In my first blog post I alluded to the fact about our Coven members having certain innate advantages in differing aspects of practice. For example, I have yet to see Tay stumped within the Herbal arts. If she doesn't know if off the top of her head, she will go full metal Virgo until she reaches a qualifiable response to any ailment.
She's good like that that.
Or show her any crystal or gemstone and the odds will be in your favor that she will know not only exactly what it is but where it is typically found and what it is typically used for in a metaphysical fashion. She might even throw you a bonus and give you the geological properties and the mohs hardness scale figures... never know.
Me, I'm lucky if I have 20 gemstones committed to memory but I'm trying and working hard to learn more. I had never really worked with them in my personal practice much but on further study (thanks Cornelius) and some beginning use and incorporation - I now recognize the validity. Check Agrippa if you believe crystal and stone to be nothing but fluff. They aren't.
Herbs.. I do what she tells me to do. I have and continue to use a select few herbs for practice but my repertoire pales in comparison to that of an actual herbalist. I have made it a rule to never piss off the herbalist... it's a good plan.
My meager (in comparison) forte seems to be as a channel and rites of conjuration. The former was something I did not want and feared for a long time in practice as I lacked any control over it and it seemed to have only two speeds off or full stuck throttle down a canyon road and right off the cliff...
I won't speak for her but let's just say I am nowhere near as blessed/cursed with second sight as she is. This is why I drive at night - she sees entirely too much foot traffic in the road that isn't there for the rest of us.
No - mine is an internal issue. The first time this happened to this degree; I was around fourteen. It was a frightening experience that would likely make for an exceptional scene in any b-movie horror flick. I won't go into too much detail due to the potential trigger response - suffice it to say I was aware 'somewhat' of the goings-on but absolutely not in control of bodily function or movement which nearly ended in tragedy. Not a proud moment and one that should have landed me in years of therapy (I tried once.. scared her when I told the story and never went back). To this day I do not know what entity came in and took the wheel (wasn't Jesus) but it was 100% malevolent and there was nothing happy, shiny or comforting about its presence. I could feel my legs walking, my arms moving but zero control until it took its leave.
This wasn't something I learned from someone. It was not something I saw in a movie or read in a book. This happened on an absolutely normal day with absolutely nothing occurring that might have triggered or influenced it. I didn't suffer from anything like this before - it was completely random and totally out of the blue.
I do remember it's power - and it was humbling while also being terrifying.
Years later and well after my year and a day initiation - we began to experiment with the channel. This time initiated willingly and with a strong second and sometimes a third to break the trance. Tay would break out her handy dandy legal pad and take annotation during the trance event of everything I said whether it was gibberish or not. For years - I felt an incredibly urgent need to let them talk and I always fought it off. Was I nuts? Debatable. The urge was there though as if dozens were knocking on an ethereal door all hogging the video doorbell.
A lot of times it ended in failure. Nothing happened and I began to journey down the road of self-doubt and it was all in my head, overactive imagination - all the things. Then I would recall the above incident and that was most definitely not my imagination but a fully awakened nightmare.
So why on Earth would I want to recreate it? To Dare that's why. Because if they were going to talk through me it would be on my terms and under strictly controlled conditions with Tay present who was well practiced on banishment even in those early days.
We began to time the trance session attempts with auspicious days and the cycles of the moon - this didn't have the desired effect either.
Our next attempt was to await that doorbell moment - when 'they' wanted to speak. It was like having a spiritual crash cart team on-standby.
This began to have a modicum of success.
Words would form though it sounded like gibberish a lot. Akin to one of those backwoods talkin' in tongues prayer meetin's you see all over the South. Slowly over time the gibberish began to form cohesive sentences. Many times the gibberish Tay would look up and it would be Latin, at times older, dead languages. A lot of the time - it would not make any sense referencing obscure numbers, names, phrases and/or dates that we had no idea if it meant anything or not.
I began to have trance events while sleeping and was speaking in those dead languages while completely asleep. She would wake me to break the channel.
The notes from those events are somewhere around here I'm sure, though we have moved at least four times and through three states since those days so who knows what box in the attic they are in. If I ever find them, it will be good to look them over.
