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comfortably relaxed, and yet the images that you hear described unroll themselves before your inner
vision. At any moment, if the phone rings or you hear the baby crying or something needs to be
attended to, you only have to open your eyes to be back in the ordinary world.
Of course, if you are sensible, you will cut off as many distractions as you can, for knowing that you
might be disturbed is a sure way of making it impossible to relax properly. Over a few sessions, using
the same narrative, you will find that the images become clearer, and that you start to sense the
atmosphere, see the light of the sun, smell the greenery or the incense or whatever is being described.
Like many similar sorts of activity, it does pay to hasten slowly. Take your time.
One session each day for a week and then a few days off will produce far better results than three or
four sessions in one day and then none for a month! The mind, like an animal, is trained most easily
by techniques applied little and often. Regular attempts, first thing each morning or in the afternoon,
are better than late at night or at irregular intervals.
Although this might seem a far cry from the activities of the old village witch or the tribal sorcerer, it
is one aspect of a collection of arts which our forebears would have used more or less unconsciously.
Our modern lives are permanently bombarded with sounds, music, pictures of other places, the
activities of other people, whereas our ancestors had far less input, and their minds would have been
freer to wander through time and space as they worked their way through the hard and boring grind of
manual labour.
We know from the vast hoard of folk songs and work songs that these hours each day were filled with
new ideas, old tales and the rhythmic tunes accompanying each task. Of course, many of these songs
were bawdy, but others recounted the most ancient legends, the history of the people or the job they
were doing. There is a huge amount of sung and oral material largely ignored by modern scholars, yet
it contains valuable insights into the depth of traditional wisdom, ancient lore, songs of worship and
the seasonal feasts, if we can learn to value the simple things from the past.
Take a familiar folk song, like Scarborough Fair. It is a riddle song, about sowing seeds between the
salt sea and the white strand, making a shirt without any seams and no needlework parsley, sage,
rosemary and thyme, all culinary and magical herbs. It is one of the challenge songs, old as the hills,
in which the initiate seeks to win the hand of the girl he loves by performing some impossible tasks.
These are similarly parts of many fairy stories where, because of kindly deeds towards animals, the
heroine is helped to sort seeds, spin enormous amounts of thread or something similar. Underlying
these is the Mystery, the magical heart of the myth wherein the main character is able to call upon
Otherworldly help, often portrayed as small animals or birds, in order to perform some seemingly
impossible task.
Many of our modern pantomimes are based on such tales, like Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella and
Beauty and the Beast where magical happenings are brought about. Many of these stories are very
widely told, and often extremely old. Cinderella, for example, is found all over Europe, Africa and as
far afield as China, in slightly varied local versions.
We need to become aware that there are many paths which lead to the Otherworld, many of them
.
ordinary and well-known, but probably not recognised as having a magical application. Begin to look
again at stories you read last as a child, or which you may be reading to your own children. See if they
are still playing the old games, with ropes or rhymes or songs and actions. Even things like Hopscotch
with its ten squares could be based on the magical Qabalistic Tree of Life, a diagram of the creation of
the Universe, according to ancient Hebrew occultists!
The story of King Arthur and his knights and their quest for the Holy Grail contains a vast amount of
evolved material about the initiate's search for some hidden treasure, the tests of his common sense,
his strengths, his religious beliefs and his relationships with young ladies. This particular set of
legends contains many valuable clues about the ancient Celtic system of magic, seeing animals as
guides or omens, seeking out wild places where hermits lived in sacred groves or dangerous
Otherworldly beasts had their lairs. This ancient quest is still a valid part of our own heritage and, like
the path of the solo witch, one which often had to be carried out alone, using individual skills and
personal resources.
As you reread some of these traditional old tales and legendary cycles, see how what they are saying
can be relevant to today's personal search for enlightenment and magical power. All the clues are
there, but today we travel through the equally wild and frightening concrete jungle and our
wildernesses are peopled with strangers or machines rather than giants and monsters. We still need to
rescue the maiden from the dragon's dinner table but now may see she represents our inner female
nature, or a part of the Goddess we can adopt during our rites of worship.
We might understand that the faithful horse is our physical body, which needs to be properly fed,
exercised and groomed, for without it we will not be able to travel through any worlds, let alone those
inner realms wherein it can be safely left behind. We may need to sharpen the sword of our wits and
strengthen the shield of common sense and good humour as we set off through the mindfields of the
Otherworld, so that we are not frightened by anything we meet there, nor overawed by the power we
shall discover.
Both these things which may scare us on our magical journey and the upwelling of power initially
come from within ourselves. We cannot banish them, or overcome them, anymore than we can cut off
a foot or, on a sunny day, detach ourselves from our shadow.
A Collection of Sacred Magick | The Esoteric Library | www.sacred-magick.com
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