Witcan Elements and Elements of Self -- under construction

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We start in the East, as Wiccans do, because according to the Hyperbolean Model that influenced the set-up of the Watchtowers by Wicca's founders, East is where the great winds originate. So, from antiquity, we inherit the concept that Air resides in the East. And Air is the symbol of the Un-Things, the Void that must be present in order for Magick to do its work and rush in to fill our lives with miracles, and is represented in the Self as the Mind, the Will, Thoughts, Ideas, Communication, and it is in East that we ESTABLISH INTENT. For Witcans, East is the domain of the Childe Goddess. And in East, when we practice spellcraft or undertake Pathworking, we consider, fine tune and then demonstrate the Void of Need to the Universal Aspects (Nature) and the Divine Source (deity). Vacuums are abhorred by Nature, and thus, when we are successful at making them apparent, we set-up venue for miracles/Magick to become involved in the solutions we create for ourselves.

It is proper that I should also give some warning about Dabbling and unconscious energy work here at the start, for it is in the East that most unskilled people have a tendency to set-up the venue for misfortune to arrive instead of comfort and happy resolution to their "problems". I've seen non-witches accidently "cast" on themselves when they've bent their Will toward some fear or desire that they felt compelled to pursue and, by the time they have sought out a witch to help them unravel what they've manifested, the threads leading back to what started it all are usually quite tangled and difficult to undo. But if that work can be accomplished, without exception, it has been my experience that without knowing what they were doing, the hapless "practitioner" had emulated the work of East in some way and had demonstrated a Void of Need that was certainly not well thought-out and had been founded in self-centeredness and/or desperation. Dabblers in the Craft are susceptible to these outcomes as well, since they, by definition, have undertaken little or no study of ethics or self-mastery, and have Intents that are not in-line with Mutual Beneficiality. It is no wonder that most who dabble tend to receive either "bad" or no results to their attempts to master Nature and other people. And I put quotes around "bad" to denote the subjective quality of how individuals perceive the outcomes of their Magickal practices. A schooled witch would take comfort in her "bad" results, knowing them to be Gifts that arrive in the guise of failure or calamity. All outcomes should be studied closely, so that we can learn how to form our Intentions from the start, every time we enter East to do our work.

Witcans turn left when facing East, to journey to North, the residence of the Crone Goddess. Traveling to North after East is one of the insights that finally designated Witcans as willful Heretics. Witcans cast Circle and spells Moonwise, or Widdershins. It is well that Wiccans abhor this practice and continue to turn right at East to venture to South... for as long as that Path provides the lessons it was intended to offer. But for the Witcan, after years of traveling from Will in the East, directly to Spirit, which we'll see later is the Element of Self in the South, we saw that our Wiccan practice was too like that of Christian prayer... identifying a need (Will) and then immediately turning to God (Spirit) for resolution. For Witcans, the journey to North, though perilous for its taboo status among our Wiccan kin, delivers us to the Watchtower attributed to Action, the Tangible, the Physical Being, those things we can DO in the world, BEFORE we surrender to That Which Loves Us. So, North is characterized by Earth, or Matter, and is seen by the Witcan as the domain of Things.

In East and North, we see that we found the two Universal States of Being: The Void (nothing) and Matter (something).

In the West and South, we'll discover the two Universal Dynamics: Manifestation (creation) and Transformation (change). So on to West we go!

West is the next stop in our Moonwise journey through the Watchtowers. In West we find the Emotional Plane. Here is the heart, the baggage of our past, our hurt, our joy, love in all of its manifestations, as in, romance, charity and parental nuturance. The Mother Goddess resides here. In West, when we are spellcasting or Pathworking, we look at the blocks we set in our way when we ask for miracles in our lives. It is here that the parent we are to our Inner Selves seeks out the Inner Childe (East) and sets about sorting out the hurt and fear we may be burdened with. Only when we are willing to take fearless charge of HEALING AND GROWING our Selves through self-nurturance and self-knowledge does our Magick stand a chance of manifesting. And this step is completely missing from Wiccan Magick and Christian prayer. It is really the most important key to Mastering Self and creates Adepts of Seekers. So West is associated with Manifestation and expresses that dynamic in our practice, as it is mirrored in Nature.

