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Weight | 1 oz |
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An echo of the rites of Rhiannon, the Great Queen and Mother of Horses, the Mari Lwyd is a Midwinter tradition in Wales. The beribboned Grey Mare travels door to door with her entourage, seeking permission to wassail and initiate a contest of wit: the pwnco, a battle of improvised verses filled with good-natured ridicule set to song. If the Mari party were victorious, they were invited into the home to partake of ale and cakes and provide entertainment for the family.
Welsh cakes and ale with a smattering of dried lavender.
Art by Pierre-Eugène Grandsire, 1867
Weight | 1 oz |
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The Rev. Joseph Glanvil, chaplain in ordinary to Charles II., was a writer of great erudition and ability. In his “Sadducismus Triumphatus,” written to show that the phenomena of witchcraft were genuine occurrences, he gives an account of Mr. Mompesson’s haunted house at Tedworth, where it was observed that, on beating or calling for any tune, it would be exactly answered by drumming. When asked by some one to give three knocks, if it were a certain spirit, it gave three knocks and no more. Other questions were put, and answered by knocks exactly. Glanvil himself says, that, being told it would imitate noises, he scratched, on the sheet of the bed, five, then seven, then ten times ; and it returned exactly the number of scratches each time.
Melanethon relates that at Oppenheim, in Germany, in 1620, the same experiment of rapping, and having the raps exactly answered by the spirit which haunted a house, was successfully tried ; and he tells us that Luther was visited by a spirit who announced his coming by “a rapping at his door.”
In the famous Wesley case, the haunting of the house of John Wesley’s father, the Parsonage at Epworth, Lincolnshire, in 1716, for a period of two months, the supposed spirit used to imitate Mr. Wesley’s knock at the gate. It responded to the Amen at prayers. Emily, one of the daughters, knocked ; and it answered her. Mr. Wesley knocked a stick on the joists of the kitchen ; and it knocked again, in number of strokes and in loudness exactly replying. When Mrs. Wesley stamped, it knocked in reply.
It is not surprising that John Wesley was a Spiritualist. “With my last breath,” he writes, “will I bear my testimony against giving up to infidels one great proof of the invisible world ; I mean that of witchcraft, confirmed by the testimony of all ages.”
Planchette, or The Despair of Science : being a full account of modern spiritualism, its phenomena, and the various theories regarding it : with a survey of French Spiritism, Epes Sargent
Green balsam, bay leaf, fossilized amber, blackened vetiver, and clove bud cloaked in oud.
Electricity, which is an atmospheric emanation from God, and which is moved by his will, is that substance out of which all worlds and their splendid appendages were made. Hence, it will be perceived, that electricity contains all the original properties of all the various substances in being. All the varieties of the universe around us – all the beauties and glories of creation upon which we look with so many thrilling emotions of delight, were produced from electricity, which is the inexhaustible fountain of primal matter. By the living energies of the Divine Mind, electricity was condensed into globes ; not instantly, but gradually. The heaviest particle took the lowest point, or common centre, of our globe, and so on, step by step, lighter and lighter, till we reach the surface, which is a regular mould. On this we find water, a substance still lighter than earth ; next air, which is lighter than water, and so on till we reach the sun, which is the highest point in relation to our system, because it is the common centre. The sun is, therefore, pure electricity. Hence, the twenty-nine globes, belonging to our system, are electrically, geologically, and magnetically made. They are but twenty-nine magnets revolving around our sun as a centre. The sun being pure electricity or primal matter, is but an emanation from the Deity. It is consequently in a positive state. Hence, electricity is continually passing from the sun, as a common centre to the twenty-nine surrounding worlds : on the same principle that it passes from a positive to a negative cloud. Having done its duty in giving light, heat, and vegetation, as well as magnetic power to the globes, it is returned by reaction to the sun, and these two motions from the vertices that roll worlds around him. It is impossible that there can be any inherent attraction or repulsion in matter. Attraction and repulsion are but different dispositions of electricity. The best magnets are now made for the galvanic battery. Hence, electricity, galvanism and magnetism, are but in substance one and the same fluid, and the Eternal Mind, so that all the powers of attraction and repulsion originated in Deity. His will comes in contact with electricity, and through that subtle agent he moves the whole immeasurable universe in accordance with nature’s law.
