Introduction To Earth Magick Dr. Charlotte Pipes
DOWN LOAD FORMAT
$15.00
Introduction To Earth Magick & History 1
by Dr. Charlotte Pipes
Copyrighted by Dr. Charlotte Pipes & PsychicSchoolHouse.com
Description:
A course designed to acquaint the student with the origins and development of the modern spiritual path known as Wicca and the concept of earth magick—spiritual practices influenced by prehistoric, nature-based beliefs. Topics discussed include the fundamentals of modern Wicca as descended from spiritualism in ancient European cultures, and the parallel development of ritual practices. This course will discuss the differences between Wicca and Witch, Witchcraft and Magick. It will also serve as a basis of knowledge for further study of nature-based spiritualism. Designed to be accessible to someone with little or no previous knowledge of these topics.
NOTE: This course is designed to be an INTERACTIVE course. Reference links within the course can be accessed by clicking on the number and outside web site references and referrals are also linked in. To access these web links you will need to read this while connected to the Internet or DSL.
------------------------------------
Prerequisite:
No prerequisite for this course. For the Earth Magick certificate passing the examination is required.
-------------------------------------
Index:
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Wicca and Earth Magick
History and Origins
Ancient Worship Centers and Monuments
Influence of Animistic Religions
PRINCIPAL OF BELIEF
Wiccan Rede
Threefold Law
The Wheel of the Year
The Pentacle Symbol
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Resurgent Popularity of Wicca
Leading Modern Practitioners
Some Popular Traditions
Personal Practice—Coven or Solitary?
CONCLUSIONS
Summary of Topics Covered
Sources for Further Study
Recommended Books
Recommended Websites
GLOSSARY
-------------------------------
SAMPLE READ:
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
WICCA & EARTH MAGICK
Wicca is a contemporary religion that features a nature-based spiritual path reconstructed from ancient beliefs and rites, folk magic, and ceremonial magic. Modern Wiccans believe that the source of the term wicca is the Anglo Saxon root word wita meaning councilor, or wis meaning wise. The same root word is the source of the term witch. Wicca is the Old English term for witch.
Although the terms Wicca and Witch are often used synonymously, they are not the same. The term Wicca is used to describe a modern, organized religion with a system of beliefs, laws, standards, holidays, and religious services. The term Witch usually denotes someone who practices Witchcraft. Witchcraft incorporates folklore and ancient traditions, and features the use of magic.
Wiccans study a particular form of magic derived from rituals they believe were created by ancient nature-based religions. For this reason, its natural origins, I will refer to this type of magic as earth magick. For a more generalized interpretation of magic, we can quote Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) who defined magic as “the art and science of causing change to occur in conformity to the will.” If you have ever researched this topic, you will notice that the word magic is sometimes spelled alternately as magick. This altered spelling is deliberate. Those who practice magic will often employ the spelling magick when they use the word to indicate spell work. So, the term Wiccan refers to someone who participates in the religion of Wicca and the term Witch refers to a person who participates in practice of Witchcraft.
So do Wiccans ever practice magick? Some do, but not all. Those who do incorporate it only practice magick occasionally. The use of magick is not the sole focus of their ceremonies, or their daily lives. They employ magick, or spell work, for specific reasons and only under certain conditions. Most often, their ceremonies are simply prayers meetings. They may meet with others in a group called a coven or they can conduct their ceremonies alone, as a solitary. They may meet regularly to participate in ceremonies, just as other more traditional religious communities meet on Saturdays or Sundays. And, just as traditional religious services emphasize prayer, music, and community, so do Wicca services. They may refer to their services as ceremonies, rituals, rites, circles, sabbats, or esbats. However, any visitor to their meetings would probably comment that the ceremony merely resembled a traditional church service, for that is what they are. Spell work, or the use of magick, is not the focus of the meeting, nor is it the focus of the religion. Occasionally, they will perform magick, as an adjunct to their prayers. In this spell work, they petition deity to hear their specific needs and grant their requests. As part of their petitions, Wiccans perform rituals—certain specific actions that are designed to bring about a positive response to their requests. In like manner, a traditional minister may sprinkle holy water on a fishing fleet to petition deity for a good fishing season, or a priest may pronounce a prayer over the communion offering to petition deity to bless those who receive the offering.
The major difference here is that in Wicca, each person is sanctioned to act as their own Priest or Priestess. They all have the ability to lead their own worship. Sometimes, one among them is acknowledged as a leader of the group, by mutual consent. Then, that person may become the leader of the religious ceremonies as well.
HISTORY AND ORIGINS
Where did Wicca begin? Some of their modern practices are descended from ancient nature-based beliefs that employed earth magick. The origins of earth magick reach back to the time before the invention of the written word. For that reason, much of the information concerning its origins is fragmented. However, artifacts such as stone monuments and cave paintings from the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras do offer a glimpse into ancient religious beliefs. We do know that every small group of people was united in a daily struggle to survive. Bewildered by the workings of the natural world, early humans reasoned that powerful unseen forces, spirits, were in control of nature. As an aid to survival, early humans sought to establish a rapport with these powerful spirit beings.
