Topic: Magick & Spirituality

As the masters have been teaching for centuries: Your "outer" life is a reflection of your "inner" life. Although many of us have heard this insight, often we still forget to associate it with our daily lives. Often we place our focus on trying to create a new car, house, more sales, and money without ever thinking about the fact that our "outer" life is a reflection of our "inner" life.

We can look at life through many windows. Naturally, most use the "it's-all-about-me" or Personal Window. A view exists, though, that deflates this and other perspectives. This is the Cosmic Window.

Almost everybody needs healing in some way. Some of us are fearful of intimacy. Others are grappling with the difficulties of being the child of an abusive family. There are those caught in the grip of alcoholism or other drug abuse, and those who can’t cope with stress. But no matter what personal problem you might be grappling with, you know that there is hope for recovery and that you can do it. This is true because others before you have suffered situations similar to your own and have recovered. If they can recover, so can you.

About a year ago I was talking with my therapist, Dr. Caligula, when the subject of radio psychologists came up. I told him that I’d gotten a lot of good out of listening to Dr. Joy Brown and that much of her advice reinforced the work that I was doing in therapy. Although my shrink was pleased that I’d benefited from listening to Dr. Joy, he expressed disdain for the radio psychologist genre in general.

The Zen Of Cuban Coffee

by Michael Lamas

Dozens of "The Zen of ..." books are available today. From The Zen of Cats to The Zen of Wooden Kayak Building, if it exists, then you can Zen it. Cuban coffee is no exception. The Japanese Green Tea Ceremony (JGTC), a ritual that Buddhist monks developed centuries ago, was the original Zen of Tea. Today in Japan, the practice has settled into a social event for the upper classes, and consequently, it has lost much of its spiritual usefulness. The Cuban Coffee Ceremony (CCC) is loosely based on the JGTC and, as a discipline, can stimulate you spiritually.

Buddha and the Female Spirit

Christine Hall

Since the 1960s, many women have turned to alternative religions, seeking to find a system that doesn’t treat women as second class spiritual beings. Writers like National Public Radio’s Margot Adder and west coast Wiccan Starhawk have written about their disenchantment with Christianity. In “Drawing Down the Moon,” sort of a catalog of Goddess-based religions, Adder speaks of finding herself drawn to neo-Paganism, with it’s emphasis on Goddesses like Demeter, Isis and Aphrodite. She says that this feminine aspect spoke to her in a way that Christianity, with it’s emphasis on a male God, couldn’t. Starhawk, in “Dancing the Dark,” talks about a Paganism that believes in shared power, instead of the “power over” philosophy of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions.

But it’s not only the Goddess-based religions that have been gaining converts from among the ranks of disenchanted women. Many have also turned to the practices of Tibetan Buddhism, attracted by its emphasis on personal attainment. However, Buddhism in its current form is no utopia of matriarchy, nor is it the genderless system that it claims to be. Tibet and India are both extremely patriarchal societies, and all spiritual systems tend to mirror the values of the societies from which they come.

Buddhist literature is full of stories of great male practitioners that are offered as examples for other followers, but relatively few stories of great female Buddhists, though there have been many. This may seem like a moot point, until we realize that it’s through myth and parables that we attain much spiritual knowledge. The story of male Buddhists like Milarepa or Naropa may teach us much about how to be a good male bodhisattva, but very little about how to be a good female Buddhist.

Atonement: Experiencing the Holy Instant

by Paramananda Ishaya

I had no idea how completely my life would change; from that very instant, suspended in eternity, a seed had begun to unfold within my awareness. My first introduction to the power of A Course In Miracles came when I was 12 years old, I curiously asked my father about it because he seemed to be enchanted with it. In 1986, an awakening had begun to shift his life through the practicing of A Course In Miracles. I remember the radiance of the presence that was subtly supporting my curiosity in the book. A gentle whisper to my heart, a powerfully silent welcoming, and an invitation to the atonement.

Astral Projection: The Doorway to a New Dimension

by Jerry Gross

The concept of astral projection has been around for a long time, but until today it’s been hidden from most of humanity. Now, with the aid of astral projection, new levels of knowledge and power enable us to discover the answer to humanity’s eternal question about life in the physical body. Death takes on a new meaning as we begin to realize that it is only a transition to another dimension, or place of existence. By learning to astral project, we can learn many things about ourselves, and unlearn many things that were previously thought to be true. This leads us to the realization that our physical bodies are only a part of our entire selves, and there is more to our existence than meets the eye.

Did An Angel Appear In Montgomery, Alabama

by Bill Draffen

Did an angel appear in Montgomery, Alabama on June 15th? Angel occurrences are taking place daily around the world. One only need read the newspapers and magazines to see how much is being reported about such events. The witness, Bobby Simmons, was very convincing with details and memory of the apparition. One sentence from his interview strongly supports a true angel apparition. Bobby wondered why the throne was not constructed of gold or silver. If he were making up the story, he would have made a throne of gold or silver, because that's how he conceives an angelic appearance. Additional support for an angel occurrence came from my wife's oil painting activities during June.

Here's what has happened in less than three month's time. In August 2003, Mars inched closer to Earth than it had been in 60,000 years. About two months later, energy from the most intense solar flares hit the Earth (and scientists are predicting more of these record breakers). Shortly after that, a total lunar eclipse took place and was accompanied by a "Star of David" celestial alignment. This happened during Scorpio, the zodiac's most occult sign. Is all this a coincidence or is something metaphysical happening?