Llewellyn Publications's Blog, page 69

It is with sadness that we share the news of author Stephanie Clement’s passing. According to her husband, Greg, she passed away last Wednesday evening after being diagnosed with a form of cancer a few months ago.

Stephanie was the author of several Llewellyn books. Her book Meditation for Beginners remains among our perennial bestsellers, and Stephanie authored many astrology titles over the years (including the Astrology Made Easy Series). Stephanie was also a former Llewellyn employee; after leaving our offices she worked for a time as an Acquiring Editor contracting new astrology-based titles. She was a practicing astrologer for more than 30 years and is former president of the American Federation of Astrologers.

Our thoughts go out to Greg and the family.

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Lon Milo DuQuette, author of Low Magick: It’s All In Your Head … You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is and the forthcoming Homemade Magick: The Musings & Mischief of a Do-It-Yourself Magus (August 2014).

 

I’ve been writing books and articles about magical and mystical things for nearly 30 years. I’m especially passionate about the western hermetic arts (i.e., Qabalah, Tarot, Enochian, Magick, Goetia) and the initiatory programs of magical societies such as the Golden Dawn, A∴A∴, Ordo Templi Orientis, and Freemasonry. As a writer, I’ve been lucky insomuch as I’ve had little difficulty finding quality publishers who continue to be very supportive of my works (and infinitely patient with my shameful sloth and flakiness).

In recent years the medium for my work has spilled over into video and music, exposure which has inevitably brought me to the attention of radio and Internet interviewers who grill me on a regular basis with questions which spring from their very limited interest in and understanding of what “Magick” is really about. The most common questions put to me by my sensation-seeking hosts concern magick powers, i.e., cursing people, influencing elections, and (the juiciest of all subjects) winning the lottery!

What can I answer? I’ve never cursed any one (well, I did once write an unkind song about George W. Bush …. lot of good it did!); my efforts (especially my vote) has seldom influenced an election; and every effort that I’ve made to win the lottery (by magical means or otherwise) has patently failed. Does this mean my magick doesn’t work?

My answer sounds unexciting, un-romantic, and very un-wizard-like:

“The only thing I can change with my magick is myself. If it is truly my will to curse someone, then I’m going to have to magically change myself into the kind of person that successfully curses people. If it is truly my will to influence an election then I’m going to have to magically change myself into the kind of person that successfully influences elections. If it is truly my will to win the lottery then I’ll need to go about changing myself to the kind of person who lottery wins happen to!”

Such an answer doesn’t make for good radio. But it is the truth as I see it. I have absolutely no idea exactly how my magick has changed my life, because I have no idea what the circumstances of my life would now be had I not studied and practiced magick—had I not gone through the process of willed-self evolution known as “initiation.”

I confess. I am not rich and powerful. (Don’t even fanaticize that writing occult books is ever going to pay the rent or health insurance!) Constance and I live a life of, what was diplomatically called in the old days, “genteel poverty.” Perhaps if owning a huge house or driving a luxury car was the focus and goal of my magical aspirations for the last 30 years I might now be a little more prosperous. But, as foolish as it may sound, “happiness” has always been and remains my focus in life, and our emotional and spiritual lives are as rich as any two human beings could hope to dream.

Who’s to say, then, we are not wealthy? Who’s to say the magick hasn’t worked? Who’s to say just how broken or destitute our condition could have been; how diseased, how depraved, how unhappy, how evil our lives might now be had we not worked the magick to attune our bodies and psyches to the universal consciousness of the cosmos? Who’s to say what our lives and personalities would now be like had we not applied the techniques of magick to return balance to our excesses and timidities; had we not conquered and redirected our demons; had we not voluntarily set out upon the spiritual adventure of willed-self evolution known as “initiation?”

Few of us are regularly challenged on the radio to explain or defend our spiritual world view to an unseen audience who may or may not be ridiculing every word we say. But each of us challenge ourselves far more ruthlessly each day concerning the wisdom of our chosen path. We ridicule ourselves every time we curse the circumstance of our finances, our social status, our love life, or the inadequate level of our spiritual illumination.

Who’s to say how terribly screwed up your life could be?

I thought you’d say that.

