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When starting up an order, temple, coven, or other magical group in the modern world, there usually is not much in the way of resources. Not knowing how to attract other members, build a system of study and ritual, and deal with the inevitable conflicts that occur when more than one person comes together can spell doom for any start-up magical group. One exception to this lack of resources is Nick Farrell's Gathering the Magic, which attempts to give a would-be group leader some of the advice needed to succeed in this endeavour. While John Michael Greer's Inside a Magical Lodge still has much to offer in this regard, Nick's book is a bit more up to date, dealing with the issues that a group in the 21st Century will have to face.
The book numbers 188 pages and has a number of chapters dealing with the group itself, the leadership, the practical elements, bringing in new people, conflict and crisis, and then growth or death of the group. These are further divided into shorter sub-sections that make for easy reading.
Nick offers some useful insights into the minds of those who join and work with magical groups, including whether someone is a leader or a follower, how they will fit in with the egregore, what to do with grades, and what kind of leadership role (guru, round table, panel, three chiefs, etc.) will work best. This latter section is dealt with extremely well, with a number of advantages and disadvantages given for each possibility.
On the practical side of things essential elements like a name, location, and fee structure are addressed, along with ritual work to be carried out at each meeting, and all of the various tools and regalia that may be required, depending on the nature of the group.
The leadership role is given quite a bit of attention given how important it is (and how detrimental a bad leadership can be), but Nick stresses the importance on spreading the work load and strongly encourages the individualising of each member of the group. The section detailing the "warning signs" when someone is about to individualise (which is a good thing, but not without its own painful and sometimes destructive process) is particularly good, especially considering that Nick is advising that potential leaders aid the individualising person as opposed to simply expelling them from the group because of what seems like trouble-making at first.
One problem with the book is the large number of typos, which shows that the editor did not really give it the attention it deserved. Luckily enough these aren't bad enough to distract from the material. Another obvious error occurs with the citing of a book that has not been released yet. In a footnote on page 157 Nick cites Peregrin Wildoak's By Names and Images (information on which can be found here) as being published in 2004. Unfortunately due to delays at Thoth Publications this book still has not been released. Since the copy of Gathering the Magic that I am reading has been updated to a second edition in 2007 I wonder why this footnote wasn't ammended to be more accurate.
Gathering the Magic is mainly focused on ceremonial magic groups, but the advice is generally applicable to all, whether it's a Freemason lodge, a Golden Dawn temple, or a Wiccan coven. Some of the information and advice is fairly common-sense, but it's the kind of common-sense that only occurs when someone highlights it, while many other guidelines Nick gives will not have occured to most group leaders. It is clear that he does not base these things on speculation but on a number of years experience, and thus this book will be of great benefit to those lacking in the experience required to create and grow a successful magical group.
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It is Good Friday, a day that for me has rich theological meaning. Many Christians around the world will gather to remember the one whose death on a cross serves to reveal to the world the extent of God's love for that world. Good Friday and Easter can be explored historically, but the ultimate meaning of these events must be understood through faith. So, perhaps it's with a bit of irony that I would be sharing this essay about atheist Barbara Ehrenreich's recognition of the mystical. In the essay we learn that one of the things that Ehrenreich lacks is vocabulary to express her experiences. As a believer, I am thankful that I do have vocabulary, but I think we can learn something from her experiences - there is more to reality than meets the eye!
Activist Barbara Ehrenreich on "Living With a 'Wild' God"
by BETTY M. BAYER
Thursday Apr 17 2014
Screenshot: Phillips Academy / vimeo
Online, radio, and print news is abuzz about Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, "Living with a Wild God", with the paradoxical subtitle," A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything". And, yes, this is "the fourth-generation atheist," Barbara Ehrenreich, of leftist-labor and feminist-activism fame, whose award-winning journalistic investigations into social, economic, and political issues span decades.
Now in her early seventies, Ehrenreich discloses a narrative running parallel to her life and career since a young age, most significantly a personal experience at seventeen. On a predawn walk in Lone Pine, California, Ehrenreich recalls, she encountered "something alive" which she describes as nothing short of a "cataclysmic experience" when "the world flamed into life."
