T.J. the witch: the early years

Ok, so in my last blog, I gave a quick history of my religious background, & how I left the church & eventually found The Craft. Tonight, I plan to go a little more in depth on my first delving into magick. By the way, you may have noticed that I am spelling magick with a K at the end. For those of you who do not know, this is a common method among contemporary witchy authors to differentiate between stage & slight-of-hand magic, like what we have here in Vegas, & true mystical workings & spells. Now certainly not all authors of the craft use this distinction, being of the opinion that if you have gotten even one paragraph into their book, you will probably know that they are not talking about stage entertainment. But considering my current location, I felt that it was a good distinction to make.

So, T.J. the witch: the early years. Well as I said in my last blog, I was a Mormon until I was 21 years old, was excommunicated, & then started going to the Metropolitan Community Church for a time. I think I was with them for roughly 6-8 months, maybe a little longer, before I really began to realize that I just could not do the Christian thing anymore. So I started looking into the practice of real magick. Now I had been interested in magick & magic, for most of my childhood. I loved watching movies like “Clash of the Titans”, “Excalibur”, most of the Disney animated movies, “Sleeping Beauty” being my favorite, & probably my favorite movie of all time, an obscure number called “Krull”. My real passion though, was in books. I have read nearly all of the “Dragon Riders of Pern” series by Anne McCaffery, & Terry Brooks’  “Shannara” series, Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” & “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Mists of Avalon” by Marian Zimmer Bradley, the entire Harry Potter series, & I think you get the idea.

So as you can see, my mind was already primed for the world of magick. The problem however was that I had no idea where to begin an in depth study of it. I did not know anyone whom I knew to be pagan, so I couldn’t ask anyone for help. But I did have access to the bookstore & the internet, so that’s where I began. I already knew by this time that I wanted to study druidry. I knew that I had Celtic heritage, & thought that it would be best to go back to my familial roots.

What I learned about druidry is that it is a nature based religion. The druids honored the sun & the moon, & kept track of the seasons, celebrating 8 major holy days referred to as sabbats. These occurred at the equinoxes & solstices, & the mid points between them. The druids were at the same time polytheistic & monotheistic in that while they did believe in multiple gods, they also believed that there was a single unifying creative force behind the gods as well. Most of them were tribal deities particular to specific groups of people, with only a few being pan-Celtic.  

Also in the Celtic world view, they did not subscribe to the quadratic, alchemic elemental system of earth, air, fire, & water. Rather they saw the world as being split into the three realms of land, sea, & sky, with fire being a living thing & representing the living spirit that burns within all forms of creation. This is a view that I myself have adopted. Something else that I find interesting is that, like most ancient & modern cultures, the Celts understood there to be at least three worlds, namely the “real” world of physical being, an underworld, & an upper world. Now what I find interesting is that all three had their own realms of land, sea, & sky, & I believe that this has something to do, at least in part, with the saying of “As above, so below”.

The druids were capable of powerful magicks, including, but not limited to, weather control, shape shifting, flight, teleportation, invisibility, various curses, healing, etc. Now a lot of this is related to shamanic practices, & so I believe that stories regarding flight, shape shifting, & teleportation are not to be taken literally. Rather, I believe that the druid in question would enter a shamanic trance & experience these things on a spiritual level, as opposed to a physical one. This is in no way meant to diminish the act however, as it is possible to experience all of these things while in a shamanic trance, & , more importantly, if the trance is strong enough, not only could other people be able to perceive the event without themselves having to be in a trance as well, but the druid may also be able to affect a situation as if he or she WERE actually there physically.  

These are the things that stood out to me the most while learning about the ancient druids, but I still have a long way to go before I’ll be able to do much of this stuff. Unfortunately, when I was first studying the ancient Celtic culture, I was obsessed with doing everything exactly as the druids did it. That in & of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but what was unfortunate is that I learned that it is now impossible to do. Because the Celts were primarily a tribal nation that actively enjoyed fighting amongst themselves just for the fun of it, they were never able to unite as a solid military, & thus were virtually wiped out. The Romans destroyed them as a people, until only Britain remained as a sizeable Celtic settlement. Then the Catholic Church sought to destroy their culture, believing it to be evil, & to replace it with Christianity.

As a result of all this, very little of the old religion still remains. What few druids who survived either went into hiding, or simply stopped practicing their beliefs openly, & so today, we have almost nothing to go on other than scant archeological evidence, & a few documents that are suspect due to their age &/or authors.

What all this meant to me at the time was that it was pointless to continue with my druidic studies, because I wouldn’t be able to do things as they did. I would say that I was foolish to stop, but I now realize that it was a good thing because it led me down a path that helped me come back to druidry at a time when I would finally be READY to follow it.

I think I’ll leave it here for tonight. I realize that I ended up talking more about WHAT I learned, rather than HOW I learned it, which was my original intention, so that will be the subject of my next blog. Then later I will go into my journey down the more general path of witchcraft, before getting into what I’m doing with my spiritual life today, & then decide what to blog about from there. So for now, good night, & may the blessings of the gods & the non-gods be upon you!