Roaring Night, Dull Dawn

Here's some poetry! You know, I only put my worst poetry on here because I have a chance of publishing the rest. *Snickers malevolently* Publishing companies have weird rules that you can't put stuff on the Internet before it's published.

Wishing
Breathing in puffs of too-sweet lavender smoke
When thin, flat fantasies are the only thing left above the rocks
Like the song of a music box, far away
On falling stars, drowning in want
On empty skies, waiting for the milky way
Pinpricks of light, eons above, touch me with the taste of hope
The sound of roaring night turning over to dull dawn

Memory
An image soaked out of proportion by emotion
Edges frayed or watery
Scents pervading, flowers and fresh rain
Three or four colors hanging vivid in the buzzing brown darkness
What’s left of life when time, a hungry river, sands the details down
A formless sculpture and a ringing in the ears
Icy shapes fill the emptiness
Of the edges of the mind
In the void that’s left
Underneath space and time

Inception and the Hypnogogic State

You know how when you focus on something or look at something all day, or for a large part of the day, you see images of it as you are falling asleep?

I used to think I was the only one who experienced that phenomenon, until I read a poem by Robert Frost about how he had been picking apples all day.  These are the verses that convinced me I was not alone:

"And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear."

Well, yesterday, I favorited images on Deviantart.com  all day.  My brain, as I was going to sleep, created the most beautiful drawings, sketches and paintings out of the blue.  They weren't my style, or anything I could humanly accomplish.  They were realistic, detailed, and completely unique, like something you would expect to see on Deviantart.  But they were not memories.  They were completely new ones.

This is evidence of the brain's endless untapped potential.  Of course, they disappeared instantly, a new one popping up about every 5 seconds.  If only they would stay behind my closed eyes so I could reproduce them...  

I have two questions.

1.  Where do they come from?

The immense detail, the vividness, and the uniqueness of each one was far too great for me to pass it off as simply a process of the subconscious as it sorts through and organizes memories.  Dream images are supposed to lack the complexity of real life.  Otherwise, how would we tell the difference?

Here's a quote from Inception.  Cobb says it to Mal right before she is killed.

"I wish you were.  But I couldn't make you real.  I'm not capable of imagining you in all your complexity and...perfection.  As you really were.  You're the best I can do.  And you're not real."

Another Inception quote:  "Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange."

The problem is, I didn't wake up and realize something was strange.  I will not back down from my claim that those images, as are the ones I see every night, were as complex, as random, and as realistic as anything one sees in reality.  That quote often holds true with dreams, but the images you see right when you're about to go to sleep are not dreams.  They're called "hypnogogic images" after the hypnogogic state which is the state on the border between sleeping and waking.  During dreams, one is seldom fully conscious, but during the hypnogogic state one is often conscious.  It's between alpha, the relaxed state of reading and meditation, and theta, the actual dream state.  Consciousness combined with a connection to the subconscious creates these lucid images.  

The subconscious mind is all about emotion, and the conscious mind is all about perception.  Sometimes, when you dream from deep in your subconscious, the perceptions will yield to emotion and create a vaguer world, but what I saw was without emotion.  The edges of my mind were just softened enough to pick these up....but from where?  Alternate realities?  The Collective Unconscious?  I believe that everything is interconnected and everything has to mean something and come from somewhere...  Nothing is by chance.  

2.  So, how can we tap this potential?  

These images are good for vague inspiration, though the details do not remain.  In the morning, I forgot 90% of what I had seen, but those that I had made a mental note to remember remained.  Though they won't come out near as good, you can remember them and use the general idea when you wake up.  

I'm sure there are processes out there for prolonging or making the best of the hypnogogic state.  Meditations, brainwave entrainment, more occult techniques...  Whatever.

In lucid dreaming, people often describe dreams that feel just like reality, even after waking.  I have managed borderline lucid dreams, but nothing like this.  There is still one area of contrast between these dreams and reality.  Reality continues and the dreams end.  But, even that distinction is refuted when people claim long lines of consecutive dreams that start every night right where they left off in the morning.  

The point is, there is no "real and not real."  There are a million worlds, a million overlapping realities, so complex that a finite brain could never comprehend them.  

We are free when we can comprehend one thing:  That there is no reality.  The word "reality" by nature, means something clearly defined, something with limits.  The truth that I have seen and felt and cannot explain logically, which may someday manifest itself to you as it has manifested itself to me, is that everything is.  Nothing is sure, yet even the fact that nothing is sure is not sure.  The possibilities, realities, lives, and universes are infinite.  

