Big Magick With Teeny Tiny Candles

Candle Magick can be a powerful tool in any magickal practitioner’s arsenal. In fact, I’ve recently been incorporating more Candle Magick into my spellwork and can personally attest to its efficacy. Nevertheless, candles make me nervous…well, burning candles anyway. If you’ve been around the occult corner once or twice you have undoubtedly heard of at least one candle mishap. I just can’t bring myself to let a candle fully burn for several hours or even days knowing that it will be unattended for much of that time, even when taking special precautions. For spells that require a large candle I’ve ended up extinguishing the candle when it could not be attended to and then reigniting it again when it could. While this method works, it breaks up the energy of the work and takes a hell of a long time to complete the working. Since I am an eclectic and not a traditionalist, I have in the past substituted a tealight for what would have typically been a larger candle. I simply carved my intent into the top of the tealight with a needle and dressed the top of the tealight with oil, moving in a clockwise direction for drawing things near and a counter clockwise direction for keeping things at bay. But even tealights burn for hours…too long for my comfort. So, recently I went to my local magical supply store (Wal-Mart) and picked up several packs of “birthday” candles.

 

As you can see from the picture above, they come in a variety of useful colors.
 

While I can’t carve my intent upon them as one typically does with a larger candle, I still dress the candle with oil. As a substitute for carving the candle I include a personalized sigil within the working and usually place it near or under the candle. Below is a picture of a recent working showing my minimal setup.

 

 

 For me there is really no better alternative. These small candles fully burn in about 15 minutes. This short burn time allows my work to be completed during periods when I am able to babysit the flame.  The esthetic of these small candles does, at least for me, pale in comparison to the more majestic candles. Neverthless, the completion of my spell with a fully burned candle and peace of mind far outway any esthetic. So, if you’re nervous about leaving a candle burn for hours in your home, give these tiny candles a try for your next big magick.

   

By George...Magick Works!

 

By nature I’m a passive guy, always have been and probably always will be. I tend to let whatever negativity befalls me set up residence in my life without much resistance. This may be why I was initially attracted to some Eastern forms of thought those many years ago, because you know…”A reed that bends in the wind does not break.”  Sometime after an evocation of great importance failed to materialize (you can read about this failure here) I came to realize just how passive I had become. Without the daily enactment of the evocation rituals or the manifestation of my desire, I found myself floating on a raft in and endless sea where one direction looked as good as the other. It took me quite awhile to realize that floating on an endless sea, well…to put it nicely… sucks. I needed to find a way to navigate the waters and find myself a stretch of land upon which I could set up residence. I ended up returning to magick, a practice I had dabbled in as a teenager.  I thought maybe magick could help me not only brave the ocean but get me somewhere to boot (some comments regarding my return to magick can be found here and here).

Yet, because of my rather passive nature I tend not to utilize magick very often. In fact, I quite often forget that I have this tool available to me. So…when my magick bears fruit it usually comes as a surprise and I have to remind myself that magick works. Although magick works, your desire does not always come about quickly nor does it always come about in a preferred manner. Over the last year I have been doing some reconciliation magick that has just recently borne fruit. Both my honey jar working (read here) and my Karukulla working (read here) were intended to bring about this reconciliation. While honey jar spells are typically slow acting on their own, they are even slower when not worked regularly. Since I only began to consistently work my jar about two months ago, I have no one to blame for the length of time it took for the reconciliation to occur. Needless to say, to help keep the relationship sweat, I’ll be working my jar one day a week from here on out. Though the magick worked, the reconciliation certainly did not come about in a manner that I would have chosen. A breaking point was reached where the relationship was truly and utterly in danger of ending. It took this highly charged emotional event to create a catharsis that allowed for a renewed dedication to one another.

Magick does not always work at a snail’s pace, however. I added a much needed sex magick working into the reconciliation mix two weeks ago (candle magick) and exactly one day short of two weeks after the candle operation the magick worked its mojo. Unimpressed? Well, three years have passed with no intimacy between us, so I consider this a WIN! Though I consider my sex magick operation to have worked rather quickly, magick can also work with lightning speed. On New Year’s Eve morning I performed a combination sigil and mantra money spell for a pay raise in 2013. I had to laugh out loud when I arrived at work that very evening and a co-worker, quite out of the blue, approached me and informed me that he heard I will be receiving a pay raise this coming year. Damn that was fast!

While magick has not brought me to my island yet, it is helping me steer my raft.

