The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Down and Dirty Beginning Reading...The bare bones.



There are things you need to understand before attempting to cast a Spell. What no one has told you so far, and probably no one knows well enough to explain. That’s right, this is an overview. Before you begin your spiritual journey you need to know where you are. I have a good idea you don’t have a clue.



This is going to sound like a dissertation I’m sure, but if you will follow along with me to the end, you will understand a great deal that the mainstream occult book sellers don’t tell you in all their glossy paperbacks. I tend to put things in a rather gritty perspective, but an accurate one at least.



Lots of people just testing the waters of Wicca get into it because they think it’s cool, or glamorous. They like the clothes Hollywood shows them, or the sexy image, or they think movies like The Craft are terrific. These are generally the younger people who don’t have an idea what they are dealing with or any concept of the teachings or faith that is supposed to go along with Wicca.



First of all, let me tell you that Reincarnation plays a large part in this and is part of the reason we do what we do to protect ourselves. Here are the bare bones, down and dirty facts that Hollywood and the book sellers don’t tell you.



1) You can’t pick up a book and read the magic words and make this work. What in your life has ever been that easy? This isn’t either. There are things you need to know and do to make this work.



2) This takes some serious study and memory work to do this right. Doing this any other way is dangerous. If you think otherwise, let me suggest you put your finger in a light socket. I know you wouldn’t do that. You know better. You know the dangers, the reasons, and the precautions to take. The same goes for what we are talking about here. If you don’t want to learn what is safe and what is not, you will have greater luck putting your finger in that light socket.



3) The movies are movies. This stuff does NOT work the way you think. You have been lied to so often and so well that much of the public believes these lies to be true. Well, if you are fed sweetened poison and told it’s good for you, even when you are dying you won’t suspect it’s bad. You’ve learned to trust the lies. This is not fiction. Pay attention.



4) I don’t care what you read in So-N-So’s bestselling book. I don’t care what Lady Gloria the Third Degree High Priestess of the Temple of The Grove of the Sacred Order of the Brass Door Knobs told you. I don’t care what you saw in a movie. I don’t care what your great aunt Sally told you. Although there is truth to be found in many places, the more diverse your sources of information the more confusion you will find. I’m only going to tell you the things I know to be true and know work for me.







OK. I’m done with the facts. If you can handle and digest those and want to go on, I’ll lay out a few things that you don’t find the booksellers and fluffy bunny types explaining to you. Just follow along, and I’ll try to make everything as clear as I can. Yes, you will have questions. That’s ok. You are supposed to. Just don’t let the fiction you have been taught influence you.







Ok...Let’s begin with something simple. Reincarnation. It’s a major part of what and why of whom we are, but most beginners don’t understand it or believe in it.





Reincarnation can be one of Wicca's most valuable lessons, and one of our most treasured secrets. We believe that before the soul enters the body, it chooses the body and type of life that it wishes to choose. Normally, the older and wiser the soul, the more difficult is the life that it chooses. People can choose to be male or female and inhabit the body very near to the time of birth. All things are chosen before the soul enters the body.



We believe that this is only one of many lives and that when the body dies we do not cease to exist, but are reborn into another body. Reincarnation is the instrument through which our souls are perfected. One lifetime is not nearly sufficient enough for this. The soul must be reborn many times, each life with a different set of lessons, until perfection is achieved. It's impossible to say just how many lives it takes to achieve this. Negative emotions can inhabit our growth. The soul is non-physical. It is both sexless and ageless and has a spark of both the God and Goddess. It is also important to remember that we decide the lay of our lives. We decide what we need in order to evolve. Now, the final question. What happens after our last incarnation? Basically it is said that those souls who have reached perfection break from the cycle. In the Craft the place we ascend to is often called Summerland, though it is known by many other names as well.



Death and Reincarnation



As I said before, we believe in reincarnation. Much like other faiths, it is believed that the soul returns again and again to learn, grow and become wise. When a person dies, they enter a place much like heaven. This “heaven” is what we refer to as the Summerland. It was called Tir Nan Og by the ancient Celts, meaning “Land of the Young”. We believe that the Summerland is a sort of way station, if you will; a place to catch up and sum up what you have learned. The soul can stay here and recuperate or choose to go on with their journey. A soul can become a ghost or a guardian for their loved ones as well. The soul is said to review the past life, perhaps through some mysterious way with the deities. This isn't a judgment, a weighing of one's soul, but an incarnational review. Lessons learned or ignored are brought to light. After the proper time, when the conditions on Earth are correct, the soul is reincarnated and life begins again.



We do not believe in Hell. We believe that the only Hell is made here on earth within our own souls. The evil that you do stays with you until you die. The only way out of this hell is to come to terms with what you did and forgive yourself or make what has been done wrong, right. This includes making amends for your wrongs, and working the steps of our tradition. It requires spiritual growth.



We also do not believe in the Devil. This is a Christian invention, and allows people to blame outside influences for their own bad choices or uncontrolled desires and lusts. Hey, it’s easier to blame someone else than to admit you did something all on your own. Any three year old can explain that to you.



We believe in the logical process of living, dying, and living again on the earth plane. Some religions also believe in transmigration, where an individual's soul may enter not only the body of a human, but the body of a plant or animal.



What is questioned is the space between the living experiences, the number of lifetimes, and the reasoning for going through each one. Also intriguing is "who we were," with whom, and when.



In Wicca, we seek to strengthen our bodies, minds and souls. We certainly live full, productive earthly lives. The soul is ageless, sexless, non-physical, possessed of the divine spark of the Goddess and God. Each manifestation of the soul is different. No two bodies or lives are the same.



