Hugs & Good Morning my friends! an extra squeeze for {{{{Abra, Ruth, Smiless, Earth, Jeannie}}}}

(((LightVoice))) and Happy Birthday to you!

LightVoice brings peace and harmony to us all in our hearts and minds

Thank you so much {{Ruth}}!

aaaaawwwwww... you are just to sweet! thank you

The Samhain moon is rising as ancestral ghosts rejoice
singing Happy Birthday to a priestess named Lightvoice

The spirits of the UnderWorld reveal their ancient truth
through the wails of nightingales they chant their thoughts to Ruth

The Earth and Wind and Fire and Sea, dance their primal styles
entertaining you and me, and our friend named Mr. Smiless

Enigmatic riddles that deities forbid
seep into the consciousness of our sister Ladylid

A host of magick leprechauns play bits of Paganini
and watch the sacred belly dance of our comrade genie Jeannie

The dragons and the vampire bats swooping ever nearer
upon the back of drac name Zac, the jedi, Mirror Mirror

The hallowed wean the blood of life in the witch's cauldron's flames
this Samhain incantation came from Abra known as James

Wow that was really good!

I forgot the most important verse, it was stolen by a raven!
I failed to give a mention of our herbal witch Rosehaven
So now I'll suffer evil dreams with gnome's and goblin's screams
and undergo the torture of iniquitous extremes

(sorry Rose, you need to post more often darn it)

Comments on the God and Goddess Books

Note: This post is probably only going to make sense to Ruth or any other fans of the Penczak Temple Series books.

These are comments on the Temple of Living Witchcraft Vols. One and Two, the fifth and sixth book of the Temple of Witchcraft series (the Book of the Goddess Vol. One and the Book of the God Vol. Two).

The God book is really a tour through the Zodiac there are 12 main lessons, each one focused on a sun sign. There are two things that Penczak does which I'm uncomfortable with. One of which he recognizes and actually mentions. The other one he doesn't seem to be aware of at all.

The two things he does that makes me uncomfortable are the following:

1. In the God book he starts with Aries instead of Capricorn.
2. In the Goddess book he uses the Traditional Tarot assignments for the Qabalah.

Owl take these one at a time and explain why I'm uncomfortable with these particular issues.

In the God book he starts with Aries instead of Capricorn.

This may seem like a trivial thing. Many people will say, "So what? If you want to start with Capricorn just start reading that chapter first." Well, I'm actually doing that, and it makes far more sense this way for me. But there's a major reason why the order is important. Penczak even recognizes this reason yet he didn't follow through on it for some reason.

Astrologers traditionally begin the celestial year with Aries because this is one of the astronomical points where the ecliptic (the plane of the solar system) and celestial equator (the Earth's equator projected out into space) are in alignment. This happens twice a year, once at the vernal equinox in the spring with Aries, and again at the autumnal equinox in the fall with Libra.

However, this is not how witches perceive the year. Witches see the year as beginning in the Yule at Capricorn (the winter solstice) with the birth of the new Sun God. Capricorn is the lesson of the Sun God. Capricorn is the 'fatherly image' of the Sun God. But more importantly its teachings are those of our purpose in this life. It's like the introductory chapter of the Zodiac teaching that our purpose is to create heaven on Earth. This is actually the origin of some of the words in the Christian's "Lord's Prayer" "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven". These words are attributed by the Christians to Jesus, but in truth these words date much further back to the early days of the Qabalah and even before that. Malkuth is the Kingdom, Kether is the Heaven.

In any case, I had recognized this some time ago. This is why I started my year with the Yule and placed Capricorn as the first sun sign in my Labyrinth Way. It just makes so much sense to me because Capricorn tells us why we are here and what our purpose is. The whole zodiac also makes far more sense when starting with Capricorn as the first chapter because it builds up to Aries through Aquarius and Pisces and eventually ends with Sagittarius which also makes perfect sense.

Now Penczak apparently recognized this difference between the witch's year and the astrologer's year, yet for some reason he chose to start with Aries. I find this somewhat bothersome because by starting with Aries it doesn't make a good story. And ending with Pisces also makes no sense. The lessons of Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pieces are all like prerequisite information that puts the lessons of Aries in a much deeper context and perspective.