All worlds are in motion. They roll rapid as the lightning’s blaze, and in the most apparent confusion ; yet all is calm, regular, and harmonious. God is, therefore, connected with his universe, and superintends all its multifarious operations. Tho’ he is thus intimately united with inert matter, yet is he distinct from the whole.
Thou apart,
Above, beyond ; O tell me, mighty Mind,
Where art thou? Shall I dive into the deep:
Call to the sun? or ask the roaring winds
For their Creator! Shall I question loud
The thunder, if in that the Almighty dwells!
Or holds he furious storms in straitened reins,
And bids fierce whirlwinds wheel his rapid car!
The Pittsburgh Post, 9 August 1847
The divine spark from which all things emanate; the perfume of the profound, unseen forces that connect us to the cosmos: the cold brilliance of metallic aldehydes, lemon pith, ambergris accord, and white lavender tethered to terrestrial patchouli, violet leaf, and a mineralic musk.
Practical Occultism consists, first, of a perfect mastery of the individual’s own spirit. No advance whatever can be made in acquiring power over other spirits, such as controlling the lower or supplicating the higher, until the spirit within has acquired such perfect mastery of itself, that it can never be moved to anger or emotion—realizes no pleasure, cares for no pain; experiences no mortification at insult, loss, or disappointment—in a word, subdues every emotion that stirs common men’s minds.
To arrive at this state, severe and painful as well as long continued discipline is necessary. Having acquired this perfect equilibrium, the next step is power. The individual must be able to wake when he pleases and sleep when he pleases; go in spirit during bodily sleep where he will, and visit—as well as remember when awake—distant scenes.
He must be enabled by practice, to telegraph, mentally, with his fellow associates, and present himself, spiritually, in their midst.
He must, by practice, acquire psychological control over the minds of any persons—not his associates—beneath his own calibre of mind. He must be able to still a crying infant, subdue fierce animals or angry men, and by will, transfer his thought without speech or outward sign to any person of a mental calibre below himself; he must be enabled to summon to his presence elementary spirits, and if he desires to do so (knowing the penalties attached), to make them serve him in the special departments of Nature to which they belong.
He must, by virtue of complete subjugation of his earthly nature, be able to invoke Planetary and even Solar Spirits, and commune with them to a certain degree.
To attain these degrees of power the processes are so difficult that a thorough practical occultist can scarcely become one and yet continue his relations with his fellow-men.
He must continue, from the first to the last degree, a long series of exercises, each one of which must be perfected before another is undertaken.
A practical occultist may be of either sex, but must observe as the first law inviolable chastity—and that with a view of conserving all the virile powers of the organism. No aged person, especially one who has not lived the life of strict chastity, can acquire the full sum of the powers above named. It is better to commence practice in early youth, for after the meridian of life, when the processes of waste prevail over repair, few of the powers above described can be attained; the full sum never.
Strict abstinence from animal food and all stimulants is necessary. Frequent ablutions and long periods of silent contemplation are essential. Codes of exercises for the attainment of these powers can be prescribed, but few, if any, of the self-indulgent livers of modern times can perform their routine.
The arts necessary for study to the practical occultist are, in addition to those prescribed in speculative occultism, a knowledge of the qualities of drugs, vapors, minerals, electricity, perfumes, fumigations, and all kinds of anæsthetics.
And now, having given in brief as much as is consistent with my position—as the former associate of a secret society—I have simply to add, that, whilst there are, as in Masonry, certain preliminary degrees to pass through, there are numerous others to which a thoroughly well organized and faithful association might advance. In each degree there are some valuable elements of practical occultism demanded, whilst the teachings conveyed are essential preliminaries. In a word, speculative occultism must precede practical occultism; the former is love and wisdom, the latter, simply power.
A Victorian occultist’s incense, invoking the Four Archangels: precious wildcrafted Indian frankincense with myrrh, cassia, sandarac, palmarosa, white sage, red sandalwood, elemi, and drops of star anise bound with grains of kyphi.
An echo of the rites of Rhiannon, the Great Queen and Mother of Horses, the Mari Lwyd is a Midwinter tradition in Wales. The beribboned Grey Mare travels door to door with her entourage, seeking permission to wassail and initiate a contest of wit: the pwnco, a battle of improvised verses filled with good-natured ridicule set to song. If the Mari party were victorious, they were invited into the home to partake of ale and cakes and provide entertainment for the family.
Welsh cakes and ale with a smattering of dried lavender.
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