No visual hallucination, no prophetic voices; rather, the world opened up and was "rushing out to" her. Ehrenreich writes: "Something poured into me and I poured out into it... a furious encounter with a living substance." Looking back on this moment, as recorded by her younger self, Ehrenreich reflects on the want of adequate language to describe what happened, personally, experientially, and as an atheist who continues to describe herself a rational empiricist (though, recently, also as a "mystical rationalist").
Grasping for words outside of "ineffable, transcendence, spiritual," or "religious," Ehrenreich leans on the word "mystical" to carry her burden of meaning. The lack a vocabulary to express the varieties of the inexpressible leads Ehrenreich to her larger challenge to science: go forth boldly in the study of uncanny experiences.
This challenge also arises from the question Ehrenreich poses, as a young woman writing in her journal, to the woman she would become. "What have you figured out?" her younger self asks her future self. "What's it all about?" And, the age-old question: "What is actually going on here?" Big questions "hurling across the decades from one's younger self" pose quite a challenge, not to mention responsibility, reflects Ehrenreich.
The quest to answer these questions has taken her across decades of writing and research, through debate-strewn lands in which she has engaged psychiatric disorders, neuroscience, fiction and non-fiction writers, philosophers, and more.
From the psychologist and philosopher, William James, she draws some insight, especially on mysticism. From the theologian, Rudolph Otto, she draws support from his idea of the encounter with the Other as "beyond all question something quite other than the 'good.'" Otto's description of encounters as something like a "consuming fire," with possible disturbing effects, resonates, says Ehrenreich, with her own experience.
She takes issue with narratives equating encounters with the Other as good, divine, or benevolent. Hers was more akin to what Otto calls "mysterium tremendum et fascinans-"at once, one trembles "and" is fascinated. She has sought out others' stories of encounters, from saints to science fiction writers, such as Philip K. Dick, with an eye to charting these troubled waters of alternative experiences outside of ready understandings of "the religious" or "the spiritual."
Equally critical, Ehrenreich tills familiar research-terrain in neuroscience and religion to uproot tendencies to reduce mind to brain. Surrendering one to the other imposes limits on vocabularies of subjective experience and curtails new studies of "the uncanny" or alternative forms of consciousness. Here she is not alone, for James and many others have also challenged this kind of medical materialism or reductionism and its implications for an interior life.
If Ehrenreich misses a thing or two in her argument it may be how experiences of the uncanny have set inquiries into motion and changed relations between religion, science and psychology throughout the ages. Witness: early twentieth-century scholars James or Otto, or, today, Anne Harrington.
Also, currently there are a growing number of experts who are reinvigorating not just the age-old questions Ehrenreich raises but age-old questions about the relationship between science and religion (and psychology).
Consider, for example, religious studies scholars (e.g., Rubenstein) interested in philosophy, theology and physics' "persistent entanglements" often arising from multiple-worlds cosmologies, physicists (e.g., Lightman) pondering our significance and how we make psychological sense of living in an "accidental universe," and social and political philosophers (e.g., Dupuy) contesting skewed relations between religion, science, and reason in which faith is set over and against reason.
Ehrenreich's request for a bolder science and neuroscience is a worthy one. While her interests lean to a phenomenological side, her book suggests a call to cultural and social structures and to histories of science, psychology and religion for more, not less, cosmic wandering.
RESOURCES:
Mary Hynes. "Poems That Make Grown Men Cry. CBC Radio", April 11, 2014, Tapestry.
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre. "The Mark of the Sacred". Translated by M. DeBevoise. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2013.
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Author, BETTY M. BAYER, is Professor of Women's Studies at Hobart and William Smith College. Recent publications include "Enchantment in an age of occupy" (2012, "Women's Studies Quarterly"). She is working on a monograph: "Revelation or"Revolution? Cognitive Dissonance and Persistent Longing in an Age Psychological". Bayer is a 2013-14 Senior Fellow in the Marty Center.
Editor, MYRIAM RENAUD, is a Ph.D. Candidate in Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She was a 2012-13 Junior Fellow in the Marty Center.
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Recently, several people have sent me a chain email with the title "10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't)". I've seen enough chain emails over the years to recognize that some are legitimate, but far more are, at best, junk, or at worst, more nefarious. So, I decided to check with the source. It appears that the genesis of this email is MoveOn.org. While I agree with some of the positions espoused by MoveOn.org, I have had some concerns about some of the things that have come from that organization. Furthermore, I'm not naive enough to think that, just because a particular political organization says something is true, then that something is, in fact true.
