Shadow Path - A Year of Commitment To The Dark Side

Last night's solstice circle marked the end of a year long journey. The shadow work has been quite challenging and the pathworking often stretched me to my human limits. Finishing the year much much wiser, deeper, more compassionate and Last night's solstice circle marked the end of a year long journey. The shadow work has been quite challenging and the pathworking often stretched me to my human limits. Finishing the year much much wiser, deeper, more compassionate and focused. 

Consulting the High Priestess - A Tarot Ritual

For most people maybe Tarot cards and herbs are not often seen as working together. For me however, the woody scents of mugwort, lavender and many other herbs is something that is inseparable from my Tarot work. Not only do they keep my precious cards that I use for readings company but have provided a source of liberating wisdom in home circles as well as during my solitary practice as a witch in ritual. Luckily most herbs used for opening the psychic senses are easily accessible and may can even be grown in our gardens with no fuss at all.

It has been many a time that I have made myself a fortifying cup of mugwort tea with a hint of rose and lemon balm before sitting down for a reading. The steaming cup sitting on my reading table. I even made a special blend that I use for ritual purposes when I want to connect with the archetypes of my Tarot and use it to scatter it on the floor, making a circle of working space, my little haven for my magickal Tarot work. In this article I share with you this blend and the use of it, hoping that you will derive as much pleasure out of it as I have been for a long time now.

 

Take one part of mugwort, rose petals, lemon balm, a bay leaf or two half of eyebright. If you're intending to use this blend as an incense, you might add some sandalwood chips or frankincense to make the smell more pleasant.  Mix the herbs together in a bowl while imbuing the mix with your intention for its use. You may want to chant something like:

"Herbs of sight, bring your might, show what's hidden, bring to light."

Keep in a separate container, labelled with the name of the mix and when you made it. If you want to use it with your cards, just put some in a callico or organza bag and keep with your card. I keep the bulk of my mix in a pretty glass container. I use that to mark out a circle when I cast in my temple space before I begin working with my Tarot. You can also use this blend as an incense to burn it on a charcoal disk.

This month I have also included another ritual to go with your psychic circle blend that will bring you even closer to your inner high priestess.

If you pull out all the High Priestess cards from your decks, (that is assuming that you are like me and one deck only just won't do) and put them next to each other you will notice one thing that seems to be common in most cards. She is depicted wearing a white dress. Some would say it’s due to her position as a priestess that she chooses to remain a virgin to be bound by no man. I partially agree with this, however it’s not the only reason I think. Her independence is not only prevalent in her being in her own power but also in the fact that she is ready to receive any hidden knowledge without any prejudice, there are no ingrained behaviours that would prevent her from gaining new understanding. This to me also signifies purity of mind.

Instead of only using rational knowledge that comes from learning through experiencing, she has the power, the tools and means to access the limitless universal knowledge and therefore glean things that would otherwise remain hidden to those not privy to those skills. She not only sees what is happening in the world but also the reason behind it. Consult her when you need to connect with the wiser you to make a decision where you feel like you don’t have all the facts or when all options seem to be blocked.

To connect with you inner High Priestess, the wiser you, try this simple ritual. You will need a pomegranate, a paring knife and a plate, pen and notepad, white tea light candle, incense or oil of sage or sandalwood, The High Priestess Tarot card or a printed picture of it.

Find yourself a quiet space where you will not be disturbed for about half-an-hour. Put on some soothing music if you like. Light you candle and incense or oil in an oil burner. Write down on your notepad a question that you need clarification on or a problem you need insightful help with. Cast your circle and scatter your psychic herb blend in a circle around you, marking out the space where you will be performing your ritual.

Sit while you concentrate on your breathing until your mind is settled down. Invoke the image of The High Priestess on your card in your mind as if she were sitting opposite you, giving you a reading. Ask her your question or tell her about the problem you need her assistance with.

Sit with her for a little while she connects with you. When she signals you that she’s ready, just bring your awareness back to your space a little bit. Cut the pomegranate in half and offer her some of the seeds in exchange for her help. Take your pen and notepad and start writing down the information she’s giving you while snacking on the pomegranate seeds yourself. Write until you’ve exhausted all the knowledge she was giving you.

