Messages

The Monroe Institute?

-Ater

Naiad, there's no need to separate the elements at all.

You can work with all of them in a single spell if you want, and when you think about it, most people call upon all the powers of the elements to give a "boost" to their work. I would feel uncomfortable only working with one element while ignoring the others.

Separating everything into earth, air, fire, and water? Well, since it's believed that they form everything that's in our world, that would make sense. This doesn't mean that you have to focus on only one of them at a time.

I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say....

-Ater

PS: I'm tired. I hope I made some sense.

Nita, I guess it depends on the style of practice.

For example, I prefer to work with the elements rather than against them. When I have a problem, I usually look for a way a certain element could help with that problem, rather than focusing on what element the problem reprsents so I could banish it. (Did that make any sense?)

In your spell, you focus on the reversal of air (in this case, air representing the gossip). If I were to cast that exact same spell, I would focus on the element of air helping me get rid of the gossip. (In my case, the gossip would be the mixture and the wind would be the air element which gets rid of the gossip for me.)

-Ater

If you're just looking at charts, of course you won't see any power in the elemental system.

You have to experience the elements through nature and meditations to understand what they're all about. They're not some "belief" that you're supposed to accept, but powers you're supposed to experience and use in spellwork.

So, basically, the elements/elementals are powers that are used by witches and others enchance spells.

When they're called upon in spells and such, they're not some representation of what you want to accomplish, but powers/beings that are supposed to give a "boost" to the spell being cast.

Of course, anyone can do spellwork without any elemental involment, but a large number of magic-workers work with them.

-Ater

A 'Wish Book', eh? Sounds like a cool idea.

As for the ritual, you can basically do anything. You can keep it short and simple (which seems appropriate for this kind of thing) or not. Whatever feels right (!). If you want to bless the book and what you write within you can surround it with positive energy and sprinkle a sweet smelling herb in and around it and say something like: "bless this book to become my guide in making all my wishes come true". This is just one option out of many, many more!

As for appropriate colors or whatnot, they can be anything you feel is "right" for what you're trying to accomplish. For example, if you did a whole page on things you want financially, you could use green colors on that page or gold or whatever says "money, wealth, etc." to you.

A book you might want to check out is Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain. It has some interesting ideas and techniques on getting the things you want.

-Ater

If you know how to get into gnosis and gather and release energy, you don't need any tools (not even candles!).

A good place to start would be by clicking the link in my signature. I found that website very helpful and am using it right now as part of my training.

-Ater

I believe in personal responsibility.

As for 'dangerous' spells, a good witch would know how to cast those successfully without any backfiring.

As for me, no, I don't go around casting 'dangerous' spells. But I wouldn't hesitate to cast such a spell if someone gave me a really good reason to. I still haven't met a person worthy of a curse.

Good luck with everything. I think it's great that you have boundaries or whatnot, but please stop playing the "occult police." If a witch is good enough to cast a successful spell, I think they can make their own moral judgments (which are a personal thing, anyway).

-Ater

PS: I find it a little hard to believe that you didn't at least hear of the 'threefold law' or 'karma' at the time all this happened (especially since 99% of magical books on the market at least mention one of them).

If you believe in it, of course it's gonna affect you. That doesn't make it true for everyone else.

-Ater

I got that book from the library and finished reading it just a few days ago.

It is pretty interesting, though 99% of it is focused on the afterlife rather than astral adventures.

Also, it made me wonder how someone on this earth can remember their dreams/projections in that much detail, especially since some of these expereiences have several chapters devoted to them!

When I finished reading it, it made me kind of depressed since he talked about all this "soul's plan" stuff....not a good self-esteem booster, at least not for me!

Overall, an interesting book.

-Ater

I have this book.

It is pretty interesting, though I don't really like the meditation technique she uses.

I still haven't finished her chapter on healing, even though I finished the rest of the book. I find healing a bit boring and that chapter is very long!

-Ater

That book was also my second book on OBE's!

I thought it was pretty good. To be honest, I skipped the part about quantum-physics or whatnot since it bore me to death.

Overall, a pretty good book, just skip that one part if you don't find that stuff interesting.

Now that I remember it, I expereinced my first OBE by using a technique from that book. (I think it was the one about visualizing another room and saying "now I'm out-of-body" before falling asleep.)

-Ater

The are lots of books on publishing that you can buy or take from your local library.

Look at the children's market and see what publishers in those areas are looking for. Go to a website of a publisher of children's books and see what guidelines they have for authors and the such.

You could look for an agent, since most big publishers require that you have one.

It's not that hard to find out these things, you just have to look for them.

Good luck!

-Ater

Hmm, this is what I think happened (in order):

Dream, Lucid Dream, OBE experience, and Dream (this last one could also be a 'lucid dream' if you knew you were dreaming).

Well, don't take my word for it! I've only had a couple of projections and maybe one or two lucid dreams.

-Ater

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Goal: to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Sign ups began in October, writing starts in November.

Just wanted to let people know.

-Ater