The Secrets of Asguard is a far cry from the usual "how to read runes" that you might find on the shelf of the New Age section in the Bookstore.
It far exceeds its competitors in our opinion because it offers such deep insight into the characters of the runes, the relationships between the runes in terms of psychology and spiritual development, and the mythological and shamanic connotations of rune symbolism in magical application.
Part one of the book is focused on the Author's interpretations of the Futhark Runes, and is illustrated with some beautiful sketches which further enhance the readers understanding of the characters in the runic alphabet.
Part two of the book explores practical applications of rune magic, there are correlations between Chakras and Runes, meditations and exercises for the avid student to use in their rituals and magical workings.
The text is a complete system in which those readers who want to explore much further than the simple understanding, or defining each rune character, will not be disappointed. Esoteric Rune Wisdom is a must for any serious practitioner of Divination and a wealthy resource for anyone journeying into the realms of the Northern Mythological Traditions and those particularly interested in the applications of practical Magic.
Surrounded by a mass of mauve, violet, blue and gold, the central figure holds in front of the heart a beautiful turquoise star. These colours represent the essentially spiritual nature of this [Tarot]card. Representing peace and harmony and that compromises that have been made in order to reach a state of balance; the opportunities taken and the paths followed in order to effect positive spiritual and material change.
"Art" - Soulscapes Tarot by Jade Ashcroft
Frequently Temperance is a card of trial and tribulation. In our journey through life we deviate from our original intentions and our higher purpose. Life throws its daily challenges and our responses, constrained by responsibility, are often reactionary rather than well thought out. We may ask ourselves why? Why don’t things work the way we would like or expect? The answer lies deep within us and is driven to the surface in response to adversity. Simply, we have become passengers not drivers in life. External forces have compelled us to realise that we cannot go in the same way and we both need and wish for change. It is the art of tempering, the amalgamation of all our different facets, the art of alchemy that calls to our soul to move on, throw ourselves into the spiritual cauldron and come out reborn.
When this call is heard we can be assured that the change is internally driven and will have a unifying effect on our hearts, our minds, our spirits and soul. We are in balance and can commune with our higher, spiritual selves, bringing enlightenment into our daily lives. The turquoise heart, held in the centre of this card, symbolises clarity of thought, communication, peace, intuition and compassion – the very qualities needed to effect positive change and to maintain that change. We have forged our very own rainbow bridge between spirit and the mundane.
When applied to readings, this card signifies success in relationships, where consideration for our partner is vital to ensure its harmonious continuance. In our everyday work lives it means striking a healthy balance between work and home life, giving in equal measure to both - frequently difficult in our work driven society. In terms of our health, lifestyle and leisure it means taking care of ourselves, to forge a middle path, not to go to extremes and tax our health or our material resources. It teaches us prudence. In terms of career and education, to consider areas where communication and diplomacy skills are requisite, such as journalism, mediation or teaching.
When reversed this card implies that there has been a failure to integrate our higher self or that we have not yet got to the position of internally driven change and are still stuck in old patterns. Failure, arguments and frustration are frequent bedfellows. In this position the card gives us both a warning to change before bad habits are too deeply engrained to be eradicated or that change may be forced upon us, in which case we may well remain passengers in our own journey.
One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
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Are there any real differences between belief systems and the way that magik works?
I was recently involved in an interesting discussion about the core workings of magik, during which a friend asked whether or not that it may be that the only major difference between witches, magicians, sorcerers, mages, warlocks, and other disciplines’ practices were fundamentally different at a working level or just a choice of title?
As it tends to be generally accepted, that in the majority of cases any magikal action tends to work via the act of focusing our concentrated will towards a specific result, it appeared at first, that the most likely answer to this question would have been that it was just a choice of title. Although I prefer not to pigeon hole people or their chosen belief systems, after much deliberation and some more in-depth discussions with practising occultists it would appear that there are some distinctly important variations in the way that people involved within some of the widely known paths set about carrying out their magikal/ritual work.
Before we cover the work itself I would like to touch upon a few of the titles that people use, an occult magician, wizard and a sorcerer may appear at face value to be very similar characters, and I’m quite sure that many using these titles haven’t given it a second thought.
If we look into a common definition of the sorcerer we find that it often describes them as being someone who may be involved with dark forces or are perhaps obsessed with gaining power or energy that they selfishly use towards their own personal gain.
This of course calls to mind a very different image from that of the wise wizard, shaman, ritual magician or hedge witch who are often seen as working for the good of their community.
Preconceptions aside, if we delve a little deeper we find that there are indeed important differences to be found within the way that people go about their ritual work. The ritual magician or sorcerer is often involved in the act of controlling spirits and demons towards the work in hand, whereas the witch may ask for help in her work from her chosen goddess or god, spirits or elementals.
This reveals a major difference within the spiritual paths and their working approach, whilst some may almost be said to be working in the manner of a slave masters by seeking to secure a spirit in bondage to do their bidding; others are merely asking for a favour of other worldly beings or for their help in the boosting of their own energy towards creating a desired outcome.
Without going into the intricacies of ritual magik or spell work, there appears to another major difference to be found within the way that many practitioners of the art focus their energy.
Whilst many feel they are working from the head others swear that they are working from the heart, this difference in approach becomes especially evident when we compare ritual magicians or practitioners of Hermetics with the practise of traditional witchcraft. Also when raising energy frequently the magician will draw down energy through the crown chakra, whereas the witch will frequently draw energy through the feet from the earth.