Leave your notes for a day or two, but at least for a few hours, then go back through them again and make your decision. If you're planning on using the blend as a tea, please make sure that you omit the bay leaves and check the rest of the herbs with a herbalist to make sure you're not taking something that might compromise your health should you ingest it.

5 Things Your Psychic Development Teacher Hasn't Taught You About Trance Mediumship - Part 1/5

 

When I made a more serious commitment to my psychic development back in 2006, sitting in a circle of beginners week after week, I started from the same level as everyone else. It wasn't long before it became obvious to me that my development was to be somewhat off the beaten track. I soon began to experience physical changes in my body during the meditation that introduced each session. While my circle peers have come out of meditation with recounts of meeting guides, angels and loved ones who have passed and the like, my experiences were mostly of images of people and energies that didn't seem to fit into any of those categories. I often kept those to myself, fearing that I was being left behind in the development or that there was something wrong with me and guides didn't find me worthy of communicating with.

When I mentioned some of what I was going through during those meditations to my teacher at the time, I was told that I needed to ignore what was happening as this was a beginners class and what I was doing  sounded like trance mediumship and that didn't fit the curriculum. I considered the advice reluctantly but decided to listen to my teacher who had a decade of experience with mediumship by that time. Unable to get instruction on how exactly that could be done, I had to find my own way through the experiences I was having, not knowing at the time, that very process will give me the knowhow to assist people going through the same rites of passage in my own circles years later.

It is my view that people who embark on the road to psychic development and mediumship will have as many different paths of getting there as there are reason for them stepping on it. Therefore the way they learn will be different and the utilisation of this skill and ability will be different as well. That is completely OK! People shouldn't feel that they need to fit the mould their teacher picked out for them, especially that this form of development is very deeply personal for many who participate in it.

In this article I write about some of the knowledge that I wished was passed down to me from some of my teachers about trancemediumship. I hope that there are those out there who will read this and will recognise the learning opportunity and will go forward with their individual psychic development without fear of judgement and with the knowledge that what they are experiencing is real. The below are all based on my personal experiences as a student, teacher and practitioner of trancemediumship. We are all individuals however so you might have a different experience and that is perfectly fine.

Physical Effects of Trancing

• Sudden change in heart rate. This has been happening to me since the very beginning. One moment my heart was beating fine, the next it was almost jumping out of my chest. Very scary to experience it if you don’t know what is going on. It used to last for minutes while I was fighting what was happening to my body and used to exhaust me. It took me about a year of practicing to get it under control. The secret for me was to stop fighting within my body and try to slow my heart down by shear will. I realised that it was just a temporary bodily reaction and the more I let it flow through my body, the easier and quicker it passed.
• Unable to move body. The entry into a trance state is via meditation and the brain goes into an altered state. This, as well as the heart rate change is a temporary condition and passes the same way. As scary as this also is in an in between state, while you're still aware of what you are doing and where you are, if you suddenly want to move your arm for example, you may have some difficulty as your brain is busy putting your body in a relaxed state so that you can get on with your meditation. This was also something I had to learn to overcome myself. What works best for me is that imagine that I am inside my body but am very small, in the centre and I am wearing my physical body as a suit. If I move my tiny body inside the suit then I am able to move the corresponding part of my physical body. This takes some practice too.
• The Fall. This is a sensation that I feel directly before trance state sets in and soon after the above two that I mentioned. I call it The Fall as not matter what position I am in, standing, sitting, reclining, I have the sensation of plummeting down in a never ending 3 dimensional space, rotating in all directions. This too was something I was trying to fight at the beginning of my trance mediumship development. Sometimes I would come out of it by jolting myself awake from this state. I would sit in my chair completely stunned and unable to move, with my heart racing, almost as if the jolt would take me back through the stages of trance within seconds and my body felt like it was going to tear apart. It took me awhile to not get freaked out by the physical sensation of falling. What helped me was the affirmation just before it was happening that I was in a safe place and it too just had to pass.