 

The Blue Disk Goddess/Spirit: An Occult Identification Game

A few days ago I had a dream where I was cooking some pancakes. When I turned the first one over it transformed into a dark/deep blue disk, whereupon I immediately heard, in a distinctly feminine voice, "I have come" (or possibly "I am here"). I was then "mounted" by the goddess/spirit. I did not experience the "mounting" as a full-on possession but rather as some type energy infusement designed to demonstrate "her" power. It was an absolutely indescribable experience. While I was present during the "mounting" there was something distinctly "other" added to me. "She" then raised me a few feet off the ground, whereupon I awoke.

Who might this blue disk goddess/spirit have been? Use your occult knowledge to offer a suggestion. Alternatively, use your favorite from of divination to identify this entity. Have fun with this!


 

5-HTP: A Lucid Dreaming Supplement

In a previous blog post I relayed that I would be experimenting with several different supplements that are touted as being helpful for the struggling lucid dreamer in that they assist in establishing a proper brain environment for the likely occurrence of a lucid dream (read that post here).

The first supplement I have worked with is 5-HTP or 5-hydroxy-tryptophan. While many claims have been made about 5-HTP and its effects on the human body, its effectiveness as an anti-depressant seems to be the most substantiated. Although, there does seem to be some evidence that it assists in the treatment of Fibromyalgia, anxiety, mild sleep disorders and weight loss. The web is full of information regarding the typical mainstream uses of 5-HTP, so I will not delve into the matter further here. What I do wish to discuss in a little more detail is the use of 5-HTP as a lucid dreaming supplement (LDS).

Apparently, one of the most common side effects noted by those who ingest 5-HTP is increased dream vividness and bizarreness. This is not totally surprising, however, since 5-HTP is a precursor to serotonin and research has correlated increased serotonin levels with dream vividness. How does dream vividness and bizarreness help to establish dream lucidity? Well … rather indirectly. It is thought that if the dream is bizarre enough, the dreamer might be lead to question the reality of his/her experiences and realize that a dream is in progress, thereby gaining lucidity.

A more direct effect of taking 5-HTP for the lucid dreamer may very well be an increased amount of REM period during the latter hours of sleep, thereby increasing the amount of possible dream time that one can work with. It is believed that this increased REM period is the result of REM suppression during the early stages of sleep due to increased serotonin levels in the brain (as a result of taking 5-HTP prior to the onset of sleep) thereby resulting in a REM rebound effect. It is also believed that the increase in serotonin levels caused by 5-HTP help facilitate lucidity by heightening rational thought and self-awareness during REM sleep.

So, did 5-HTP assist me in becoming lucid at any point during my two week experimentation? The answer is a resounding “NO.” I took 100 mg of 5-HTP before retiring to bed every day for two weeks and experienced none of the effects discussed above. I did not experience any increase in dream vividness, bizarreness or REM rebound, not to mention lucidity. This is not to say that 5-HTP is ineffective as a lucid dream supplement. It may be that 5-HTP works better when combined with other lucid dreaming supplements. It may also be that my trial period was too short to bring about the desired effect or it may simply be that my physiology prevents 5-HTP from working its magic. Regardless, I will assuredly repeat my experiments with this supplement again in the future. But for now, it is on to the next supplement.

 

A Halloween Public Service Announcement

The Magical Lotus interrupts it's regularly scheduled blog posting to bring you the following important holiday message:

 

 

 

 

Meridiana: An Unbinding Spell

Oh, Meridiana, the crime was his. He tasted of your delights and then disowned you. Oh, Meridiana, I strip away the devil's mask unjustly forced upon you, permitting your sultry visage to freely enchant once more.    

Advanced Magick For Beginners: A Brief Review

    Alan Chapman’s Advanced Magick for Beginners covers all the major subjects that one would expect to be present in a beginner’s book on magick and more besides. This is certainly a plus for the book and its readers. Unfortunately, I fear that many of the chapters may be too terse to be of any great value to the novice magickal practitioner. What is more, Mr. Chapman’s presentation of his material may not be the best for beginners. The author has taken great care to speak intelligently to his audience and has, it would seem, avoided “dumbing-down” much of his work. While this should be both appreciated and applauded of an author, it may in this case (in a book marketed to beginners of magickal practice) serve only to confound the beginner and hinder learning. Simply put, this is a book targeted for beginners of the magickal path presented in an advanced manor.

Despite these drawbacks, Advanced Magick is an excellent book if you want to get practicing magick immediately. Drawing upon a post-modern paradigm, Chapman offers many techniques and suggestions as to how magick may be performed without all of the ritualism that so often accompanies magickal practice. Of particular interest is his five step model for magical enchantment that, as he clearly demonstrates, can be applied to several modes of magickal working (viz., sympathetic magick, sigil magick, physical link magick, etc).

While I do recommend this book for the serious student of the occult, I do so with some reservations. It is most likely a work that the beginning student of the occult will need to read several times before he or she is able to absorb the nuggets of wisdom inside.