Another
sample of a chapter from "Liber Aelph":
FAERIEOSIS:
ON RAISING ONE’S OWN TO BE THEIR TRUE S’ELVES
As we said, the dominators tend to dominate everyone around them, including
their spouses, including, sometimes particularly, their own children.
This is why powerful leaders in history often raise weak children and
why, therefore, hereditary rule so often goes astray. Often the dominators
actually want what they feel to be the best for their children, they
want to toughen them up, make them over in their own image so they will
be like they are, ready to master the world as they know it. If they
could, they would take over their children’s bodies in order to
live and rule forever.
Naturally, children need guidance, yet Dear Ones, for elves this most
often means helping our children learn to think and decide for their
own s’elves, encouraging their particular interests whatever they
might be and their creativity therein. Helping them become aware of
their own feelings as well as their feeling connection to others, while
at the same time aiding them to learn to protect thems’elves from
the manipulations of the dominators without losing their compassion
for others.
So it is that we elves don’t raise our children to be elves in
particular, but to decide for thems’elves what spiritual path or
life work most attracts them. The fact that when they are very young
this often changes on a regular basis does not faze us either. We encourage
every positive interest and do our best to support it in every way we
can.
It is good to remember, Beloved Ones, if you have children, and some
of you will surely do so, even those of you who have determined this
world may not be fit to bring children into it, whatever you tell your
children, or attempt to teach them, that the greatest lessons they learn
from us are always taught by example and it matters less what we say
in the long run, and so much more what we do.
Our job as parents, our quest, our duty is one of “Faerieosis”,
of bringing out the elf or faerie, magical being that exist in all or
most of us, surely in our own magical children. They may not call thems’elves
elves or faeries, or think in that way, but if they are happy, compassionate,
creative beings than that is surely elven enough for us whatever they
choose to call thems’elves and we trust, dear Ones, that it will
be enough for you as well. Our magic is not to mold them into our own
image of them, but to help them give birth to their own essential spirits
in whatever way that they conceive; understanding that this is a continuous
and progressive evolutionary path and that the way they manifest this
day may very well change, in fact surely will do so, as they evolve
and progress as spirits. Thus we don’t attempt to pin them down
to one thing or another, nor chide them for their passing fancies, rather
we attempt to encourage them always to integrate their interests and
their accumulated knowledge so that nothing is ever lost even when they’ve
let an interest go, because we know they have gained from their experience.
Thus don’t look for or encourage your wee ones, at whatever age,
to merely repeat what you tell them back to you. You might as well talk
to the mirror if that is what you desire. Rather ever hope that they
will prove to be a surprise to you, a fresh breeze to inspire your creativity,
seeing the world with new eyes and widening your own circle of understanding
thereby.
Of course, when they are very small you will need to protect them from
some things, need to bar them from doing things that will lead to certain
or likely tragedy, but always explain your reasons for doing so, for
in this way you teach them to think and to reason. If you, like the
dominators, merely rely upon your authority based on power-over them
by telling them, as is so common, “because I said so,” that
only teaches them to obey or dominate, but not to reason and we elves
are, by far and away, the most reasonable people on the Earth.
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Sample
writing of chapters from "Liber Aelph":
HEDGEWITCHERY:
ON THE HIDDEN MAGICS
As we’ve
told you, Blessed Ones, all beings, all spirits are magicians even though
most do not think in this fashion or acknowledge what they do as magic.
What is magic? It is using the power of one’s will to attain what
one desires, to change one’s world, life and circumstances, and
every being who wills, and thus seeks to succeed or direct hir life,
therefore does magic.
For most, however, these are quite simple magics, often Unconscious
Magics and most often based upon a superstitious attribution of relationship,
which is to say the connection between the fetish or magical formula
and the effect of using or enacting these magical acts would fail to
met the test of scientific repeatability. This tendency to superstitious
magic is deep in our history and hales back to a time before the creation
of religion when all beings were shamans (see Fraser’s introduction
to The Golden Bough). This tendency is recapitulated, as Heckle theorized
it would be, in one of the developmental stages of early childhood in
the period that Jean Piaget referred to as Magical Thinking, although
what he really meant was superstitious thinking or superstitious and
thus erroneous attribution between cause and effect.
While it is true that unconscious magicians do superstitious magic whose
attributions fail to meet scientific criteria of repeatability this
does not mean that it is not magic, or that it is totally ineffectual.
It may be true that there is no direct link between their lucky shirt,
earring or doing or not doing (taboo) certain things and the result
they desire, the significance of these acts of magic is not in the things
thems’elves but in the positive thinking that they create. They
are placebo magics intended to get the mind, a most powerful magical
tool, thinking in the right direction. Positive thinking may not have
absolute scientific results in the way that mixing certain chemicals
together in the right way and proportions always produces the same results,
it has none-the-less been clearly demonstrated that it is an effective
psychological tool for improving one’s chances of success in life
and society and is thus, once again, clearly an act of magic.