~End of Part 1/5~

The Spark Within - A Tarot Ritual

By Andrea Kaldy

A few Christmases ago I was given a book called Oil For Your Lamp by the owner of a place I teach at. For a long time it was sitting on the top of my bookshelf, once in a while reminding me while dusting that I should read it. If not for gaining some generic wisdom then at least for the courtesy that I can tell my friend that I have read the book she gave me.

I had a feeling she hadn't picked this title by accident and half-annoyed I think I was avoiding the book on purpose. She asked me from time to time if I had started reading it but I managed to duck having to answer or at least I thought so. She stopped asking me after a while and relieved at the thought of having to be accountable for it, I continued to dust it off on the top of the shelf.

I even forgot about it soon afterwards until one day one of my kids picked it up for some reason. It was only a small book with colourful photos in it so it was appealing with its smart cover design and stood out from the rest of the pile of books I was about to take out into the garage. I felt it, I knew it, I had to read it.

I defiantly picked it up and opened it in the middle somewhere, I have this bad habit of doing this to books, to read a few pages from the middle to see if I like the writer's style. An hour later almost in tears I was sitting next to my bed on the floor fully immersed in this little wonder. Reading about other women and how they have overcome challenges in their lives and how they have triumphed over tragedies or even how they kept their lives together after cataclysmic changes that turned everything around them upside down.

I still don't know what grabbed me about this book so much. Why it touched me so deeply, why I was a crying mess as I recognised so much of myself in many of the stories and narrations that were packed into that tiny book. I couldn't read all of it, I had to put it down and I had to allow myself to understand my strong reaction to what I was reading. It took me about 6 months to pick it up again and when I did I started reading the book from the very beginning, savouring each story as I was going and letting its meaning seep into my consciousness.

I started to understand why my friend gave me that book. On the verge of a burn-out, how apt a name is that, she intuitively knew that it was exactly what I needed. I wasn't ready just then but when I was, the guidance was there. I was burning out from disbursing my energy too much, from wanting fix everyone's problems for them, from being frustrated that the travel on my spiritual path wasn't as fast as I wanted it to be, that I had no focal point when all I heard from those I looked up to that I had to have one.

I was vegetating day by day, going through the motions, robot-like, no emotions, no passion, no fire in my belly. It felt like this cold piece of stone, heavy and grey sitting in my stomach, making it harder and harder every day to get up and start the day. I was in depression.  I felt it, I knew it, I had to cut my way through it.

Day by the day that book game me comfort, gave me examples on how I may empower myself with small things. It started a small spark in my belly like an ancient flint stone and with each day as I kindled that spark it grew. It became a focal point of mine and every single decision I made afterward concerning my well being was directed by that spark. I listened to that small warmth in my belly and only allowed things and people in my life that fed that warmth and supported its growth. When I needed guidance I asked myself and if the feeling went cold I pushed back but when I felt the warmth coming through my solar plexus chakra I accepted.

One day I noticed that the tiny kindling that I protected from mal intent for so long has grown into a strong, ferocious, independent fire that was my path and my passion. It was no big revelation, no fanfare, no red carpet, no chorus of angels. It was just a quiet knowing that crept up on me one day and I just knew. The oil for my lamp has been refilled and through my renewed connection with the universal force it has now found a never-ending well of divine replenishment.

I now take time on a regular basis to honour that well and to share it with others and help them find their own source of this life-fuel and through that work I constantly replenish mine.

Here is a simple Tarot ritual that may help you find your focal point and put the fire back into your belly, lift you out of the darkness and replenish your faith in yourself as well as the divine. For this you will need The Hermit from the Major Arcana, a candle of your choice and incense that you find most soothing. It's this simple.

I want you to light your incense and sit in your sacred space with The Hermit in your hands. Now look deeply into the card and absorb all the features that this image has. Become the Hermit yourself. Your mission is to find your light. The single light by which you will travel, the one that will be your guiding light, the one that will assist you in your search of finding yourself. Close your eyes and imagine the path before you with a faint light in the distance. Say a prayer and ask that you may find this light with ease and be able to keep focus on it no matter what it on the path before you. Start walking towards the light in your visualisation, always keeping it in your sight. Feel how easy it is to move towards and when you come across a challenge on the path ask your divinity to remove it for you and then wait for the road to clear and start moving again. You may not get to the light on your first go so try again the next day. When you reach the light during your meditation, take it and own it. Notice how different you feel when you claim it. Enjoy this experience and know that you can come back to anytime you like. When you come out of the meditation light your candle and put it in a place where you can see it every day. Light it every day with a simple affirmation that you are now kindling the light in you. Before the candle burns down completely, light a new candle off the old one to have a representation of the continuation of your intent. Revisit this exercise when you feel like you need to find focus within yourself and your light replenished.