South is where the Inner Childe has the last say and it is the Maiden/Youth who defends her/him here, as this is the domain of the Sacred Rebellious Teenager, the Maiden Goddess. This is where the person you are, with all the Elements of Self combined into one being, must LET GO of her/his fears and desires and ask the Inner Childe if she/he is in accord with the miracles you are asking for. With practice, the Inner Childe becomes quite adept at letting us know what parts of our requests are too demanding or overly specific or disrespect her/his boundaries in some way. My students will recognize the neo-myth of "The Blue Car With Pinstripes, White Leather Seats And A Top-Of The Line Stereo". In this analogy, I explain that it is a less well thought-out spell to cast to ask for all those details when, if all you really need is a reliable car to get you around safely, that is ALL you should ask for! And if you have some unconscious fear or block around getting such a car, your Inner Childe will stop you -- either by your seeking an informed view of your needs by conferring with her/him OR through unconscious acts on your part that will lead you away from what you desire. If the car your Magick manifests turns out to be red with plain seats and an ok stereo, but fits your budget and helps a friend get rid of a vehicle he can no longer afford, then your spellcraft has worked perfectly! Too often, witches are blind to the gifts the Universe delivers, or are ungrateful when the gift does not comply with their uninformed expectations! Greed, vanity, disappointment and giving up have no place in a solid practice of witchcraft! Every aspect of your practice offers gifts and challenges that can help you become wiser and more skilled, if you let them. So, by the time we're done in South, we've effectively demonstrated the Void of Need (East), we've settled with ourselves that we have DONE all we can do before asking for Divine Intervention (North), we've sorted out how we might be getting in our own way (West), we've let go of the outcome of our spells and rituals and sent them off with intentions akin to "As It Be Mutually Beneficial To All"(South). And it is the Inner Childe who delivers the requests beyond the Veil... alone and privately and away from the senses of the practitioner. This is the Last Mystery of Magick -- the true nature of the how Love transforms us -- and so in the South, we find the dynamic of Transformation, as what a fire does to that which it touches.

There is more. But this is a good start for the novice. There is plenty here to chew on and more than enough area in which to expand your knowledge of the true nature of Magick. Very rarely will you find an HP/S who will teach you REAL Magick. And it has been my experience that it's because no-one taught it to them. We are left with the clues though, when we diligently study Wicca, and once we realize where the Path is most productive, it is only a matter of practice and time before we find that Magick is real and within the grasp of any dedicated practitioner who heeds the steps. But those steps demand Right Use of Will, self analysis, owning our own messes, repairing damage done to our hearts and the hearts of others, a sense of mutual beneficiality, a willingness to take action before we resolve to try magickal means to solve our problems, and so on and so on.... the Witcan Path is not a circle, it is a spiral... a sprial without beginning or end...

Good journeying through the Watchtowers!
Madame Lore

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Alright, here's another blast from the past for Myrddin! Remember this handout from WHC? ; )

THE WATCHTOWERS

The Watchtowers, also known as “the Quarters and the All”, are named after the four directions of the compass but are not merely bearings by which we orient our altars, or face toward when we cast a Magickal Circle. When we “call” East, South, West, North and Center, we are actually journeying to another plane, or dimension, a place where East, South, etc., exist as sources of particular Spirit Energy, or Aspects of Divinity. We can also define Spirit Energy as “God”, “the All”, “Akasha”, “the forces of Nature”, “the Beginning and the End of Everything”: It is the unknowable, uncomprehensible totality of Everything. It is also Nothing -- that is how vast Spirit is. If we can visualize the Universe as being layer upon layer of Realities, Realms where Universal Laws and Truths vary from what we call “reality”, we come to understand some rudiment of Magick and how to access it. By “traveling” to the infinite destinations that are offered to those who learn how, the Adept may focus what he returns with in such ways that miracles manifest in this plane. Traveling to the Watchtowers is just the beginning. They are five “places” from which we know, thanks to the Magickal People who came before us, harbor accessible, positive Energy. To illustrate, imagine that you are an inhabitant of some other plane and you must astrally travel to this dimension to harness, say, Gravity -- a Law and Truth here. Say that in your world, there is no such thing as the binding of Matter, or maybe Matter doesn’t even exist (because Matter cannot exist without Gravity) except in Folk Tales and Mythology. What a mind bender it would be to any who witnessed Matter binding and manifesting, “as though by magic”, in that other world! Maybe in that world, they call Gravity as a Watchtower when they have need of Magick! (The interesting thing is that every successful love spell ever cast in this plane, called on Gravity! Gravity, as an Energy source is just as useful to us as it would be for an Otherworlder. We’ve just come to take it for granted.)