Nevertheless, with those caveats aside, it is worth reprinting the list of things that voters "should know" about John McCain (at least according to MoveOn.org). I'm not reprinting them solely for the purpose of attacking McCain or his supporters; rather, my purpose is to offer McCain's supporters (or the candidate himself?) an opportunity to rebut these allegations and to offer those who may not know much about Sen. McCain an opportunity to learn a bit more. So, if you support Sen. McCain (or the Republican platform), take a minute to review these allegations and let me know if they are accurate or not; but, if you do rebut the allegations, please offer some evidence to support your position (as MoveOn.org has offered citations and link in support of the allegations). (Note that I've modified the original post by moving the citations to immediately follow each allegation.)
* John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws. "The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day," ABC News, April 3, 2008; "McCain Facts," ColorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008.
* According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi. McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq," Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008; "Buchanan: John McCain 'Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,'" ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008.
* His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban. "McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill," ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008.
* McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support "Roe versus Wade". It should be overturned. McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned," MSNBC, February 18, 2007.
* The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill. "2007 Children's Defense Fund Action Council(R) Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard," February 2008; "McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007.
* He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations. "Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady," Associated Press, April 3, 2008; "McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End 'Systemic Risk,'" Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008
* Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me. Will McCain's Temper Be a Liability?," Associated Press, February 16, 2008; "Famed McCain temper is tamed," Boston Globe, January 27, 2008.
* McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates. "Black Claims McCain's Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: 'I Don't Know What The Criticism Is,'" ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008; "McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man," ABC News, January 29, 2008.
* McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult. McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam," Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008; "Will McCain Specifically 'Repudiate' Hagee's Anti-Gay Comments?," ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008; "McCain 'Very Honored' By Support Of Pastor Preaching 'End-Time Confrontation With Iran,'" ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008.
* He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0-yes, zero-from the League of Conservation Voters last year. "John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record," Sierra Club, February 28, 2008.
Only a few of these allegations are, by themselves, of the "disqualifying" variety; however, taken as a whole, these allegations, if true, suggest that John McCain would truly be bad for the United States.
One of my reasons for highlighting these allegations is the concern that has been growing recently following discussions with others about the fall election. Numerous people have said, point blank, that while they want to vote for a Democrat in the fall, if the candidate is Barack Obama, they will vote for McCain, while a similar number of people have said the exact same thing in reference to Hillary Clinton. Perhaps these statements are being made "in the heat of battle" as the Democratic candidates continue to bash each other and Sen. McCain gets a veritable free pass until after the conventions. Or, perhaps, it is simply that people have not really stopped to learn more about John McCain, his positions, and his personality. I hope that's all it is; I sincerely hope that, come the November election, people will consider the candidates on the basis of all of the information and not on snap judgments made during the primary process. But I also hope that those people who say, even though they want a Democrat as President, that they will vote for Sen. McCain instead of Sen. Obama/Sen. Clinton, will take some time "now" to learn more about Sen. McCain before so glibly making pronouncements about their intent in the general election, especially in the weeks leading up to Indiana's own primary which may help decide who will be the Democratic candidate.
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(Jas 2, 14-26) If faith does not have works, is dead
[14] What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? [15] If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, [16] and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?
[17] So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. [18] Indeed someone might say, "You have faith and I have works." Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. [19] You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble.
[20] Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless? [21] Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? [22] You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works. [23] Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called "the friend of God.
" [24] See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. [25] And in the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by a different route? [26] For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
(CCC 1815) The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it (Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1545). But "faith apart from works is dead" (Jas 2:26): when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.
(CCC 2447) The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities (Cf. Isa 58:6-7; Heb 13:3). Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving and bearing wrongs patiently. The corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead (Cf.
Mt 25:31-46). Among all these, giving alms to the poor is one of the chief witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to God (Cf. Tob 4:5-11; Sir 17:22; Mt 6:2-4): He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none and he who has food must do likewise (Lk 3:11). But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, everything is clean for you (Lk 11:41).
If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? (Jas 2:15-16; cf. 1 Jn 3:17).
