NMR ISSUE 22

Astrological Forecast 22
Butterfly
Choosing a Medicine Name
Editorial
Finding a Magickal Teacher
Holidays
Humanity: The Next Step
Letters 22
Panda
Protection from the Intoxicated
Psalm to the Goddess
The Oldest Magick
The Witch of Wookey
Understanding Your Dreams
Why Spiritual Groups Succeed or Fail
You've Seen Me

Articles
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Book Reviews
NMR Issues
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Letters

Please address letters to New Moon Rising or otherwise make it clear that your letter is available for publication. Please let us know how you would like it signed. Opinions of authors in New Moon Rising and especially in the Letters section certainly do not necessarily reflect those of New Moon Rising.

Words and What they Really Really Mean

A response to the letter Words and What They Really Mean from NMR 4:4. [Which was a response to Don Kraig's Words and What They Mean in NMR 4:2.]

The current debate over whether or not Satanic Witches are true Witches, seems to be an ever-present issue. I personally feel that Witchcraft is a pre-Christian religion, and that those who worship the Devil or Set as a god of evil are not what witchcraft is about. As to whether of not they can use the name Witch is debatable. We have no copyright on the word `witch,' and many who use that term use it to describe activities that have nothing to do with a Pagan faith. The issue centers around magic, in my view. I adhere to White Magic, that is to say, focusing on the positive, the beneficial, the Good, and not on the dark side or a `gray area' in between. Those who combine Satanism or Black Magic and Witchcraft to me fall outside the mainstream of Witchcraft. They do have the right to exist, however. That does not mean Pagan Circles, Networks, and groups need to allow then membership, however. I do agree with some of what was said in the Words letter. We do have to express our spirituality through our actions, what we say needs to be backed up by what we do. If we stand up and show that we are positive, life affirming and centered on helping, not harming, accusations against us cannot `take hold.' Our positive actions will prove our integrity.

However, there is on thing I strongly disagree with. The `Lucifer' mentioned in Aradia—Gospel of the Witches is not the Biblical fallen angel. In ancient Roman Paganism, Lucifer was the Morning Star, the planet Venus as seen at Dawn, before the sun rises. This being was the light-bearer, and was pictured as holding a torch, and revealing the truth by the Light he cast. The ancient witches of pre-Christian Italy worshipped a Lunar Goddess, Diana, and a Solar God, called Janus, Apollo, or Helios. In post-Roman Empire times, under Christianity, some witches adopted Lucifer as their solar god. Therefore, those who work with Aradia, are not working with the `devil's daughter.' They are worshipping a deity that is much like Apollo, or any other God of Light. The Christian Bible translated the fallen angel `Satan' into Lucifer, but this is not the valid form of Him. Unfortunately, a lot of negative energy exists along with the name Lucifer, due to misconceptions.

Also, as for the antiquity of traditions, yes, some Wiccan groups only go back to the fifties, and to the Golden Dawn. But magic and witchcraft existed far before then. There are references to witches in ancient Roman writings, and the Drawing Down the Moon rite of lunar magic is shown in ancient Greek art. Those groups who invoke Satan are working with a much more modern theology, based on Christian heresy. Even if they invoke Set, who was originally a barren desert god and not evil, they are working with deities and energies outside of mainstream Witchcraft, and they are very different from the Neo-Pagan Community.

It is true that our main focus should be on our own paths, and not worrying about others, and I think we should focus on honoring the Goddesses and Gods rather than worrying too much about the `darksiders.' But we do need to make the distinction between us. What we do and what they do are not the same. I'm not accusing all of them of abusing women, harming animals, or hexing others, but these activities do exist. Separating ourselves from groups that do such things is important. Our reverence for the Mother and holding all life as sacred should be proof enough that we do not harm others.

It would be nice to see more articles on White Magic, Healing, and positive pursuits. We do not need to devote all our time to combating the Dark Side. We have more positive things to focus on.