Okay then. Get over it! Time to accept the reality that you have changed yourself into the kind of magician that wonderful things happen to… and that they are happening to you right now!

Our thanks to Lon for his guest post! Visit Lon Milo DuQuette’s author page for more information, including his books.

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Billy Roberts, author of The Holistic Way and the new Ghostly Tales.

Today the subject of angels is extremely popular, with no end of books containing the anecdotal accounts of peoples’ individual experiences. However, here is one angelic account that has caused mystery and intrigue and today still continues baffle even the most ardent sceptic.

From as far back as the Great Plague in Britain in 1665, hundreds of sightings of the so-called “Angel of the Thames” have been reported by ordinary people. King Charles 11 and the famous diarist Samuel Pepys are reported to have also seen the angelic manifestation. Through both world wars right up to the present day, thousands of people have witnessed the celestial apparition who always appears, in full view of everyone, across the waters of the River Thames.

In 1865, dozens of workmen excavating the Thames embankment witnessed the Angelic Apparition, and after there were sightings of the Angel over the Tower of London, again seen by hundreds of onlookers.

More currently the Angel of the Thames has been witnessed by hundreds of people at Waterloo Bridge, and with the sophisticated photographic equipment available today, there are many photographs and video footage to confirm the sightings. The apparition is thought to be the manifestation of an Archangel, a celestial being who takes care of nations (unlike an ordinary angel who is believed to look after individual people).

The Angel of the Thames is in fact still seen by thousands of tourists every year, who travel from all over the world just to see the celestial apparition.

What do you think?

Our thanks to Billy for his guest post! For more from Billy Roberts, read his article “Are Paranormal Occurrences Real, or Are They a Trick of the Mind?.”

The Marseille Tarot is very popular in Europe and is now gaining popularity in the US. Some people think that Marseille style decks are harder to read because they do not have the visual cues that are found in traditional Rider-Waite-Smith style decks. This new Marseille deck features cats, which some people will say automatically makes it better. The cards also have little scenes worked into the pip cards, which are both charming and useful. Here are a few images from the Marseille Cat Tarot.

 

 

I think the Wheel is particularly clever:

 

Here are some of the pips:

 

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Donald Tyson, author of a vast number of books, including The Serpent of Wisdom, The Demonology of King James I, and Necronomicon.

 

In magic we have four elements, called earth, water, air, and fire, and a fifth higher quality, sometimes called the quintessence, that pervades the four and transcends them. Even though they are called “elements,” they are not the same concept as the 118 physical elements of science. The magic elements are much older and have been with us from the days of ancient Greece.

Philosophers believed that the four elements made up all earthly things. They thought that all four elements are present in all objects and substances, but in differing degrees, and that the mix of elements gave a thing its physical nature.

The names of the magic elements must not be confused with the actual physical things of the same name. Elemental fire is not fire. Elemental water is not water. And so on. Water expresses by its qualities and tendencies the essence of the watery element.

For the modern student of Western magic, it may be easier to come to terms with the concept of the four elements by likening them to the four states of matter—solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. The elements express by their predominance on how matter manifests itself. More elemental earth gives weight, hardness, and solidity. More elemental water causes a flowing, wetness, and coolness. Elemental air expresses itself as expansion and lightness. Elemental fire is upward-rising, hot, quick, explosive.

The four elements were understood to be confined to the earthly sphere, which is the sphere of being below the moon—our normal dimension of reality. Ancient cosmology posited a set of nesting concentric spheres with the material world at its center. Surrounding the sphere of the earth were nine other concentric, larger spheres. The moon was the gatekeeper between the earthly realm below, and the higher spheres above, which were represented by the planets and stars.

In this ancient system, the element earth has its natural state of being in the flat circle of ground upon which we were conceived to dwell. The water was understood to flow around this island of ground, encircling it like a great sea serpent that holds its tail in its jaws. Above the earth and water was the natural place of the element air, which formed a transparent hemisphere. Finally, above the place of the air was the natural place of the element fire, because it tends to rise up above the other three elements.

The quintessence is a mysterious concept that has been somewhat crudely rendered into the teachings of modern magic as spirit, or light. Plato was evasive in describing it, but it seems to be the animating essence that enables being. In a religious sense, it may be described as the spiritual essence of the divine pervading all physical things.

