Four: Dissonance and Mental Noise This post addresses the challenges of engaging in 'godphone'.

Godphone: Lesson Two - Determining Authenticity

Note: I apologize that it has taken me so long to get back to posting along these informative topics. It has been rather difficult to get myself organized enough to do these posts. Throw that together with the tumult that has been going on outside of the basic elements of writing preparation and I have had a lot of difficulty with being more frequent in my updates here. I apologize for this. Thank you for your patience and forbearance in this matter.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I previously discussed the basics of reaching the mental state that I have found to be best in using 'godphone.' An enormous amount of what is used in the skills for 'godphone' is based within your ability to track and sort out your own mental information. This means one must acquire the ability to distinguish between what is wishful thinking, anxiety, and legitimate psychic input. This skill is necessary if one is engaged in mediumship or 'godphone.' It is, however, at times very tricky when one is seeking answers to a specific question.

Testing the authenticity of a result may sound like you are 'looking a gift horse in the mouth' but the practice is not inherently disrespectful. It is, actually, a very sound way of clarifying what information is being received and ensuring that you are getting the message correct. In any conversation, working to make sure that you are properly decoding the messages given is an indication of respect for all parties involved in the discussion.

There are multiple ways to test one's impressions. The most basic one is asking yourself if the information coming to you matches your own personal stream of consciousness internal monologue. If the psychic impressions do not match, there is a good chance that it is genuine. I have also found that the psychic impressions will have a different 'tone' to them. Thus, if your inner 'voice' has a certain pitch to it (most often it will mimic what your physical voice sounds like) and something that 'sounds' different arises, it will have a good possibility of being psychic input.^[1]

Using an alternate divination tool to read upon a matter that is the focus of the 'godphone' session is an excellent method of authenticating your impressions. While the information presented from this alternate format may be different in many respects, it should convey the same general message and give additional supporting details to the specific message. Thus if your 'godphone' session has you leaving with the impression that deity [insert name] wants you to do [activity], your tarot reading should present information that conforms to this apparent desire and give details about how said activity should be done, who will be involved, the tools used, etc.

Establishing some sort of sign between yourself and the deities you work with that indicates their presence is helpful for some people. This sign becomes a door of sorts for your divination sessions. It will eventually become present when the deities wish to contact you at times other than your dedicated session times. It may be that you have a specific item that you use as a ritual tool to focus your mind upon your session. That tool may become a sign between you, showing up within the session and at other times when the deities wish to contact you.

For example, a witch I know has a wand with a feather attached to it that she uses in her divination sessions. It is her meditative focus. As she engaged in her use of 'godphone' that feather will move in a manner similar to a pendulum to indicate the legitimacy of the information she receives. At other times, when she is not engaged in a planned 'godphone' session, she has had feathers appear when the deities are either giving her physical signs or conveying messages via 'godphone.' In this instance, the sign that indicates a message is incoming is a feather. 

Perhaps one of the most effective methods of determining the authenticity of the information presented is asking questions that can have concrete answers that are not immediately apparent to you but can be ascertained in short order. One psychic I know keeps a pack of regular playing cards at his desk. At the beginning and the end of the session, he asks the ones he is communicating with what card is next in the set. Sometimes they will tell him precisely what color, suit, and rank the card is. More often, he is given something less specific but still identifying of the next card. He makes a point of shuffling this deck prior to every session. The same could be achieved with a simple coin flip even.

The biggest thing to focus on when seeking to authenticate a session is to get as many details as possible. The more precisely detailed the information drawn from a session is, the easier it is to prove or disprove it. When faced with a situation where it may be difficult to personally authenticate the divination session, it is good to reach out to others who are engaged in this craft.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~
1. Discretion is advised in considering one's mental state when engaging in this sort of work. If you are experiencing the signs of psychosis, seek out medical assistance.

Discretion in Practice.

Over the years, I've seen many people stumble over the question as to what is psychic information and what is the product of their own psyche. It is a hard skill to learn on your own. Attempting to tell if that twinge in the pit of your stomach is actual premonition of doom regarding the Big Thing you are attempting to do or if it is a case of digestive discomfort due to anxiety is not easy. You can spot the people who are early on the road of practicing divination because they'll attribute pretty much everything to psychic causes. They're so excitedly looking for signs that they'll declare 95% of the things they stumble over to be just that.

When I was starting out in doing intentional divination, I had some days like that. (Alright, more than 'some' but I was a kid and I have a highly active imagination. I self sniped on this one many times.) It took some time but I learned to recognize the difference between anxiety and premonition, most of the time. And I also learned how to filter out what was the product of my over thinking everything and what was psychic input. Some people would say this is a skill that can only be learned over a long period of study and practice. I don't agree with it. I think that given six months of focused effort, a beginner psychic can learn to pick up on these differences.

There is no big book of techniques I can point you to. (Though I have started work on writing a handbook that covers general information about psychic stuff. It is going to take me a while to get the first draft written. It is hard because I have a LOT of information to sort through.) There are two reasons why there is no standard set of techniques. First, there is as many different ways to experience psychic phenomena as there are people. At best, you can get some guidelines for different processes that can invoke the phenomena and some general information about the most common, publicly discussed variants. All of our brains are wired differently and we're going to see everything from slightly different perspectives. These differences are significant when you start looking at the architecture of one's inner self.

