Divination Stones

Divination Stones

I am not usually one to dabble or work within the arts of divination. I use my tarot cards for spell craft, and runes for inscription. I mean I've learned a bit of astrology but again this mostly works in spell craft for me. I never have been totally interested in divination but then earlier this month I was looking over one of Scott Cunningham's published spell books, "Earth Power" I believe. Under the section of Stone Magick Cunningham talks about how stones (and indeed all things) have a certain frequency to their vibrational tone and how based on these frequencies, one could determine the proper magickal use of a stone. One of the examples was the making of Divination stones. To determine the vibrational frequency of a stone, hold the stone in your projective hand (the hand you use to write) and hold it tight, feel the stone. Notice the weight, the texture, the temperature of the stone. Now hold the stone loosely in your fist and be still. You should feel a pulsating within your palm and fingers. If the pulsating is quick and strong it is a high vibrational stone. If the pulsating is slow and subtle, it is a low vibrational stone. This may seem to take a long time but once you know what the vibrations feels like, it should take only seconds. Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about how this works for divination. Take a light colored high vibrational stone, this is "Yes". Now a dark colored low vibrational stone, this is "no". And a uniquely colored or shaped mid-vibrational (meaning having a frequency between the other two stones), this is the "indicator". Hold the stones in your hands focus mentally on your question and roll the stones like dice. The stone closest to the "indicator" is the answer.

So I was intrigued, none the less, and went about my stone supplies to find the needed vibrational stones:

                                       

The first to the left is a high vibrational stone which mean "yes". The middle is a medium vibrational stone which is the "indicator". The last to the right is a low vibrational stone that means "no".

I then set about asking the stones three questions a week. I would write down the question and date/time it. I would write the outcome as well along with date and time. Its seems the stones are very accurate (in their own way), and the outcomes seem to be dependent on the intensity of the question being asked. Even though these stones are just for yes and no questions they can reveal a great deal about many things. As a tip, the proximity of all three stones can give a more detailed answer. The answers I am getting seem to have a certain pattern that involves the energy of time, space and self. Definitely my new favorite divination project, the results are scary accurate.

***But always remember: “There is no such thing as coincidence only inevitability.” and “Once you know your destiny, you always have a choice.”

Happy Casting!

Beatus Esse,

T.LH

Witch School First Degree Exercises

Witch School First Degree Exercises

                 

        These exercises are taken from the CorrellianNatavist Tradition’s First Degree course from Witch School.  These exercises are designed to build up your psychic energies and help you learn to control them. Many of these exercises use Chakra points. Chakras are the energy centers of the body, and there are quite a few of them. The first three lessons however you will just be using two chakras; these are located in the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. You can visualize these chakras as balls of white light directly in the center of your palm or sole of your foot. These two chakras are basic chakras that are used for bringing energy into the body and for sending it out of the body. Other chakras are more specialized.  I have chosen these exercises to be a part of the Lion Heart Coursework (L.H.C) to train myself in my First Degree priesthood and to show how one must practice to become proficient in psychic and magickal workings. These are excellent exercises to train your inherent magickal abilities, the more you work out your psychic muscles the stronger they get.  These exercises are meant to be done daily until you have got them down and can do them easily. There are different sets of daily exercises; as we go along through the coursework I will add the sets I am doing daily and also leave the proper instructions for when to switch to the next set of exercises. Remember to record every exercise and your experience in each. You can record this in your Book of Shadows, or a journal dedicated only to the practice of these exercises.

EX.1: Put yourself into a comfortable position. Begin by releasing; close your eyes and imagine all worries and anxieties of your day just pouring out of you like water, down and out through the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. Now place the palms of your hands together. Imagine a ball of white light between your two palms, radiating out from where they touch. Imagine it very strongly, seeing it clearly.

     Now pull your hands slowly apart. Imagine the ball of light stretching out between your hands as you separate them, becoming a beam of light between your palms. Hold this for a few seconds, longer if you can. Then, slowly, bring your hands together, shrinking the beam of light between them until they close together and it is gone. Clear and release all excess energy as outlined in the page entitled “Psychic Hygiene”. Imagine a stream of white light or water flowing through you from the top of your head and carrying all excess energy away through the soles of your feet. 

    Practice this until you get good at it. Then you are ready for exercise 2.

EX.2: This exercise begins just like EX.1. Mimic it just the same until you get to the point where you have created the beam of energy between your hands.  Then, instead of stopping, visualize that beam growing and expanding to form a ball of white light between your hands. Hold that image as long as you can. Then, slowly, bring your hands back together, seeing the ball shrink between them, growing smaller and smaller until by the time your hands close, the ball is gone.

   Clear and release when you’re done. When you get good at this, you’re ready to try exercise 3.

EX.3: This exercise is just like EX.1, except when you open your hands, instead of a beam of white light, visualize a rainbow between your hands. Every color has an effect on energy, so this will work to strengthen you on a number of levels at once.                                                                                                    

These three exercises are not meant to replace each other, but done together. As you master one, you will add the next one to your daily regimen. Always release before and after, but not between, the exercises. When you have mastered all three, this is will be your regimen: Release, EX.1, EX.2, EX.3, and release again.

