I read an interesting blog post by Leigh-Ann Anderson called Choosing a Magickal Name. It give some interesting ideas on how to choose a magickal name, but it doesn't approach the topic historically. Magickal Names in the Past Anciently, there's no evidence that people used magickal names. While this may be because magickal and mundane lives were one and the same, I'm more inclined to believe that they simply weren't needed. The need for a magickal name developed as the military might of the Christian Church expanded. If you were caught doing magick, you could be imprisoned, tortured, or killed…but not before you revealed the names of your "co-conspirators." So people would take on

This is my 144th posting to this blog. You can read it for free. On Saturday, August 21, 9:00 p.m. Central Time, I'll be on the Pagans Tonight webcast. You can listen for free. On Thursday, September 2, 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, I'll be on the combined webcast of Black Cat Lounge & Stirring the Cauldron. You can listen for free. On Sunday, September 11, I'll be at the San Diego Pagan Pride event, and will give a workshop. You can attend for free and hear my workshop for free (although please consider bringing a non-perishable food item as a donation). On Sunday, September 26, I'll be at the Los Angeles and Orange Country Pagan Pride event, and will give a workshop. You can

By now, you probably know of the passing of a true giant, Phillip Emmons Isaac Bonewits. I did not know Isaac all that well, be we did spend many hours together at various festivals and I will always consider it an honor that he called me his friend. Actually, I knew Isaac long before I met him. He graduated from UC Berkeley in 1970 with a degree in magic and thaumaturgy, the only person to ever receive such a degree from an accredited university. The following year he published Real Magic. It was something incredibly new. Until that time, books on magick had primarily been either the mocking and debunking, or the repetition of historical texts. In this book, Isaac revealed his

In 1925, T.S. Elliot wrote a poem that is considered a classic, The Hollow Men. It's last two lines are the most quoted: This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. You may not have noticed it, but one of the greatest attempts to terrorize you has officially ended. On August 10, 2010, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan, said that the world pandemic of Swine Flu, also known as the H1N1 virus, "has largely run its course… [and we] are now moving into the post-pandemic period." Many people thought this illness was going to decimate the world. But it has left with barely a whimper. The story above didn't even make the front