Because of the acceptance of reincarnation, the Wiccans don't fear death as a final plunge into oblivion, the days of life on Earth forever behind them. It is seen as the door to birth. Thus our very lives are symbolically linked with the endless cycles of the seasons which shape our planet.



Do you understand why the concepts of sin, damnation, judgment, salvation, and all that is taught with is so alien to our thinking? Can you see why we are more at peace and do not carry a burden of guilt? For those of us who came from other faiths, to suddenly have that burden lifted and feel free for the first time the relief is indescribable.



Now you have to ask where this all began. I’ll refer you to Scott Cunningham’s paraphrased version of the Book of the Beginning he called “Before Time Was.”



Before Time Was



(A creation story, paraphrased from WICCA: A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner, by Scott Cunningham.)



Before time was, there was The One, The One was all, and all was The One.



And the vast expanse known as the Universe was The One, all-wise, all-pervading, all-powerful, eternally changing.



And space moved. The One molded energy into twin forms, equal but opposite, fashioning the Goddess and God from The One and of The One.



The Goddess and God stretched and gave thanks to The One, but darkness surrounded them. They were alone, solitary, save for The One.



So They formed energy into gasses and gasses into suns and planets and moons. They sprinkled the Universe with whirling globes and so all was given shape by the hands of the Goddess and God.



Light arose and the sky was illuminated by a billion suns. And the Goddess and God, satisfied by their works, rejoiced and loved, and were one.



From their union sprang the seeds of all life, and of the human race, so that we might achieve incarnation upon the Earth.



The Goddess chose the Moon as Her symbol and the God the Sun as His symbol, to remind the inhabitants of Earth of their fashioners.



All are born, live, die and are reborn beneath the Sun and Moon, all things come to pass there under, and all occurs with the blessings of The One, as has been the way of existence before time was.







Now all that is pretty simple to understand. If you understand that much then you get the idea that when you die you go back to the Mother and Father to rest, review what you’ve learned, and have them help you decide on what you need to learn next.



Got that part? You’re right. Life here is nothing less than a classroom where you learn what you need to succeed in the universe. You will be here through many incarnations before you “graduate”. You will keep coming back until you know enough to remain with the Mother and Father and help run the universe. That’s really pretty simple.



Now, what isn’t said here should be obvious, but I probably need to say it anyway. They, and you, (The Mother and Father and you) decide what your incarnation will be before you arrive here. You are expected to die because the body wears out, and it’s not something to be upset about. It wears out, is prone to disease, and gets old. All of this is expected, and the situations you experience in each incarnation are the lessons you are being taught.



That’s right. That old adage that life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you deal with it is correct. You are learning. Those who say that silly thing about “I didn’t sign up for this crap.” have no idea they really did. So there’s no opting out or dropping out of school. You can’t just commit suicide and get out of it, you have to make the push and finish the class to move on, or you will have to repeat it. Sorry Charlie, that’s how it is.



Ok, now that you have that little piece of the puzzle, let’s move on to another unstated fact. The power of the Mother and Father dwells in each of us. We are their children, and as such bear that divine spark of Will. We make our own choices and our own mistakes. So if you screw up and do something really bad here, you will have to pay for it, either in this life or the next. No, there is no Hell except what you make. There is no condemnation or judgment except your being ashamed for all of your own crap. You have to keep repeating this mortal plain until you get it right. Karma is Karma, and Karma is coming.



Now we come to the second unstated fact. Some of us don’t want to go back. Some of us hang around the mortal plain trying to regain contact with the life we lost or to contact the people left behind. See? We still have choices. Eventually we run out of energy and are pulled back to the Mother and Father, but we will have to go back.



Now there are those among us who, once departed, learned the trick of feeding off the life energy of others still incarnate on the earth. As spirits we can’t really do much of anything, but we learn that if we can evoke an emotional response from the living, it creates energy we can draw from to power ourselves back up. Call it recharging the spiritual battery if you like. Spirits have trouble doing that during the daylight hours because of the UV energy of the sun. Living things have a much higher vibration than spirits, and the high vibration of UV energy asks as a dampening field and makes it very difficult to materialize or act on the physical world. It’s a bit like trying to receive a radio signal through static. It’s very hard to understand what’s being said or what’s being sent. That is why the manifestations we hear of always seem to be at night when the interference is much less.



So here we have spirits circling the earth, wanting to communicate with the living or their still living families, who can’t do that, but try to draw energy from the living to make themselves known. When they do, they frighten the living and create talk of ghosts, demons, and evil spirits. It’s really great Aunt Rena who doesn’t want to go back is and trying to speak to Uncle Dave, and jealous because he has a new girlfriend. She can’t do much of anything but hang around and try to influence him, make him sad, frighten him, scare him, or even throw a few things around, but she will try if she’s of a mind.



Now please don’t tell me about people being possessed by demons or evil spirits. Remember what I told you about each of us being made of the same stuff as the Mother and Father? No spirit can possess you or make you do anything you don’t want to do. You have to invite them in, and they need a powerful amount of energy to maintain it for any length of time. Furthermore, all you would have to do is WILL them out, and they have to leave. I know you are going to point to tales about possession and demons and legends and all that other tripe you have heard before. Ok. Show it to me. Remember what I said about Hollywood and fiction?



We have come this far and I think you have a good bare bones idea of the situation you are in. If you understand this, we are ready to move on into why we do things as we do.