Know Thyself

How well do you really know yourself? Do you know what element you most correspond to? Do you know your different archetypes and personalities, your sun sign and moon phase? The more you know about yourself, the more you can evaluate which magical techniques and procedures will work best for you. Knowing your sun sign, moon phase and which element you align with, you will gain insight into how you handle life issues and what you can do magically to make changes.

For example, if you are a water personality, you are going to be drawn to techniques that operate on an emotional level. You may need to adjust your water energies periodically to stay in balance. You may find that using your Chalice (the water tool) for divination gives you more information than using the pendulum in some cases. Knowing your archetypes and personalities allows you to work on controlling them and using them when you want rather than them using you. I have a friend that is a very emotional person. Outside influences affect her very deeply on an emotional level and she often becomes overwhelmed to the point of being non-productive. After determining that she is a 'Water Person', I was able to suggest that when she feels bombarded with emotions and begins to feel overwhelmed she needs to be near running water. I even got her a small fountain that runs water through it to keep by her desk at work. This helps her to soothe her emotions (water energy), slow it down and keep it moving so her emotions don't get stuck.

The more you know yourself, the better you can tailor your magic to fit you. There are several tests available through the Esoteric School website to get to know yourself better. Click here and have fun taking the various get to know yourself tests.

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Shamanism – How to Create Sacred Space

Remember the old TV commercial with the frazzled mom at the end of the day pouring bath salts into the tub and exclaiming, "Calgon, take me away"? She probably didn't define it that way, but she was seeking her own sacred space. Sacred space is something we all need especially these days when we are constantly bombarded with noise, stress and fast-paced living. Magical practitioners and shamans also create sacred space before performing many of their rituals and practices. According to which traditions or magical practices you follow, there are numerous ways to create sacred space. Here are a few simple ones that anyone can do.

1. Sun Yellow Candle - Take a Sun Yellow candle (a bright yellow candle that has no orange overtones) and paper or wooden matches. To create sacred space with the Sun Candle, you will need to "charge" it, or program it to do so. To charge the candle:
- Stand or sit in the South facing North with the Sun Candle in front of you
- Light the candle using wooden or paper matches (do NOT use a lighter)
- Wait until the candle flame is steady and tall
- Hold your hands up to and around the flame, focusing your attention on the candle and flame.
- Say the charge verse below in a voice of command (a strong, powerful voice)
Child of Wonder,
Child of Flame,
Nourish My Spirit,
And Protect My Aim!
If there are other people in the room with you, you can change the "My" to "Our" and make the words "Spirit" and "Aim" plural. Leave the candle burning in the room for at least 30 minutes (be sure the candle is on a protected surface such as a plate and is not a fire hazard). At the end of 30 minutes or when you feel ready, blow out the flame (don't snuff it).

2. Sacred Place – Sit in a quiet, comfortable location and close your eyes. See yourself walking somewhere that is pleasing to you. See all the details, smell the smells around you, hear the sounds around you, feel the weather conditions. Start to see a place ahead of you that you are going to. See what it looks like in as much detail as you can. It might be an opening in a wooded area, or a gazebo by a lake or anywhere that you find pleasing and relaxing. Keep walking until you arrive at the place. Breathe deeply in your sacred place and decide what you will put here. You might want to put an altar of some kind or your magic books or special artifacts or magical tools. Feel yourself being in this place you have created and spend as much time as you can there. When you are done, retrace the steps you took to get there and return to where you started. You can then return again and again to this same place anytime you wish or need a getaway. I find sometimes in the middle of a particularly stressful day that just seeing the place in my mind and anticipating the next time I can go there helps to calm things down for me.

3. Sacred Circle – Find a place either inside or outside that is at least 3 feet in diameter. Burn sage in a firebowl, smudge stick, or incense burner. Starting in the east direction, carry your firebowl or smudge stick and walk towards the south creating a circle using the smoke until you return to the east. You can also use a chalice (tool of the magical element of water) with spring water in it and a pinch of sea salt (representing magical element of earth) and go over the circle you created with your smoke, sprinkling the water. Then starting in the east direction invite each of the Winds into your circle in this order, Winds of the East, Winds of the South, Winds of the West, Winds of the North and finally invite Sky Father and Earth Mother into your circle. You can use this space you have now created to meditate, perform a ceremony of some type, drum, chant or just sit with the higher powers you have invited in. When you are done, remember to thank each of these higher powers for being there and bid them farewell starting with the Winds of the East, then south, west, north, Sky Father and Earth Mother.