I guess this probably sounds like a bit of a rant. But it just blows me away that Penczak didn't see the bigger picture in the Zodiac. He's almost treating each sun sign like an arbitrary individual case, when in reality they make such a beautiful story when read in the correct order. I think whoever designed these sun signs originally began with Capricorn because the story makes so much sense when followed from that beginning.

In fact, it is the actual story line that bothers me. Penczak seems to be just telling "lessons" from each sun sign without actually recognizing this larger seamless story. And because of this he seems to emphasize things from each sign which aren't truly the emphasis of that sign (as seen in the bigger picture).

So I'm kind of re-writing the God Book, in one of my Book of Shadows journals. Staring with Capricorn and building from that foundation.

The second thing he does is to use the standard Tarot Assignments for the Qabalah.

In the Goddess book he uses the Traditional Tarot assignments for the Qabalah

I guess I can't blame him for this. He's probably trying to stick to somewhat orthodox traditions. This again may be seen as a rant on my part, but placing the Tarot onto the Qabalah is indeed a big issue for me.

When I first found the Qabalah maps with the Tarot placed on the pathways between the sephirah I found it very non-intuitive. In fact, I found it to be extremely confusing and not making any sense to me whatsoever. I tried very hard to understand that the strategy had been used to lay out the Tarot Major Arcana onto the Qabalah. I stood back and took in the whole picture and suddenly it struck me. There was no strategy at all! Whoever laid this out did so entirely numerically. They just started with the Fool at Kether, and worked down through the Qabalah in perfect numerical order. No thought as to how the cards make sense with respect to the sephirah had ever been given evidently.

I first noticed this when studying the Qabalah. This arrangement was so utterly meaningless for me that I totally rearranged the card. The first thing I did was flip the Tarot assignments over (i.e. I worked up from Malkuth toward Kether). This made far more sense. After all, Kether is not the Fool! Kether is the ultimate divine consciousness. Kether isn't trying to work downward to become Malkuth. We are Malkuth (physical beings) trying to work our way up to spirituality (Kether). So if anything the journey of the Fool should work up through the Qabalah not downward from Kether to Malkuth.

However, I found that even staring at with Malkuth and working up, it still wasn't perfect just using the ordering of the Major Arcana. It's pretty close, but I still needed to make some further adjustments. I finally got the whole thing sewn together in a very well-balanced and meaningful way.

I did that even before I read the Temple of High Witchcraft which is Penczak's book on the Qabalah. Penczak didn't spend a lot of time on the relationship between the Qabalah and Tarot in that book (It probably didn't even make a lot of sense to him!). And that's why he didn't focus on it.

He spent more time just addressing the Qabalah and Sephirah directly without a lot of mention about the Tarot. Although he did try to fit in the standard associations when they seemed to make sense (which wasn't very often using the standard layout).

In any case, I didn't think much about this until I started reading the Goddess Book. The Goddess book is a journey into the Chakras. I was studying this journey just last night trying to get the 'big picture' which is what I always try to do. Penczak has a list of correlations for each chakra at the beginning of each Lesson Chapter. He correlates each Chakra with many things. Like the Qabalah sephirah, Herbs, Sun Signs, and so forth. One thing he correlates the chakras with is the Tarot.

In order to get the 'big picture' I decided to type in all of this information into a spreadsheet and then print it out so I could get a feel for how these chakras work together as a whole in harmony. As I started doing that I recognized once again that the correlations with the Tarot weren't making much sense. Probably due to the fact that Penczak had been using the traditional alignment of Tarot with the Qabalah.

Nothing was making sense to me. I was even trying to fit this in with the teachings of Anodea Judith's of the Chakras along with some stuff from Deepak Chopra. But it still wasn't making any sense.

Then I realized that I needed to change up the associations. It was easy to do because Penczak did make perfect associations between the chakras and the Qabalah, so I just used my Tarot layout from the Qabalah and suddenly it all made sense and everything fell into place.

Then I asked myself, "Why am I bothering to do all this stuff?" Well, it does help me to understand the whole process of aligning my consciousness with the universal consciousness, but I think I'm building up a system here that needs to be published. In some ways it might appear to be rebellion against Penczak's correlations, but what can I say. This makes sense to me, and Penczak's correlations didn't. He's got a lot of great material in general, but I think he blew it with the Tarot on the Qabalah (although he didn't design that correlation, he was just using the traditional orthodox view).

