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Wednesday 31 January 2007

Andersons Feri Tradition

Andersons Feri Tradition Cover Feri is a pre-Gardnerian initiatory witchcraft tradition founded in the United States by Victor and Cora Anderson. Victor was a member of the Harpy coven, a pre-Gardnerian witchcraft group practicing during the 1920s and ’30s in southern Oregon. Cora was born in rural Alabama, and her family were known to practice folk-magic, her grandfather being a cunning man and her aunt a herbalist and midwife. Shortly after their marriage in 1944, Victor initiated Cora and the foundations of the Feri tradition began. They started teaching as early as the 1950s. The tradition was originally called Vicia (pronounced as in Italian: vee-chyah not related to the word vecchia, but to vitka), was then called Pictish (not to be confused with Scottish reconstructionism or Picti-Wicca), and has also gone through the various spellings of Feri (Fairy, Faery, Faerie). The Feri tradition is essentially an oral tradition based on the unique combination of indigenous folk religions, Vodou and hoodoo practices, American folk-magic, fairy-faith, shamanism, and witchcraft. While outsiders may view this as eclecticism, Victor saw it as incorporating parts of his cultural heritage, focusing on the similarities instead of the differences.

Working with his wife Cora, the two of them initiated some famous personalities including Starhawk and Gwydion Pendderwen, as well as many others, with the tradition expanding and evolving over the course of time. The Andersons continued teaching until Victor’s death on September 20th of 2001 and Cora’s passing seven years later on Beltaine of 2008.

“Feri is an oral tradition with no canonical book of rituals and lore. It also places a high value on poetic creativity and individual exploration. This has naturally led to variations between the practices of different lines.” (Phoenix Willow, “The Feri Tradition“)

In 1994 on their 50th wedding anniversary Cora published her labour of love, Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition. Victor’s poetry was published in two books: Thorns of the Blood Rose, originally in 1970, and Lilith’s Garden, posthumously in 2005. His book Etheric Anatomy: The Three Selves and Astral Travel was published by Acorn Guild Press in 2004.

Books in PDF format to read:

Michael Night Sky - Oberon Zell Interview A Wizard Vision
Marcus Cordey - Magical Theory And Tradition
John Moore - A Modern Master Extract
Bylaws - Unicorn Tradition Of Wicca
Franceska De Grandis - Goddess Initiation

Thursday 11 January 2007

The Alchemy Of Abundance Practical Money Magic

The Alchemy Of Abundance Practical Money Magic Cover

Book: The Alchemy Of Abundance Practical Money Magic by Lisa Mcsherry

Lisa McSherry is the author of Magickal Connections and The Virtual Pagan. The owner of Facing North.

Actively explore your feelings about, and history with, money, finances and abundance. You can do this utilizing lucid dreaming, or by creating guided visualizations that reveal unconscious attitudes. The technique that helped me most has been writing a money autobiography. I spent three months writing about all of my dealings with money, from childhood until the present. From childhood gifts (given and received) to being the “poor girl” in young adulthood, right up to my current spending habits, I documented everything I could remember about how I interact with money.

This exercise taught me that money was a key element in my habitual self-depreciation — and, further, that this attitude literally kept me poor. Spending the time to journal it all and then reading over the narrative was a painful shock, but it forced me to start making changes in those negative attitudes. One of the most important things I did was evaluate my real worth to my employer and ask for a huge raise — which I got! I taught myself to eliminate negative self-talk like, “I’ll never make more than X dollars a year” or “I’ll never have enough money to go to Europe.” Instead of visualizing what I couldn’t have, I began to spend time visualizing what I would do with all of the abundance that was going to manifest. My journals detailed my “perfect” house and “dream” trips to far-away places. Many of those items I’ve already crossed off, because it turns out that the universe can provide you with what you ask even when it looks impossible. (It doesn’t always offer up cash!)

Download Lisa Mcsherry's eBook: The Alchemy Of Abundance Practical Money Magic

Suggested free e-books to read:

Eliphas Levi - The Ritual Of Transcendental Magic
Lisa Mcsherry - The Alchemy Of Abundance Practical Money Magic

Wednesday 3 January 2007

A Witch Alone

A Witch Alone Cover

Book: A Witch Alone by Marian Green

As the number of people interested in Paganism, Wicca, and Witchcraft continues to grow, so has the number of books aimed at the new Pagan or Wiccan. In many cases, these so-called "Wicca 101" books are a waste of valuable trees. Some are poorly written. Others contain the author's opinion and outdated historical speculation presented as absolute fact. There are, however, a few truly wonderful books in the "Wicca 101" genre. Marian Green's A Witch Alone: Thirteen Moons to Master Natural Magic is certainly one of this small handful of excellent books for the novice Pagan.

A Witch Alone is presented as thirteen lessons in natural magick and witchcraft, one for each of the thirteen lunar months in a year. Each lesson ends with a project and a Reading List. Unlike most "Wicca 101" book authors, Green doesn't just fill you with facts and opinion, she teaches you how to use and trust your own intuition. Her exercises help you build your own personal craft. If you do spend a year with this book, by year's end you'll not only have a good bit of craft training and practice under your belt but you'll have a much better sense of your spiritual self.

Some more traditional Wiccans may have problems with this book as its approach is not very traditional. It glosses over -- or doesn't even mention -- some things that many very traditional Wiccans apparently consider very important. Of course, most Wiccans who will have such problems with A Witch Alone do not really believe one can train and initiate oneself to start with.

I think this is the best of the "Wicca 101" books currently available. If you can only afford to buy one introductory book, Marian Green's A Witch Alone: Thirteen Moons to Master Natural Magic is the one I think you should buy. You will not get the most out of it, however, if you just sit down and read it. To get the full value out of this book, you really need to work through it one moon at a time.

Buy Marian Green's book: A Witch Alone

Books in PDF format to read:

Mary Mazzer - Witch Brew
John Musick - The Witch Of Salem
Marian Green - A Witch Alone