As I journeyed around the spiritual globe, I became well-versed in the concepts of magick. We may scoff at such a concept, but magick is much more common that most of us realize. In fact, we've all worked a spell, most likely several, over the course of our lives.
Don't believe me?
Have you ever made a wish and blown out the candles on a birthday cake?
It's a simple enough spell to weave. You take one candle for each year of the person's life and ignite their wicks. Those gathered chant (or sing), repeating the mantra, "Happy Birth-Day" over and over again. The person makes a wish and blows out the candles, ideally with a single breath.
The candles represent the person's life. A sacred moment (the person's day of birth) is chosen for the rite and the spell is connected with the energy and symbolism of the event that brought them into the world. The flame represents energy and, coupled with the candles, symbolizes the energy that brought the person to this point in their life. When they make a wish, they take the breath of life and merge it with the energy that has brought them to where they are today. This act symbolically says, "All of the energy that has created my life to this point will now give birth to my wish just as I was born on this day." By blowing out the candles, the wish is sealed and the smoke symbolically carries the wish upwards into the spirit world.
And you thought it was just a silly tradition. There is a side of life that is all around us that we simply overlook.
With that perspective in mind - the power of symbolism and what it represents - consider the following passage. If you would, pause after each sentence and consider the deeper meaning that is hinted at by the words.
Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the spirit goes through the land to strike down your enemy, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
That's pretty crazy. Why the blood? Who is "the destroyer"? There's some fairly spooky stuff held in that bit of text.
It's Exodus 12:22-23 from the Christian Bible. The only thing I changed was "LORD" to "spirit" and "the Egyptians" to "your enemy." This passage is where the term Passover came from; the holiday (or "holy day") honors the anniversary of the day the when "the destroyer" passed-over the homes that were marked with blood.
Christianity still relies on symbolic blood, be it the blood of Christ that washes away sins or the blood represented in the Communion wine. The link between blood and the spirit world is one of the many concepts that is explored in The Awakening.
Moving toward the bedroom, turning on each light as he passed it, he climbed atop his bed, not bothering to undress, laying on top of the blankets. He pulled a pillow into his embrace, holding it close to his chest, his wide eyes filled with images of blood and painted symbols, wondering if he'd ever be able to sleep again.
I realize it isn't much of a sneak-peek, but it's the best I could do without compromising any of the scenes. One of my personal pet peeves is when a movie trailer gives away the best parts. The Awakening publishes on Friday, so there's not much longer to wait.
The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free. The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
Interesting. I don't know how many times I read the Bible as a child and young adult. I never seen the spells woven into the text. Now as a practicing pagan, if I were to go back and read it again, I would probably see it. Interesting how the Bible and Christianity is so full of contradictions.
ReplyDelete@Raven I think when people follow their hearts - regardless of the religion or what they're taught - things work out fine. With each teacher (whether they're a parent or a theologian), what is taught is changed just a little from what was embraced by the previous generation. For instance, none of us think about things in the same light that our grandparents or great grandparents did. Take that concept and extend it by two or three thousand years and things will naturally be different than they were when it all began. Many religions get so wrapped up in "being right" that I think they lose sight of the fact that our thoughts, ideas, and beliefs evolve - and that it's okay that they do. When you look back on some of the older texts without any preconceived ideas, there's some pretty crazy stuff that we simply don't see anymore.
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