Blessings of the Light to All,
Rev. Andrew Siliar
Tucson, AZ

Another Walk-In

In response to A Closet Walk-In in NMR 4:4.

I found the walk-in piece fascinating; when I was three I had open-heart surgery, and my earliest memory is of one particular night during my hospital stay. Although I was sedated and under restraints in a crib bed, I saw myself get up from the bed, cross to the window and wish my parents good-bye as they crossed the street to the park below. For years I identified it as a dream; it bothered me that my first memory should be of a dream, but I didn't know what else to make of it. After I began doing some spiritual work and reading I realized it would be classified as an OBE [out of body experience], probably related to the NDE [near death experience] of the surgery. It's only within the past six months that others' observances, my own remembering, and lastly confirmation by my channel enabled me to positively identify the experience as of a walk-in nature. I experienced none of the dissociation of the person interviewed, but I have a lot of gaps from childhood, and always felt completely different from my family, unconnected. His comment about only recently developing a relationship, and then as friends rather than family, struck home, (so to speak).

I feel very comfortable with that knowledge of my walk-in status, and although I would probably hesitate to identify myself as a walk-in per se, as that label is rather sensationalist and extreme, to me it just seems like an alteration or aberration of the usual process of incarnation, at least in my case. I have no sense of being other than who I have always been, just not the original owner of this body, so to speak.

A.M.
Philadelphia, PA

Male Mail

I just wanted to write and express my views on Jay Barrymore's article, Man in a Woman's Religion: The Importance of the Wiccan High Priest. First of all, I disagree with his viewpoint that Wicca is A Woman's Religion. Wicca is for all that choose to follow the path, whether they be Man or Woman. I believe that the myth of Wicca as a woman's religion is backlash against the patriarchal religion of Christianity. A religion should not have a gender but should allow all those who wish to worship as they see fit. I realize that some Wiccan's attune more closely with the Goddess and less so with the God but that doesn't make Wicca a female craft.

I firmly believe that we need balance in all things: the balance of God and Goddess, the balance of male and female, the balance of good and evil, etc. I find that there are times when I attune more closely with the Goddess, such as at night or when I am nurturing my children, and times when I attune more closely with the God, such as during the day or when I am working. Every time I feel the warm kiss of the Sun I remember that we need a God as well as a Goddess. For without the Sun, the Earth would freeze. There would be no life. Just as a woman cannot have children without a man, Wiccans also need to realize that the God is just as necessary as the Goddess is.

I firmly believe that a High Priest should be viewed as being as important as the High Priestess. I realize that females are generally thought of as being more spiritual than males but just as you need the spiritual side of your personality/circle/ritual you also need the male, or physical, side. After the magical working is done and it is time to close the circle, it is necessary to ground and re-attune with the physical world. When my husband and I perform rituals, it sometimes works better if he invokes the Goddess and I invoke the God. This works especially well, if I am attuned to the masculine elements of my personality and he is attuning with the feminine side of his.

Jay makes one point that the duties of the High Priest can be filled by a woman but not vice versa. I wonder if that is because women are better at drawing on the masculine side of their personality than men are at drawing on the feminine side of theirs. That makes sense because of the way most of us were brought up; with the belief that men were superior to women and that for women to succeed they had to repress their feminine characteristics. I was brought up that way and for a long time I did not want to be a mother because that was a Woman thing to do and as such was not as important as Man things. I am so glad that I finally got over that because raising my children is the most fulfilling thing that I do. Society needs to stop thinking of vocations, personality of male or female traits and start thinking of them as people traits.

Arias
Okinawa, Japan

I'm glad you brought this up.

It took me a while to figure out what it was about Jay's unusual view of the male's role that drew me. Today we see mostly two views: the obnoxious, unbalanced patrifocal paradigm that we are trying to shed, and the idealized balanced society. (There is also a misanthropic view, but this seems to be a minority reacting to the Old Order.) But what is a balanced society (or coven or business or whatever)? We seem to have a vague, egalitarian idea of each gender in equivalent social positions, but there are two problems:

Our idea of equivalent social positions necessarily comes out of a patrifocal culture, since that is what we grew up in. A matrifocal culture would probably consider a different relationship to be equivalent.