 

5 Easy and Practical Ways to Ground Yourself and Others During Investigations

What is this grounding I speak of? Is this a mystical term only known in the psychic realms? The short answer is, no. It's an exercise that helps you by bringing your mind and your body back into alignment with eachother. Ever been to a party where you just couldn't help but being caught up in the atmosphere, even after it was over? Maybe a sports event where the high of your team winning and the crowd roaring and cheering is still giving you a buzz long after the stadium lights are off? Well, this is where your body is so caught up in a form of vibration that is not its normal state that it finds it difficult to connect with your mind as normal. You might feel light headed, heavy, like swimming in mud or even nauseous, with murky thoughts and in general not being yourself. All in all, you don't want to be sitting in dark, dank buildings in this state and you definitely don't want to get into your car to drive home after a night of intense investigation.

Here are some ideas on what to do when you notice that either you or someone else in your company is "off with the fairies" as I say.

1. You can take the term "grounding" very literally. Having as much bodily contact with the ground as possible is an excellent way to get grounded. Go outside and lie down on the ground. If not possible to go outside, just get onto the ground where you are. For maximum effect, turn the palms of your hand downward. Visualise a flow of energy  from your body down into the earth until you feel like you're back to your normal self. Get up very slowly. First just sit up for a few minutes, then get slowly back onto your feet. If you can't lie down, just sit on the ground and focus on the contact point between the floor and the base of your spine. Use it as an energy highway to ground any excess and unwanted energy.
2. Another excellent way to get back into your body, and this works wonderfully after séances, trance sessions or even lone vigils, is to have a list of information you recite. This allows your thoughts to come back to the present and your everyday being. This list can comprise of simple things such as your full name, address, names of children or friends, your car's number plate, your favourite movies, basically anything that relates your day to day life. If you're helping to ground someone else with this method, just ask them open ended questions about themselves that require simple and routine replies. Eg. list five things in your wallet right now, what do you have in your toolbox, what is your favourite TV show etc. If they have trouble answering those questions, it may very well be an indicator that they are not "fully back" to themselves and further grounding is needed.
3. For those who are into crystal, I can recommend using stones such as black tourmaline, clear or smokey quartz or even hematite or citrine. You should carry at least a few of these in your kit as people may react differently to each stone. I must admit I am somewhat partial to black tourmaline and I find it works best for me. I keep it in my kit away from sunlight and moisture and pop it into my pocket or bra for use during situations when I need some extra oomph with grounding.
4. A much more mundane however sometimes inconvenient way to ground is to sit down for a meal. Digestion and the unavoidable social interaction that comes with eating is a good way to bring the energy down and somewhat force the mind back into alignment with the physical body. Best to avoid foods with any sort of stimulant such as caffeine, sugar or alcohol as they will have a counter-effect to what you want to achieve in the first place. Lots of water during investigations is always a good idea to keep up your electrolytes. You'll thank me for that the day after any investigation. Trust me, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.
5. And last but not least, if you can, do some physical exercise. Even brisk walking will do the trick if done long enough. Stop for a few minutes during investigations when you feel like your loosing your connection and have the symptoms described in the first paragraph. Play a game with your team that will require some physical exertion, laugh, move your body, even if just a little. Remember to hydrate well during and after.

As always, observe safety while investigating and use common sense when deciding whether to continue an investigation or not. Safety first, be it psychic or physical. Happy hunting folks!