As a rule, ritual or chaos magicians have a tendency to need to be in control of all the factors that may be involved within their work, and although many still use an exotic array of ritual equipment and traditional paraphernalia many others have moved towards what has become a more modern way of working, and that is to work mainly within the mind in the format of a controlled visualization.
This visualized method involves intense focused concentration and can often take many years of practise to perfect; it does however have the added bonus of overriding many of the external factors that may affect the outcome of holding an actual physical ritual.
If we then consider the practise of witchcraft, which shouldn’t be confused with the modern practise of Wicca, many also work via a concentration of visualized will, yet the focused centre of energy is said by many to radiate from within the heart and the form is more instinctual than a measured intellectual response.
I believe the answer to this difference in approaches is to be found within the applied magikal action involved, the universe itself is said, by many esoteric and spiritual belief systems, to manifest in a distinct sequence. From a state of nothingness sprouts a sea of raw energy, this sea of virginal energy then condenses into several ethereal and dimensional levels before condensing into state of being which we experience as our base reality.
The witch could be said to be mainly working within this timeframe via influencing the structure of the energy that exists within his or her reality, akin to a magikal seed that grows in power until it reaches fruition (Sympathetic magik), whilst alternatively the ritual magician is attempting to alter reality by creating a connection to its universal pre-manifest source, wilfully directing it towards their own design before it comes into being.
Although essentially working from alternative ends of the spectrum each system has the manipulation of energy at its core, and as both are said to produce fairly consistent results it would be hard to say whether or not one is more relevant or powerful than the other.
This being the case perhaps the most logical move for anyone working in the magikal field would be to design an all-powerful eclectic system that unites the two.
Thing's have been heating up in Scotland with regards to the Geo-engineering issue, the people have had enough and all over the country people are taking the necessary action to put an end to this madness.
In Renfrewshire there's been people making donations to gift Orgonite and the first chem-tower for the community but to be honest at this stage I'm not sure how effective these are and whether while people are focused on doing this, more effective ways of dealing with the madness are being neglected.
So in Renfrewshire we decided it's not enough to focus on only one potential solution but instead to take as much action as possible towards a conclusion that is satisfactory for the people here and as we do hoping that similar action is being taken in other constituents and countries across the World.
As you can see from the video below which includes only a tiny fraction of the pictures taken in Renfrewshire, strange flights have become the norm in Paisley and the hazy skies are becoming so much the norm that most people fail to notice.
Having contacted all 40 Renfrewshire Councillor's and the local Environmental Services department it is unclear whether there is any knowledge about Geo-engineering at a local level but unfortunately my gut tells me they really don't know, as like many of the population they are scurrying around trying their best and not really looking up. One thing I've had confirmed though is that there is no talk of the issue at all within the Scottish Parliament, we know there's been reports from Westminster and that as usual the response is to try to pass it off as conspiracy theory but if this is what it is, why are there so many government documents available?
The dismissal from the Environmental Services was no more than a brush off with the questions posed not even being fully answered, and so at time I'll get a follow up happening but for now we are in data collection mode, taking pictures of the unusual flights, the spray marks, the HAARP clouds and the recent visits from helicopters making strange sounds!
With the help of a local friend of the people we are also conducting analysis of samples from our local area and once the data is collected the next will be taken. The biggest challenge in the chemtrail/Geo-engineering debacle is that the majority of the British population either do not see or pretend it's not happening as the whole concept terrifies them.
There's even been stories in the mainstream news to condition the mind for acceptance of Geo-engineering, as always sold to us as being for our own good, to protect us from the sun. I have to say I'd much rather put my faith in nature and the Planet than the crazy scientists who have concocted this cover story.
There's a lot of evidence out there on the subjects of Geo-Engineering and the contents of chemtrails, some of which does make for scary reading but the biggest convincer of all is the government documents that exist on this issue and the amount of patents that have been licensed around it.
My personal view is that the weather manipulation is part of a bigger plan to ensure farmers are beholden to companies like Monsanto who have developed Genetically Modified seeds which are Barium, Strontium and Aluminium resistant, they have also developed crops that are drought resistant and every other possible eventuality. One of the things I found particularly bizarre this year, yes, even more bizarre than chemtrails, was that in Scotland a country renowned for it's rainfall, we celebrated the arrival of rain. Just once, but we did, because we'd not seen it for months.
For those who are still in doubt about this issue it is worth considering what the economic and political repercussions of a Scotland dependant on outside help to grow our own produce would mean for the country and it's people.
Thankfully, the people of Scotland will be joining the rest of the World making our voices heard on 25th August 2013 at George Square, hope you can join us.
You can read the traditional interpretations for the Tarot images by Michael Tsarion beside each of the images from the Soulscapes Tarot. Click on the image below and you will see all of the Major Arcana from the Tarot Deck.
The Soulscapes Tarot have just been published in April this year. A companion guide is currently being written and more details about this will be published in the Enlightening Times very soon.
Click ESOTERIC ART IMAGE To get your copy of the Soulscapes Tarot from the Esoteric Art Webstore!
The Secrets of Asguard is a far cry from the usual "how to read runes" that you might find on the shelf of the New Age section in the Bookstore.