As tangible beings, we humans must be able to see, even just with our mind’s eye, a thing before we can truly understand it. To imagine the Watchtowers, we need to discard our deeply embedded image of the compass points. To do that, see yourself in a void, out in space even. Where is East from here? Where is North? Where is “up” and “down”? There are technically no directions without some relative starting point, right? So now what? Here’s where you throw away all your preconceived ideas of East, South, West, North and Center. If you still can’t let go of what has been your long-held visual of the points of the compass and their connection to Magick think about this: If you are facing and calling East in Montpelier doesn't that include some part of West for someone in Boston? When an Eskimo in Alaska faces East, is she facing the same thing you are? The compass points, on this planet, are relative to where you are when you take a bearing. The Watchtowers do not emanate from this planet. They are everywhere (as an overlapping layer of dimension) and nowhere (as part of this plane).

SO....
WHEN WE FACE EAST, WE ARE FACING A QUADRANT OF THE UNIVERSE RELATIVE TO THE PLANE WE WISH TO TRAVEL TO, NOT WHERE WE TRAVEL FROM.

If you’re still having trouble (and that will pass with time and usage), imagine the Universe as a huge orange. Now cut that orange into four equal pieces. Each of those pieces is a Watchtower. If that orange has no pulp and is, instead, made up of layer upon layer of rinds, you have some idea of the Realms. So when I say in a spell, “Three Ladies From The East Did Come...”, I am speaking figuratively of three sources of Energy emanating from three layers of “rind” from the Eastern quarter the “orange”. Once one gets a little mastery of the concept of the Magickal Realms, they can even “map” favorite places where friendly entities (Energy sources) reside. One may learn their way to Helpers and Wise Ones who can answer troubling questions or tell of destinations where aid can be found. There are totems and Spirit Guides, dragons and Faerie Worlds, treasure and quests -- all waiting for us in the Quarters.

And at the Center of that orange reside the gods and goddesses. All of them. They constitute the entirety of all the worlds and Realms, all the Energy that has, does and will exist. You will hear a Witcan say, “So Was It Once, So Is it Now, So Shall It Ever, So Mote It Be” at the closing of Circle or to seal a spell. It is an acknowledgement of Center. At Circle you may also hear a High Priestess say, “As Above, So Below”. This does not mean, “Thy Will Be Done, On Earth As It Is In Heaven” as we are so often led to believe. It refers to Center, to the destinations that are “above” and “below” us. They are also the Aspects of Balance that the gods and goddesses offer. Without Center, the Quarters would be thrown into chaos. Knowing something of Center gives us insight into how Christianity came up with the concepts of Heaven and Hell. Center is, at its simplest, the balancing of manifestation and transformation. At the Center we find Ultimate Law and Truth, the forces that all the Realms have in common.

Leananshae 1999

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THE ELEMENT OF DE(CON)STRUCTION
FIRE, FLAMES, OXIDATION AND COMBUSTION

WHAT FIRE REALLY IS
We know the three states of matter are solid, liquid and gas. The visible flames of fire are not matter although there are particles of matter present in flames. Fire is energy. Light, heat, and even sound energy. When something burns a spontaneous chemical reaction is occurring. When a spontaneous reaction occurs, energy is released and the products are more stable than what you started out with. Water and carbon dioxide are the usual products of the combustion of most materials.

Most combustion is usually the reaction of some oxygen-containing material with oxygen in the air. Wood, for instance, already contains a lot of oxygen. It is often necessary to add heat to start the reaction but the reactions typically produce enough additional heat to keep going until the oxygen or the fuel is used up.

Objects gain mass when they burn. Burning consists of chemically combining the atoms in a material with oxygen atoms. This adds the mass of the oxygen to the mass of the original material.

In any chemical reaction, matter can neither be created or destroyed. When a substance is "vaporized in a flame" it doesn't disappear. Thermally excited electrons are simply raised to higher energy levels from which they then fall back from when the excitation potential is removed.

WHY THE OXYGEN IN WATER DOESN’T BURN
The oxygen in water has already "burned" and is no longer available to cause something else to burn. When you put water on a fire it does two things. It displaces the free oxygen molecules (which have two atoms of oxygen) so that it is not available to participate in the burning process AND it turns to steam, carrying heat away from the fire, cooling it to the point where it can no longer burn.