Nobody is crazy because of what they see.  It takes courage to step completely outside the box, for the box is the only thing you have to stand on.  Once you are outside of it, you will be free falling, infinitely, through this existential blur.  At first the realization comes with despair, but the despair soon turns into a feeling of wonder and freedom.  Only in infinity can one be truly free.  Otherwise, one is finite and fallible.  The implications of infinity are glorious.  You can do anything, be anything, and there is always a way.  

The greatest discovery one can make is that anything is possible.  I was 13 years old when my journey into beyond began.  It sounds absolutely nuts to those who have not made similar journeys, but I believe that someday, whether in this life or in the next, you too will see.

The Seventh Sense: Schizophrenia is Not a Disease

The purpose of this post is not to go in depth.  It is to propose possibilities and brush the surface of a topic.  There's more on this topic to come.

Sometimes, late at night, I get a feeling I can't explain.  My thoughts race.  I have profound realizations that I can't put into words.  Sometimes I can put them into words, but my mind is so capricious that I can't write them down.  I see connections between everything and it's so real!  I believe things I never would believe in daylight, and then forget them.  It's amazing, like my thoughts could change the world, if I could only get them on paper.  During states like that, I fear every second that the knowledge will evaporate.  I long to write it down, but there's so much of it that the task is daunting.  Sometimes if I try to write it, it will dissolve.  It's like touching a bubble.  It pops.  

On nights like these, thoughts pile up and I can see that reality is endless.  I can feel it, as if feeling it through a tangible sense, but it's not one of the 5 senses, nor is it a psychic sense.  It's the 7th sense.  Sometimes it's depressing because I can't define anything.  I become lost in a vast and raging sea, a tiny pindot on the universe.  It makes me question everything, even what I have defined myself to be.  All judgements and lines evaporate and I can see in every direction, if only in brief intervals.  I know what people feel like when they have "Existential epiphanies."  It can be painful to see so much, like a blinding light.  It can be depressing because sometimes it feels empty.  Everything is, therefore nothing is.  

I know of one other person who has described a state like this.  She's the most spiritual person I know.  The point?  There's truth in this.  This is how I know what I know.  It's a feeling.  Not an emotion, but a sense I get.  Anyone who gleans truth from their perceptions cannot say it is less legitimate to glean truth from this perception.  

Humans can't deal with a perfect knowledge of infinity.  It saturates their minds, threatens to burst them.  What I experience, I'm sure, is a taste of what it feels like to be insane.  But there is truth in it!  It's beautiful.  If I could only capture it exactly as it is and share it…  Luckily, a less extreme form of the state persists even after I start writing.  Sometimes it swings back into the profound while I'm writing.  

Take this quiz:  

http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/schizophrenia.htm

Since my readers are most likely various kinds of occultists and nonconformists, chances are, you scored high.  I scored in the schizophrenic range.  Because we are aware of the control the system imposes on us, we see into beyond, and we experience wordless things, we are officially crazy.  

Schizophrenia is not a disease.  I've tried for a long time to write a complete and scientific manifesto on these beliefs, but there already is one and it's perfect:

http://www.theschizophreniamyth.com/

Autism is not a disease.  Here is a link to a diverse blog with interesting ideas, one of them being neurodiversity:

http://fugitiveseekingtruth.blogspot.com/search/label/autism

"Fugitive Seeking Truth" has a similar style to my blogs, and I've always liked it.  I came across it not in a search, but by reading someone's profile on Roleplaygateway.com.  

These are not new ideas.  When I was young, I thought they were.  I thought I was the only one in the world who believed such a thing.  The thought was frightening, but I thought maybe I'd be famous for it one day, if I could suppress my anger about the oppression of the diverse enough to speak about it.  Luckily for the cause of mental freedom, it exists outside of me.  All I have to do is provide a place where people can be truly free.  I believe the idea will take flight from there.  

What really needs to be studied is the link between the metaphysical world and those considered crazy.  

Why do they share such similar "paranoid" beliefs about government control and UFO's?  It's like some universal religion, except they come up with it on their own, without interacting.  They don't all get it from online communities of conspiracy theorists.  When a bunch of people think the same divergent thing, independently of each other, it's time to listen.

It breaks my heart when a so-called schizophrenic says to a so-called normal person, "I'm going to tell you something, but you'll think I'm crazy.  Please don't.  I know it's real," and then the so-called normal writes it off immediately and thinks they're crazy anyway.  It happens all the time in movies.  Seems like "the thing to do."  Why can't we lay down our preconceived ideas and listen?  

