Familiars in Witchcraft

Familiars in Witchcraft PDF Author: Maja D'Aoust
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620558475
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
A comprehensive exploration of familiars and their many forms and powers • Explores witch’s familiars in folklore, shamanic, and magical traditions around the world, including Africa, India, Scandinavia, ancient Greece, and China • Explains how familiars are related to shamanic power animals and how the witch draws on her personal sexual energy to give this creature its power • Examines the familiar in alchemical, Hermetic, and Egyptian magical literature, including instructions for procuring a supernatural assistant Exploring the history and creation of a “witch’s familiar,” also known as a spirit double or guardian spirit, Maja D’Aoust shows how there is much more to these supernatural servant spirits and guardians than meets the eye. She reveals how witches are not the only ones to lay claim to this magician’s “assistant” and examines how the many forms of witch’s familiars are well known in folklore throughout Europe and America as well as in shamanic and magical traditions around the world, including Africa, India, and China. The author explains how familiars are connected with shapeshifting and how the classic familiars of medieval witchcraft tradition are related to the power animals and allies of shamanic practices worldwide, including animal guardian spirits of Native American traditions and the daimons of the ancient Greeks and Romans. She examines the fetch spirit, also known as the fylgia in Scandinavian tradition, and how the witch or sorcerer draws on their personal sexual energy to give this creature its power to magnetize and attract what it was sent to retrieve. She looks at incubus, succubus, doubles, doppelgangers, and soul mates, showing how familiars can also adopt human forms and sometimes form romantic or erotic attachments with the witch or shaman. Reviewing alchemical, Hermetic, and Egyptian magical literature, including the nearly forgotten alchemical works of Anna Kingsford, D’Aoust explores their instructions for procuring the attention of a supernatural assistant as well as an extensive description of the alchemical wedding and how this ritual joins the magician and familiar spirit into a single unified consciousness. Exploring fairy familiars, she reveals how a practitioner can establish a “marriage” with a totemic plant or tree spirit, who, in return, would offer teachings about its medicinal and visionary powers. Delving deeply into the intimate relations of humanity with the spirit world, D’Aoust shows how forming connections with living forces other than human enables us to move beyond the ego, expand our magical abilities, as well as evolve our conscious awareness.

Familiars in Witchcraft

Familiars in Witchcraft PDF Author: Maja D'Aoust
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620558475
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
A comprehensive exploration of familiars and their many forms and powers • Explores witch’s familiars in folklore, shamanic, and magical traditions around the world, including Africa, India, Scandinavia, ancient Greece, and China • Explains how familiars are related to shamanic power animals and how the witch draws on her personal sexual energy to give this creature its power • Examines the familiar in alchemical, Hermetic, and Egyptian magical literature, including instructions for procuring a supernatural assistant Exploring the history and creation of a “witch’s familiar,” also known as a spirit double or guardian spirit, Maja D’Aoust shows how there is much more to these supernatural servant spirits and guardians than meets the eye. She reveals how witches are not the only ones to lay claim to this magician’s “assistant” and examines how the many forms of witch’s familiars are well known in folklore throughout Europe and America as well as in shamanic and magical traditions around the world, including Africa, India, and China. The author explains how familiars are connected with shapeshifting and how the classic familiars of medieval witchcraft tradition are related to the power animals and allies of shamanic practices worldwide, including animal guardian spirits of Native American traditions and the daimons of the ancient Greeks and Romans. She examines the fetch spirit, also known as the fylgia in Scandinavian tradition, and how the witch or sorcerer draws on their personal sexual energy to give this creature its power to magnetize and attract what it was sent to retrieve. She looks at incubus, succubus, doubles, doppelgangers, and soul mates, showing how familiars can also adopt human forms and sometimes form romantic or erotic attachments with the witch or shaman. Reviewing alchemical, Hermetic, and Egyptian magical literature, including the nearly forgotten alchemical works of Anna Kingsford, D’Aoust explores their instructions for procuring the attention of a supernatural assistant as well as an extensive description of the alchemical wedding and how this ritual joins the magician and familiar spirit into a single unified consciousness. Exploring fairy familiars, she reveals how a practitioner can establish a “marriage” with a totemic plant or tree spirit, who, in return, would offer teachings about its medicinal and visionary powers. Delving deeply into the intimate relations of humanity with the spirit world, D’Aoust shows how forming connections with living forces other than human enables us to move beyond the ego, expand our magical abilities, as well as evolve our conscious awareness.

Magic and Mysticism

Magic and Mysticism PDF Author: Arthur Versluis
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742558366
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Provides overview, from antiquity onwards, on various Western religious esoteric movements. This book includes topics such as: alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy and more.