By considering any object or material, it is possible to determine which element predominates in it and provides its main attribute. For example, in the vegetable realm, pepper is hot. Its heat comes from a predominance of fire in its nature. By contrast, a cucumber is cool, and this is the result of a predominance of the watery element in its makeup. All things, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, may be categorized in this way, and by controlling with magic their prevailing element, all things may be influenced.

Our thanks to Donald for his guest post! Visit Donald Tyson’s author page for more information, including articles and his books.

Okay you guys and gals, there’s a conversation that started this week that I’m sure many many more voices can chime in on! In the world of energy-work (whether it be Reiki, Healing Touch, or something else) what has your experience been? Have you ever had a session? What did you feel? Was there a noticeable outcome? Are you a practitioner? What’s it like from your side of the table? Do you really believe this kind of thing works or is it all a bunch of hooey? Why am I asking so many questions?!

The Discussion

This week on KS95, morning hosts Ryan and Shannon were talking about Reiki. I love listening to these two because so often they bring up topics that aren’t mainstream, but that are entirely part of my world here at Llewellyn…ghosts, spirit communication, psychic ability, past lives, energy… It’s so entertaining (and kind of bizarre) to hear these kinds of things bantered about on a mainstream pop station without mockery. Well, maybe some mockery, but it’s in good fun and there’s great discussion about the validity of this or that.

So when Ryan mentioned his recent experience with Reiki I was especially interested to hear what he thought about it. He had a fall a while ago that left him with a hip pain and while he was on vacation he ended up going for a Karuna Reiki session to see if it would help. During the session he felt a lot of heat, mentioned there was some temporary pain relief, and was pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing. Shannon was not quite convinced, though. I volunteered to give her a trial session so she could see what it’s all about before solidifying her opinion. You can watch the video of her experience here:

Energy Work and I

I started studying energy work about ten years ago. I have been trained in Reiki, but I work non-traditionally, meaning I don’t follow the standard hand positions or “order” of progression that’s recommended. Instead I follow the energy and my intuition, something I gradually learned to trust more during a three-year training program and years of real-world practice. I’ve done sessions as a hospice volunteer to ease suffering and for friends and family to stop migraines, ease stress, assist through emotional trials, and more. For a couple of years I also provided it as a service in spas and healing centers. Now it’s mainly a healing hobby and a sharing of knowledge, so I was glad to be able to offer an example.

Don’t “Prove”

In the end Shannon wasn’t convinced and that’s okay! Check out audio from the show here.

I know from experience that this isn’t a modality you can fully explain. It’s like trying to define love. It has to be felt and even then it’s not always consciously understood or sensed. I also know from experience that it’s not worth trying to prove it. I’ll offer a sample session as an example to anyone who’s skeptical, but I try not to worry about whether it will be labeled good/bad or real/fake in the end, because I have no control over that and if I tried I’d stifle the flow of energy. Each session and each person can be so different, so sometimes you really feel what’s going on and sometimes you don’t.

Three reminders: ego has no place in energy medicine, you can’t force the exact desired healing request to occur, and the energy goes where it’s most needed.

Similar to energy work, I’ve been doing yoga for more than ten years and I think it’s the best thing ever, even more-so than chocolate (that’s saying something)! But in a recent class there was a newbie who didn’t seem convinced. I could tell he wasn’t getting much out of it. I could almost hear him thinking, “This is bologna! What’s this doing that I can’t get from lifting weights or running?”

In my view, yoga is to exercise what energy medicine is to bodywork. It’s the subtle version. You’re doing a lot of work, sometimes even more so than with the more obvious physical option, but until you actually notice the benefits it can be harder to grasp why it’s worthwhile. “Give it at least 10 sessions,” the instructor said to him. “Then judge whether it’s helping and if you like it or not. You won’t be able to tell until you give it more of a try and see how your body responds and what the benefits for you will be.” Maybe he will give it a try before fully judging it or maybe he won’t. When you need yoga, you find it and you know its benefits. It’s the same with energy work and so many other complementary and alternative options.