Creating Sacred space gives us a way to experience peace, serenity and a connection with the higher. It is necessary for anyone following a spiritual path of any kind and allows us access to third force and our inner voice or spirit. Spending time in your sacred space is healing for body, mind and spirit. So give it a try, "Sacred Space, take me away".

You can get all your ritual supplies in the webstore at the Esoteric School.

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Daily Magic Rituals – Asking for a Sign

So, say you have been doing your daily magical rituals, hiring angels and asking for certain manifestations to appear in your life. How do you know they are working. Some things you can do to question the Universe are:

• Just ask for a sign. Say to the Universe, "Please show me a positive sign today that I can easily understand that shows me my manifestation is coming." Then be sure to stay alert and watch for the sign. There are many, many ways it could come. It will be something that is meaningful and pleasant to you usually. For example, after asking this question of the Universe at one time, I went outside on my porch and found myself surrounded by about 20 hummingbirds. They left the feeder, came from the trees and literally formed a circle around me for a few brief moments before flitting off again. I love hummingbirds and they symbolize "joy" as a totem animal, so I knew I had my sign.
• Do a question circle with the Winds. Communicating with the beings of the 4 directions is a good way to get information. Go outside and designate a space of around 5 feet in diameter and have a pen and paper with you. Sit in the south of your designated circle facing north and light a Sun Yellow candle in front of you. Then go sit in the center of the circle facing east and write down your question or questions. Sit quietly for a few minutes thinking about your question, but just the question itself; don't think about any answers to it. Take your candle to the edge of your circle in the east direction and ask the question aloud. Then start writing everything that comes to you until no more information comes. Repeat this process then to the South, the West, and the North in that order. When you are done give thanks to the beings for their insight and blow out your candle.
• Do a Tarot reading. Tarot readings can show you many things about your magical work. A 12-card reading will show you a past line that you can see where you have come from, then a present line (that may have the Magician card in it which shows your magic is working) and a future line that can show possible ways your manifestation will present itself. You can also ask a question about what you are trying to manifest and do a reading strictly on that question.
• Ask for a sign when doing Day Greetings and Day Endings. When you go out in the morning to do the Navajo Beauty Way or other greetings to the four directions or Winds, to Sky Father and Earth Mother, ask them after greeting them to provide you with a sign sometime during the day. Then be sure and watch for the sign.
• Work with Owl. The totem animal of Owl sees and knows the truth. Owl has wisdom and can see through the darkness. Ask for Owl totem to appear to you or show you a sign that your magic is working. Then be sure to look for the sign. It could be you overhear a conversation about owls, you find an owl keyring, an owl flies very near to you, or come in a multitude of similar ways.

What if you don't understand the sign or don't get a sign? It could be the sign was there and you missed it. Ask again. This time ask specifically for a sign that you will be sure to understand. It could be how you phrased the question that is the problem. Maybe your manifestation isn't materializing and you need to change the question to find out why it isn't. Like all magical work, think through your questions before continuing and make adjustments according to the responses you see. The Universe has all the answers we need, we just have to ask the right questions.


Want to find out more about Daily Rituals or doing Tarot Readings. Check out the ebook "Daily Rituals for Getting What You Want in Life" and the Tarot Homestudy Course in the Esoteric School store.

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Shamanic Journey – The Way of the Shaman

I still remember many years ago both the excitement and the trepidation I had upon enrolling in the Beginning Shamanism class at the Esoteric School. I had completed all the magic classes offered and was a bit scared of my perception of shamanism. I couldn't resist going down this path after all the life changing discoveries I experienced in the magic classes, but I admit now that I was somewhat intimidated and a bit skeptical that I could perform such shamanistic feats as going out of body, conversing with spirits and exploring other realms. It all sounded so mysterious.

