Practical Witchery!, John Stormm [ap literature book list txt] 📗

It is not only beyond their means to bring normalcy to their home, it would in some cases, be safer to move out of their house until the problems resolved themselves. That’s not always even a feasible answer. Someone must come in and discern what needs healing or removal. Is the pet sick? Did it catch something or was its care and feeding compromised? Is it unruly of some disorder or poorly trained. Do we train the pet or counsel the owner? If approached improperly, this problem will return, possibly worse than before. Sometimes, it’s the “pet ideas” we toy with that bring our problems in life. A shaman must be able to wander the house and yard to identify these problems.

For instance, as a metaphor of a mind that is entertaining an unhealthy idea:  A bigot will have all sorts of problems in their lives caused from a rabid dog of an idea, that people of any color, creed or ethnicity other than their own are problematic. The mutt is running free in their minds. These dogs come in a myriad of varieties, and bigotry is only one example. We all know how we treat people has its repercussions. The pet owner doesn’t see themselves as an oppressor, but a suffering victim of circumstances beyond their control. The damage that such dog of an idea can do in as diverse a global business environment as we now have is unacceptable. In a less enlightened century, they might put up a sign disallowing customers the dog doesn’t like and keeping a degree of peace. But history teaches that even though they have been kept from the shop, this dog will not cease growling until it hunts them down where they live to cleanse its world of their influences. The dog owner will lose their job or business and likely never know the real reason why. No one feels easy around a growling dog and it must be excised or even exorcised from the premises. The pet owner needs to be convinced of the necessity and the benefits of comfortable customer interaction regardless of ethnicities. Only then can healing be achieved. The point of the allegory is that in their waking lives, the owners of such rabid pets may be kind and upright people. They love their families and communities and they are well meaning.

Unless we were of the creed or ethnicities in question, we might never see that dog for what it truly is. We’d have to see it in action where it lives to the fullest. If we wandered into the shop and saw that dog asleep on the floor and took a peek into its dreams of tearing out the throats of children rather than chasing squirrels, a more serious approach to the beast would be apparent. To the uninitiated, there are no problems with the sleeping dog. The shaman knows full well that someone is going to be hurt by it. We can’t always expect the casual bystander to understand our concern over such a sleeping animal, but our lives on the path of dreams carry their responsibilities with our actions in the waking world. It is such a paradox that the dreamers are truly conscious of their environments, and the average souls are sleepwalking in the haze of a limited consciousness.

   It was a regular practice of my grandmother, our clan's matriarch, to discuss our dreams at the breakfast table.  They were sure to still be fresh in our minds.  Some of them were just entertaining.  They were the aspects of an amused and creative mind.  Still, it tells you something very personal about the dreamer, and grandma always had her finger on that about us.  Other times, it was a prognostic type of dream.  It could have been born of simple, unconscious pattern recognition telling us that certain events were most likely to ensue, or perhaps something even more along the miraculous.  Other types of dreams can be the mind working out the same or a similar scenario out, over and over again, in the course of a night's dreaming.  It is trying to view a problem from as many different perspectives as it can, until it finds a solution.  Which is why it is often wise advice, to "sleep on a problem".

   No matter how the subconscious mind takes the dreams, it tells you something about yourself and your inner workings, or the one whose dreams you are listening to.  It tells you what's happening in the most secret parts of the soul.  Most people who do not pay heed to their own dreams, are often the very ones who develop psychological problems unexpectedly.  The mind was working out its issues, long before the problem came to a head, but it takes the victims unawares.  Often in these cases, a psychiatrist will use drugs or hypnosis, to put the patient in a state where they can recall random bits of these dreams, and from the imagery that presents itself to them, they can identify the problem and prescribe some sort of solution or remedy.  

It is far easier for those of us, so trained to recall and examine our own dreams, to see those issues well in advance, when only smaller life course changes are needed to avert a real problem later on.  In our clan, dream diaries were encouraged to be kept as proper witches.  A pen, pencil and a notepad were kept on the stand near our beds.  When we awoke, we wrote a quick note of what we experienced in our dreams.  This made them easier to recall later, rather than merely fading away as most do.