Second, the different systems for analyzing psychic phenomena are all highly varied. Attempting to create a uniform system that covers everything is a fool's errand because no matter how much you think you have covered, there is going to be things that you didn't include because you weren't aware of them. There simply is too much going on to turn it into a single structure. It is only marginally less complex than the natural systems that have given rise to human thought. It is best to keep an open mind and be willing to learn as much as you can while you go forward.

The biggest thing to keep in mind when it comes to psychic stuff is the fact that there is going to be a significant percentage of the time where you are just going to have it wrong. There is going to be a time where you are going to misread the portents. There is going to be a time where you are going to fail to recognize the signs before you. And there are going to be times where the information you see just does not fit anything you understand. Any psychic who claims their success rate is in the range of 80+ % of the time, you should view them with suspicion.

The really good, really experienced psychics that I know hit a positive result on their efforts somewhere between 2/3rds of the time and 3/4ths of the time. These are people who have been engaged in the exercise of psychic skills and gifts since they were very small. They work on their skills daily and have a great deal of study into their work as well. Accepting that you will get it wrong is a mark of maturity and it also allows you the room to continue to grow in your skills. On the whole, when you are at work with psychic skills, take the time to stop and assess what information you discover. Keep in mind that sometimes that random sign you see has no meaning beyond the fact that it is just what it presents itself as.

Flux Tides.

This post is going to come off a bit queer. I am not generally one to blame the odd bit of strangeness on the psychic 'weather' that happens. Right now, however, I really can not avoid saying it is a big factor in how things have been unfurling here. A wave of upheaval is moving through the world(s) right now and I'm feeling the effects. Some would point at planetary positions and others would point at additional environmental factors (like the fact that we are marching towards the Solstice right now) as being the source of this wave. Honestly, I am not going to say it is the result of individual things. Some planet going retrograde or something is only a partial source of this wave of upheaval.

It has become apparent to me over the last several months, however, that some of the reasoning to the requests in written material that have been made of me by the gods is based in more than what would help me build confidence in myself as an author. Don't worry, folks, I am still being guided to continue my efforts in all arenas. I'm just having difficulty either getting it to paper because of how I am doing wellness wise or it is stuff that I don't quite know how to make it presentable for public reading. I am, however, still working and thinking about a wide range of topics.

As I was considering a trend I've seen in blog postings by a number of individuals I follow, I noticed a trend that was happening across a fairly wide spectrum. The first thing that was apparent was that these folks were all hitting points where some kind of crisis has arisen that brought their spirituality into a place where deep contemplation was necessary. At first, I thought it was just a thing happening for a few people. I saw signs of this happening about this time last year and I just shrugged it off as they hit their own 'Dark Night of the Soul' times. And then I saw this happening for more and more people. It really surprised me.

The second thing that appears to have turned into some kind of trend (note - I'm not saying this is a trend in the sense of something fashionable, just as an apparent theme) was many spiritual and religious bloggers I read were finding themselves in situations where crisis was stretching into areas outside of what people typically think of when they think of a spiritual crisis. I am mildly disturbed by witnessing how the spiritual confusion that arose with the initial crisis seemed to act as a pre-shock to the 'mundane' crisis that came later. In almost all of these cases, the following 'mundane' crisis has been something profound and severe. It ranges, from what I have seen, from severe health problems to severe financial problems (up to and including the loss of one's livelihood).

The other theme that seems to be running as part of this wave of upheaval is strife. I am not talking about the positive form of strife that encourages the people experiencing it to be heroic and display the better traits of their humanity. No, the strife I am witnessing is the kind that can break social bonds of faith and friendship. Some of this does appear to be due in part to the general bastardry of the internet. Accounting for this, though, there seems to be a rise of internecine conflicts in communities that were previously presenting as well knit and given to withstand the occasional infighting and disagreements. It is possible that some of these fights are simply the result of long standing tensions reaching a breaking point. The timing of it all, however, is quite curious.

All of this has me thinking that my decision to forego any readings to assess what was awaiting over the course of this calendar year may have been ill advised. There is change blowing in the wind. It is more than the changes that come with an election year here in the USA. I haven't done any big readings or scrying to see what is coming. Honestly, I don't want to, because what I've seen thus far is fundamentally disturbing and it appears to only be getting worse. All I know is that this 'season of change' is getting progressively more challenging as it presses on.

Back to what I was saying about topics that have been requested of me by the gods and the dead, with all of this flux, there have been holes that are opening up in the material covered by the blogosphere. The topics that I am being encouraged to write on are appearing to align with some of those holes. I will do my best to fill the needs that arise and I can address. At the same time, however, I am cautious about this all because those same hole are the centers of significant conflict right now. I do not enjoy writing material that is contentious and encourages conflict. It is stressful for me, to be perfectly honest. At the same time, however, it looks like my time of silence on many issues must come to a close.

There will be some changes to this blog in the near to immediate future. I ask for your patience and forbearance. If you are in the middle of dealing with chaos right now, don't hesitate to ask your friends and the people who love you for help. They are your tribe and they will help you as best they can, you need only ask. If you are not in the middle of dealing with chaos right now and someone you know and care for comes to you seeking help with their chaos, extend kindness to them and help as best you can. There's a storm brewing, folks, and we're all going to need to work together to get through it.