This is the same magic, in effect, that is attached to faith and prayer
or basic Theurgy, which is the invocation through ritual and prayer
of a particular god-form, whether it be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh,
Hindu or whatever. The only difference is that in giving up one’s
own sense of power, one’s ability to create magic, one places one’s
fate in beings one assumes to be more powerful or all powerful. Here
one is asking someone else, one’s god, to do the magic for one.
This strategy developed in the course of evolution as specialization
of tasks developed and select individuals became shamans apart from
society and then became priests, etc. as religion was instituted. Notice
that the scientific repeatability of the effectively of prayer and church
ritual, religious taboo and required devotions is no more to be seen
then wearing one’s lucky tie, but the positive aspect of faith
and a sense of connection to spirit is just as valid as placebo magick
when the faith is real.
Of course, we elves are not inclined generally to pray to any being,
but we do try to maintain cordial relations with all spirits on every
level of evolutionary development both those who are less advanced than
we and those much more so. We make friends with everyone who is open
to our friendship and we are loyal to all those who reciprocate that
loyalty whether they be gods or homeless mutterers of esoteric evocations.
But, in general, we don’t worship any of them, nor do we have specific
rituals or taboos or prescribed or proscribed behaviors beyond those
that we’ve created for a particular occasion or that we have discovered
have been productive of magic over time. We elves are ever magicians
and thus we, while understanding we are not all powerful, none-the-less,
accept primary responsibility for our own lives, which is to say our
own actions/magics and the effects they create.
ELFIN
MAGIC:
ON MAGIC AND SCIENCE
There are those who believe there is a conflict between Magic and Science,
between Intuition and Reason, but these apparent conflicts, like so
many in the world, are false and are ultimately the work of the dark
spells that seek to keep us all separate and squabbling with each other.
We could despise the dark wizards who promulgate these dark spells but
it is important to understand that they are even more entrapped by them
than those who foolishly believe them. We are not talking about evil
people but individuals who aspire beyond what their current level of
magical development and evolutionary progress entitles them and who
have meddled with forces they don’t as yet understand nor have
truly mastered. We should have concern, naturally, for children who
play with fire, for we know where that can lead, but it is unwise to
hate them for a natural interest. It’s not that we don’t want
our children to master the use of fire, but to wait until they can do
so safely and responsibly. So, too, the urge to rise above one’s
proficiency in magic and play with forces one hasn’t mastered is
also natural, but equally dangerous.
This idea of the spirit who has unnaturally risen above hir station
is at the heart of the metaphor of Satan rebelling against God, of Melkor/Morgoth
rebelling against Illuvatar in Tolkien’s work and of the Receptive
attempting to usurp the place of the Creative in the I Ching. This is
not, particularly in the case of the I Ching, a story of Evil versus
Good, but of evil that results from a spirit getting ahead of itself
and instead of cooperating with Evolution and the course of Natural
Development attempts to by-pass the natural order. They have strayed
from their true path and in doing so have created great evil, or disease,
or disorder. It does us no good to hate such as these, but we of necessity
must act to urge them back into their proper place. Their aspiration
toward mastery over their own world is natural, however, as so often
happens those who are unable to master themselves inwardly, attempt
to master the world outwardly, and in doing so interfere with the true
paths of others.
The lesson here, Beloveds, is that each of us must first and foremost
deal with our own spirit and as it is said, set our own house in order,
before attempting to organize everyone else’s.
We elves are perhaps the most intuitive and reasonable/reasoning people.
We are the most magically scientific folk and we find no conflict between
our magic and our science, for our magic is based, as it must be, on
the laws of Nature, which science ever seeks to observe and understand,
thus our science supports our magic.
We reason on all things, but reasoning requires facts and like all scientists
once we’ve reached the limit of our facts we explore further with
our intuition, supposition and theoretical and hypothetical explorations.
We are not, however, like many scientists of the current era, materialists.
We do not believe that there is only one way for things to be, only
one dimension in the Universe. We are well aware that while we may be
currently encumbered by the restraints of a particular dimension that
other possibilities exist even if we can’t, depending on our level
of magical development and initiation, access them as yet.
Beings who exist in only one dimension, cannot really or fully understand
two-dimensional beings; or two-dimensional beings, those of three dimensions;
or three-dimensional beings those of the fourth dimension and so forth.
So, too, we here on Earth are limited mostly by Newton’s laws,
which are surpassed in Space by Einstein’s laws and so on. We elves
are well aware that every dimension has its limits that can be superseded
by the laws of a more encompassing dimension. The laws of Magic may
seem irrational to some but they are often functioning on the principles
of higher dimensions. Thus Faerie being closer to the Source, the Magic,
is a more encompassing dimension and therefore its laws may at times
supersede those of this mundane world. Alas, to utilize those laws,
to set those powers in motion requires us as individuals, as spirits,
as elves to access those dimensions within our own beings. To use Elfin
magic in this world requires that we become ever more attuned to our
true elfin natures. Our elfin magic, which seems impossible to most
folks, is perfectly in keeping with the laws of Nature, only higher
laws, more profound principles than most even imagine exist.
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