Nick Farrell and Melissa Seims - MAGICIAN - Articles Kingdom Come: Real Life Divination Published in the Hermetic

Virtues Magazine Volume 2, Issue 1. "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust Kabbalists will tell you that what you see around you is but a final reflection of God interacting down the four levels of creation. The Divine has an idea, which is a perfected symbol. This creates activity and flows down the levels like a river to the sea, gaining more momentum and more solidity until it manifests as the world we see around us. Emanations of true reality come rushing down the tree, pushing all before them in their question for manifestation and realisation. All that ever is and all that will ever be already exists. It is just about finding the correct channel, to bring it down to Earth. That is where humanity comes in. All the time, new ideas are being hatched through our own powers of creativity and imagination. Some find their way to birth whilst others are lost for a while in the morass of anonymity. We are, perhaps paradoxically, both a conduit for and a product of this process. Everything before you started as a symbol, progressed into a dream, was realised by someone or something and finally became the solid world we see around us. It is the path of the magician to work with symbols and these can be traced back to their source until they reveal a primal reality behind them. This means that matter is belief's shadow, a thought is re-enforced concrete and a dream is stronger than steel. This knowledge is recognised, at least unconsciously, by the advertising industry. They give you a symbol with the goal of getting your to dream their dreams. We are so bombarded with marketing images and symbols that we are becoming immune to them. But never doubt that they are still working their magic on us, at a subconscious level, to drive us back to the dream, where if you buy that shampoo, you will be transported to exotic beaches. Some brands' magic will go as far as openly preying on your insecurities, making you think that there really is no way that woman is going to look at you unless you have their aftershave. If your car breaks down, rather than be stuck for hours whilst your fellow human beings jeer and laugh at your misfortune, all you need to do is join the Automobile Association, theyll be your real helpful friend so long as you pay them in cash, the currency of the material world's demon soul. This is far removed from the real currency of the soul, the essence of our being, which is what you are when you are often being decidedly un-cool; those moments of spiritual connection when your brand of jeans matters not one iota. It is unsurprising that many fall prey to popular advertising images and rely on such illusions to prop up their lives. Indeed, if we weren't so easily affected by symbols within our immediate surroundings, to the point that they become our desires, then advertising would not exist. Advertisers often use the power of fear to encourage us to hand over our power and our choices to them. This results in our own individuality being hammered into a pine box where no one will see your unique way of being, expressing and seeing. I n a world where devoted fans gather under sacred Golden Arches for their Big Macs, it seems clear that too much magic is being performed by the wrong people, advocates of the Nephilim.(1) By itself, this magic is not inherently evil and manipulative, it is the way it is applied, the intent behind it. Slogan writers and advertising executives may use its force to get you to part with your hard earned money, but true artists use it to create something more resonant and meaningful through

the stroke of a brush, the ethereal words of a good poem or the dream of the fairytale. All art is about manipulating your emotions, true art, magic, should give you access to emotional power independent of others ulterior motives. Emotions are also the language of your Higher Self which is always trying to whisper your divine Will to you, if it can just get your attention. Everything around us is a manifestation of this creative process, whether thats the grandeur of the Trevi Fountain or the eye-sore of the Millennium Dome. All these ideas made manifest, feed directly into modern culture and society and create all the symbols in our lives. In this seemingly anarchic universe that is constantly vomiting symbols at us and through us, we can chose to be more proactive, to use the process in our favour in an act of divinatory magic based on real life. Using this we can glimpse into the mind of God. All you need to do is make the decision to look at the world around you in a different way. When you perform a traditional divination in an open and altered state of consciousness, you consciously look for some answers in the symbols you are using. This usually occurs when you are in some sort of heightened emotional state and your human failings doubt the intensity of the message that your Higher Self is trying to convey to you. If you have tarot cards you will decide which symbols are correct for the reading. What happens if we apply the same rules to the universe that is around us? We know our reality is a result of the outpouring of the mind of God what if we try to read it as if it were a set of tarot cards? If you are having a problem or want to try and see what lies ahead, go for a walk and make the conscious decision to look at the universe unravelling around you, as opposed to being just a passive subject and a reaction to it. Formulate your question in your head and give it a time period. Mentally invoke the Angel Heru, or call upon your own Higher Self for guidance. Then say something like by the time I get to the shops 10 minutes away, something will have occurred on my path that will provide me with some insight about whether or not to quit my troublesome job. Instead of worrying over the myriad of possibilities in any situation concerning ones livelihood, you are throwing it out to the Universe and in doing so, allowing yourself to become a more effective channel for your own divine Will. (1) In Hebrew, nephilim translates to those causing others to fall.

