Topic: The Magickal Web

Looking back at the history of witchcraft, I couldn't exactly tell you where flying broomsticks came into play, but it definitely had an impact on what we expect to see when we hear the term "witch." In reality, Wicca is focused more on the elements and nature than on turning your loved ones into frogs, which makes Atari's upcoming Xbox 360 game Bullet Witch an interesting amalgam of technology and nature.

The night wind pushes Don Larsen's green robe against his lanky frame. A circle of torches lights his face.

"The old gods are standing near!" calls a retired Army intelligence officer.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the eagerly anticipated, much-hyped, page-turning finale in a series that turned a wired generation on to books, will be released a minute after midnight on July 21. And we can't wait. J.K. Rowling's seventh and, she says, final book in the Harry Potter series is expected to answer many unknowns. Is Professor Severus Snape good or evil? Which character will die? Will teen wizard Harry Potter finally kill the Dark Lord Voldemort, or will Voldemort succeed in killing the book's hero? We asked several bay area Muggles and even a Wiccan their predictions on what will happen in the final book.

White Magic - Magic that only affects your inner psychological / spiritual state (contrast with Black Magic). Also known as Ceremonial Magic, Ritual Magick and High Magick.

Psychic or spiritual healing is a human potential we all possess. Some people are especially good at this. It is probably easier to heal someone else by occult means than yourself. In addition to healing in the presence of the person, there is ‘absent healing’ in which the healing occurs at a distance. Note that there are some who maintain that influence on another person without his specific knowledge and permission (yes, even in healing and helping) is black magick. (After all, everybody is living according to his own true will, so that healing or helping someone without permission is affecting his will). This means it is important to tell the person what you are planning to do and to ask his permission. The theory of psychic healing is that sickness is characterized (although not necessarily caused) by a deficiency and imbalance of vital energy. Psychic healing transfers energy from the healer to the sick to repair and rebalance his energies. If an inept healer overdoes the process, or if he doesn’t take the precaution to ‘disconnect’ himself afterwards, he may find himself becoming sick due to energy drain and a linkage to his subject. Similarly, the healer should always be in a good state of health or he could unintentionally transfer his illness to the subject.

February 19, 2007 is the official New Year in China, and it is the 4705th Chinese Year. Year one was the first year of the reign of the first Chinese King (not emperor, king)- the Yellow King.

History tells us that that march in 1967 made a bit of a difference, if not to the warmakers, at least to the war protesters. One could easily argue that the October 1967 March on the Pentagon was a quantum leap forward for that movement. The publicity it garnered created a situation that pushed the numbers and the credibility of the movement into the mainstream of US society. If one wants to read about that march, they should read Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night. This book is not only some of the best reportage of the 1960s, it is some of the best reportage ever. In my mind, there are three or four journalistic scrolls that encompass the essence of the 1960s: Mailer's Armies of the Night, Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972, and Raymond Mungo's Famous Long Ago. These books stand out not only because they describe essential events, personalities and consciousnesses of that period of time, but because they extract the intrinsic properties of the period's' zeitgeist.

A Superior Court judge has upheld a religious discrimination finding that requires Boscov’s to pay a $5,000 fine and $21,000 to two Christians, two Wiccans and a pagan.

Pagan Reconstructionists, or more commonly referred to in the Pagan Community simply as Recons, is a fast growing movement within Paganism. For the past ten years really, the Recons have been steadily growing as the undercurrent in popular Paganism. While the status of the Pagan Community continues to evolve here in America, it is the Recons who will become the balance point for the popularity of the Wiccan movement.

I don’t hear about this book very often, which is really a shame because it’s a relatively good resource. It is in essence an introductory book directed towards those seekers who desire to work as solitaries in what the author describes as “Hedge Witchcraft”, which she believes is akin to the traditional role of the village wisewomen and cunningmen in pre-Christian times. Ms.Beth covers basic theology, a brief introduction to herbs, essential oils, and incense, an investigation of trancework, ritual structure, and spellwork. The Wheel of the Year and the mythology that underlies it is explored much more fully than in many other Witchcraft 101 books. As far as magical practice and spellcraft are concerned, kitchen witchcraft (a.k.a. low or folk magic) is emphasized over more ceremonial (a.k.a. high) magic, and the materials and props she describes in her rituals and spells are virtually all objects from nature and/or are simple and easily obtained. Although her approach is quaint and gentle, she does not whitewash over such things as the sexual/spiritual imagery and symbolism inherent in Witchcraft as some other sources do: