Okay so, I have read all four books in this series.  I will tell you know that review this series objectivly is a very difficult task.

Christopher Penczak is the author of this series and sadly, while I have heard him in interviews and he is very intelligent individual, he is also exactly what is wrong with the pagan community.  In all four books he still preaches the same rhetoric that has been around since the mid 1990's.  Peace, love, and light, don't hurt other people not even to save yourself drivel that makes me wonder what people think ancient witchcraft was really about.

My first bit if dismay came when I cracked open Inner Temple of Withcraft and saw the most damn line I have ever read and still sadly read "Witchcraft is a religion..."  No!  No withcraft in and of itself is not a religion.  Witchcraft in and of itself is a system of magic striped of any gods or spirits in the same way that Hoodoo has no religion.  Anyone of any religion can practice withcraft, but you do not, and I repeat this strongly, DO NOT have to have a religion to practice witchcraft.  Unfortunatly even though Mr. Penczak will probably disagree with this statment, he has confused Wicca with witchcraft just like everyone before him.  It was probably Laurie Cabbot that infused that into him.

Then, dear gods I nearly cried, there was the section about you can work with any gods you want at the same time and nothing bad will happen.  Now I agree, it is possible to work with different gods from different pantheons at similar times.  But, if yo think I am going to work with Thor, Raiden, and Zeus all in one working...YOU are insane!  Gods, Lwa, and Ancestors are like you and me.  They have personalities and They can feel slighted if you don't pay them enough attention.  Not to forget, if you are stupid enough to want to work with Aphrodite and the Morighan at the same time you deserve to get the swift kick in the ass that is sure to follow.  Be mindful of the personalities, their Aspects before you go and mix pantheons without any regard.

He then continues on to take from the Shamanic roots of Native peoples and turn them into witchcraft.  Not a bad attempt, but sometimes I found myself thinking, "Uh Chris...the Natives are knocking on the door and they want their culture back."

I will only sadly note that he has turned Golden Dawn and Hermetica into a fluffy Wicca.  And in the Zohar it states that after Kether is Ain, hen Ain Soph, and lastly Ain Soph Aur.  Not the other way around.


Okay, so the good.  Yes my darlings there is good!

The very basics in the first book are good.  The visualization, the meditation, the energy work (although I think Michelle Belanger does a better job with that...nevermind) are all good, solid foundations.  The shadow work in book three Temple of Shamanic Withcraft is good and could possibly help someone work through their past traumas.

I must say I have some trepidation about the fifth book in this series.  I have not seen a title or heard the subject matter.  I do have one thing to say, I know that if he tries to make Vodoun in his little series I think Kenzah Filan will probably have cats...I know I will.

Okay so weird can be...a message maybe?  I don't know.  I have been doing mostly meditation and energy work to get myself where I need to be.  Nothing too interesting to talk, so I won't post the boring details.  Well...I will say one thing.  I felt for the first time my own energy focusing between my hands.  It was freaken AWESOME!  It felt like waves of heated magnetic pins and needles.  I know that sounds weird but whatever.

So after I meditated I went down stairs to ground myself back into reality a bit.  I picked up my iPod to scroll through the pictures when I hear music coming out of the earbuds.  It was weird because the last thing I listened to was an episode of ShadowDance (forget which episode though).  Instead of Chris or Michelle I hear You Make Me Smile by Blue October.   Listed below are the lyrics.  It was weird and the only other thing of note that was worthy.

So this probably the strangest dream I have ever remembered and it has the benefit of being incredibly short.

In the dream  I am fishing at a lake or river.  This of course would be a comfortable afternoon activity and it was enjoyable.  The strange part was the water.  It was terraced above myself and the other fishers.  I don't mean that we were underwater, rather the water was held in my a wall and we were casting the lines above our heads.  While this looked man made, I knew that it was really natural with mosses and ferns growing on and around the landscape timbers keeping the water up.  I caught three small perch, smiled and tossed them back.  My fellow fishers were all strangers, friendly people that just enjoyed the afternoon, the quiet, and the beer.


This I would be open to any thoughts people might have on it.

To start with a rhetorical (or not) question::  Ever have the Important Dream and you go to write it down in the morning and you can't for the love of Whatever remember it?  Okay so as I have stated I am severly out of practice in my Path/Craft/etc, but I am not so forgetful of the dreams.  The Dreams they are the Important, no?

Anyway, the best person I turn to for dreams is Papa Legba.  We have that kind of relationship.  I give Him rum, I gave Him a really nifty cane, and I got nothing out of this session :P

I know that I talked to someone/thing.  I know that it was probably important.  I know that I am probably not going to be able to recall any of it therefore I am burned.  I guess in the long run I am going to just have to Try. Harder.

I will have to see what the results over the next couple of days lead to.

So after a few years of not actually practicing my path and craft I have begun to take baby steps into getting back into it.  To start, I have begun to try and get back into meditative trances that lead to higher magick works.  I am severely out of practice so it amuses me with my mistakes I haven't made since I was a teenager.

Today was a work with the energy spheres, or chakras.  They are in dire need of work, retuning, and re-spinning( is that possible??).  The focus today was the first two.

My base chakra is sluggish, but not so bad really.  If I focus and pull a decent amount of energy out of the earth I can give it a decent boost.  Even now I can kind of feel Shakti, aka Kundalini, starting to move a little bit.  I feel emotionally a bit more grounded but physically more energetic.

The next one up...eww.  I mean just eww.  It is slick and slimy, wet and...icky.  The color is off, the feel makes me think of a slug.  I can not imagine how it has gotten so bad.  And really I am not sure how to correct the problem.  Think that I am going to have to sit and work with it every day until it gets better.  I also have a feeling that I am going to be on constant guard to keep it form sliding back into this condition.

Nothing else really came out of todays work.  I was able to feel the shields around but I can't really manipulate them much yet.  It is so strange to have such strong natural shields and not be able to affect them.

Ties that Bind

Chapter 1

 

 

I got the letter Monday morning.  It was addressed from  my brother’s home.  The envelope had the logo of a lawyer’s office with a strange French sounding name.  I didn’t recognize it so it sat for a week on the kitchen counter.  I took a look at it Saturday when I was making my morning cup of tea.  Curious.  I had not heard from my family in over seven years.  Being the black sheep can be a pain in the ass, but if it meant that I didn’t have to deal with the superstious crap of my family I was happy to keep it.

 

Tessy sucked in her breath and held it as she shivered next to me.  I thought she was going to turn blue even with her dark skin, but I didn’t blame her reaction.  I sat stock still and peered between the cracks in the bricks at what was before me.  Acktris had warned to be on guard on this supply run, but I hadn’t taken him seriously.

 

I'm just your average girl trying to take on the World.  I practice here, dabble there, work full time and juggle school, love, friendship.  This is just a repository for the words bottled up inside my head from thoughts, to stories, bad poems, and other mind numbing uses for words.