If we listen, we may see that they speak the truth.  Of course they should be paranoid.  Everybody is watching them, and trying to do stuff to them against their will.  The government is becoming more and more involved.  Perhaps they sense the intensity of this intervention mentality and fear turns it into many perceived conspiracies.  Maybe deep down in their subconscious somewhere, they don't want it to be about them, so they repress that knowledge and believe it's about something else.  

Or maybe the government really does track people and puts chips in them and everything.  =D  

It's proven that they do to an extent.  Maybe not to the extent the "schizophrenics" believe, but the point is, we shouldn't write anything off.  People should take the time to listen.  That is a lesson for all areas of life.  

Here is another project I am thinking of starting in the future, when I have funds.  Usually I don't go for cheesy organization names, but in this case, I think calling it the "We Listen Initiative" fits well.  "Listeners Initiative" sounds more elegant, perhaps.  We would interview so-called "schizophrenics" and try to detect patterns in their words and visions and test their theories.  It sounds a lot like parapsychology, but sadly, parapsychologists avoid working with the so-called mentally ill because they are not ready to deal with the stigma.  They have enough of a stigma to deal with as it is.  But not us.  When no one else will listen, we will listen.  We provide them with the scientific resources to figure their world out, and we don't judge them or try to turn them into anything they don't want to be.  

If they want us to stand by them while they sleep and see if we see their supernatural visitors, we will do so.  If they want us to compare their visions with those of psychics, we will do so.  It's as much about them as it is about our scientific progress.  If a "schizophrenic" was always saying certain things would happen in the future, we would watch and see if similar things happened, and how often we got it right.  We would compare the statistics from their predictions to the statistics of good guessers' predictions. 

We would see if there was any link to tangible alternate realities.  First and foremost, we would keep open minds.  

The Mystic's Lullaby

I wrote this when I was 13 or 14.  Usually I look at stuff from my childhood and think, "Yuck.  That's so badly written," but not this.  The weird thing is, I wrote it in like 10 minutes.  It just came out.  To this day, I treasure these words and have no desire to change them.  It's a song.  Maybe I'll sing and play it on the piano sometime.

Little child, lie with me
We'll voyage across the seven seas
To places no one dares to dream
Could ever be reality,
And in these places I believe
So come and feel the joy with me
Together my dear child shall we
Become the children of the free.


Loo-li-lai-lay-hee
Loo-li-lai-lay-hee

Little child, I can see

The things that no one else can see;

Because I simply try, believe

A new world opens up to me.

I want to let you see like me,

So I'll give you the secret key

And teach you so that you can be

Heir to clairvoyant legacy

Loo-li-lai-lay-hee
Loo-li-lai-lay-hee

Little child, listen to me.
We'll bring back something from beyond the sea;
An esoteric anomaly
Of metaphysical harmony.
This thing will bring out cries of glee
From all beings of reality
And for the first time they shall see
The world cannot limit the free.

Loo-li-lai-lay-hee
Loo-li-lai-lay-hee


Hand in hand, we shall be
Explorers of the fantasy
That lives within reality
More real than in your wildest dreams.
New portals of discovery
Will open up if we just believe
That more waits for us beyond the sea
And we can be there, we are free.  


Loo-li-lai-lay-hee
Loo-li-lai-lay-hee
Loo-li-lai-lay-hee
Loo-li-lai-lay-hee

Sometimes I wonder if I channeled that from my spirit guide.  I was a little child...

Knowledge is Better Than Ignorance

best web directories  This site is listed under Divination Directory

Magick is transcendence, it is beauty, it is the beyond.  It is power, it is relinquishing power, it subverting power.  It is mystery, meaning and rhythm.  It is nature's essence.  For believers, life is like a poem.  For skeptics, life is like a math problem.  

And it is said that exploring the otherworld is of the devil.  Those who say so refuse to look into what they're missing.  They refuse to notice the fact that the New Age movement is all about light and tranquility and positivity.  They will forever condemn.  They have turned Truth, a concept that once meant the deepest yearnings of the individual, the utmost definition of who we are, into a dogma.  To them, truth is something remote and external, not something present and alive within each of us, moving and changing like a river.  

I think what they fear is our lack of discernment and judgement.  Our minds are tolerant and they weigh things equally.  They look at every possibility, drawing on the ages and the newest of ideas for inspiration.  

