Topic: Magick & Spirituality

Nobody likes the term New Age. The magicians and neo-Pagans who’ve spent years learning their craft loath it, partly because they fear that it places them in too close of a proximity to the touchy-feelie Shirley MacLaine give-me-a-crystal-and-I’ll-cure-the-world types. The scientific folks, who define the likes of meditation and spiritual symbols in terms of their effect on wave forms, the weak force, the strong force and the H-bar constant want to be taken seriously as spiritual scientists and think that the term trivializes their work. Those who are devoted to the discipline and study of Tibetan Buddhism or other yogic practices don’t want to be confused with any of the above.

Editor's Note: This article was orinally published immediately after our "victory" in Afghanistan, and before our involvement in the fiasco in Iraq.

Green Tara, one of twenty-one Taras, each with the name of a color, is the mother protector of the Tibetan people. She and her sister White Tara, a spiritual ice queen who is too pure to be much involved in our worldly affairs, are the most popular and well known colors, or flavors, of this goddess rainbow. Because she is the loving mother, she is much revered by her people. To the Tibetan Buddhists, she is a self-created deity and only exists when a person is being mindful of her. She cannot write, talk or otherwise express herself in the same manner as you and I.

Both the Buddhists and the Native Americans believe that one of our problems in dealing with other people is our tendency to divide the people who inhabit our lives into categories. The Buddhist say that we tend to put people into the boxes “friend, enemy and stranger,” and that we treat people according to their respective box. This, they say, is the cause of many of our social ills.

Fear, The Known, And The Dreaming Body

by Matt Guest

Fear is, without a doubt, the greatest obstacle to life. But what is fear, really? And how exactly does fear limit our quest for self-fulfillment and freedom?

The "Easy Chair" Method for Prayer and Meditation

by Robert C. Felix

Prayer meditation does not require an extensive command of technique, or any religious training whatsoever. It is so easy that anyone with an open mind can tap into the vast power of Pure Love. It can be as simple as reading the 10 prayer meditations of The Partners Within or reflecting on any of their words. All it takes is a few minutes a day. The tools are within you.

It was rainy January day in Knoxville when we searched this Baptist church's windows for crosses that were said to appear - but none were found; the opaque windowpanes were dark and wet, nothing appeared abnormal. My first thought was that we'd wasted a trip. I didn't know then that light caused the crosses to appear. But we persisted and returned that evening and found five crosses, one blazing in each window.

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Recently my computer decided to start running in Safe Mode. At first I wasn’t too distressed. I could still receive and send email. I could print documents as long as I closed all other running programs. I could even do word processing. The only limitation I had was in viewing graphics. So what if my beautiful blue-sky desktop was now a mottled gray and white, this was purely cosmetic. So instead of dealing with this new computer-glitch head-on I decided to adjust my expectations.

Tantra and Evolutionary Biology

by Liz Estrata

Though I’ve been studying, experiencing and writing about sacred sexuality for years, a mist still surrounds tantra itself. The many tantra books I’ve read all have different bottom lines. Some experts advise the man to avoid orgasm while the woman can (or even should) have as many orgasms as possible. Others, the “cake-and-eat-it-too” teachers, insist that cosmic bliss is the goal and both partners can have conventional orgasm once they’ve blissed out. And a few “no-cakers” (almost always direct translations of Eastern works, rather than Western interpretations) say both partners should avoid conventional orgasm to clear the decks for a mystical experience of union that cannot be forced.

The Universal Law Of Creation
by Michael Carpenter

Before we can learn to create our goals, dreams, and desires on a conscious level, we need to understand and identify the key ingredient in creating any of our desires.

When Positive Thinking Doesn’t Work
by Michael Carpenter

We’ve all heard it said, “Think positive, think positive, think positive!” The fact of the matter is that forcing ourselves to think positive has very little value when it comes to making any permanent changes in our lives. Sure, we can force ourselves to think positive for a few minutes or a day but as soon as we encounter any type of obstacle, opposition, or friction, positive thinking goes right out the door. Or for those of us who are truly determined, we continue to try to force ourselves to think positive in light of the fact that we are not feeling positive at all.