I wanted to post something to get the new community site rolling and get used to how it all works.

I found this online class I guess I once taught but barely remember, I just start teaching usually and rarely have text of what I said. So I read it, still agree with it and got some laughs at my own spewing and feel I should let it loose as it was a private class shared with few.

So here is class #1. If I receive a response, I may post another.

Merry Meet First things first, as most of you know I have been teaching Craft for about 25yrs now, it is something I can do in my sleep and i guess i do pretty well with it sometimes.

What I am about to teach I have never taught before (and i believe no-one ever has) and my technique will be far from polished. I am available for questions and clarifications through e-mail the phone and of course in person for those who can reach the Grove. I tend to work Mon.-Wed. 11-3ish pretty regular but many spots betwixt and between, I do not recognize the concept of ’stupid questions’ but do however recognize the stupidity of remaining in ignorance without ever asking the question. So please ask. Alot of questions would benefit the whole class and should be asked in the public forum of the Circle-bee list. For other things requiring more privacy or if your too embarrassed ask me privately.

The closest definition for the beginning of what we will learn we will have to give a new name to since it never has existed before but does contain elements of many Magicks we know, the closest thin we could call it is : Bardic Chaos Magick. The majority of the Bardic teachings were never written down and i have never written them and even though we will tear these olde concepts a new orifice here i have kept a portion of the olde tradition in a new way. The body of the beginning of these texts exists in no physical form. I have e-mailed them back and forth to myself keeping them in an endless cyber loop in which they exist only as mathematical calculations presented as a light source and transmitted through fiber optic cables as a light source. They will not exist in physical form until you print them out, and you are encouraged to do so.

All great stories begin with the stage, the surrounding scenery that sets the tone it is usually dark and gets slowly lighter until the first line is laid.

I am sitting in a consecrated ritual space with quarters guardians, an incense is burning of Frankincense, Sage(white), Rosemary and Juniper. A single candle is the only illumination with exception of the monitor. I read from no prepared text but have a mountains of research books nearby. I have a Brain Wave Generator running in the background with the sound of a babbling stream and a sweeping sub-tone moving from the frequency of the human psychic center chakra and the frequency of the Moon, which you will soon come to know is 420.82hz. and the musical note of A-flat. The Moon has just entered its dark phase and will be new when this is transmitted the Sun is entering pices and LOL i just heard my voice come over the radio and I am reading the Witch news in the background (it just got weird).

You may not realize it but we have just learned quite a bit about the Bardic craft without even knowing we were learning. That was the main point,to teach without teaching, to instruct without instructing and to alter the course of human events with no-one quite knowing who did it. To change destiny merely with a song, a poem or a story.

In the Bardic philosophy kings rose and nations fell depending on what pictures were shown to the rulers and the people, what notes and rhythms had touched their hearts, what seeds had been planted. The most known of the Bardic lines what what we would now call part of an initiation cycle of Bards, Vates (also Ovates) and Druids. While the roles of these titles seems somewhat interchangeable it is generally thought that the Bards mastered Music and the crafting of the words woven within, often only soft verses almost spoken over a Harp, The Vates were keepers of oral lore and histories and the crafting of vast tales to conceal the teaching of such tales, master story tellers and word smiths both written and spoken, the Druids it seemed had all these skills but held the positions of religious teachers/counselors, plant and medicine lore, alchemy and part Politician. It took 20 symbolic deaths and rebirths to reach the position of Druid and since it is said that these cycles followed the seasonal progression we can figure that this took 20 years. The same amount of letters in the Irish Ogham and each letter a tree, each tree a complex meaning and perhaps initiatory path. In some systems the Bards are responsible for the oral lore part and the Vates another and it gets really hard to figure out what the Druids are doing and all of these titles gets thrown into the general heading of Bard and Druid and Vate being initiatory paths of the Bards. Are you confused yet, well so was Caesar. During the time Julius Caesar wrote “The Gallic Wars” a new title had taken up residence, that of the Filidhs and it seems the role and lore of the Bards gets passed on to them and the Druids and Vates seemingly Disapear. The Filidhs seem to have had training periods running the exact length and course of the Druids. That’s just about enough of this confusing piece of history for our needs.

Although there is great emphasis on oral lore, the Bards were also masters and some say the originators of written language. In the Irish tradition it’s said that the Bards recognized the power of sound. That sound caused vibrations that changed everything around them, that the very particles of matter were moved by sound and that movement caused change in the physical world. It was then the task of the Bard to construct a symbol for each sound that could be uttered by the human body. THe fist known of these symbol patterns is the Ogham in the Druidic held lands. Now of course 20 letters does not seem to be enough to cover all the grunts, groans and howls known to our species but it was thought that through combinations of these symbols onc could recreate any spoken sound.