Even I Forget

In my own experience, the most powerful Reiki session was probably around number eight. It blew my away. If you’ve ever had that x-ray ink injected into your blood you know the sensation of heat running from top to bottom throughout your body. It felt like that, starting like an orgasmic explosion at my heart and pulsing like waves up and down from head to foot. My eyes shot open in alarm to see the practitioner’s unmoving hands  inches above my chest, her eyes closed; she had no awareness of the powerful shift that had just occurred, but I’ll never be able to forget it.

That experience is my reminder of how powerful this modality can be and also clues me in to why it is often misjudged. I’d gone for her to help with pain in my arm and didn’t see benefit for that ailment from the session, but the energy goes where it’s most needed and obviously my heart was where it was at. If I hadn’t felt the shift, I might have assumed since my arm was the same that nothing had actually occured.

I’ve felt and seen first-hand what energy work is capable of, and still I need to remind myself. As a practitioner even I sometimes disregard it, forgetting its power. I forget to give myself sessions. I choose to pay for a massage consistently instead of energy work. When our day-to-day lives are based so much in the physical…the tangible world we see, taste, touch…it can be so easy to dismiss the more subtle parts. But when I finally have a session again I’m reminded how beneficial it can be, how much it actually effects things, and I wonder at how I could ever forget.

But enough from me, what about you? Are you an enthusiastic Ryan or an unconvinced Shannon? No matter which, we want to hear from you!

With her usual style and charm grounded in research and tarot knowledge, Sasha Graham, author of Tarot Diva, brings us her latest:

365 Tarot Spreads: Revealing the Magic in Each Day

 

The spreads for each day are based on a historical event or magical occurrence. While the spreads are organized by date, there is no reason you cannot use any of the spreads at any time. The book is beautifully designed and the best way to explain it is to show you a page. I happen to love birthdays, so naturally I love this page:

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Jean-Louis de Biasi, author of Secrets and Practices of the Freemasons, The Divine Arcana of the Aurum Solis, and the forthcoming Rediscover the Magick of the Gods and Goddesses. Jean-Louis is also Lifetime Grand Master of the Ordo Aurum Solis and Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross.

 

Visualization is key for anyone involved in self development, self empowerment, and magic rituals. This is the first skill to learn and to practice. Of course, visualization is not the only component of a successful ritual, but it is the essential to it.

There are many ways to improve our ability. We can practice alone and in group. As Grand Master of the Aurum Solis, I have often taught visualization techniques during sessions and workshops. A common question and concern from students is regarding vision. Visualization is an ambiguous word. I have become progressively convinced that even if this is the right word for this ability, it has to be explained in a different way.

Let’s say it in few words: a good visualization is not necessarily a mental picture! You can build a very efficient visualization without visualizing, or mentally seeing, anything.

Building a clear, strong, and precise mental image is difficult. It is also a challenge to maintain this mental focus for a few minutes. Of course, we can be trained to do this, but it is not necessarily the best way to learn.

When someone says to me that he or she has difficulty with this, my answer is often a new question: how do you think that someone who is blind from birth can visualize? Do you think he will use visual representations? Do you think he will draw a kind of mental picture? Certainly not! He will create a mental construction composed of sounds, feelings, odors, etc.

This is the same for us. We don’t all memorize the same way. Some will clearly remember a picture, others the smells, others the sounds, etc. Even if we are not blind, one of our senses is often dominating. An interesting first step is to find which one. If it is sound, for example, you will build your inner representation composed with sounds. Then progressively you will associate other sensory elements, such as odors, feelings, and visual memories.

In order to visualize and experiment I suggest that you, for a time, forget the visual image itself!

Try this process:

Remember a moment from your day. Don’t try to build an image—ust think about it. Then be aware of which sense is the most involved in this recollection. Is the sense of smell? Or touch? or another?
When this is done, think about something you want to achieve tomorrow. Focus on it mentally using the sense you fond the most important for you. Progressively, now or the days after, begin to consider the other senses in this way.

Our thanks to Jean-Louis for his guest post! Visit Jean-Louis de Biasi’s author page for more information, including articles and his books.

Have you ever wondered how Llewellyn comes up with some of its beautiful cover designs? Today, to celebrate the release of The Witch’s Broom by Deborah Blake, I’m going to explain the process. Since it involves Deborah, it also involves a cute cat. So this post should interest book-lovers and cat-lovers alike!

