Part 11 of ARDA 2 SECTION TWO A - Student Organizations ...

your brain is saying, “oh, that looks like…” Don’t scoff at this or
try to stop it. It is one gateway to visions and one of the closest.
And, some people would add, one of the safest. Relax your eyes
the way you did when you were day dreaming as a kid and just
watch. If you can prevent yourself from dismissing it with the
“Oh, that’s only…” response, the eidetic image will become a
scene. Small, very distant figures of people moving about at some
unknown task, or geometric mask-like faces that appear, change
and disappear are common first sightings. Keep your mind calm
and silent and watch. The scene may draw nearer and begin to
mean something; a mask may become a face or a person. Two
negative skills are needed here; not scoffing and not pushing for
something better. Watch, remember, get the feel of it. Sometimes
the scene will fade back into being flaws in the crystal;
sometimes it will just disappear and you will realize how tired
your eyes and mind are. You have come to the end of your
concentration energy. With meditation practice, you can increase
the length of time that you can hold these contemplative states of
mind. Look away. Now you can analyze what meaning you what
you saw may have for you. As with all psychic skills it gets easier
and more refined with practice. Again, remember the metaphor of
learning to play a musical instrument.
When you succeed, try to remember to remember how you
were focusing your eyes, and the “feel” of your state of mind.
These are helpful guideposts in learning to get back to that state.
Scrying with the light behind you, coming over your right
shoulder, is similar as to method, the same eye focus, the same
relaxed attention, but here reflections are more important and the
scenes are more likely to be in multiple colors. Sunlight can be
used, but it is difficult. It is important to have the light coming
over your shoulder from the right. This is the positive direction in
Celtic lore and does make a difference in mood and mental state.
This I know from empirical observation and testing as well. (Yes,
we test things here at the Missal-Any. Question everything. It’s
an old R.D.N.A. tradition not to write or teach about a psychic
phenomenon unless you have personal experience of it.) The
“light from the right” rule is also corroborated in many other
traditions as well. Does it stimulate the left hemisphere I don’t
know. Energy, messages, and even thought sentences that seem
to originate from the left are often untrustworthy and
unconstructive and sometimes even harmful. This is not a
prejudice; it comes of long observation. But this does not mean
that anything from the right hand side is “TRUTH.” I’d like to
invoke here a former Archdruid’s safety tip for psychic
experimenters: “Be as cautious about accepting or trusting any
entity or “message” which you may encounter in the course of
your psychic workings as you would about trusting a person
whom you had just met at a party.” Common sense, repeated
practice, and long acquaintance are good guides. Check your gut
feeling. But this moves into the related problem of ethics,
judgment, and veracity testing on the non-material planes,
another and vaster subject than simple scrying, which was the
subject that I was asked to boil down and put in this nutshell.*
Stock Market Crash
In the old legends
fairie gold turned back to withered leaves
the next day. It shone and lured
only in Elfland.
And by enchantment.
Money is like that.
On the stock market the climbing numbers
increase and multiply and now
nothing but paper,
fit only to write a poem on the back.
Elfland. Wall Street.
Wherever we believe and then
no longer believe.
All over the country the experts are saying
it’s a matter of faith:
clap your hands
and Tinkerbell will get well,
and the economy will get well,
and well, we’ll see.
Money has always been strange.
It’s only real when you don’t have it.
Even the sparechanger with a handful of coins
is never sure.
They might refuse to serve him.
They have before.
The Dow Jones
is just another jones to feed.
Everyone needs money to eat
but no one can eat paper.
Where did all this paper come from
Withered leaves,
fit only for burning.
by
Julia Vinograd
From her latest book, Graffiti, Zeigeist Press.
Write: 2500 Durant, Suite 409, Berkeley, 94704
—Emmon Bodfish
*And thanks be to the Gods for that!
Holy wars have been waged and volumes written on these
matters, and I can refer the interested reader thither.
Calendar
Astronomical Samhain, when the Sun is at 16 degrees 18
minutes South, will occur on November 6, 1988, at 5:40 P.M.
Pacific Standard Time.
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