The task of communicating with these spirits was often assigned to the tribal elders, who became the spiritual advisors to the group. These elders, sometimes called shamans, used various means to contact the unseen beings of the spirit realm. They might employ certain physical movements, pantomimes, chanting, burning of sacred herbs, etc. Most often, these shamans would seek the assistance of the spirit world to ensure the success of the hunt, or to sustain the fertility of the herds and the land. Those spirits associated with the hunt gradually began to assume masculine attributes (gods) and the spirits associated with fertility gradually began to assume feminine attributes (goddesses).
These early humans were often nomadic, following herds and foraging throughout their region in search of edible vegetation that changed with the seasons. Their belief system was animistic, as opposed to humanistic. The term animism is derived from the Latin root word anima meaning soul. Animism is defined as the belief that all life is produced by a spiritual force, or that all things in nature have souls. Humanism is defined as any system of thought based on the interests and ideals of mankind. Because of early man’s animistic spiritual beliefs, their deities mirrored the natural environment. Their deities might physically resemble a tree, a wolf, or an eagle. Humans, at that time, did not consider their species to be the pinnacle of creation, so they did not assume that their deities should display only human physical features.
In their rituals to deity, the shamans, began to practice what we now call earth magick. In their prayers, they often employed the use of a specific type of magick, called sympathetic magick. The principle here is one of imitation, that like attracts like, or similar things have similar effects. For example, the village might decide to send out a hunting party for fresh meat. Their shaman would pray and summon deity for assistance in the hunt. He or she would then pantomime a successful hunt in the audience of the unseen spirit, portraying what the village wanted to occur in reality. An entire ritual would be staged in the belief that the actual hunt to follow would be successful.
Or, the shaman could enter into a sacred cave or other secluded area and depict in artwork a successful hunting scene. He would summon deity to be with him in the enclosed space and he would display the artwork to the spirits, again showing them pictorially what he wanted to occur in real life. On behalf of the tribe, the shaman would dance, chant, and meditate in this sacred space. Many of these ancient sacred sites still exist with their original artwork intact. These interior spaces are often very difficult to access. They are found at the end of small, twisting tunnels. They do not seem to have been created for use by the entire tribe. There is only room enough for a few individuals, the shamans, to occupy these spaces. The earliest of these cave paintings date from the Upper Paleolithic period in Europe about 30,000 years ago and the artwork reached its peak in the era spanning 17,000-11,000 years ago. The area of greatest concentration is southwest France and northern Spain. Sites such as Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France are famous today. These cave paintings depict striking images of animals during a hunt. There are other ancient sites whose stones depict elaborate carvings of esoteric symbols called runes, dancing human figures, or fertility images. These symbols may be messages from the shaman to the spirits, or images received by the shaman as he/she prayed to the spirits. The shamans could use these symbols to focus their minds during meditation and prayer. For ancient peoples, these paintings and symbols were not mere decoration--they were powerful, energized runes that held great potential for action when employed by the shamans to communicate to the spirits.
Unfortunately, we have no written language from this early time period to tell us the precise meanings of each symbol. However, their shamanic practices were still in use by their descendents when later civilizations invaded these areas and conquered the tribes. These new cultures did possess a written form of language and used it to chronicle their experiences. Roman historians such as Cornelius Tacitus (c. A.D. 55-117) wrote detailed accounts of the spiritual practices and beliefs of the peoples of northern Europe. He described the activities of the religious leaders. Further, he described their use of prophetic symbols called runes and their frequent use of divination as a means to receive messages from deity.
The term rune comes from ancient German dialects. It means mystery or secret. Each rune symbol represented a concept and a certain principle of esoteric lore was attached to it. Runes were not originally used as letters in an alphabet. Shamans used these rune symbols in their rituals in a variety of ways: to help focus their thoughts, as an aid to meditation, as a means to communicate with spirit beings, etc. Much of this communication was done solely in the mind of the believer. The spirit beings did not have physical bodies, so they communicated with the faithful through their thoughts. It was only much later that some of these rune symbols were evolved into an alphabet of sorts, when the northern tribes encountered civilizations, such the Greeks and the Romans, who used a written alphabet...
---------------------------------
Copyright by Dr. Charlotte Pipes and PsychicSchoolHouse.com all applicable laws apply. S
----------------------------------
To order this course click below.
|
Introduction To Earth Magick Dr. Charlotte Pipes |
DOWN LOAD FORMAT |
$15.00 |
TEST For Certificate |
Introduction To Earth Magick Dr. Charlotte Pipes |
ORDER DOWN LOAD TEST |
$5.00 |
|
Introduction To Earth Magick Dr. Charlotte Pipes |
ORDER ON CD |
$15.00 + $6.75 Shipping |
Return to: Course Catalog.