Also, there may be a difference between equivalent and balanced. Our American culture admires equality and despises discrimination. But, if you use the broad definition of discrimination, most of it is necessary and appropriate. For instance, men tend to be stronger than women are. If you ignore this, you have lost potentially valuable information. The negative side of discrimination arises when you try to draw conclusions from such rules of thumb, and use them to exclude women or men from roles they could fill, for instance. Our society seems so frightened of the negative side that it tries to deny differences between the sexes beyond the reproductive system—but they are there. And we Pagans should be more aware than most of the differences between the masculine and feminine energies (which correlate with, but do not equal, people's gender—like Yin and Yang).

As an analogy, consider the two genders on either end of a balancing scale. For our society, the scale would be unbalanced, favoring the male. But since we are standing on the scale, any attempt to judge where each sex should move to balance it out is compromised by our perspective. Objectivity is a desirable goal, but is not truly attainable, and we should recognize this. What might seem to us in our present positions to be equal distances from the scale's fulcrum, may well turn out to be otherwise.

More interestingly, we do not know that male and female in this analogy have the same mass. In fact, we have good reason to believe otherwise (despite our apparent wishes). So to balance the scale we may well have to move male and female to different distances from the fulcrum. This would represent their having different positions in our society.

Thus, equality of position (physical in the analogy, social in practice) may be unbalanced. (It would certainly be an unusual situation in the animal kingdom.) And balance may only be achievable through different positions. In the model, it would be easy for the male and female to simply move around on the scale until they found the balance point. In reality, there is uncooperativeness, different opinions of what is balance and daunting inertia. But if we keep and open mind, we will eventually find our balance point (and I expect it will be dynamic—requiring constant adjustment). Additionally, at this stage of our quest for balance, we should consider deliberately going too far toward the feminine side to overcome the influence of our patricentric society.

Whether or not we agree with it, I hope that Jay's article might shake us up a bit and get us to broaden our thinking so that we can find and achieve our balance more readily. To add complexity, that balance is likely to be different in different situations. We should remember that balanced positions in society as a whole are likely to be unbalanced in a coven, since they are such different entities with different purposes. It's not easy, but all we really need is communication and open minds. We don't need to adopt alternative views, but I think that it is beneficial to be aware of them.

Caveat Saga

I did not like seeing a recruitment for Burnapian Wicca. Your introduction caveat was admirably diplomatic. I was impressed. Still, it really bothers me to see something completely different promoted in a pagan publication. It appears that we condone or even approve of them and gives them an air of importance that they could not achieve without our help. You and I have studied and we recognize `something else' but people just starting out are likely to assume that, since it appears in a Journal of Magick and Wicca it is one or the other and that it appears acceptable to someone knowledgeable in these matters, and [they will] be drawn into something they would not have otherwise encountered. The lesson might be very costly. I also fear that it may damage the pagan community as a whole if it is noticed by law enforcement agencies that we publish recruitments for a group named after the Phoenix area's best known Satanist.

S. M.
Garden Valley, CA

I got a couple other similar responses to the Burnapian Wicca thing. I thought that it spoke for itself. In case it did not: please remember that we can't check into everything and thus are unable to guarantee the wholesomeness of other people's activities. This is especially true of the Letters section! Here is where I put other people's ideas and opinions that I feel are interesting and relevant, but with which I may completely disagree. I printed the Burnapian Wicca letter because this group claims to be Wiccan. Whether or not they are is up to each person to judge. I didn't feel it was relevant or necessary to voice my opinion, but in case it is: This looks to me like an emulsion of Wicca and Satanism (the looking out for number one type, rather than the killing cats and defacing churches type). I don't know why someone would get involved in this when there is so much available that is obviously positive. I must stress, however, that the only solid thing I have to go on is their flier. I do not feel qualified to pass judgment. As always, Caveat Saga! [Saga actually means sooth-sayeress, but it was the closest thing I could find to Witch in my cheap Latin-English dictionary.]