I also don't understand why he didn't just start with Capricorn and do the standard witch's "Wheel of the Year". Why he chose to go with the astrologer's year is beyond me. He's writing books on witchcraft not astrology. So who knows?

Anyway, this was my rant for the day.

I'm actually making much progress. I still enjoy much of what Penczak has to say. I'm just not in agreement with some of the things he does in the last two books. Just the same, I like many of the exercises and mediations he suggests.

He actually does Capricorn pretty well. But he's having you make up your plans for life and the end of the story instead of at the Beginning! So it's bass akwards in a way.

I just think it's odd that he even recognized the difference between the witch's year and the astrologer's year at the beginning of the book and went with the astrologer's year anyway. Strange.

I did not know this. Very interesting.

That is odd. He is a witch, afterall.

Thank you for the post. As usual, your thoughts are much appreciated.

I hope my post didn't sound like a "complaint". I like Penczak's work very much. We never agree with anyone on every single point. I like and respect Deepak Chopra too, but there are a few areas where I have different views of things there too.

I also can't blame Penczak for the screwed up correlation between the Tarot and the Qabalah. He used what has become the "standardized view". I just totally disagree with whoever it was that created that view. It holds no value for me whatsoever. I'm totally thrilled with the way I've changed it around. It makes far more sense to me that way and is therefore useful. Something that doesn't make much sense isn't very useful.

The only thing with the Zodiac that surprised me was that he actually came out and openly recognized the differences between the witch's year and astrologer's year and then used the astrologer's year anyway. That seems a bit strange to me.

Although I think the reason he did that was to keep from being slaughtered by the people who are into astrology (which probably includes a lot of witches).

Everyone who is into astrology in any depth knows that Aries is the 'first' of the sign suns. But I don't care. As far as I'm concerned it actually makes a far better story overall if starting out with Capricorn. It also makes far better sense to end the story with Sagittarius, IMHO.

So anyway, I guess owl just have to settle for being the 'witch who's out of sync with eveyrone else'.

I'm still going to do it my way, no matter what. It just makes so much more sense to me.

At least the witches do recognize the wheel of the year starting in the Yule. So I don't see why they don't also view the Zodiac in the same way. Starting with Aries is more of a 'astronomy' view than anything else. Who cares when the Earth's equator lines up with the plane of the solar system? The birth of the Sun God at the Winter Solstice is far more important doncha think?

I like to set my year up following the Sun cycle (the God). Then I set my lunar cycles up to follow the moon phases (the Goddess). Pee on where the equator's at.

I don't live on the equator anyway.

I agree with you on the cycles for the most part. Although don't most witches consider Samhain the New Year? I tend to agree more with the start of the year being Yule, like you do as it makes more sense to me too. The annual cycle is about the Sun God and the lunar cycle is about the Moon Goddess.

Well, if everyone agreed with everything Penczack did or said 100% of the time then he would just become another guru with all the answers. But, he's not and that's one of things I know you and I both like about him. He encourages you to think and decide for yourself what is true and what works for you.

I think it has something to do with the previous God preparing to be 'reborn'. Because in truth it's not really thought of as the old God actually dying, and a new God being born. It's actually the old God becoming 'reincarnated' as the newly born God. It's a 'renewal'. So Samhain has something to do with the God preparing for the reincarnation process.

It's a strange folklore that has many nuances to be sure.



Well, that's true. This is one of the reasons I like his books so much. He basically tosses everything at you including the kitchen sink and instructs you to grab whatever fits. This is probably why he kind of stuck with the mainstream orthodox patterns of the Qabalah the Zodiac and the Chakras. If he went too far off kilter he'd be teaching his own personal version. He does often say in his books that he doesn't necessarily agree with a lot of the stuff in his own books, he's just kind of reporting what's out there.

He did that in the Outer Temple quite a bit too. Tossed in everything imaginable almost to the point where I felt like he had nothing else to say so he was using anything he could find as "fill" just to finish the book.

Just the same, I like his overall presentation. I also felt that he focused in pretty well on the exercises that he offers. It's a great outline to follow.

