Past Articles
| Sunday, January 30 |
| · | Did Island Tribes Use Ancient Lore to Evade Tsunami? (0) |
| Saturday, January 15 |
| · | The Horned God (545) |
| Sunday, January 09 |
| · | Charms and Chanting (0) |
| Thursday, January 06 |
| · | Evil Eye (0) |
| Tuesday, December 21 |
| · | Scary Santa "Joulupukki" Lurks in Finland's Christmas Past (0) |
| Friday, December 17 |
| · | The Celtic Origins of Holly (0) |
| · | Mythology and Folklore of the Holly (0) |
| Monday, October 18 |
| · | Spells (0) |
| Wednesday, October 13 |
| · | Exorcism ( Part 3 ) Rituale Romanum (0) |
| Wednesday, October 06 |
| · | Exorcism ( Part 2 ) The Rite (0) |
| Thursday, September 30 |
| · | The Laws of Magic ( part three ) (0) |
| Wednesday, September 29 |
| · | Exorcism ( Part 1 ) The understanding (0) |
| Tuesday, September 21 |
| · | The Laws of Magic (part two) (0) |
| Wednesday, September 08 |
| · | The Laws of Magic (part one) (0) |
| Wednesday, March 12 |
| · | ARCHAIC ROMAN SACRIFICE (0) |
| Sunday, August 04 |
| · | Wisdom of the Stones of Anu (0) |
| Wednesday, July 31 |
| · | Lucia - Innana (0) |
| · | The legend of Lubberlu (0) |
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This is Category: Lore
Following are the News Items published under this Category.
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The Kabbalah (also Cabala, Kabala, Qabalah) is system of thought which was originally included in Jewish theosophy, philosophy, science, magic and mysticism. 'Kabbalah' is Hebrew for "that which is received" and refers to a secret oral tradition of teaching which extends from teacher to pupil. Kabbalah, which is the spelling usually preferred by scholars, specifically refers to oral mystical teaching not normally revealed to the general population, but passed on from the adepts to the initiates. The term "Kabbalah" itself was first applied to secret mystical teachings in the eleventh century by Iba Gabriol, a Spanish philosopher, and has since become applied to all Jewish mystical practice. Although the Kabbalah is founded on the Torah, the Jewish scriptures and other sacred writings, it is no intellectual discipline; and the mystic is not to practice it in solitude, but is to employ it to enlighten humanity. The Kabbalist seeks two things: an union with God while maintaining a social, family, and communal life within the framework of traditional Judaism. Those who have adopted the Kabbalistic teachings have modified these latter aims. In legend God taught the Kabbalah to some angels, who in turn after the Fall taught it to Adam. The Kabbalah was to help humankind to return to God. It then passed to Noah, to Abraham and Moses. Moses included the first four books of the Pentateuch, leaving out Deuteronomy, in the Kabbalah before he initiated seventy Elders into it. The Elders initiated others into it. It is thought that David and Solomon were Kabbalistic adapts. Eventually the oral tradition ended and the knowledge was written down. Many of the basic ideas and principles found in the Kabbalah are also found in Gnosticism because both were in the Eastern Mediterranean near the time of Christ. Both attach an importance to knowledge, called the 'gnosis' or the knowledge of God. This knowledge does not come from rational thinking but is inspired by God. As in Gnosticism, sin is not considered to be wrong doing but ignorance which separates humankind from God. The knowledge, specifically the 'gnosis', unites humankind to God--to know God is to be God. Those sharing this 'gnosis' are the elect; they are the enlightened ones who share the knowledge of God, although they may not lead perfect lives...