Here at Llewellyn, a cover starts with what we call the Launch meeting of the book. Attended by the production editor, production manager, art director, cover designer, copywriter, publisher, and sales manager, it is the acquisition editor’s job (that’s me) to bring the author’s input to the table. I usually ask authors for their ideas on the final title, subtitle, and cover design of the book, asking them for specific examples of covers they like or don’t like, pictures that are inspiring or close to what they’re looking for, and so on. Sometimes the authors have lots of great ideas; sometimes just one idea that they are really, really attached to; and sometimes they say “you guys are the professionals, do whatever you think will be best.” I try to have everything at least a couple days before the meeting so I can prepare.

So, in April of last year, we had the Launch meeting for this book. We chose The Witch’s Broom: The Craft, Lore & Magick of Broomsticks as the title and subtitle but got stuck on the cover design. Deborah had requested an illustrated cover, perhaps showing a cat in front of a cottage with a broom leaning against the front door, under a full moon – or something along those lines. At the meeting we determined the book would be a small cute size (5” x 7”) and  realized that having so many elements on an already small cover, the reader would barely notice the broom, which should be the star of the cover! Plus, this is the first book in a series – next year we’ll have The Witch’s Wand – so we talked about doing a simple cover with an iconic emblem of a broom on it, which could then be swapped out with other magical implements in future books. Am I ever glad we didn’t just stop there!

As soon as I got back on my computer after the meeting, I started brainstorming and finding adorably retro witchy pictures of brooms and witches. Seriously, go to Pinterest and you’ll find all kinds of vintage posters, postcards, and photographs of witches and their brooms. I immediately started bombarding Deborah and the cover designer with emails.

It wasn’t long before I found a postcard that both Deborah and I fell in love with. It was charming, vintage, had a cat in it (very important!) but most importantly, featured the broom front and center.

Deborah said she loved it with a burning passion. I got several emails to this effect, culminating in one message that read “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE THIS ONE PLEASE.” Chuckle. Have I mentioned that our authors are powerful, passionate beings?

So we reconvened another Launch meeting to decide whether we should go with this retro look for this cover and the rest of the series. While we’d have loved to use that darling illustration, things aren’t quite that simple in the publishing biz. This image can be found all over the internet, and some companies will even sell you a poster of it. But that doesn’t mean that they own the rights to it. In fact, from the best I could determine, the image above was scanned in from a postcard that was postmarked Nov. 1, 1911 — meaning that the work should by now be in the public domain. The artist’s name was Ellen Clapsaddle and the publisher of the postcard was International Art Publishing Company. But even though something is in the public domain does not mean a commercial publisher can necessarily use it with impunity. Who owned the postcard, who scanned it in and made it accessible? (Sometimes libraries will charge a fee to reprint scanned images from books, for example, even if they were printed well over 100 years ago, citing property rights rather than intellectual property or copyright. And it’s a huge issue for museums, who want to control reproductions of works held in their collections regardless of when the art was created.)

Are you getting bored of the legal mumbo-jumbo yet? The TL;DR version is that no, we couldn’t use this exact postcard. Plus, it’s not like we’d magically find a vintage postcard perfectly corresponding to every future book in the series. (OK, maybe with a little magic…but we didn’t want to have to bank on that.) But there was a solution that solved both issues: since it was so old, we were within our rights to get a new version created by an artist. We could create our own mock-ups going forward and still get that same retro look. So that’s exactly what we did.

First, our stellar in-house cover designer Lisa Novak created a mock-up, showing how she’d like the illustration, the title, subtitle, and author’s name to come together to create a pleasing, balanced cover. This is what that step looked like:

 

 

It’s perfect, don’t you think? We sent it to Deborah (OK, we sent her a version without a LOLcat face on it) for her approval. Whenever I send a mock-up to an author, I have to clearly communicate to them that this is not, in fact, what the final cover will look like. I tell them what will stay the same (approximate placement, size, and color of all text elements, the illustration will include a hat, broom, and cat in that order); what will be different (the illustration is going to be amazing, don’t worry! Yes, the cat will be black not grey!); and remind them strictly not to share the file with anyone. We don’t want something like that accidentally getting uploaded to Amazon, do we now? In this case we did have alternate versions with the subtitle placed elsewhere, as you’ll see in the final version.