The Qabalistic Cross Ritual

The Qabalistic Cross

The Qabalistic Cross is a ceremonial practice that’s basic purpose is to help the magician reach “ritual consciousness” before a magickal working. The Qabalistic Cross (QC) centers the magician in the middle of his/her cosmic universe and aligns the magician with the energy of the cosmos as well as the Tree of Life, an occult reality map that explains the spiritual nature of the universe.  The ritual that I have adapted into my own practice is the one set down by Christopher Penczak in “The Temple of High Witchcraft” (pg.96 ch.4) more info on the performance, symbolism and tools of the ritual will follow:

1)      Stand in center of room, or in West of altar facing the East. Clear and release, still the mind.

2)      Visualize yourself growing to gigantic size, up past the sky into the solar system and even farther from the galaxy. The Earth below is tiny but your feet are anchored to it so you don’t have to worry about “flying away”. Visualize that you are in the far reaches of the cosmos, a star descends to your crown then transforms to a ball of brilliant white light, know that this ball is a piece of the Great Spirit (the androgynous and all pervasive spirit of the Universe, The Source, i.e. The Unknown God/dess), it burns brighter than a thousand suns. Take blade/ index and middle fingers (of the predominant hand or what is called your “Power Hand”, ambidextrous persons should use the hand they feel most comfortable with) and pierce the ball, move blade/fingers to forehead and touch the Third Eye (middle of brow at penile gland), visualizing a stream of white light moving with the blade/fingers. Vibrate: AH-tah.

3)      Move blade/fingers downwards vertically across the body, guiding with it the stream of white light, point blade/fingers towards the Earth and visualize the light moving downwards to the Earth and past it into infinity, focus on this beam of light and vibrate: Mahl-KOOT.

4)      Bring blade/fingers up to right shoulder, touch shoulder with blade/fingers. Visualize a star at the right shoulder. Visualize the vertical beam in the center of your body extend another beam of white light from the heart area to the star at the right shoulder and then out through infinity to the right. Focus on the beam of light and vibrate: Vih-G’boo-RAAH.

5)      Move blade/fingers across to the left shoulder, touch shoulder with blade/fingers, visualize a star at the left shoulder. Visualize the white beam of light in the center of your body extending another beam of white light from the heart area to the star at the left shoulder and out through infinity to the left. Focus on the beam of light and vibrate: Vih-G’doo-LAH.

6)      Now clasp hands together over your chest in a prayer position. With blade (if using one) hold it point up between the knuckles. Visualize beneath your hands at heart area a golden glowing light within the middle of your chest at the point of intersection between the four points of the cross within your body. Focuse on this golden light and the cross as a whole, vibrate: Lih-Oh-LAHM, Ah-MEN. Feel yourself in a cross of light stretching infinitely through the universe.

7)      When done and not continuing on to other rituals or magickal workings, bring your awareness back to the material world, resuming (slowly) back to normal proportions and letting the visualization of the cross of light fade. Clear and release all excess energy if needed.

The words that are vibrated within this ritual basically translate to: “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.” This prayer is a type of code that grounds the Tree of Life through four main centers of your body. The sephira at the top is the godhead, the “thine” of the prayer. The one at the bottom where your feet are translates to “kingdom”, the one to your right translates to “power” and the one to your left translates to “glory”, or “mercy”.

The Words of Power

Perhaps one of the most common road blocks to beginners of this ritual are the concerns of the vibration, or toning, of the scared sounds. A lot of books and writers from the ceremonial traditions have inspired some fear in “mispronouncing” the words of power. To be completely honest the pronunciation of the words has less to do with the proper performance of the ritual than the intention of the words when they are said. As long as you are focused and you say the words with confidence and meaning then you are doing the ritual right, regardless if you mispronounce the words or not. As Christopher Penczak put it in “The Temple of High Witchcraft” (TOHW), “It’s better to do it, holding a strong intention, and let the practice evolve rather than not to do it because you are afraid to do it wrong.”

If you are still worried about whether or not you are pronouncing the words of power correctly and if this is negatively affecting your ritual then listen to the wise words of modern mystic and Qabalist, Lon Milo Duquette, author of  “The Chicken Qabalah”, from which he writes:

“The first liberating secret Chicken Qabalists learn is that (as far as the Qabalah is concerned) there is no such thing as correct Hebrew Pronunciation. Yep. That’s right. No matter how you pronounce the various words in the system, some snob is sure to pop up (especially in public) and correct you….I repeat, nobody knows for sure what the sacred language of the ancient Hebrews sounded like, or even if it was spoken at all! Pronunciation has less than nothing to do with the study and practice of the spiritual applications of the Qabalah.”

The Blade

In this ritual there is a common tool used to direct the energy of the cross of light and that tool is the ritual blade. Also known as an athame (pronounced Ah-THA-May), the ritual blade is an extension of the magician and is used to direct and absorb the energy in a ritual. Traditionally, athames are plain, dull double-edge daggers with a black hilt, but modern magickal practitioners have access to a large variety of athames and daggers some as simple as a sharp piece of wood and others are elegant pieces of jeweled art. The  ritual blade is not necessary to perform this or any ritual, it is just a tool to help focus and direct energy which could just as easily be done with one’s own fingers.