Even though I don't care for some of the stuff in the Goddess and God books I still find the exercises and homework assignments to be a really good outline. In fact, often times his 'homework' assignments are to research the topic outside of his books. So he does try very hard to kick the students out on their own.

Also, at the end of the High Temple book his last Lesson is a challenge for the student to create their own "Reality Map". Actually I now view the Qabalah more as a "Consciousness Map" than a "Reality Map", although I guess consciousness is reality in the deepest sense.

This all makes me very happy because my "Labyrinth Garden" is my own personal "Reality Map". So in a sense, I started the High Witchcraft Assignement before I had even purchased the book. It's kind of ironic because it was actually my work ont the Labyrinth Garden that drove me to want to learn more about the Qabalah. I'm really glad to have studying that now.

In fact, I'm well-pleased with all of penczak's book. I must have spent close to $200 on them including the CD sets for the first three books. But it was money well spent. I still use those CDs almost nightly.

I don't know what other authors have available out there. But the thing I liked about this Temple Series was the step-by-step aproach. For someone who wants to learn the basics about witchcraft I think this is a really great course completely with exercises, homework, and plenty of in-depth explanations. Not the I'm trying to sell his books, but really, I can't recommend them highly enough. Especially for someone who hasn't a clue and wants to get the big picture quickly. And that was me!

I'm a baby witch!



Exactly one year old now.

I'm sucking up these last two books and then this Yule I'm going to start all over again from square one for my second year. It's not just 're-reading' the same books. Because like I say, the exercises and homework assigments points to many other resourses and studies. It's just the basic organizational outline that I'm using. It helps me to keep tabs on what's important and what isn't.

Owl be able to tailor it even more closely to my own personal needs this year. Plus, now I have the Qabalah, the Zodiac, the Tarot, the Planet God/desses and my own Labyrinth Way under my belt.

I'm currently on a journey to secure my Stone of Sovereinty, and I'm working specifically on opening up my Root Chakra for a deeper commune with Malkuth and company.

Who knows? Maybe by next Yule I will have made it to the Crown Chakra? I have no clue. I just let it flow as it comes.

Owl spread my wings and fly

Ummm, must be the witches you deal with then, Abra. Everyone I know starts the new year at Samhain, not Yule.

And start with Aries and go to Pisces, since Aries is considered more primal and basic and then work up to Pisces as the highest point.

I haven't gotten into his books yet, so I can't say to much one way or the other. A friend of mine swears by him, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQu1TBIMSSk&feature=player_embedded

Well, like I say. I'm a baby witch so my knowledge is limited.

However, just for the sake of explanation, it's my understanding that witches celebrate the New Year at Samhain as well as honoring and remembering the year past. So in that sense Samhain is when they celebrate the New Year, but it's not the actual start of the New Year. The new year supposedly starts at the winter solstice which would be the Yule.

Here's a web site that supports this idea.

http://www.forthewitchinyou.co.uk/sabbats.html

Notice that in the description of Samhain they say that it's a time to "get ready to move into the New Year". They also say that it's "the end of the old year and the beginning of the new". So it's a celebration of both the year gone by and the New Year that is about to be born at the Winter Solstice.

At least this is my understanding. So whilst Samhain represents when the witches celebrate and honor the changing of the years (and the New Year's celebration), it doesn't actually mark the birth of the New Year precisely. That birth doesn't actually occur until the Winter Solstice which would be the Yule.

However, the Yule itself is seen more of a time to "Get down to the business of actually starting the New Year". The celebration of the New Year is over, and now it's time to honor the actaul rebirth of the Sun God, and set about facilitating the plans and dedications for what will be accomplished during the New Year (which is precisely the lessons of Capricorn). So it should be taken a bit more "seriously" in the sense of actually making plans or better yet actually starting in on preperations to accomplish the goal.

Of course they celebrate the rebirth of the Sun God at Yule too, so it's also a festive time as well, especially during rituals. But overall, it should be a time of starting in on the goals for the new year.

So I guess there's a lot of subtleties going on there. But yes, I understand that witches actually celebrate the coming of the New Year at Samhain. It's also seen as a time when the moon Goddess becomes Crone and the veil between the worlds of the physical and spiritual is the thinnest. It's a time when the Sun God 'passes over' to become reincarnate. So in that sense one could make a case for the idea that the God has already "passed through the veil" and thus the New Year has actually begun in a sense.