When practiced as thus:  The act of dreaming (a Right Brain, subconscious function) was recorded by writing it down (a Left Brain language function) and creating a fresh neural path between both hemispheres of the brain.  Please understand that witchery is NOT mere "hocus pocus" and superstition, but has long been the basis of true science and its applications for centuries out of hand.  "Cause and effect" is how we get things done in our craft, as with all others.

There are reasons why certain things happen, and indicators or tell-tales that give away things that are not readily visible or apparent to "muggles" or non-initiates in the craft.  What seems "like magic" to most, is understood in principle by the practitioner.  By learning, and training our minds and bodies to better serve us, the practiced witch often performs, what is generally perceived as "the miraculous" as a simple matter of course.  Honing our perceptions and memories of our dream times, opens up entire new worlds and dimensions of study and knowledge... and as always:  Knowledge is POWER!

This is an aspect of my life long studies, that most will likely never be able to even relate to, but some might. It is considered by many, to be the advanced or "high magick" of our craft.  It requires a bit of knowledge and sensitivity to such things, and nothing I can write will give you that. I’m hoping that enough of it is already present in the reader, and that what I write on this topic here, may make you more familiar with these aspects enough to experiment, and increase your own understanding of these things.

WHAT IS A “RIFT”?

Rifts, are tears in what scientists refer to as the “space/time continuum”. So are “doors”, “portals” and “nexus”, but those are contrived or constructed to be fixed where they are. By whom and how, is a science lost to us now, but may be regained or re-found in our future. A rift is like a “rip” in the side of a tent wall, where one might leave one environment and pass through to yet another. I am speaking of parallel worlds and/or dimensions here. In *some* instances, one may pass through such to find themselves many miles away, even on THIS plane of existence, from where they entered.

My personal caveat on this is: If you’re at all familiar with the String Theory versions of parallel worlds, you should keep in mind that it is quite possible that the parallel universe that you come out in, may not be precisely the one you left behind. I’ve had my suspicions about this for many decades, but honestly have no way of being sure for myself. The differences can be very subtle ones. Then too, is the understanding of what forces were used to cause the continuum to rip or tear. I can share with you a little bit about what I know to better reveal where one may already exist. But what originally caused such a thing, or the energies involved, is anybody’s best guess.

THE NATURE OF RIFTS AND PARALLELS

Many people and creatures are sensitive to the closeness of Otherworld energies in places where the membrane or veils are thinnest or torn. Artists and lunatics (in effect: people with extraordinary “right brain” activity) will be either drawn or repelled depending upon what seems to be on the other side. Lunatics sometimes will claim to better “hear the voices” in such areas. Ley lines and other power fluctuations, natural and artificial seem to have their own influence over such a place, much the same as a “flow of air” might open a parting in a gossamer curtain. Drugged or inebriated teens hanging out in such an area may feel compelled to graffiti occult sigils and symbols to describe the effects they feel present there.

Often times, the rifts will open up into a different realm at night than they do in the daytime. At one well known rift area locally, it was known that the rifts opened into brighter realms during the daylight hours, and into more nightmarish realms at night. It was NEVER advised to travel those paths at night, though we HAVE done our own research into this. Myself and my family solidly concur that it is a very dangerous proposition to be in those particular woods after dark, beyond any doubt. You may find such tales of some of your own local areas to be a good indicator that you may have some consistent rift activity present.

Darkness and light and other forms of electro-magnetic radiation will have some effect on the forces that cause these rifts to open or close like the gap in a curtain between worlds. Rifts may also naturally drift a little distance in their own “breeze”. Some seem to cling to a general area of about a quarter mile or so, on the average. They can appear at ANY level: Above or below ground, above or below the water surface, or in the air above. There is a good reason why boats and planes disappear, from time to time. If the particular rift has been active for any great length of time, there may be apparent differences in the nature of the flora and fauna present, that are found nowhere else in the same given area of land or sea. If you notice them, such changes can be taken that there is such a rift occurring somewhere near by, usually at the heart of such an infestation.

There are