Those of you reading this probably know that I have been attending the annual Pantheacon convention in San Jose, California, for the past few years. I think it's important to understand the purpose of conventions and festivals like Pantheacon that are open to participation and the sharing of ideas and practices of all attendees. They give teachers and authors, groups and individuals, a chance to share ideas and practices. They give attendees a chance to learn in workshops and participate in rituals they might not otherwise be able to experience. So let's say you are the head of an occult order I'll call "Joe's Crimson Sunset." If you wanted to have a private meeting with other members of

You're Going the Wrong Way! I've been a certified clinical hypnotherapist for more than a dozen years. I've been trained and certified in several specialties, from teaching self-hypnosis to past life regression therapy and parts therapy. I'm also certified to teach hypnosis so that people who take trainings with me will be certified by the American Board of Hypnotherapy. What I want to share is that most people who get into hypnosis end up spending their time on the wrong thing. They're going the wrong way. Hypnosis is a fascinating topic and can be used to alter consciousness for magickal work. It's powerful and it works. Unfortunately, most people who try it end up failing. This is

Aleister Crowley thought that developing the "magickal memory" was an important part of magickal training. The magickal memory is the ability to recall past lives. In Magick Without Tears, chapter 37, he points out that one of the values of remembering past lives is that it helps you overcome a fear of physical death. In Liber ThIShARB he goes into methods for remembering past lives, but for a different reason. Here, there is far more than merely overcoming the fear of the inevitable. Rather, remembering past lives has the goal of seeing a thread that unites all of the past lives and how those lives apply to your current life: "let him apply them [memories] to his own career, forging the

It's been an amazing two-and-a-half days at Pantheacon! I spent Saturday rehearsing for my workshops later in the day. Then I went to the exclusive Llewellyn party. Thanks to Elysia for setting it up. I had a great chance to meet and greet long-time friends and meet some new Llewellyn authors. Unfortunately, the room was rather dark and since my camera didn't have a flash, the pics didn't come out. Sorry. Then I gave my first workshop: why the LBRP (Lesser Banishing ritual of the Pentagram) matters. I presented the idea that magick requires three things: The ability to raise or generate magickal energy (both from interior and exterior sources)* The ability to manipulate the