We believe in unconditional inquiry.  There is nothing we "don't want to know."  We will speak with any entity that wishes to speak with us, and listen to their side of the story.  We trust that our logic and our intuition will prevent us from being deceived, because we believe in the power of the human soul.  

Some religions resent that the barrier between worlds is not solid.  They want to be the only ones who can bring back the secrets of higher powers.  They want to knowledge to remain within their narrow framework, when it is in truth infinite.  

Once science was opposition to dogma, but now science is the superior dogma, encompassing even religion, and magick is still the opposition; seen as the lowest of scum by both sides.  The otherworld will forever remain the last frontier, because it is liquid, not solid, and the human mind cannot reconcile science and magick, or religion and magick.  

Long ago, the godly ones opposed technology because it made our existence wider.  We could move faster, dig deeper, and see father.  Now that magick is no longer something so elusive and secret that it evokes fear, they oppose it for the same reasons they once opposed science.

The human mind has a dualistic attitude toward magick.  On one hand, we cannot reconcile it with ourselves.  We want solidity, because we fear losing ourselves in the vastness of infinity.  On the other hand, we create it, because we cannot confine ourselves to this finite earth.  Each human must choose a side; that of fear or that of awe.  

Let KNOWLEDGE prevail.  Let WONDER prevail.  Let the HUMAN SPIRIT prevail.  Let knowledge come from deep inside us, not from external authority.  Accept that the supernatural is spread out, complex, and multidimensional, not able to be defined by any one belief system.  

By claiming that this, this infinite beauty, this one reason to live, is of the devil, they have screwed their argument over.  We know that what we have found is transcendence, greatness and Truth.  It is the manifestation of all things.  If it is of the devil, then the devil is certainly the way to go.  Luckily for religious condemners of magick, we are smart enough to see that the problem is with their argument and that the devil is still evil, despite their false connection of our belief system to him.  

Bridge of Colors Seven

My favorite poets are Pablo Neruda and Federico Lorca, but when it all comes down to it, there's nothing like an more old fashioned poem.  I love Emily Dickenson's "There is another sky" because it draws attention to the internal world.  I love Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven," because I've always loved the word "Nevermore," and the name "Lenore" looks like my last name (Lunoire).  When I was younger I thought he must have seen me in a vision and spelled my name wrong…  Most of all, I love the poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  It took my childhood self a long time to pick up a book of poetry written by someone with a name like that, but when I did, everything changed.

There are no verses more beautiful than those in the last 4 stanzas of "Rain in Summer" and the last 5 stanzas of "Haunted Houses."  I love them because they characterize what magic means to me.  I don't think I have to explain it.  I'll just paste the stanzas here and you can read them.  Prepare to be wowed.  Click on the links for the full poems.  

Rain in Summer, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

These, and far more than these, 

The Poet sees! 

He can behold 

Aquarius old 

Walking the fenceless fields of air; 

And from each ample fold 

Of the clouds about him rolled 

Scattering everywhere 

The showery rain, 

As the farmer scatters his grain.  

He can behold 

Things manifold 

That have not yet been wholly told,-- 

Have not been wholly sung nor said. 

For his thought, that never stops, 

Follows the water-drops 

Down to the graves of the dead, 

Down through chasms and gulfs profound, 

To the dreary fountain-head 

Of lakes and rivers under ground; 

And sees them, when the rain is done, 

On the bridge of colors seven 

Climbing up once more to heaven, 

Opposite the setting sun.

Thus the Seer, 

With vision clear, 

Sees forms appear and disappear, 

In the perpetual round of strange, 

Mysterious change 

From birth to death, from death to birth, 

From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth; 

Till glimpses more sublime 

Of things, unseen before, 

Unto his wondering eyes reveal 

The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel 

Turning forevermore 

In the rapid and rushing river of Time.

Haunted Houses, By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The spirit-world around this world of sense

Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere

Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense

A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise

By opposite attractions and desires;

The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,

And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar

Of earthly wants and aspirations high,

Come from the influence of an unseen star

An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud

Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,

Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd

Into the realm of mystery and night,--

So from the world of spirits there descends

A bridge of light, connecting it with this,

O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,

Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

Wow.  Just wow.  I judge poems on their rhythm, their imagery, and their meaning.  These two parts of these two poems get 100% in all three areas.  

Really, can you see now what magick means to us?  

Constructing Staffs and Wands

Staffs and wands may seem rather silly or cliche, but it's good to have a tangible way to channel your energy into a specific location during rituals or other magickal adventures.  Visualizing and moving a long string of energy from your hands to somewhere else is extremely difficult.  That's why staffs and wands were invented to do half the work for you.  

If they are constructed right, they can be effective tools rather than pretentious decorations.  Whatever you do, don't just buy them at a supposed magick store unless you choose very carefully and are sure they are constructed using the right logical principles, meaning they have to have a way to absorb your energy, a way to channel your energy down the length, and a way to push the energy out at the very end, which is usually an embedded crystal. 

Making them yourself can be a rewarding experience, and it will give them special power specific to your needs.  

My own staff has more of a sentimental value.  When I was 14, the best friends I ever had in my childhood moved away.  They left their staff, which we had used to use to summon rain and all kinds of other stuff.  I went in their yard when they were gone, and it was right there waiting for me.  I suppose taking it was technically looting, but I'm sure they would have wanted me to have it.  It's the only tangible thing I have to remember them by.  It's long and straight, the caramel brown varnish warn off.  The top is carved into a spiral pattern and wrapped in a strip of black leather.  It is one of the few possessions that I care about, and I plan to alter it to increase its power when I get the right tools and enough funds.  

Here is what to consider when constructing staffs and wands:

Wood

Don't get a 100% crystal wand.  These are overly delicate, and they absorb whatever energy they touch.  A wooden wand with a crystal core (or just a crystal hilt or tip) is more durable and it insulates the crystals from external energies.  Also, it is more medieval and sophisticated looking.  

Choosing the right kind of wood is important.  If you have always felt a connection to a certain kind of wood, by all means choose that.  If you are stuck, click here for starters to see the properties of different woods.  Please check more than one source before you make a decision.  If sources contradict each other, use your intuition.  You want to choose a kind of wood that resonates with you and enthralls you, making you feel magical and breathless each time you touch it.  Try going to a furniture store or something and touching all the woods.  Close your eyes and spend time on each one, getting impressions from it.  When you find one you like, ask what it is.  It doesn't matter what other people think.  

Don't confuse psychometric impressions that may come from the object itself with impressions that come from the type of wood.  If you are worried about this, touch different pieces of the same type of wood, or find trees and touch them.  Write down all your observations.  Don't overthink it or freak out because you don't know if the impressions you're getting are from your imagination or from the wood.  I have that problem when choosing crystals...  In this case, the two can be synonymous.  Just choose wood that you like.  

I will share a few of my intuitive observations about wood.  Willow is most definitely a Water wood, and it can be associated with rain because it seems to have a touch of air.  Oak has the energy of either Earth or Fire, possibly both, and like the site says, it is very masculine.  Cherry feels like it's between Earth and Air, and is youthful.  Apple seems to have a touch of fire in it, but is mainly Earth and Air.  Lilac, one of my favorites, is most certainly Air, and probably Spirit too.  I'm not even sure what my own staff is, but if I were to choose again, I would choose willow wood in my staff and lilac wood in my wand which I have yet to make.    Pine is a unique wood, not usually mentioned in articles about magick.  To me, it has a kind of icy energy, like thin air and frozen water.  

Design

If you're not a wood carver, you will need help giving shape to your wand or staff.  There's always the option of simply breaking a straight twig off from your tree of choice and carving it into a simple shape, wide on the bottom and narrow at the tip in the case of wands.  Or you can buy a solid wood wand or staff and have a carver help you thread the core in and embed the crystals.  Make sure you buy one that has not been consecrated yet.  You don't want to be messing with it after it has already been filled with magick.  It is your job to consecrate it when you are done, in your own way.  

I think the best kind of wand or staff is one that you choose off a tree.  You can use a pendulum, divination rods or just your intuition to decide which branch is right, but do make sure it is approximately the thickness you want the final product to be, slightly thicker so that you or the wood carver can smooth the edges without making it too thin.  Don't make your staff or wand too thin, or it might break.  You probably want a straight one, so that the energy you channel through it doesn't go the wrong way, but crooked staffs and wands have their place.  When you have chosen, take it to a professional (unless you are one) and specify the patterns you want carved into it.  Maybe you just want it to be smoothed, or maybe you want a complex spiral pattern cut into it.  

Core

I know this is not Harry Potter, but wands and staffs need a core so that energy flows smoothly through them.  Wood is not the best conductor of energy, though it is a good insulator so that your core stays pure.  A core of pure crystal would be the most powerful, but it would be difficult to find such a thin strip of crystal, let alone insert it into a long thin piece of wood.  Small crystals touching each other would be another option, or even fine grains of crystals such as salt would work.  This would worry me because the energy would be required to go through so many transitions before it reached the end…  Solid is always best.  Quartz is the generic amplifier of magickal energy, but you should choose a crystal that resonates with you or works for a specific purpose.  Crystal usages are more universally accepted than wood usages, so it should be easy to figure that out.  