4 Easy and Practical Exercises to Flex Your Psychic Muscles and Tune Your Intition

That little voice in your head that tells you to take a certain route, you know the one you ignore just before you make a decision to ignore it only to get into a traffic jam later. That feeling that tells you to choose a certain colour paint for your room only to be shoved aside while you end up with the completely wrong shade on your wall. And the one that tells you that it's time to check your emails as there might be something important and urgent, the one you dismiss, only to realise days later that you missed out on a certain important message from mum and she was expecting your reply days ago. Yepp, that's your poor, much overlooked intuition aka gut feeling that we disregard and completely overlook when making decisions, only to end up with regret and thoughts of "should have listened to my instincts".

That niggling feeling, that tightening in your stomach, that knowing, just knowing, that faint, yet very distinct signal is within reach to each and every one of you. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to fine tune it like a delicate instrument of guidance. And it is the one key to aid you in the development of a solid foundation for confident psychic work and mediumship. Here are some simple exercises with minimum or no expenditure that you can use either with some friends or on your own to get you started.

1.       Zener cards are very easy to come by nowadays. Get yourself a pack to do this exercise. Familiarise yourself with the shapes on the cards. Shuffle for a few minutes. Lay the deck on table face down. Pick a card while keeping it face down. Separate it from the deck. Focus on the card, may even out your hand over it if you like. The trick to it is not to attempt to guess what the exact shape on the card is. Go for information such as types of angles, curves, similar shapes in everyday objects etc. Draw if you can or write some notes if that works better for you. Give yourself a time limit with each card. I find that 5 minutes works well. Do a few cards per sitting. Don't be discouraged if you don't get the shape right straight away. This is an exercise where you have the opportunity to learn patience and how to associate objects and shapes with eachother.

2.       A variation on the Zener cards is to work backwards so to speak. Make a spread of the cards with neat rows and columns, face down. This just makes it easier to keep track of this exercise. Pick the shape you want to find. Scan the grid of cards or hold your above the cards as you move from row to row while you keep the image of the wanted shape in focus. When you feel like you have picked the card with your shape on it, just stop and ask yourself, if that's the right card. Pay attention what your gut feeling tells you. Turn over the card you had in mind. With practice you will start pulling out the wanted card or at least come very close in the vicinity. This will teach you how to read yourself and will help you develop your confidence more.

3.       This exercise might be a little more fun for some and can even be practiced while doing something else. In fact, a primary activity is strongly encouraged. Put the radio on while doing housework, in the shower, cooking etc. Have a guess at what band will play next. What the next song will be, what it will be about. Even what the next commercial is. Again, this will help with your confidence while having fun as well as with short term prediction.

4.       Collect pictures of celebrities from magazines and cut them out. Don't worry, this isn't going to turn out to be some creepy stalker fantasy! You will need about 20-25 pictures for this. Put them into sealed and non-transparent envelopes. Make sure you can't see any of the pics through the envelope. Mix up the envelopes and pull one out randomly. Without opening it, keep your mind's focus on the envelope and the picture in it. Pay attention to what images, sounds, feelings come to you. The trick to this one is, again, not to guess who is in the picture but to get deeper information that is not readily represented in the photo. Go for attributes like mood, location, action etc. This can be quite fun as you will try to validate the information you've received by searching in the tabloids for the antics of your favourite celebrities.

Of course the main goal is to have fun while you fine tune your intuition. There is no competition and the more of the above activities you do, the stronger your psychic muscles will become. You don't need to have the desire to read for other people or appear as a stage psychic, but simply just perfect this built in guidance system we all have is a good enough reason to give this a go.

Out and about in uncharted territory. Filming for In Tenebris tonight. Beautiful sunset in stark contrast with the location and all it holds.

5 Easy Ways to Practice Your Paranormal Mediumship In the Field

Paranormal Investigators Series

 

How does paranormal mediumship differ from stage mediumship? What special skills and experience would someone need if they want to get into paranormal investigations? Allow me to share with you some of my experience of working in the field as a paranormal medium.



 

1.       Get someone else to pick a spot on a map for you. Preferably not a well known location but not in the middle of a desert or a jungle either. Somewhere where there are recognisable structures or landscape that can be verified. Can even use a different state or country. Meditate on the location and take note of any features (sights, sounds, smells etc) that you experience. Visit the location after this exercise if you can and take your notes along to compare. Take photos if you can, bearing in mind any privacy issues with private property and individuals. If you are not able to visit the place, just hop on Google Maps and check it out. This exercise will help with your remote viewing skills.