Russian Magic

Russian Magic PDF Author: Cherry Gilchrist
Publisher: Quest Books
ISBN: 0835608743
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
In the heart of Russia, old ways of perceiving the spirits of home and nature still prevail. Fairy stories, folk art, and calendar customs carry hints of the old gods and offer a now rare way of linking human life to the landscape. This is as true for city dwellers and villagers, for the Russian soul is open to the power of myth and the mysteries of the universe. This book explains how Russia's concept of soul ("dusha") and sensitivity to the landscape extends to archaeologists, scientists, and doctors in Russia, who retain an open-minded approach and a keen interest in psychic phenomena, along with folk traditions and faith healing. Author Cherry Gilchrist has traveled often to Russia and researched its traditional lore, gaining knowledge she interweaves into this book. She blends that first-hand knowledge with serious research to paint a lively picture of these remarkable magical traditions and their enduring power.

Studies in the Syriac Magical Traditions

Studies in the Syriac Magical Traditions PDF Author: Marco Moriggi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004467203
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The study of the Syriac magical traditions has largely been marginalised within Syriac studies, with the earliest treatments displaying a disparaging attitude towards both the culture and its magical practices. Despite significant progress in more recent scholarship in respect of the culture, its magical practices and their associated literatures remain on the margins of the scholarly imagination. This volume aims to open a discussion on the history of the field, to evaluate how things have progressed, and to suggest a fruitful way forward. In doing so, this volume demonstrates the incredible riches contained within the Syriac magical traditions, and the necessity of their study.

A Witch's World of Magick

A Witch's World of Magick PDF Author: Melanie Marquis
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738739855
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
Magickal Inspiration from the World's Great Traditions Join Melanie Marquis as she explores an amazing assortment of magickal techniques gathered from the annals of world folk magick. Discover traditional practices from Zulu herbal medicine to the enchantments of Polynesia; from Germanic fertility dances to the love potions of Papua New Guinea; from Greco-Roman bloodletting ceremonies to Malay word charms...and many more! Providing instructions on how to unite classic beliefs with modern practice, A Witch's World of Magick uncovers the universal principles that underlie decoy magick, curse breaking, potion making, number magick, and an abundance of other techniques. With these new perspectives on the common threads that weave throughout our magickal world, you will achieve higher levels of insight and success. Praise: "An invaluable resource for gleaning the many modes of magic that will be useful to the new and experienced witch alike."—Orion Foxwood, author of The Tree of Enchantment

Inside a Magical Lodge

Inside a Magical Lodge PDF Author: John Michael Greer
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 9781567183146
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
The author of "Circles of Power" and "Paths of Wisdom", presents the lodge system as a coherent whole, showing, in immediate and practical terms, how one can put it to work . 21 line drawings.

The Transformations of Magic

The Transformations of Magic PDF Author: Frank Klaassen
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271056266
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
"Explores two principal genres of illicit learned magic in late Medieval manuscripts: image magic, which could be interpreted and justified in scholastic terms, and ritual magic, which could not"--Provided by publisher.

The Long Life of Magical Objects

The Long Life of Magical Objects PDF Author: Allegra Iafrate
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271085339
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
This book explores a series of powerful artifacts associated with King Solomon via legendary or extracanonical textual sources. Tracing their cultural resonance throughout history, art historian Allegra Iafrate delivers exciting insights into these objects and interrogates the ways in which magic manifests itself at a material level. Each chapter focuses on a different Solomonic object: a ring used to control demons; a mysterious set of bottles that constrain evil forces; an endless knot or seal with similar properties; the shamir, known for its supernatural ability to cut through stone; and a flying carpet that can bring the sitter anywhere he desires. Taken together, these chapters constitute a study on the reception of the figure of Solomon, but they are also cultural biographies of these magical objects and their inherent aesthetic, morphological, and technical qualities. Thought-provoking and engaging, Iafrate’s study shows how ancient magic artifacts live on in our imagination, in items such as Sauron’s ring of power, Aladdin’s lamp, and the magic carpet. It will appeal to historians of art, religion, folklore, and literature.

Magical Traditions

Magical Traditions PDF Author: Justin Achilli
Publisher: White Wolf Publishing
ISBN: 9781588464330
Category : Fantasy games
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book includes: 7 magical traditions, from Santeria and Taoist sorcery to the rites of the Knights Templar and Appalachian hoodoo hexery, Unique spellcasting rules and benefits for mages versed in a magical tradition, Advice for incorporating magical traditions into chronicles and stories. Book jacket.

Black Magic

Black Magic PDF Author: Yvonne P. Chireau
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520249887
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Black Magic looks at the origins, meaning, and uses of Conjure—the African American tradition of healing and harming that evolved from African, European, and American elements—from the slavery period to well into the twentieth century. Illuminating a world that is dimly understood by both scholars and the general public, Yvonne P. Chireau describes Conjure and other related traditions, such as Hoodoo and Rootworking, in a beautifully written, richly detailed history that presents the voices and experiences of African Americans and shows how magic has informed their culture. Focusing on the relationship between Conjure and Christianity, Chireau shows how these seemingly contradictory traditions have worked together in a complex and complementary fashion to provide spiritual empowerment for African Americans, both slave and free, living in white America. As she explores the role of Conjure for African Americans and looks at the transformations of Conjure over time, Chireau also rewrites the dichotomy between magic and religion. With its groundbreaking analysis of an often misunderstood tradition, this book adds an important perspective to our understanding of the myriad dimensions of human spirituality.