An easier option is a wire core.  Metal is a conductor of psi, much like crystals, because of the alignment of its molecules.  Putting wire in a wand or staff is my own personal Frankenstein-esque idea, but it's better than the plain wooden wands and staffs that a lot of people have, and it is less expensive than a crystal core.  Whatever you do, do not choose iron, nickel, or steel.  These have been known to dull magickal energy.  Copper would be a good choice.  If you wanted to go experimental, you could try something magnetic.  Experiments have shown that magnetism increases psi.  You can read about it here on my all time favorite Astral Projection blog.  Be conscious of whether you want the positive or negative side of the magnet to be at the end of the staff or wand.  Positive and negative magnets don't mean positive or negative energy.  Positive magnets pull objects in, and negative magnets push outwards.  I would choose negative because it has an outward energy, and it won't pick up metal objects.  It would be disruptive to a ritual if pins and paperclips started flying towards the end of your wand or staff and sticking there.  

If you have a metal core, do be careful during storms, because as far as I know, metal can still conduct electricity even when insulated by wood.  

One last option to consider is stone.  Fieldstone has been known to amplify psi energy.  You could have a long, thin fieldstone core made, or you could use crushed fieldstone powder.  

If you want to do something real crazy, combine fieldstone powder, magnetite powder, quartz powder (and every other kind of powder except gunpowder, anthrax, and meth XD…just kidding) and see what happens.   

Hilt

Yes, I know that swords have hilts, but I don't know what to call the part of a wand or staff that you hold, so I am going to call it a hilt.  Deal with it.  

On a wand, the hilt is at the very end.  It's what you hold your wand by.  On a staff, you don't grip the end.  You grip it somewhere in the middle, nearer to the top and the bottom.  Your energy in most cases comes through your hands, so you will want your hilt to be made of crystal regardless of what your core is made of.  Crystal is extremely receptive to whatever it touches.  In fact, you will want some leather or some other thick, insulating material to wrap the hilt in when you are not using it.  

If you are really good with magick, you can get away with using bone or stone as a hilt, but I would choose crystal.  

Again, check what each type of crystal is used for and find one that suits your purposes, or just choose one you like, or use the generic clear quartz.  Make sure the hilt touches the core so that you can channel energy all the way through.  If it is a wire core, drill holes evenly around the circumference, just big enough for the wire to fit through, and have it hang out enough to touch the hilt.  You will have to have multiple wires in the core to do this.  If you have a crystal core, put additional small crystals into the drilled holes to channel energy from the core to the hilt.  If you have a powder core, fill it to the brim with power so that even the holes are full and the powder touches the inside of the hilt.  

It is difficult to attach hilts to wands, but even harder to attach them to staffs, because they have to be hollow and exactly the right size fit snugly around the staff.  It would be easier to make, buy, or have made a metal hilt that crystals can be inlaid into.  As long as the crystals are touching the core, it works.  

Crystal Tip

There needs to be a crystal at the very end of the wand or staff.  For staffs, it should be retractable so that it doesn't hit the ground when you walk with your staff.  For wands, it can stick out, or be an internal part of the wand with only the microscopic tip peeking out at the very end.  I think it looks dorky when they stick out, as in the picture above.  Choose the crystal tip the same way as you choose the crystal hilt, but make it something that amplifies more and absorbs less.  The hilt should have Yin energy (receptive) and the tip should have Yang (expressive) energy, if you know what I mean.  

Finish

Do not use a normal protective wood varnish from Home Depot.  They are usually made of toxic chemicals.  You will want something natural to smooth, finish, and shine the wood, like oil.  Olive oil, peanut oil, or some other kind of food oil might do the job, but you would have to let it dry and soak in for a few days so that it wouldn't be slimy.  An organic wood stain would also work, and it would help waterproof the wand.  

Activation and Consecration

You will need a ritual to activate and give power and intention to your staff or wand.  The crystals will need to be programmed.  Make sure they are cleansed before being put on the staff or wand.  The ritual is all up to you.  