It may be that in this case, your eye is drawn to some leaves dancing about in a gust of wind; something that under normal circumstances, you would have barely noticed. It could be surmised that the leaves are telling you that it is time to turn over a new leaf, to change your job. By opening up to the possibility of receiving divine answers in this way, you have enabled your Higher Self to more effectively communicate to you in the same way that occurs when reading tarot cards or using any other divination process. But rather than using someone elses symbolic system, you are using your own and by choosing to interact with the world around you, you are closer to the mind of God, for it is more clearly reflected there than anywhere else. Another example of this principle in action can be seen in the case of two star-crossed lovers whom life has decreed are unable to be together by virtue of the fact that they are both married to other people. On an illicit drive one day, they decide to throw it out to fate and the Gods, to divine real life in order to find out what would happen to them if they followed the overwhelming emotional impulses that typify such situations. They turn left into a road and find their way blocked by a dustbin lorry collecting the recycling. The lorry has a badge on the front, it is an eagle a symbol that is often seen as being a messenger of the Gods and a go-between for your Higher Self. The lovers had to pull over to the side of the road and wait patiently for the lorry to pass them by. As it did,

they noticed the word together on the side of the van. Real life seemed to be saying to them that there would be a delay whilst baggage was being recycled but that it would ultimately work out and they would be together. This 'reading' could be interpreted in another way, for example it may have been saying that all they are doing is repeating and recycling past habits. But it is how they chose to read the symbol that is the most important thing. It has to feel right, the first emotional response usually indicates a connection to the power of the Higher Self, dont let the head try to rationalise things too much and let matters of the mundane snap at your heels. Be the fool who is also the innocent magician. The head is there to serve the heart and the Higher Self, not the other way round. The heart is the seat of the spirit and as such has much better access to your spiritual self, than the head. This is why emotional situations so often taunt us with their seeming intangibility of feelings that seem to come from somewhere up there. Often defying logic, they frustrate us in the process but their transformative power invites you to visit transcendence and it often has teeth. Humans often struggle with the threat of change when the past is known and the future is undetermined. Our societies are built on the concept of some sort of stability, a home, a married life, a regular job. The Powers that Be like to know where you live, what you do for a living, how many children you have and whether you buy anything that could be used in an act of trendy terrorism. They dont want you to be the magician; they pacify you with organised religion, which also requires that the access to your own divinity is through their chosen spiritual front-man. When you had that heated argument with you girlfriend last week, emotions ran high and Beelzebub's barbs were creeping their way into being through your heightened emotional state. This is a manifestation of a negative force channelled by a foul mood because your Higher Self is trying to tell you that there is something wrong in your relationship that needs to be looked at. It may be that you are destined to split up, or that you need this jolt in order to work things out and grow as an individual. Jump in the car, go for a drive. Maybe your eye will be drawn to the slogan, Its the Real thing, the Genuine Article, or maybe its a Marlboro Moment and its time to take a break, have a Kit-Kat. Use the images, instead of letting them use you. It is only through moments like this that you can take those advertising symbols that are battering you, like a Mars bar in a Scottish chip shop and turning into something really toxic. Symbols that are normally designed to make you buy something pointless can help you understand your life. A Kit- Kat advert might be telling you that you really do need to take a break and stop working so hard. A car advert might be telling you that, although the path seems confused, 'taking the long way home' will eventually get you there. Let us have a look at some other examples. Troubled by thoughts of his new girlfriend, who he thought had been acting a bit weird of late, Toby decided to go for a drive in a bid to clear his head and to get some perspective. It was then that he saw a cat spraying up the side of his new car. Toby, who loved his feline friends, thought the cat was a protective aspect of the Goddess Bast. The Goddess of the home looks like she really wants a nice home life with me. All this weirdness is really her marking her territory to make sure that I am in the picture, he thought. It is, however, also important to realise that everyone has their own symbolic language, based on their path through life. One man's rose is another's thorn. A stray dog in the path will be a symbol of doom to a person who is terrified of them, but a sign of companionship to those who grew up with a faithful hound. Thats the thing with symbols, some are fairly universal, but others depend on personal experience and can take on new and radically different meanings from the conventional ones.