 

2.       While at investigations, can be indoors or outdoors, spend some time absorbing the location. Here is a little exercise you may find useful. Pick a place where you can connect with the location by yourself.  Make sure you are safe, of course. Centre and ground before you continue. Use some music from your mp3 player if you like. Imagine that you project hundreds of little strands of energy tentacles from your body. They stroke the floor, the walls, the objects around you. Let them feed any information back to you. You can do this with just one room or a whole building or only with individual objects where touching is them is not possible for whatever reason. This exercise will help with your extra-sensory perception.

3.       Some locations, by their purpose built nature will give away their nature. Popular places for paranormal investigators are asylums, hospitals, prisons etc. There are very obvious types of information that can be derived just by knowing the purpose of the building that do not require any special psychic or mediumistic skills. While we do pick up on these types of information, we, as field investigators cannot stop at just that. You don't have to be psychic to feel a criminal personality while investigating dank cells of prison blocks. It would be easy to just stop at that level. However as field mediums you want to strive for a lot more. Locations have many levels of activity, let's not limit yourself to describing and only connecting with the purpose of a structure. There are many many human stories to be derived and told. To help achieve that, you should write down your physical observations before you start your spirit connection, just to get that out of the way. It will also help deciphering later on what was actual psychic/spirit information and what was obvious observation.  This will help with strengthening your ability to be critical of your own work and make a distinction between intellectually received information and psychic information

 

4.       Get someone to film you (cheap handycams are easily accessible nowadays) or if that's not possible, take a voice recorder with you and record your findings. Talk about what you experience, not just psychically but physically as well. Look back on the recording after your investigation as you may find information you received that didn't seem relevant beforehand but gained importance and relevance after and in light of the investigation. This will help you to see where your strengths are as well as allow you to make observation on your accuracy. Who doesn't want to give themselves little brownie points for good information produced psychically?

 

5.       There is no need to have your medium hat on for hours on end during an investigation or even if you are out and about alone, doing field work. Make sure you give yourself a break and ground every once in a while. Mix with the team of people you're with, have something to eat, listen to some music, participate in other experiments and activities that don't require your psychic skills. This will give you an opportunity to learn more about team work and how investigations work from a non-psychic point of view. Being a more integral part of a team and learning other skills means that, just like other participants, you can utilise multiple skills and learn how to better incorporate your mediumship with other areas of research.

These are only some basic tips but will highlight the differences between stage mediumship and field mediumship. If your passion is to work as a paranormal medium and want to know how to make the switch, the above is a good way to start. Enjoy and grow! Oh and always have latex gloves and hand sanitiser handy in your kit! Trust me on that one.

Hanging out in the temple, Skull and I, pottering about, drinking steaming hot tea, restocking candles, burning incense, listening to music. This is my bliss <3

To Ouija or Not to Ouija

Much controversy surrounds the use of psychic/ouija boards in spiritual and paranormal circles. Instead of debating its perceived (or not) hazards or even validity and usefulness, here are some suggestions to try while using it. I have carried out all of the below experiments with various results. As much as I get annoyed when people publish research they have done but without having the gumption to add their own conclusion, I have to admit that while I have encountered some astounding results on occasion, the jury is still out for me due to lack of hard evidence on this tool. So here we go, try some or all of the suggestions by themselves or in combination with eachother and see how you go. I would suggest this to those who have at least some experience using this tool. 

1) use it at a location that is not known or considered to be haunted

2) have all the participants blindfolded

3) turn the board face down

4) have a designated person who isn't touching the board to ask the questions

5) ask open ended questions that require a reply with which the rest of the participants are not familiar with

6) utilize the knowledge of a person in the circle who speaks a foreign language

7) use a voice recorder to record the session and listen back later for possible EVPs

8) get everyone to write names of people they might like to contact during a particular session on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope without showing anyone else in the circle

9) nominate someone to be the scribe and jot down all questions and any responses that are presented on the board, this person can also move around the location in case instructions come through while using the board 

10) use two boards at the same time at the same location 

No Fluff Paranormal Mediumship

There are many types of spirits I have encountered during my years of being in the paranormal field. From the cheeky to the sad, the impostor to the flaky. I found that to get the most out of a communication it's best to match the energy of the spirit that I am interacting with. Similarly, if I want to make contact with a particular entity, I adjust my approach to the vibration of the one I want to connect with.

