Marian Green - A Witch Alone - Thirteen Moons To Master Natural Magic

There is also the Riddle of the Sphinx, an ancient Mystery question of ‘What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? How many legs has it at midnight?’. The sphinx may open a door to ancient Egyptian magic, under the dominance of the Great Goddess, Isis, or the protection and guidance through many worlds of the jackal-headed Anubis.

One simple symbol can put you in touch with a vast store of knowledge for that is what the pictures of the Tarot, or even the more abstract hexagrams of the I Ching, portray. They are magical talismans in their own right, keys to great books of inner learning, if you have the time and patience to use them.

What they teach may at first be obscure, yet it is safe and can be used many times over, until you thoroughly understand what every one of those symbols, or the trees, can teach you. Take your time. One regular attempt each week with a new symbol will be sufficient, for you will find that other bits of information related to what you have uncovered in this way will turn up in dreams, or spring from the pages of books. Write down all that you learn for you may be privy to knowledge which has been concealed for hundreds or even thousands of years.

Each picture of the Tarot trumps is an acknowledged source of information, that is what the system was developed for, but there is no one way of reading the cards which is true or right. Everyone must make out their own interpretation, their own understanding of what each reveals to them. Don’t swallow anyone else’s words until you have walked through some of these secret gates on your own, and seen them reveal their hidden wisdom to you alone. Be willing to be taught by the Source and not some biased human commentator. We are all students of those great books, and everyone of us needs to learn different lessons.

You can use images or concepts of the gods and goddesses in the same way. Conjure them up in your inner vision, perhaps starting with the sun or moon in the sky, or one of their symbols, a cauldron or white horse for the Goddess, a sword and shield or a shepherd’s crook for the God.

Exercises

To gain the best results from the work in the eleventh moon you really need a reliable companion; a friend you can trust, a co-walker in the old ways, other members of the group if you are part of a coven. Not because the work is especially dangerous, though it can be scary, but because you may

need someone to ask sensible questions.

There are many ways of re-entering the times past and regaining information from them, but your task will be easier if, when you have carried out the deep relaxation exercise, got really switched off and then imagined that you have walked through a time tunnel, feeling the centuries unroll, someone else can ask you what you are wearing, what sort of landscape you are in, what kind of food you eat and so on.

You will need to discuss the questions beforehand, and preferably have them written down. You may be asked about buildings, animals, plants and natural things, and from your studies of trees you will be able to discover the time of year, or perhaps the part of the world, if there are trees only seen on one continent. Take your time over this exercise, going a step at a time through several sessions rather than spending hours groping around in some alien timescape. Be careful; this can be a frightening experience if you arrive in the middle of a battle, or during the plague years, or in a hungry winter.

What you experience will seem very real, especially if you have latched on to a previous life. Take care, step warily, and maybe you will meet up with some of the Old Wise Ones so that they can teach you or at least show you something of their forgotten knowledge.

On your own, stick to the simpler visits to the old house, and gain confidence and awareness that way. The story may continue in your dreams or during meditations on any useful information you gained.

Do write notes in your Book for what you find could be valuable to others, who are similarly seeking lost knowledge.

Try the Tarot card exercise. This too could reveal extraordinary amounts of valuable information, old ideas and forgotten arts and crafts. These are all simple but actually powerful exercises so be patient, trying one thing at a time and, if necessary, leaving a few days between adventures, so that you have time to assimilate and fully understand what you see.

Call upon aspects of the Goddess to teach you, or the God, as craftsman or magician, to instruct you in his ways. They really will help, and by now you should be able to enter their wild world at will.

Here are some books which may give you further ideas:

J.H. Brennan, The Reincarnation Workbook (Aquarian)

G.L. Glaskin, Windows of the Mind (Prism Press) Joan Grant, Far Memory (Corgi)

Brian Inglis, Trance (Grafton)

C.J. Jung, Man and His Symbols (Routledge and Kegan Paul) Helen Wambach, Reliving Past Lives (Arrow)

12 - Dedication to the Old Ways

We must be prepared to shift the basis of all our motives if we want to receive Initiation This requires singleness of purpose that baulks at no sacrifice - ‘Sell all that thou hast and follow Me,’ said the Master There is no reason why anyone should offer themselves as a candidate for Initiation, for they can achieve the goal of Divine Union by the winding path of evolution, but on the other hand, they must not declare that the ancient Secrets have been lost, because they, not being willing to pay the price, have not received the Great Pearl.

(Dion Fortune The Training And Work Of An Initiate)

One of the things which attracts quite a few people to the idea of witchcraft is that they will become ‘Initiates’, that they will be ritually taken into a coven, be able to work magic instantly and have all their desires met after that moment. Anyone who still holds such views will be in for a great disappointment!

People see magic as a way of gaining power, and this is certainly true, but it is not ‘power over’, to coin a phrase used by Starhawk, but ‘power from within’. ‘Power over’ other people, the power to change them against their will, the power to dominate, physically, mentally, astrally or even spiritually, may appear to be the goal of magic, but those are all false concepts. What the training, through all its months of steady progress, will lead you to, if you have the guts and determination, is ‘power from within’, and initially it can only affect you.

The first real lesson of magic which you will learn is one of disillusionment. You may start out with all kinds of ideas about witchcraft, the Old Arts, magic and occultism, but if you work at any of the exercises, even sporadically and without concentration, you will produce results. Not precisely what you aimed for, probably; you may scare yourself with what happens and your dreams may change, but as your inner sight clears you will discover that the world you have lived in all your life is actually very different from what you had always assumed.

Magic is uncomfortable; its initial effects are likely to be far more fierce than those achieved by an adept, for they have had years of practice backed up by firm memories of many previous lives, spent perfecting their techniques. Magic is like golf; if you could be really good at it your Masters winner would get round in eighteen strokes, scoring a hole in one every time! No matter how good you are, there are always factors about which you know nothing, or which are beyond your control, like the weather over the golf course.

Magicians and old-time witches gradually learn just how much effort any kind of activity needs. It is actually for this reason that much time has to be spent sitting around with your eyes shut, meditating, concentrating, creating visions or unravelling symbolism. These simple but unavoidable arts are the ones which lead to control over those astral forces which come into play when you plant the seeds of a spell, make a talisman, pray or perform a ritual. Only by being able to sense the effects of your actions in the Otherworld can you learn to apply more or less effort to any particular working.