Just the same, I personally view it more as a preperation for the coming New Year. I suppose this can be quite controversial and perhaps why Penczak stuck to the popular traditions. If people have been celebrating the New Year in Samhain I can see where they would easily begin to see that as the actual start of the new year. But if Sabbats are the true indicators (which is the idea I go by), then the New Year wouldn't technical start until the actual Winter Solstice which is the Yule.

So anyway. I would have no problem celebrating the New Year during Samhain, but for me, the actual New Year doesn't start until the Winter Solstice.

That works for me.



I can see the reasoning in that. And I'm sure that can be made to work as well. In fact, from what I've been reading around on different web sites there are so many diverse opinions about precisely what each sign means that I imagine lots of stories can be made to fit almost any configuration.

The story that I've put together that Starts with Capricorn works very well for me, Aries actually works in very well too in that order. Aries reminds us to "let go" and "follow our instincts and intuition".

Yes that's more primal than what had come before, but for me, it comes a perfect time to remind us that although we've learned all this discipline stuff previously, we shouldn't lose touch with our "inner child". Aries reminds us to embrace and nurture our inner child (although some interpretations of Aries take it to the extremes of rebellion which almost perverts it into the sign of a spoiled brat rather than merely an indication of our most innate innocence) I perfer to think of Aries as the lessons of the inner child. Not the lessons of a spoiled brat that goes berzerk in rebellion. (i've actaully seen Aries depicted in that way on some Astrology sites)

Also, in my Labyrinth Way it truly couldn't be in a better spot. It's right between the Emperor of Tarot and the Hierophant of Tarot. The Emperor was the last teacher of fatherly dicipline (which was much of what came before), then Aries pops up and says, "Don't forget to let go! Keep in touch with your inner child, do what FEELS RIGHT FOR YOU! Don't let the authoritarians mold you into something you're uncomfortable with and feel restrained by!"

And then right after that we meet the Hierophant who immeditately says "Whoa! Don't let aries rule your life, remember that you still have social responsibilities too!"

So there's a lot of 'balancing' there. It just seems to fit in with the scheme of things very well for me in my Labyrinth Way (especially considering that the Tarot and planet God/desses are in there too). It just falls in the perfect spot I think (right between the Emperor and the Hierophant). A reminder not to let these authoritarians murder our inner child completely.

But more to the point, if the actual New Year starts at the Yule (or even at Samhain) then why start to Zodiac clear out there at Aries? That just isn't in alignment with the Wheel of the Year at all as far as I can see.

Anyway, I can imagine that my views of these things would no doubt bring up a lot of controversy. Perhaps maybe it's better just to keep it to myself as my own personal model. If I wrote a book on it teaching it my way that book would probably draw a lot of criticism. I think that's why Penczak started with Aries too. To do anything else would be seen as "unorthodox".

All I know is that it works very well for me and it makes sense for me. So I have no choice but to build my archetypal pardigm in a way that is meaningful for me. So that's what I try to do. Then I offer what I'm doing just for the sake of sharing my reasons why I do it. One thing that attracted me to the folklore of witchcraft was the insistence by both Scott Cunningham, and Christopher Penczak, that it should never become dogmatic. If it ends up where I have to do precisely what everyone else does then I may as well go back to the Abrahamic dogma.

In fact, just last night I was thinking about writing a small series of books called "An Eclectic Shaman Presents The Labyrinth Way". Maybe not even mention "witchcraft" at all just to avoid the controversy.

Even Deepak Chopra talks about the techniques of magick but never uses that word (nor does he use the word witchcraft) He speaks entirely in terms of synchrodestiny (a word that he made up himself to replace the word "magick").

Of course Deepak is coming from the point of view of Yoga and Buddhism and the Indian Vedic. But it's still the same message in the long haul, IMHO.

I think I would focus on the same kind of idea, always speaking in terms of orchestrating synchronicity. This is how I ultimately see magick anyway. But I also like a lot of these other archetypal pantheons. I think they are very useful in many ways.

I suppose another good title for my book would be "Non-traditional Witchcraft".

That would get me off the hook completely. I could always reply to any critique with, "Well I said it's non-traditional didn't I?"

I'm on dial-up, so I can't watch youtube videos.