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In anthropology, FETISHISM is the veneration of an object that is believed to have supernatural power. Various kinds of fetishes are found in many societies throughout the world. Some fetishes are thought to contain spirits. Others, such as charms and talismans, are considered to be powerful and lucky without being the abodes of particular spirits. Some fetishes are small and are carried on the person as amulets. Good luck pieces, like the rabbit's foot, are fetishes in some societies. West Africa is famed for fetishism associated with the highly developed art of wood carving.
In psychology, fetishism is an abnormal attachment to any object. Young children who cannot be separated
from their blankets and adults who are enamored of items of clothing usually worn by the opposite sex are said to be fetishists.
Origin: http://invocation-rituals.blogspot.com
Dr.K.Govindaraju
In his presidential speech of drama book release of "Gandhari" authored by noted drama director and play writer Muthvelalagar of Trichy, Dr.K.Govindaraju mentioned,' Drama is so integral to the tradition that Tamil". Dr.K.Govindaraju appreciated the excellent presentation of the character of "Gandhari" by Muthuvelalagar in his drama script and the speaker summed up as narrated by the dramatist Muthuvelalagar,the key areas of this drama and said,"Gandhari was the daughter of Subala, the king of Gandhara.
Her name has been derived from here and she is one of the important characters of the great Indian epic Mahabharata. Gandhari was married to Dhritarashtra, the eldest prince of the Kuru kingdom. As Dhritarashtra was blind, Gandhari blindfolded herself throughout her married life and did not wish to relish the pleasure of sight, which her husband could never realize.
She was the mother of hundred sons known as the Kauravas and the mother of a daughter Dlushala, the wife of Jayadratha. The Kaurava, predominantly Duryodhana and Dushasana were the villains who were killed at the battle of Kurukshetra in the hands of their cousin brothers the Pandavas. In spite of Duryodhana and Dushasana`s immoral behavior with the Pandavas, Gandhari always told them to follow `dharma` and make peace with the Pandavas.
She was very close to Kunti who treated her as an elder sister. Gandhari only opened her eyes to see Duryodhana exposing his entire body except his loins invincible to any enemy. Other than this, she was an ardent lover and worshipper of Lord Shiva. When she lost all her hundred sons, she cursed Krishna in effect ensuring the destruction of the Yadavas.
Gandhari confronted Krishna and said, "You are the cause of death of my sons. You could have prevented the war but you did not. As a result the Kurus have been almost wiped out. I curse you that you shall die the death of an animal; your clan of Vrishni will perish in an internal strife. The cousins will fight and kill each other.
" The grief seeing all her son's dead had overwhelmed Gandhari. Draupadi's sons dead. She could not find the words to console the women lamenting at the loss of their sons and Krishna happened to come in the battlefield, where Gandhari was sitting with all other woman and trying to console her.Krishna gave his gentlest smile and said, "Mother you have relieved me of a burden.
My clan cannot be destroyed by anyone in the world except by themselves. You have solved my problem. As to my death it is so ordained. I accept your curse by way of your blessings." Now Gandhari anger was abated fully. She became full of love for the Pandavas".Indrajith released the drama book "Gandhari" and appreciated the efforts of Muthvelalagar.
Noted writers Jawahar Arumugam,Sudir,Kappal Krishnamurthy,Kalaimamani Masthan felicitated. Noted Drama Artist Rani Jaya, Arsangaudi Jothi and several others started rehearsal of the Drama.Karmugil Kalai Mandaram proposes to stage this drama at the earliest said Muthvelalagar.-GOVIN
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You can probably find them on the Web, or even in the phone book-I can't help you there.
But I can advise you to take your time picking one out. Allow me to front you a few guidelines.
1-If they're big on 'so mote it be'-pass.
2-If they're asking more in money or time or devotion than you're willing to invest-pass.
3-If males are considered lesser people within the group-pass.
4-If sex is a primary factor in their rituals-pass.
5-If they encourage you to take their word for it rather than explaining it-pass.
6-If the first thing they teach you is NOT limits-don't just pass, run like hell!
By the way, Wicca is not really witchcraft, and if it claims to be, it ain't really Wicca.
You want to be a Wiccan, an herbalist, a healer or a Crafter? n You need to make up your mind about that before you do anythiing.
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