In my previous posts in this series, located here and here, I gave links to my extensive series of posts on the LBRP and described why The Middle Pillar is a valuable ritual and what this rite does. If you haven't read them (and preferably, regularly practiced the LBRP), I suggest you review them, now. In this post, I'm going to describe the basic ritual and how to perform it. Before starting this ritual, however, you should first calm yourself, focus on what you're doing, and relax. One way to do this is with the Relaxation Ritual which I described in Modern Magick. Follow this with the LBRP. As part of this, during the first and second repetitions of the Kabalistic Cross, you visualize

Recently, I've begun to think that maybe the Mayans—or more accurately, some interpreters of the Mayan calendar—were right. I've seen a great deal of personal loss this year. Musically, I learned that a guitarist I had played with had died. Before we worked together he had played with the early group, The Music Machine, and had one hit, "Talk, Talk." Later, he had played with Ike and Tina Turner, and claimed to me that it was he who had convinced Ike to play "Proud Mary." More recently, the far-better known Jon Lord, keyboard player for the original Deep Purple, passed on. His playing had greatly influenced my own. More personally, several people, including relatives, have passed on

This weekend is going to be very busy for me. I hope to see lots of Southern California people at these events: Antelope Valley Pagan Pride Day Saturday, October 20 10:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. LOCATION: George Lane Park in Quartz Hill Just north of Los Angeles, CA Antelope Valley Pagan Pride Day This is going to be a great day with lots of family activities. It’s a smaller event and you’ll have a chance to meet and get to know new friends. There are free workshops on Magic Squares, Easy and Powerful Spellcrafting, Divination, a Guided Meditation to help you connect with your Inner Warrior, an Introduction to Druidry, and lots of special activities for kids. AVPPD is free, but

In Part 1 of this series, I described why the Middle Pillar Ritual matters. The basic concept is that it's a "step up" from the traditional bedrock magickal skills of the LBRP. But what, specifically, does this mean? When you look at the LBRP, there are two important energetic concepts: raising/generating energy and directing it outside of yourself to empower the visualized pentagrams. I've had people report amazing phenomena just from this work alone. With the Middle Pillar, we turn that energy "in." As you note, I put the word "in" within quotation marks. This is because most people, when considering bringing something (such as magickal energy) into ourselves, generally think that