The energy in the bonds of 2 water molecules (H20) are lower than the bonds of 2 molecules of hydrogen (H2) and one molecule of oxygen (O2). So when you bring H2 and O2 together with a tiny bit of energy (a flame or spark just to start it), it will burn, releasing energy, and making water. You can make hydrogen and oxygen from water by electrolysis, but that uses energy, sort of like the reverse of burning.
FLAME
A luminous flame contains particles of incandescent carbon that are the result of incomplete combustion of the fuel material. If the fuel is incompletely burned, the maximum heat potential of the gas is not fully achieved. When the supply of oxygen for efficient/complete combustion of the fuel material is available, a flame will burn invisibly. We are able to quickly pass a hand through a luminous flame without getting burned because there is enough unburned material present in the flame of a visible flamebut it would be very foolish to pass one's hand through an invisible flame which is properly supplied with oxygen. No matter how fast you were to move through the hot zone, you would very likely get a nasty burn.

ELECTRICITY AS A TRANSFORMING FORCE
Electricity is the movement of electrons. We know that solids, liquids and gases burn and produce fire but fire isn't necessarily in a state of matter. Same thing with electricity. Solids, liquids and gases can conduct electricity (in other words, let electrons move through them), but electricity isn't really in a state of matter either.

FADING COLORS
Fading colors is another transformation we see regularly. Colors, dyes and pigments, fade for many reasons, but the most common causes are: oxidation by oxygen in the air, photochemical reaction with sunlight, or solubility of the substance--say in hot soapy water. Sunlight is a kind of powerful form of energy that can sometimes break up the colored molecules into smaller pieces that are less colorful -- or even colorless. There are very few kinds of colored things that can stand being exposed to sunlight for a long time.

RUST
Oxidation is always accompanied by reduction. An oxidizing agent essentially adds oxygen, or to be more exact, removes electrons, from the thing it's acting upon. Rust is the common word for iron oxide, the result of the oxidation of iron. Iron plus oxygen makes rust and iron will reduce through rusting until it is completely transformed, or deconstructed.

COMBUSTION and OXYGEN
Technically, combustion (burning) occurs when a substance reacts with oxygen to produce combustion (oxidation) products. Since oxygen atoms cannot react with themselves to produce anything except oxygen molecues or ozone molecules, oxygen does not burn. The nature of the reaction when oxygen forms ozone is different from the electron transfer which occurs in traditional oxidation. Therefore it would be splitting a hair to say that because oxygen atoms can form ozone molecules, oxygen has been oxidized (burned). Thus, I am on your side -- oxygen does not burn. It merely supports combustion.

Since oxgen is 'used' in the combustion in that it enters into the products of the combustion, I would say it is combustable. To act as sort of an "enzyme" in combustion and need to be present but NOT enter into the products of combustion would make it otherwise appear to be non-combustable. Others may offer opposing views.

The concept of combustion: "Chemical union with oxygen, producing heat and/or flame commonly limited to the burning of fuels." (from Concise Chemical and Technical Dictionary, edited by H. Bennett, Chemical Publishing Company, Inc. New York 1986). Oxygen, by definition, cannot be combustible. Rather, it "supports combustion". Combustion is the rapid exothermic reaction of some fuel with oxygen. In the absence of any fuel [combustible material] oxygen does not react. Oxygen is an oxidizer, but it is not combustible.

No fuel, no fire. Pure oxygen is a very dangerous material and is a fire hazard but only because it makes other things burn, not because it combusts.

WHY BLOWING ON A FIRE CREATES MORE FIRE WHILE BLOWING ON A CANDLE STOPS FIRE
For a fire to burn, the thing that is burning has to be hot enough to partially vaporize it. A candle only produces a little heat (the wick concentrates the flame so that the heat produced melts and vaporizes the wax close to the wick) and it is easy to blow that heat away, allowing the wick to cool enough that the wax doesn't vaporize and burn. A bonfire, on the other hand, produces lots of heat. By blowing on it you reduce the heat only slightly (compared to the heat generated by the whole flame) and it doesn't cool enough to put the flame out. On the other hand, the bonfire uses up lots of oxygen. So much that very little oxygen penetrates to the burning wood. Most of the flame is above the wood, though it produces enough heat to decompose and partially vaporize the wood and support more burning. When you fan the flame (or blow on it) you force some oxygen closer to the wood and it burns hotter for a little bit (until the fresh supply of oxygen is depleted).

--from assorted sources on the internet circa 1999 with some content by Ly. Leananshae

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