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The arrival of the spring equinox on Sunday will cue Persians to party. Far from a gardening rite, the equilibrium of day and night marks the start of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. The holiday is the most revered celebration in the greater Persian world. (Persia includes the countries of Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and portions of western China and northern Iraq.) "[Nowruz] is a celebration of the renewal of nature after the slumber of winter, so to speak, and along with it the human response to that awakening of the Earth," said Mahnaz Afkhami, director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies in Bethesda, Maryland. The Persian New Year has been celebrated for at least 3,000 years. Its roots stretch back to Zoroastrianism, one of the world's oldest religions. While Nowruz customs and traditions have evolved with time, the spirit of Nowruz remains the same, Afkhami said. David Rahni, a professor at Pace University, helps organize the Persian Iranian Parade in New York City. Now in its second year, the parade, which will be held this Sunday, celebrates the contributions of Iranian Americans. Rahni said Nowruz is the common thread uniting religions and nationalities in the Persian world and beyond. "If there's one major annual celebration that is universally commemorated by them all, it is indeed Nowruz," he said. For Persians around the world, Nowruz celebrations began on Tuesday night marking what's known as Wednesday Eve (think Christmas and Christmas Eve). They will continue until April 1, the 13th day of spring. On the last Tuesday night of the old year, Persians typically gather around bonfires to celebrate Chahar Shanbeh Suri, a celebratory ritual of the quest for enlightenment, health, and happiness in the year ahead. Celebrants jump over fires as they chant the Persian phrase, "Give me your beautiful red color/Take back my sickly pallor." "This ritual is supposed to clean the body of illness, bad feelings, or unhealthy things that might be in the body—getting rid of that and picking up the warmth, the glow, of the fire," Afkhami, the Foundation for Iranian Studies director, said. On the first day of spring, Nowruz day, families gather around a table set with the Haft seen arrangement of seven items. Each item begins with the letter s in Persian and symbolizes the hoped for happiness, abundance, and health in the New Year...
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The Pythagorean mystics worshipped the pentacle or pentagram, a pentacle which is written or drawn, because it was based on the symbol of the Goddess Kore, frequently thought represented by the apple core. The mystics called this symbol Pentalpha, the birth-letter interlaced five times. The symbol meant "life" or "health." The five-point star has also been known as the star of Isis, or of Isis' underground twin Nephthys. To the Egyptians the star represented the underground womb. The pentacle itself is usually made of stone or wood, having a five-pointed star inscribed on it. In most Pagan and Witchcraft traditions it symbolizes the element Earth. The pentacle is frequently used as a magickal plate upon which objects are placed to be magically charged, or presented as ritual objects and offerings. The pentagram, the five-pointed star image with its lines often interlaced, is typically enclosed within a circle; and thus, in most traditions, is a symbol of protection. The star is upright, having the single point on top, the ascended position. The top point represents true spirit; or the Goddess, the other four points symbolize the elements of creation: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The star, as a whole, symbolizes the spirit bringing the elements into natural harmony, the opposite of chaos; a concept taught by Empedocles, ca. 475 BC. The symbol of Man the Microcosm of the Hermetic magicians was based on the pentacle. The pentacle represents the macrocosm with the male figure representing the cosmos within it. His feet, hands and head touch each of the points with his genitals located exactly in the center. "This image is related to Fimicus Maternus's remark that man is a microcosm ruled by `the five stars.'" The circle surrounding the star also represents the safe place in which the Pagan/Witch or magician can work. The circle symbolizes a binding; in this instance, binding evil away from the wearer. Most pentacles used in modern witchcraft and magic are made of silver, the metal of the moon and psychic powers. Some, however, are made of gold, the metal of power and energy. Pentacles are use to consecrate the magic circle, to ground energy and serve food; pentacles used for this latter function are usually round disks made of clay or wax...
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The very ancient belief that certain people were empowered with the magical ability to change themselves and others at will into other life forms such as other human beings, animals, birds and insects. Others, such as those believing in ancient Druidism, considered metamorphosis a part of reincarnation. Each reincarnation was considered to be a learning experience for the spirit to learn new knowledge. This was accompanied by the belief that death is not permanent, but only the exit from one life to enter the next. The practice of shamanism contain metamorphic characteristics. The practitioners exist in two worlds: the awake or conscious world, and the dream or unconscious world. To enter into the latter world the practitioner enters a trance. Some modern theorists think the Celts, and especially the Druids practiced some form of shamanism. It is fairly well agreed that they practiced a form of sexual magic. This may have put them into an unconscious state. Others claim this Celtic shamanism may have spurred the development of European sorcery and witchcraft. There are many reasons for the practice of shamanism, but one of the most common is for the healing of the sick. A sick person comes to a shaman often to discover the cause of his illness. To discover this cause the shaman enters a shamanistic trance in which he can see and do things which he is not able to do in the world of reality. Often, it is said, the shaman enters the lower world beneath the earth by slipping through a hole within the earth. Once in this subterranean world his shamanistic powers quicken. Also, it is here that he meets what is known as his guardian spirit and spirit helpers who guide him to find the cause and cure of his patient's illness. In the shamanistic world he can shape-shift into other forms, even into the spirits themselves. Once his mission has been accomplished, the shaman returns to the real world. Some shamans also claim to have ridden up into the sky in spirit boats or astride the spirits of sanctified horses...