Another similar technique is divination by Spam. You can use annoying eMails, which promise you longer erections and multiple orgasms, to understand your life direction. If you are stuck behind a PC a lot of the time, this is an easy way to get your answers. Formulate your question and check your inbox. Often these spam eMails have peculiar sentences, stories or words in them to make them appear like they are real messages. You should also check the bogus name and eMail address of the senders. Somewhere in the text there will be an answer. Working magic and receiving insight through electrical items is an interesting phenomenon. MP3 players, set to random, will sometimes synchronistically play a song, which, when combined with your real life circumstances, merge the evocative creativity inherent in music with the reality of life to give you an aural experience that really moves you. With this marriage there can be a cacophonous realisation which creates a type of spiritual experience that brings with it a new layer of understanding and certainty. Helena P. Blavatsky wrote in Isis Unveiled: The corner-stone of magic is an intimate practical knowledge of magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and potencies. Especially necessary is a familiarity with their effects in and upon the animal kingdom and man...To sum up all in a few words, Magic is spiritual Wisdom; nature the material ally, pupil and servant of the magician. Divination by real life is not new. The ancients used to use something like it all the time. The idea of looking for omens has been passed down to us in many different superstitions, ranging from saluting single magpies, to being careful about black cats crossing your path. One of the most famous methods, used by the Romans, was divination by flights of birds. Using this technique in a Golden Dawn setting is not difficult and can be surprisingly accurate. Go to a site where you have a clear view to the skies of the North, South, East and West. Perform a lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram and call upon the Angel Heru, who is the Angel of the Golden Dawn and is set over secret wisdom, to unveil to you the answer to your question through the flights of birds. Then turn around clockwise until you see a bird in the sky. If you don't see any after turning around three times then the answer cannot be revealed to you yet. Birds in the East mean good fortune in terms of what the questioner wants. If there are birds in the South, this means that good fortune is starting to ebb away but is strong at the present in terms of the question. Birds in the West mean bad fortune. If there are birds in the North then bad fortune will start to improve. The numbers of birds are important. The greater the number, the more 'power' and weight that quarter has. So, if you see four birds in the south, and ten in the north that would mean that although all seems to be falling away, things will get better soon. Note then the direction that the birds you have seen are moving towards. This is the direction that the fates are moving. Birds that start in the North, moving to the East show that a bleak situation will get better, while the same birds moving towards the North will indicate that while things seem to be getting better, they will soon become still more bleak. If several stay still or go in an opposite direction from others then it indicates that there are several courses that a man may follow. He should go towards the point where the greater number of birds travelled, even if this should take him to the North or West. Two or more flocks of birds coming together is a sign that many forces shall be marshalled to bring

about a matter for good or for ill. Birds that fly overhead indicate that the matter will soon be resolved. Sounds of birds, either coming from the direction you are looking, or from another direction, should also be taken into account as if you were watching that quarter. Different species of birds mean different things: Blackbirds: secrets Cranes: stillness, birth and death Crows: death, war, magic Ducks: dreams, communication, flexibility. Eagles: the forces of Spirit Geese: war, defence, the Astral Gulls: the forces of Earth Hawks: meditation followed by action Magpies: theft, writing and law Owls (by day): ill omen, spirits of the dead Pigeons: stupidity, adaptability and love. Rooks: wisdom Sparrows and tits: industry and work Starlings: groups, dramas, mimicry Swallows: travel and journeys Swans: love, commitment, silence Birds rising suddenly from a tree or landing upon one indicate something connected with the meaning of that tree, i.e. an oak would mean Saturn. Everything should be interpreted in the order that it happens. One person who used this particular system was the last member of the Druidic Order of Pendragon, Colin Robertson.(2) In his book he used an example of asking a question about his wife who was ill. He looked up to the East, South and West, there was nothing. In the North a flock of starlings were flying to the East. A group of seven sparrows rose up from an old yew tree and in the distance he heard the quacking of a duck. He interpreted this as: "My wife is getting better and indeed the only reason that she is not completely better is that after such a long time being unwell she is used to it. She needs to get more activity and to become more interested in life again. We need to talk about this issue." What this method of divination calls you to be is active in your search for answers. You dont just wait for those moments of glaring synchronicities to happen, for your God to show you the right way. By reading the signs around you, it is as if you are asking the Universe to talk to you. One of the scary things is that if you open yourself up to this sort of thing, it generally does do just that and the results are far more humorous than anything you will find in the bottom of a tea cup.