After this direction was approved by Deborah, Lisa sent the mock-up and concept to illustrator John Kachik, who has a lot of experience creating vintage-inspired art, along with the original postcard so he knew what style of art we had in mind.

Here is a shot of his work in progress: one ink lined image, a watercolor layer, and a few coquille board renderings and some coloring and assembling in Photoshop. (Click for close-up view.)

 

Cool, isn’t it? When he later sent us his final art, Lisa added the text elements to transform it into the cover you see now.

Ta-dah!

Overall, the elements of a successful cover come down to good ideas and inspiration generated by the author, expanded upon and experimented with by our in-house team, and fabulously talented people who actually know how to execute those brilliant ideas professionally. I have no idea how they do their work, but it’s simply amazing.

Deborah’s book was just officially released this week, and it’s among our top bestsellers this week per Amazon and Bookscan. That is the magic of a beautiful cover – it has a wonderful synergy with the contents and truly encourages people to pick up the book.

But wait, there’s more! Deborah’s book also benefitted from the truly bewitching illustrations of the talented Mickie Mueller. For a sneak peak into that process, read Mickie’s guest post on Deborah’s blog.

And finally… Deborah’s contented cat Magic, once again pleased that she was able to get Deborah, and thus Llewellyn, to do her bidding by featuring cats on more book covers. Cheers to you, Magic!

Magic the cat, photo courtesy Deborah Blake

Ah, life. It’s full of so many distractions. It’s hard to keep track of the breaking news announcements, tweets, posts, pins, emails, texts, pings, and still pay attention to the world around you. I’m guilty of it. So many times I’ve arrived at home and I can’t remember driving the 14 miles from work because my mind was elsewhere. We become so stuck in our patterns and habits and distractions that we don’t see the world around us.

I have a few friends who are constantly seeing signs from the spirit world. They find feathers, see shadows move across the wall, notice lamps that turn on and off by themselves. Many have asked “what can I do so that I see these things.” The first step in the right direction is to pay attention to the world around you. If you see something  out of the corner of your eye, look toward it. Don’t dismiss it. Case in point…

I have my business card taped to my phone. Yes, it’s my card because I have a horrible memory. After 15 years in the publishing world, 14 of them being a non-fiction editor, that’s a whole lot of manuscripts and information in my brain. Anyway, so the card is taped to my phone, right underneath the keypad. A couple weeks ago I was at my desk, working on my computer, and I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked to my phone and the business card was flapping up and down. There are no air vents directly above me, and in order for the card to move as it was doing, someone had to be lifting it from the bottom and flicking it upward. I was the only one in my department at the time, so I knew it wasn’t a coworker playing a practical joke, which would have to have been elaborate and involved fishline. I stared at it for a few seconds, while it was flapping away and then it stopped. There are a few resident spirits in the office, but I hadn’t been bothered by them for a while, so I thought it must have been a spirit just fooling with me. I didn’t pay too much attention to it, but later in the day, when all my coworkers were around and again, I was focused on my computer, I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Yup, it was my business card doing the exact same thing. I watched it until it stopped, and then turned and told my coworker across the cubicle aisle. I could tell she was a bit freaked, and I was more curious as to who was trying to get my attention.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve had something like this happen at work. Once I was typing away and a big gush of air blew past me. A photo that was on my desk fell over, and it happened to be of a friend of mine who passed away in 2005. I said her name out loud, asked if it was her, and my arms broke out in goosebumps. I knew it was her just saying hello. Her photo didn’t fall over with the card, but it still could have been her just saying hey. She’s done that as well at my apartment. She gave me a little stuffed moose, and I found it in the middle of my bedroom floor one day. My cat is a bit too old and fat to hop up on my bookshelf to knock it down, so I marked it up as my friend saying that she was here and still with me.

We miss so much when we’re so wrapped up in our lives. Today I went for a walk around the building, chatting away with a friend. A coworker went out right after I did and saw three bald eagles flying around. Did I even notice them? No. Did I look into the sky? I can’t even remember. I really need to work on seeing what is going on around me. I might be missing other signs of spirits trying to say hello, or the beauty of nature when spring FINALLY may be here in the Midwest.