Eat Your Heart Out Harry Potter!
Everyone knows who Harry Potter is. Harry is inescapably the most well-known magician on the planet and yet he is (hide your eyes if sensitive….) – fictional. Many people would probably laugh at any assertion that magic is real and that there are and always have been magicians in the world. Most people would believe magic to be sleight of hand and stage trickery at best and at worst just nonsense that you read about or see on TV. I just wish these same people would read my latest book….. Wizards, Warlocks and Magicians – Incredible True Stories of Magic and Sorcery. Magicians are real. Magic is real. Both magic and magicians however may not quite be what you think. Magic is about changing things at will. In order to
Read More »13 Magicians
Whether you believe in real magic – spelt magick usually to differentiate from sleight of hand and trickery – or not, history is full of people who did and who were believed to be great magicians. Apollonius of Tyana, for example, who was born just a little before Jesus and spurned a life of luxury and wealth to follow in the footsteps of Pythagoras. Amongst other tales, Apollonius is said to have found the philosopher’s stone and gained eternal life. Then there is that character from the bible that we were all told was evil growing up – Simon Magus. Poor Simon! Simon does appear to have been capable of working miracles – actually not unlike those that Jesus did. But, he was seen as a threat to the early
Read More »Do You Believe in Magic?
An angel instructs a 14th Century magician to wife swap? A man that lives forever having discovered the secret of immortality? A man who can project fire from his belly and water to put out the fire? A 14-year old who already had three degrees and spoke five languages in the 15th Century? An English artist who painted spirits with his eyes closed? An alchemist who wrote the laws of physics? A man who paralysed his Nazi guards with a spoken word? A man who could levitate and fortell the future? All of the above are historical people. They were Wizards, Warlocks and Magicians. They practiced alchemy and natural Magic. One was an ordinaed member of the church as well. They discovered the secret knowledge and sometimes, they wrote about
Read More »Symbols of the Goddess
Over the last few years, I have increasingly enjoyed getting into nature. I am also rekindling my interest in geology and these days enjoy nothing better than getting out into the wild with my hammer. There is a magic about certain places that I have noticed more and more recently. You can sense the nature spirits and of course, the Goddess herself in such places. I have always enjoyed solitude in nature and once spent an entire 6-weeks geologically mapping the island of Eigg off the west coast of Scotland where, for days and weeks at a time, I didn’t see another human. I found that I began to have all sorts of spiritual experiences there including hearing angelic singing and seeing certain things from the other realms (Some of
Read More »Imagination and Imagining Our Way Through Life
Imagination these days is undervalued. Kids no longer really need to exercise their imaginative faculties as it’s all laid on a plate for them in video games, movies that leave nothing to the imagination and TV. Yes, we had movies and TV growing up to but they still needed the support of an imagination. Our TV was in black and white until I was in my early teens and so you had to fill in the missing details for yourself. Special effects were pretty naff too and required imagination. Rather than play video games, I read books – a powerful tool to enhance your imagination. The human race is essentially being gently but surely relieved of its need for an imagination. I wonder if there is a motive behind this?
Read More »Responsibility
As an esotericist, I have come to the conclusion that I am responsible for myself. I have half an idea that for many new agers and the like, this statement is akin to saying I am a satanist, but I stand by my statement none the less. We all create our reality – this place we live in. We create it in the way that we see things and how we act. Thoughts are things and they manifest as reality. Only I can create my reality therefore I am responsible for my thoughts and what they create. As a self responsible co-creator of this reality we live in, I must strive to improve myself. I don’t mean make more money or buy a bigger house. No, I mean improve myself
Read More »Bastions of Light
I am researching a lot of old alchemists for my next little book and the stunning parallel in all of their lives was their sheer brilliance. University at 13 or 16 already full of alchemical knowledge, books published or completed at around 20 including Agrippa’s three huge volumes on magic. Traveling around Europe and the Middle East, writing a ton of books and manuscripts. The question is how? Just exactly how can a boy of 16 in the 14th Century possibly have accumulated so much knowledge? How can they have learned to write, read, speak multiple different languages, know the philosophers and so on? It’s just utterly amazing. I realize that there was no TV or internet and so time could be spent on contemplation and so on but back
Read More »Attention
I have recently been reading a book on magic. To be honest, it has proven to be a dire read indeed promising much but delivering nothing. Except, that is, for one thing. Throughout the book the author talks about energy following thought. I haven’t yet finished the book so maybe it will still surprise me but I doubt it. It seems to be a lot of promises to reveal something without ever revealing anything very much. However, the ideas that energy follows thought is a really interesting and different way to talk about attention. The person who wrote the book plainly knows his stuff but simply choses not to really give anything except broad brush content. Magic he says is about energy and energy follows thought. For me, magic is
Read More »Humanity’s Death Wish
Humanity seems to have a death wish. Not a day goes by without reading someone’s idea that the world is about to end, Jesus is coming back, revelation is about to happen, the planets are all aligned and so on. Even some people that I respect in magical circles seem to be looking for some kind of end. Why? We do not seem able to learn the most basic of lessons as a species. Throughout known history, people have looked to end times and seen signs and portents of doom all around them. It never happened and yet people keep on keeping on seeing signs and looking for signs of the end times. Sorry, I do not get it. Why? Don’t we ever learn? These days, there are entire websites
Read More »What If?
In a recent interview, I found myself talking about the idea that if we give a thing our attention then it becomes real. In so many words, I was saying that we create our own reality through mental focus. You can, in fact, more or less prove this to yourself any time that you wish. Simply, think of something – something as bizarre as you wish – and give it your focus. For example, decide that today you will see a mouse dance. Keep on giving this thought your focus and attention throughout the day – keep looking for that dancing mouse. I guarantee that you will at some point during the day see a dancing mouse even if it is just a Disney cartoon on TV. If you experiment
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