Fun with Staffs and Wands

Once you have your wand, you can wear a fancy cloak and keep it in your pocket at all times, like a Harry Potter character.  You can use your staff as a walking stick and hike with it.  When you go into a place that usually wouldn't allow staffs, you can steal a trick from Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and say you need it to walk.  "You wouldn't part an old man from his walking stick."  That way, you will always be prepared for magickal combat, or healing, or conjuring good luck.  

Just be careful in airports.  You will be required to put them through the X-ray.  Seeing the wires or mysterious powder hidden inside might freak the TSA out.  

Don't Do Drugs

The Oracle of Delphi was proven to have been inhaling hallucinogenic gasses from a crack in the earth.  Not to mention, Terrence McKenna was on DMT while he formulated Timewave Zero.  How do we reconcile revelations such as those with what we believe?  There are those that embrace drugs as a way of centering themselves in the subtle realms.  Then there are those who staunchly affirm that drugs impede rather than enhance psychic ability.  They most likely say that because they are appalled at the stigma that has been placed on the New Age movement due to people who think drugs help.  This is understandable.  I feel exactly the same way.  

The problem is, the evidence doesn't match up.  Hallucinogens, including marijuana which is a mild hallucinogen, have been shown to act as a gateway for the mind in countless situations.  

The heightened awareness they bring is artificial.  It's not your awareness to have.  You may ask, "So what?"  Here's what.

Note that I have never done drugs.  Actually, let me correct that…  When I was 9 years old, I wanted to try drugs, so I gulped down a bottle of Pepsi.  I had never before consumed caffeine, and I never did it again.  The caffeine didn't have an effect, except for the immense guilt of giving my mind over to a substance.  

The following reasons not to do drugs are based on logic and research:  

1.  They reduce the mind's natural capabilities for ESP by making the mind dependent on the drug.

Imagine an athlete who has built his entire career on steroids.  Then for some reason--financial, legal, other--he can't get anymore.  Then he is nothing without them; a pitiful, weak creature experiencing withdrawal and residual side effects on his body.  Is that the way you want to be?  Do you want your abilities to have no foundation and no integrity?  Wouldn't you rather make them an intrinsic part of you that no one can take away from you?

2.  They accomplish their goal by destroying the physical structures in the brain that allow you to function coherently on the physical plane.

When the conscious mind is injured, the subconscious tends to take over, as in brain injuries after car crashes.  That is why people can spend years in other worlds while in a coma.  Drugs force the subconscious to manifest by destroying brain cells with chemicals.  If you want to exist entirely in the subtle realm and not on the physical plane, you might as well just kill yourself, but most people want the best of both worlds.  There is a purpose behind us being here.  I don't know what it is, but the greatest accomplishment is to travel between worlds on a two-way street, not a one-way street.  You don't have to block your full reentry into the physical plane to get the best of the other planes.  That is a myth.  With practice and the right techniques, you can learn to experience the otherworld fully, drug-free.  You can walk the shores of insanity and come back to tell the story.  

3.  They make you especially vulnerable to attacks from the subtle planes.  

While controlled entry usually gets you started on a higher vibration, entry by drugs can land you anywhere.  They also ravage your natural defenses, leaving holes in your energy field and opening your third eye too wide.  That's part of how they work and why they cause ESP.  But if you get possessed, or too traumatized to go back in ever again, what's the point?  

4.  Metaphysical experiences while on drugs are especially hard to interpret and sometimes not even real.

In many cases, drug-induced experiences are real, but in some cases, they are not.  Just like steroids after prolonged use can actually destroy tendons in people's bodies and damage the muscles, drugs can damage what we use to perceive outside our senses properly.  They most likely distort the chakras and dissolve the barrier between our own subconscious and the outside astral planes, eventually making every experience, no matter how vivid, no more real than the average dream.  It might mean something to you, but it is useless in terms of communication with other entities.  Then, when you quit the drug, there's no fixing it.  

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So, does the New Age movement encourage drug use?  No more than the professional athletic world encourages steroids.  Hallucinogens are to magick as steroids are to athletics.  We are divided into so many factions that we don't have the luxury of a centralized professional sector that lays down the law about drugs, and there will always be those who claim to be magick practitioners and are in reality druggies, but it is certainly unfair to think of us as a bunch of druggies.  Those who are serious about magick are not, and they usually do less drugs than the average businessperson, avoiding alcohol and caffeine at all times to keep their minds as pure as possible.    

Whatever you do, don't do drugs.  Not even once, because they're addictive and if you do them once, you will do them again and experience all the above effects.  Do try binaural beats though.  They enhance your abilities with no negative side effects and make you independent rather than dependent.  