It was the case last Saturday when the plan was to contact an entity at a location that we have been investigating since 2007. I knew its energy and I knew its tactic so the communication and language I used was commensurate to that. This is something primordial, something dense and heavy, and in my mediumship experience barely human . A collection of lingering energies perhaps, it has amazed us time and time again before with its intensity and uncanning ability to connect with and draw out the darkness from within those it chooses to encounter.

I raised my voice while attempting to awaken it and we could feel the energy rising and the atmosphere changing. Our chosen primary instrument for communication this time was a talking board, a tool we have  used many times before. I was leading the séance, so to adhere to protocol I didn't have my hand on the planchette but was standing by. Without debating the pros and cons or the validity of this method in this article I'd like to write about what had happened.

After some general information being conveyed via the board, the tone changed and became threatening. Phrases of "heathen go to hell", "burn in hell heathen" and "get f&*#ed" were thrown around, we knew we weren't dealing with the elemental type entity we were aiming for. This was human. We let the tirade continue for a short time while I was assessing the situation and where to go next with this session. There were a number of people in the team that were working with us at the time that are pagan and follow the Old Ways of Witchcraft, including myself so the remark of "heathen" was not a surprise. We decided to play the religion card, as it were, and went back with equal force. We questioned the state and belief of the one who was communicating with us through the board and we did that aggressively. It was spewing hate at us and we were not going to just take it with love and light. If it was a living person we would have done the same, so didn't see why we would have to treat this one any different.

Now, in a decent paranormal movie, this is the point where objects start to fly and someone starts talking with the voice of the Devil while talking board catches fire and people fall to the ground in fits. You will be able to see in one of the episodes of In Tenebris what happened. Let me just say that the "throw some love at it" approach is the weakest argument and doesn't stand up as it doesn't stand up real life either. I don't believe in turning the other cheek. I don't believe in worshipping the dead as if they had some sort of magickal power. I believe that there are those who are decent human beings and they remain so once they pass to the Other Side. At the same time though I believe that there are bigots and egotists that remain that way even after death. I don't believe in sending spirits to the light with force and I don't believe people change into enlightened and almighty holy beings as soon as they die. I do, however believe in personal responsibility and accountability on this side as well as the Other Side and if anyone from the spiritworld is as judgemental as the one we have encountered as above they should be met with an equal force of reckoning and accountability from me and my team. "Calling out" I believe the term is. There are enough wishy washy people around who preach love to all on the surface but deep down are hateful and false. Dealing with them is the same as dealing with those types of spirits in the spiritworld. Facing them head on and with equal force to expose their hate and falseness. I found that with this approach either one of two things happen. One, they pull their heads in and realise that at the soul level we are all equal or two, they continue with their hate even more. Why that is, I don't know. One things is for sure though, I haven't encountered any fire and brimstones yet.

A Partial Eclipse of The Heart

Kicking off this blog during a partial solar eclipse is as good as any other day. The fact that it's during the New Moon in Taurus is even better!

Astrology always confused me and I never fit the typical description attributed to Leo. Following the Moon cycles is as good as it gets for me when it comes to the interpretation of celestial objects, signs, houses and the like. 

How long have the stars been around? Or the Moon? I have a feeling that realizing our own importance as a species came around the same time as the discovery of the cyclical nature of those objects. Myths and legends were born around them as mankind attempted to explain their own context within what they could only perceive as a hint of the universe. 

Superstitions held in place by dogma that stifled science later on in history and ensured that the secrets of the cosmos were not revealed more extensively until modern times. Eclipses were long held as harbingers of death and generally all round bad news until a smart cookie astronomer somewhere built a solar centric model of the then known solar system and started to play around with it a little. 

Here's to those who dare, in the face of ignorance, even in this age, to challenge scientific and religious dogma and seek answers to questions that others don't even have the guts to ask.