Рет қаралды 49,274
Full Playlist: • How to Understand Wicca
-
-
Watch more How to Understand Wicca videos: www.howcast.com...
Hi my name is Phyllis I'm a Wiccan priestess, founder of the tradition of aura. So what people always want to know about is magic. Do Wiccans practice magic, do witches practice magic? And the answer is, everybody practices magic. The very first spell that you learn is when you were told to blow out the candle on your birthday cake and make a wish. Fact is, everybody's practicing magic and we're doing it all the time. Just don't know it. We do it in a conscious way and a responsible way. Because that what Wic is, its a path of personal responsibility, it's a spiritual path, it's a path of personal responsibility.
What is magic, then? T hat's the question, what's magic? And there is a wonderful old classic definition that most people know about. It was, there was Crowley definition and there is the really fabulous definition by Dion Fortune who's part of the Golden Dawn which was popularized by Starhawk. Magic is the art of changing consciousness at will. And that's very true. A lot of what we do is about shifting consciousness. From the mundane, the beta consciousness of not getting hit by a car when you cross the street to what you call magical consciousness which is awareness of the sacred that's present in the world, awareness of non ordinary reality. Awareness of the signs and the indications, the messages that you're getting from the sacred. Aware of its presence in the world that you're in as well as in yourself.
But consciousness is not just about the mind. The old model said you cast a circle, you chanted or you danced to raise energy. But essentially what you were doing was visualizing, you were using creative visualization which is very popular now. You were visualizing the outcome of the event. So, you want to fall in love so you...you see this a lot in new age practice, you'd make a long list of all the qualities that you want in a guy and you would visualize him and you would see him and in Wiccan practice and all indigenous practices and magical practices you would then raise energy which is generally done with chanting or dancing or running or something sort of athletic and the energy would be directed into what we call a cone of power into that image. People will say, into the akashic planes. You hear that a lot in the new Age world now as well. And then it would manifest.
I have a lot of problems with this old definition. Which I talked about at length in with crafting. First of all I think, magic is not...most of all...magic is not just about the projection of a thought form or the projection of your will which was the Crowley portion of the definition . It is about changing the outcome of events through your energy, through your intent. It is all of those things. But that definition is much too limited because it's confined from the neck up. It's about consciousness, a little bit about will, and a little energy generated by the body. But it's about what you intend. And while that's important, there's a greater magic that's going on. And that's the magic of a sacred world. That's the magic of a world that's divinely alive and aware of you. It's the magic that you experience once you've encountered the divine in the world.
When I the first book I realized that the most profound magic that I wanted to write about was not this spell or that spell or whatever, although those can be wonderful and they can manifest. But the real magic, the extraordinary unambiguous magic that I encountered once I realize that the world was alive, that the world was conscious. That's the real change of consciousness. Awakening to the fact that you live in a living universe, a divinely living universe. Once that connection is made that's what the practices are for. To put you into contact with it. To get that blindfold off so that you're seeing it and experiencing it and feeling it. That its a reality. It's not imagined, it's not imaginary. It's not supernatural. Magic is not supernatural. Miracles in the Abrahamic faiths tend to be supernatural. That's what a miracle is. They think of it as supernatural. For us magic is utterly natural.
Because the divine is everywhere and it's constantly expressing itself. And once you've had that connection once you've made that discovery and the relationship starts, the dance starts, its the universe that's leading you. I think it does this for all of us. It's just that some of us pay attention. Those of us called to this path and I think it's a path that anybody can practice because it's practices that anybody can master. When you hear, when you see, when you listen when you allow it to guide you in the dance