Inter-Dimensional Alliance

You'll have to excuse me, because these first few posts will be about Elevens even though this is a general blog on magick and philosophy.  I can't take my mind off them after yesterday.  

Here's some food for thought:

I don't know about you, but when I look at the clock and it happens to be 11:11, it's always the beginning of the minute rather than the end.  I rarely don't have time to make my wish, and when I do run out of time, I see that as bad luck.  To me, it means that I am not fully attuned and my awareness is lagging, since I didn't pick up the prompting to look at the clock until it was almost too late.  Whether or not you look at the clock at the beginning or the end of the minute might be an indicator of something.  

We should keep track of these things.  Metaphysicians and occultists are not taking full advantage of their knowledge.  Instead of figuring out what works and what doesn't and documenting the who, where, what, why, and how, they often stick to tradition or a purely personal outlook that refuses to define anything.  (Yes, reality is personal and plural, but there is also a collective reality that  can be influenced by magick.)

Theosophy and parapsychology are the best attempts at structuring the knowledge base, but they each lack what the other has mastered.  Theosophy lacks experimental science.  Parapsychology lacks trust in visions and revelations and has become far too statistical.  A knowledge base that combines the two could make the principles we hold dear applicable in real life on a large scale.  My goal is to take magic one step beyond the personal level and use it to change the world.  

However, it is important to remember that magick will always be somewhat unpredictable and elusive.  There's a reason it hasn't been proven yet.  I believe that there is an element of chaos in the subtle realms.  Magick doesn't operate on solid rules like gravity.  Magick is like Quantum Physics in that nothing is certain.  There are so many variables.  One of them, I have theorized, is a variable of pure chance that always seeks to disrupt any continuity.  I do not know the strength of this variable.  

There is some method to the magickal madness.  We need to find the principles behind it.  

Imagine an alliance between humans, spirits, gods, and other entities, the goal of which is to share knowledge between worlds and cooperate in large endeavors.  Techniques would be tested, and observations would be documented.  Otherworlds would be mapped out.  Magickal power would be concentrated and amplified by eclectic combination of techniques and factors.  

I wish to create such an alliance in my lifetime.  

If it is possible to do such a thing, I'm sure organizations like this already exist.  The problem is, the power they get from it gives them such an advantage that they cannot resist the temptation to keep it secret.  Rosicrucians are a known example.  Think of all the unknown examples there must be.  It's time for someone to step up and make the knowledge public.

I want to call it the Inter-Dimensional Alliance.  It sounds absolutely epic, and makes a nice acronym:  IDA.  

Refuting the Internal Clock Theory

This morning, I woke up at 11:11 AM after staying up late for my 11/11/11 ritual.  It was one of the many miraculous synchronicities that remind us every day that the mainstream view of reality is wrong.  We are all tempted to accept that view of reality at some point in our lives, because it is so prevalent.  Often, their logic seems sound, although it is devoid of emotion.  That is why supernatural powers constantly have to remind us of who we are.  

Other times, their logic is not sound at all.  In fact, it's hilarious what they come up with sometimes.  

Scientists seem to have abandoned Occam's razor in pursuit of their dogma.  Since there is no other scientific explanation for number synchronicities, they conclude that our brains have an internal clock that can tell precisely when 11:11 is.  It gives us a subconscious urge to look at the clock at that very moment.  This seems plausible enough, if you are open minded.  

I do believe we have an internal clock, although I wonder how accurate it is, since many factors can affect our perception of time. One problem with their theory is that if we had a subconscious clock that was accurate enough to make us look at the clock at 11:11, then we would have evolved to use it for far more practical purposes, but that's debatable.  The real problem is that almost every digital clock is different.  Most are between 10 seconds and 10 minutes off.  

So apparently, the scientists think that our brains memorize the exact time rhythm of each inaccurate clock and make us look when it says 11:11.  That doesn't account for synchronicities in public places we haven't been in before, because we couldn't possibly have memorized the rhythm of clocks we've never seen.  How's that for scientific thinking?  

Time, the way we handle it, is a manmade concept rather than a transcendent concept.  I know this because our calendar is ridiculous and time zones are sometimes assigned arbitrarily, but that doesn't affect the way synchronicities appear to us.  It's the numbers that matter, and the fact that we see them.  That explains why people not only see 11:11 on clocks, but also on phone numbers, addresses, and other things.  A clock's inaccuracies do not change the potency of a synchronicity.  In fact, my clock is 10 minutes fast, yet I have seen countless 11:11's on it and the wishes still come true.