It seems as far back as the Egyptians sound and acoustics were being harnessed as power sources. Some temples seemingly created to amplify the natural vibrations of the earth and immerse kings in it’s wave as part of initiation ceremonies. One particular artifact which it seems the research of which was early controlled by governments and it is believed at least one non-lethal weapon has been created using this research. The original object, only made of solid stone and about the size of a car, when drummed upon produced a VLF wave capable of moving solid objects much larger. They didn’t have a name for the device and i only know what i know about it from the Discovery Channel.

There is an old story that long ago in the age of Capricorn the great god Pan went to Earth to interact with humans and to teach them. The reason we see Pan as having horns was to remind us when in Earths history this had occurred,many similar stories exist, when the gods and goddesses walked among us and started to interfere with human destiny. The beginning all messiah stories, messages from angels prophets and the like. A repeating theme continuing throughout the ages and across the globe to the most known and the last example western society seems to recognize, the story of Jesus, which before the Christian tale was the tale of Mithras and the spirit of “the Christ” who descended upon him.

In the old tale the age of Capricorn was the first age of the Earth, the first age always coming after the “last” age, of which no stories are told but we know existed based on what does not exist but is hinted at in the tale. For there to have been a last before the first, there must have been another first before the last.

The old tales hint at the fact that the reason the gods started to interfere in human destiny is that somehow whatever plan they had for us had gone terribly wrong. The tale of Pan speaks of Pan coming to wipe clean the beliefs that had come before (again indicating that there was a ‘before’). It speaks of the people (who were already there) had been in savagery for seven generations and Pan had come to bring the ‘true’ religion that would unite the people and bring them back to the simple truth, that the truth is simple.

A tale such as this is steeped in metaphor as you might imagine and several stories told between the lines, some of which we have just looked at, the story of omission, the void being considered by the Bards as the well of truth, the truth is told in what is not there quite often.

The word Pan in the Greek means ‘all’ and in some senses ‘one’, as in you and I are one, we are one. The usage of one that means the joining of several. It was Pans vision or perhaps his job was to seed the worlds religions with what he called the ‘three pars of religion’ Music, Dance and Agriculture each part having two somewhat hidden parts or branches, making six.

So it May have been in the beginning, So we begin Now.

So all this history stuff is fine and gives us much to ponder on that we will probably never know but where do we come into the equation, thousands of years later sifting through fragments. Well some of what our ancestors knew, they didn’t know like we know now. Some knowledge has been lost forever and some things the ancients spoke of in their poetical quaint ways has now been “proven” by science and has given us new insights and approaches to old ideas. Some new knowledge obscures the truth and does us no good and some old wisdom is just silly, lest we forget Leaches were once medicine. Now leaches was a silly medicine but it leads to ideas in blood extraction and purification.

Before I rant too far the point of Pagan religion was a natural evolutionary process of planets, people and ideas. The Olde Religion was supposed to continue to grow and expand, to change with time not struggle against it.

After the Burning Times, Hanging Times, Being Pressed to Death, Hacking Maiming and Dismembering Times we Witches are so fond of talking about all our efforts have gone toward sifting through the rubble for pieces of our past to re-assemble all that was lost.

Well time comes when you have to take what you have found and make it grow again. Take the old pieces out and hold them up to a new light. The Druids and the Wise People scattered across the earth were quite Wise for their time and knew much most did not but i wonder if they knew that the Sun transmits at a frequency of 136.1hz and vibrates in C-sharp, well they didn’t exactly have a C-sharp so perhaps that’s Why A-sharp is also associated with Sun and the sign of Leo.

The point is we can know, these infernal machines we have built can tell us and do all the math to boot.

Now I know some if not alot of you all are not musicians and think the first part of this class is not gonna be for you but, musician or not, tone deaf or mute you can now harness the power of tone and vibration in entirely new/old ways and those of you who are musicians will find many ways to play with this. We will learn Tone, Key, Rhythm and percussion as used in Magick and hopefully entire new ways and you can do it even if we must enlist the aid of modern technology.

The 1st ASSIGNMENT: In the next week obtain the means to produce the basic musical notes in western scale.

<span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>Suggestions</span>:Of course an instrument if you have one. Any music store will sell you a “Pitch Pipe” for a couple of bucks and it will produce our basic notes. I trust you have access to a computer, there are many downloadable software programs all over the Net to produce music, either a digital piano or something or guitartuner.com (i think) will let you play each note with Real, WinAmp or any of the other on-line sound devices. Remember Google is your friend. Let us know what you came up with.

The 2nd ASSIGNMENT: The First Lesson in Bardic Craft “Change Your Perspective”.

A square can be a cube when looked at in a different angle. For the next week play with this concept in all possible ways, hang upside down, stand on the roof, try to look at everything in a different way that you have just to see if you can do it. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes, then put yourself in their neibors shoes. Try anything you ‘normally’ do in a slightly different way and share your more interesting findings with the class before the next class (in other words send them before friday). Contact me if you have any input or questions…

Merry Part

Merry Meet Again

Blessed Be,

Birch

Related posts

• Bardic Chaos Magick-2 (2)
• Bardic Chaos Magick 3 (1)

Tags: bardic, brainwave, chaos, magick, music, phil free, tone