I look back now and see that this class was a beginning, a Shamanic journey that started me on the road to following the way of the shaman. I did learn the lessons and techniques, but that class was the springboard for a lifestyle change. A shaman is an original researcher working in the Sciences of Religion and Magic. The shaman has meaningful direct communication with higher beings (and possibly lower level entities) to advance man's knowledge. The information obtained can be used just to increase the body of knowledge, for healing, divination, and many other things. Following the way of the shaman means that information is obtained from all sorts of physical and non-physical beings.

By learning techniques to interview and communicate with a wide spectrum of beings and expanding my spirit perceptics way beyond the 5 senses most of us use, I have found new meaning in Metaquiason (we are all one). Following the way of the shaman is a pathway of developing spiritually and embarking on personal inner growth. It also leads us to developing our inborn abilities, perceptic powers and seek power and help from all that is around us. In these present times where we are surrounded by electromagnetic fields of white noise and ruled by technology, many of us don't have a sense of the spiritual insights, powers and abilities that we were born with. The way of the shaman takes us back to a time when the abilities and powers we had were understood and not seen as something extraordinary, something to be feared or something that society shunned. It also leads us to discover who we really are, develop an awareness of how we are connected to everything and everyone else and find our places in the Universe.

If all this sounds intriguing, following the way of the shaman may be for you too. Developing your spirit perceptics is a place you can start exploring. Through the spirit perceptics shamans are able to gather much more information than is available to the 5 senses of the physical body. It takes time to develop these senses so don't be discouraged if you don't get the results you want in the beginning. Just keep practicing. An easy way to start is to learn to expand on a sense that you are already familiar with and use like hearing.

Exercise:

• Sit in a comfortable, quiet location
• Close your eyes and relax (maybe do some deep breathing)
• Draw an imaginary circle about a foot in diameter around you
• Listen to the sounds you hear within this circle and identify each
• Start with the common sounds, ie – children laughing, leaves rustling, someone walking by. Then move on to more obscure sounds that we usually wouldn't notice, ie – the wind blowing softly, an ant walking
• Then you can move on to widening your circle and doing the same thing.
• See how big your circle can become. A block, 5 blocks, a mile?

The more you practice, the more you will stop listening with your physical ears and start listening with your spirit ears. This could be your first step on your shamanic journey, the path to following the way of the shaman.

If you find this is a path for you, check out the Basic Shamanism Homestudy course at the Esoteric School.

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Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shaman2477/2717869545/

Magic Online – Psychic Exercises

Everyone has psychic abilities. There are some that have a natural talent for using these abilities. The rest of us can develop our psychic abilities through practice. We need to learn how to expand our awareness to higher levels. Here are some exercises you can use to practice:

1. Quiet your mind, relax your body. Pick a person you know and try to visualize what that person is doing. Note the time and check with that person later to see how accurate you were.

2. Sit quietly in a public place and pick out an area 10 to 20 feet in diameter surrounding you. Close your eyes and relax. Tell yourself to notice when someone enters the area. When you 'feel' someone enter your area, open your eyes to check your accuracy.

3. Make a plan to attract an event into your life. Choose a word, topic or phrase. Focus on attracting the word or phrase. You can ask the Universe or higher powers to help you attract it. Then stay observant during the day and watch for it to show up. It could appear in a song you hear, a conversation you overhear, be on a billboard or turn up in hundreds of different ways, so stay alert and watch for it.

4. Take a notebook and pencil or pen with you to a public place where you can sit down, for example a park. Sitting on the park bench, select a person nearby. Begin writing whatever comes to you about that person. Are they happy or sad, do they have children or pets, what type personality do they have, etc... Relax and just absorb what you feel from the energy around the person. This is just a practice exercise and does not need to be validated. You don't have to approach the person to ask how your results compare to their lives. Just give yourself the practice of observing the energies of various people.

5. The doorbell rings, the phone rings, someone at work is walking in the hallway towards your office. Relax your mind and body. Close your eyes and picture the person on the other side of the door, in the hallway or on the phone. Then open your eyes, answer the phone or look for the person and see how close you were.

Don't get discouraged if you don't immediately get the results you want. Keep practicing and over time you will find your abilities improve. The main thing is to enjoy the process and the exercises. Don't concentrate as much on the results as on what you are doing to achieve them. The more fun you have with it, the more relaxed you will be and the more your unconscious channels will open. And don't forget to practice, practice, practice!

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