The world of the paranormal is filled with the strange and unusual, the dark and the light. There are wonders and magic, both good and evil in the realm of magic. When I use the term “magic” I don’t mean the stuff of card tricks, eating a case of apples and a tub of whip cream followed by pooping a fruit salad, I’m talking about real magic, the kind involving spells and such. The world of the paranormal and the occult, as far as magic goes, contains a wide variety of types, hundreds of styles and types, if not thousands, when you take into consideration cultures and societies from around the world…add religious practices and suddenly the possibilities become endless. Most people think of voodoo, hoodoo and Ouija off the top of their heads, but swamp magic, Wicca and others are around. There are just too many to list and more and more are being revived and dabbled in as people are tempting Satan and fighting the devil. We live in dark days. I implore you not to delve into dark arts as Satan is building an army and right now, he and his minions are preying upon the weak. You are most vulnerable at this time, for attachment and possession. This information and what follows are educational and if you do anything with it, you are doing so, at your own risk.
While it isn’t possible to cover all of the topics available under the subject of “real” magic, due to space limitations, what follows in this section are some discussion of Ritual Magic commonly practiced in this day and age:
· Anglo-Saxon Amulets and Curing Stones: Stones, amulets and talismans used in the practical magic, often times associated with death.
· Shamanism: Most often associated with Native American tribes and their rituals. Powerful when performed correctly.
· Rituals in Monuments: Often associated with Druidism. However, can be carried out at American Stonehenge, with Native American sites and other monuments given power through magic, hence the use of crosses and other monuments outdoors.
· Wiccan and Moon Rituals: The rituals of the Wiccan and Norse run strong and are not to be taken lightly, dabbled in or mocked. Altering or opening doors and failing to close them can lead to horrors one cannot imagine.
The attempted use of ritual magic by non-believers, who attempt to dabble in this realm can lead to disaster. Improper reading of a spell or incantation, substituting the wrong item can change the outcome, you can alter what you are doing and cause disastrous results. The fatal flaw in all of this is: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If you are not skilled in the ritual(s) why perform the spells? If you cannot close the doors, why open them? The paranormal is not a game. When you watch it on television you do not see the preparation, the prayers of protection, the protective amulets, the cleansing before and after to ensure the investigators are not putting their souls at risk.
Ceremonial Magic is seen as an extension of Ritual Magic and can be used as both black or dark magic and white or good (Wiccan) magic. Much of the ceremonial magic that exists today has survived because it was passed on through oral history as it was banned in the United Kingdom during the 19th Century. Ceremonial Magic was deemed Witchcraft and anyone practicing it was condemned as a witch, not a healthy thing at this point in the world. After the 1850’s Spiritualism incorporated Ceremonial Magic on both sides of the Atlantic, free of fanaticisms and although it remained shadowy, there was nothing being sold or mass marketed, no far flung secret societies or covens, so society was more welcoming. The realm of spiritualism was folded into ceremonialism and magic, bringing about the common use of Tarot Cards and Scrying. Perhaps the most famous ceremonial magician and the person most credited with advancing modern ceremonial magic into the 20th and 21st century is Aleister Crowley. Crowley, and English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist and mountaineer was also a prolific writer. No dummy, Crowley was educated at Cambridge and it is alleged he was recruited into British Intelligence (Being the equivalent of the CIA, we may never know as this is information that is typically kept secret, unless the party gets authorization to release it. Crowley died December 1, 1947, so we may never know). Crowley is perhaps most famous for his spelling of “magic” as “magick”. Crowley is often associated with satanic worship and wrongly so, as his ceremonial magick is misinterpreted by people who see a pentagram and do not understand that if the point is up, it is Wiccan not Satanic. Failure to understand the definition of a symbol and to cast judgement is failure, period.
There are hundreds of types, if not thousands of types of magic in the paranormal world, such as Chaos Magick, a contemporary magic that was developed in England during the 1970’s, based upon the philosophy of occultist Austin Spare. It is alleged chaos magic is based on attainment of results, symbolic, ritualistic, theology and ornamental…it is very much occult. Sex Magick is another type of magic that is becoming more notorious in society. Ritualistic in nature, Sex Magick is a sexual activity that combines religious and spiritual pursuits. It most often combines the energy of sexual arousal, orgasm and the visualization of the desired result, culminating at climax, harnessed with the sex magician guiding the activity to achieve success. Sexual energy is a potent force that can be harnessed by a skilled sex magician, to transcend or bend reality and achieve one’s desired goal. This practice has been around since the 19th century. Aleister Crowley even emphasized sex as the “supreme magical power”, as taught at The Ohio State University.
Curses, divination, magical thinking (not the kind done by politicians), moon magic, necromancy, and much more, make up the world of magic and magick. During the 20th Century Occultism such as modern Paganism, LaVeyan Satanism (Described as the changes in the Satanic Church under Anton LaVey and his modern Satanic Bible), Wicca and the Wiccan Religion and much of the other things that pass for magic have become popular in movies, music and culture. The opening of doors or portals by practicing these things improperly is dangerous. Diving into the world of magic with a little knowledge leaves one with the ability to improperly open doors and lacking the ability to close them. A door, once opened, invites in things unintended, kind of like telling a crowd at school that your parents are out of town for the weekend. Sure, you thought thirty of your friends might show up but now four hundred people are there, ripping the crap out of the house, the pool, the yard, and everything else. Who are these people? How do you get them to leave? Who the hell is that in your mom’s Victoria Secret collection? Opening a portal is a lot like that except nowhere near as much fun. Someone is going to get scratched, bit, shoved down the stairs and an exorcism is probably going to be needed. Cops? Meh…the least of you worries at this point. There will be real explaining to do, and it is going to be bad.
The paranormal world is a fantastic world of amazing things, wonderful powers, beliefs and creatures. The edges of the mind, the universe and beyond exist for Paranormal Investigators to examine, prove, disprove, explore and using the scientific method, lay naked for all to see. It is a world of belief and disbelief. The best part of the paranormal, for me, is using the greatest in scientific tools to prove things like the existence of things never before thought to exist. As for the various types of magic, some I’ve seen in use, some I’ve seen attempt to be used and fail…does that mean they don’t exist or that the person attempting to use it failed? I don’t know. To me, it means I saw it fail. I’m willing to watch again like I did with space flight…just because I saw once Space Shuttle blow up doesn’t mean the next one would fail, in fact, it didn’t. One cannot label something as a flop just because they saw one failure, we would not have flight if that were the case. I’ve seen spirits. I’ve seen magic. Skeptics are just uninformed optimists.
Bill Turner – Lead Investigator, Apparition Mission
Interesting to say the least