Another Public Service Announcement:
That Nagging Cough

Have you ever had a cold or the flu during which you experienced that nagging, won't-let-you-sleep, can't-get-your-rest, debilitating cough? Sometimes over-the-counter remedies are helpful and sometimes not. If not, you can't get the rest you need to get rid of what ails you. You can just manage to doze off when you cough. Then you are awake again until you doze off and cough again. Over and over, all night long, you doze off and then cough. In the morning you are tired and more sick than ever.

One of the most necessary parts of getting over such afflictions is sleep. Without sleep, the healing that your body needs cannot easily happen. So it is vital that you find a way to allow yourself to sleep. A key to being able to sleep is knowing what makes you cough.

Modern folk remedies such as honey and lemon juice, bourbon and garlic, or any of the many that someone's grandmother swears by, do not really treat the cause. The same is true of the remedies that you buy at the drugstore. They say that they interfere with the cough by striking at the cough center, that interface that tells you to cough. But this is not attacking the reason for the cough reaction. So this dulling of the synapses may not work, and it always has undesirable side effects.

So why do we cough? Colds and flu thrive in a bloodstream that is slightly acid as regards the acid/base balance. A healthy person's bloodstream is normally slightly basic. The cold or flu will keep the blood slightly acid and that is how it continues to thrive there. Your body wants to get the blood and the lymph back to the slightly basic state to discourage the virus.

The lungs are not just a means of getting the oxygen you need. You take in oxygen through the skin and even the stomach lining (one way to get supplemental oxygen is to swallow a specially prepared solution of hydrogen peroxide and water). The lungs are dominantly a means of exhausting carbon dioxide that is a waste product of burning oxygen and food energy. And the rate of carbon dioxide exhausting is what keeps the acid/base balance of the blood at just slightly on the base side of neutral. One of the most important functions of the lungs is maintaining the acid/base balance.

When you turn food energy and oxygen, carbonic acid forms in the blood, neutralizing the basic substances to a degree. If you were to breathe into a paper bag so that you re-breathe the carbon dioxide that you exhaust, you would find that your blood would become more acid and you would not feel right. People who have their balance shift to [a] level that is too basic (called hyperventilation) use the bag breathing technique to return to normal. So how do you make the blood more basic when it is too acid? You breathe more heavily than normal or you cough.

When you have that nagging cough it is because your body wants an acid/base balance adjustment in order to combat the disease. So rather than take a remedy that is designed to numb the cough response, why not just remove the cause of the cough response by making your system more basic? How do you do this?

Any sort of base will do that is normal within the body. However, the old standby of a teaspoon of baking soda in water is not very good for those who are on a low sodium diet (certain heart patients, people with high blood pressure, etc.). So, today, we know that most remedies for acid indigestion will do, but especially those that serve as a food supplement are good. One that is made of calcium carbonate is excellent. You get the benefit of the calcium and your cough is gone too.

Unfortunately, I doubt that most manufacturers of anti-acids for the stomach are aware of the other use for their product. If they were aware of it, they would not advertise it as such. They can make more money selling expensive products for coughs (products with bad side-effects as a rule), and the FDA, bless their little hearts, has not approved anti-acids as cough remedies. Better to just not mention what a good job they do in this regard.

Dosage? It depends upon the product. I use Tums, myself. I prefer the large kind as chewing only six right before I go to sleep works just fine. In just a few minutes, the cough stops and I am snoring. The small kind requires more tablets to do the same thing. These things work for me every time. The best of the cough suppressants let me sleep only about fifty percent of the time—and they are expensive. And now for the disclaimer. If your cough persists, you should see a doctor. You might have TB or something else, you know. Pleasant dreams.

Lew Paxton Price
Garden Valley, CA