There has been one recent channel in the past year where the spirit did name itself (Sitri) and did fully communicate (in English). it was also an exceedingly powerful presence but it was not terror this time. It was weight. I felt as if I was vertically shackled and pushed tightly in the fetal position across a large stone. The crux of the event was in reference to speaking of a broken meridian line that connected the right ankle through the left knee and ended at the right shoulder. I would feel the pressure in each area as it was explained. As this spirit is documented in the grimoires as their principle role was to cause people to get naked - this was an interesting sidebar of information. What the hell do meridians have to do with that? No idea.
Perhaps the realm of spirits has to multi-task too... in any case - it was a memorable event - though I believe purposely not frightening. It just was. Nothing more.
In terms of other practitioner's who seem to have similar occurrences'; I have witnessed at least one skilled trance channeler since then and we have hosted her at the store twice so far. Her control is outstanding and her authenticity I still believe to be quite true.
As with any subject there are a plethora of fakes and side-show acts. She is not one of them. To elaborate - on her first event at the store she already had a room full of participants in the event space settling in just prior to the start time. Two last minute potential attendees arrived and took seats. She had no prior knowledge of them, had never met them before, no possible way to research and have their information - the only option, still a stretch.. might be she was just good at cold reading right? Yeah.. no.
The event began with everyone placing their name and question/s on a slip of paper which was placed into a bowl and mixed up. I was then asked to draw a random slip of paper which I did without looking at the bowl. The first name was one of the last minute additions. I read off the name. Instantly and while in full trance she called the participant by a pet name that her grandfather had called her when she was a child. It wasn't a series of questions that arrived to this info. There were no questions, no fishing for information - only the very personal and known only to her, unusual pet name of endearment delivered with a stark immediacy.
Shock ensued, a few tears and when I looked at the medium - her eyes were slammed shut, face slightly distorted and I could feel the presence of her familiar spirits without question.
Small things, pet names - but what a powerful moment that was.
If you have the opportunity next time she is in town, I highly recommend sitting in for this event. Her poise and absolute control of the channel is remarkable. I know how difficult that can be and can appreciate the work that goes in.
Those who know me, know my skeptic hand is strong and I will call bullshit in a hot second. To date - I have but one explanation for her accuracy, and that is; she is a legitimate and skilled trance-channeler. This was but a single example among many in that event alone.
Myself, I chose to bury my mind into things it could obsess over and bide time to avoid the crowd at the esoteric doorway banging to be heard. When books couldn't block it, I would turn to video games and played them for years. The highly addictive (and fun) world of MMORPG's where OCD people like me could dive into the wonderful world of min/maxing characters to the finest detail. It became an obsession and it blocked the spirit world during my down time. It became a bubble.
At the time, I needed it. My position was a highly visible corporate role and I had to ensure I had an iron grip on anything esoteric slipping through. The role I was in like most corporate gigs had expanded repeatedly over the years where I felt like I was constantly adding new plates to spin on new sticks. So many job duties added; as people left the company their duties would be passed to me sans the extra pay of course! In any case, this is normal in that world where productivity and deliverables matter more than the human capacity to perform multiple roles for a singular role's pay.
So, I buried it, blocked it - most of what little down time I had was absorbed by burying myself in the game. I could not afford the door knockers right now as my phone could ring at any moment and I would have to run to the office and jump into the corporate realm on short notice with an immediate solution & execution to any problem that arose.
Gaming continued to be my crutch.. my bubble even after I left the corporate world to be at the store full-time. It was fun and oh my do I adore PVP in any form. It was though.. a crutch.
During a struggle with getting a computer to install a game correctly, I paused and looked at the frustration of it all, the endless work I was doing to correct it.. all the time I had poured into figuring out the issue.. when I had the epiphany. The realization of what this obsession actually was, what it was doing to me spiritually and that I no longer needed that bubble as I was no longer playing a reverse Clark Kent role - I was me again.. just me.. not corporate me - that I made the decision to quit gaming 'cold-turkey'.
I returned to my calm nights, I returned to my Agrippa and the hundreds of books waiting on me to read.. I began to study again in earnest and spirit has also began its return.
Purpose becomes clear when the distractions are taken away. That purpose being to now be of-service. To the practitioners, to the seekers, to those like me that were wandering in darkness and seeking the light.
We are blessed with the opportunity to meet so many different practitioners of so many different traditions every day. I cannot express accurately just how much the people mean to me that come through that door. It's a rare opportunity to be able to meet and get to know the myriad of paths and practice and most of all to know we are not alone and neither are you.
John
PS - Bonus points if you know the source of the title quote!