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The Tarot as originally created stemmed from life as it was experienced during a certain historical period - the Rennaisance. Since that time, the distance between the original purpose of the Tarot as it was created, and what it has evolved into today, continues to diverge. During the course of this short article, I will attempt to bridge that span so as to give the reader a comprehensive view of this fascinating card game. Much speculation exists as to the origins of the Tarot. Popular myths and rumors abound of their beginnings in ancient Egypt or with the Romanian Gypsies. However, actual history shows a somewhat different story. The earliest record of a deck of cards carrying tarot symbology can be traced back to Northern Italy, where for the first few centuries they were used as a parlor diversion called "Cartes de Trionfi". According to tarot historians Ronald Decker, Thierry Depaulis and Michael Dummett ("A Wicked Pack of Cards"), the earliest surviving set of tarot cards is the few remaining hand-painted cards created in approximately 1441 for the court of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan. A hundred years prior to this, packs of 52 playing cards bearing the suit symbols of Cups, Coins, Swords and Polo-Sticks could be found in Islamic countries, from whence they migrated into Europe via the British. It was only with the addition of the 22 trump cards sometime after the 18th Century that the pack came to resemble what we now recognize as the modern Tarot deck. Speculation about the Egyptian origins of the Tarot springs almost exclusively from the conclusions and assertions of one person - Antoine Court de Gebelin, a Protestant pastor born in 1695. Caught up in a period of wide-spread fervor over the mystery of all things Egyptian, Court de Gebelin's essay in his work "Monde primitif" says that he discovered this mysterious work while visiting a Lady acquaintance occupied in playing with the game of "Tarots." Within a short time (15 minutes, the essay declares) he prounouced them to be a mysterious book of knowledge of Egyptian origins which had survived the ravages of time. Similar conclusions were drawn in another essay by Court de Gebelin's peer Comte de Mellet. The belief that the Tarot originated with the Gypsies sprung from the same fount of speculation based on the mistaken idea that the Gypsies originally came from Egypt. Despite the lack of hard evidence as to the "mystical" origins of the Tarot, the symbology of the tarot can be traced to the ancient Greeks as well as to the myths and legends of other ancient cultures. From these convergent and divergent points, a school of thought developed that compared the cards to the intricate Judaic system of Qabalah and the Tree of Life, an important component of the early development of modern hermetic magickal systems, developing further into the founding of the Order of the Golden Dawn and Freemasonry. Early hermetic Tarot scholars, including Papus, MacGregor Mathers, Eliphas Levi, Aleister Crowley, and Arthur E. Waite contributed vastly to the body of mystical knowledge which comprises the basis of modern Tarot - Crowley and Waite being the creators of the two most popular systems extant today - the "Thoth" and "Rider-Waite" decks (respectively). While Crowley's Thoth deck developed to incorporate Qabalistic theory along the lines of the developing OTO ("Ordo Templi Orientis") and Golden Dawn systems, A.E. Waite's interpretation of the Tarot stands today virtually as the standard by which all Tarot decks are judged. Prior to this, the minor arcana (or "pip" cards) of the Tarot were illustrated with various geometric arrangements of the four suit symbols - Cups, Swords, Batons and Coins. With the aid of artist Pamela Coleman-Smith, Waite incorporated scenes, symbols and imagery into the pip cards, which, although continuing to be of hermetic/qabalistic interpretation, assigned a more graphic meaning to the cards, bringing them within a more accessible reach to the general public, or at least those with an interest in the occult. In the process, he also changed the suits of Batons to Wands and Coins to Pentacles to realign them with his ideas about their connection to the magickal disciplines. Crowley's deck, oriented more toward the hermetic tradition, continued with the geometric suit design of the pips. However, his "Book of Thoth" written as an explanatory text for the deck, is considered basic required reading by Tarot authorities...
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