spirits, Magic
Taylor Ellwood
The relationship between sacred kingship and ...

One of the books I’m reading lately is King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Doug Gillette. It’s a fascinating book that explores the archetypes of the mature and sacred masculine. This is currently part of the spiritual work that I’m engaged in as I explore my own relationship with masculinity and heal the ancestoral and contemporary wounds that I’m becoming aware of as it relates to how masculinity is treated and perceived in modern times.

One of the aspects I’m exploring in particular is related to sacred kingship and the land. I am in the process of exploring the new city and surrounding areas that I live in. While I’ve lived here for a year, I didn’t have much opportunity until recently to really begin exploring the area and developing a relationship with the land. I find it fitting and useful that part of the process has also involved cultivating a relationship with the land, particularly on the basis of the relationship has with their home and how that relationship plays out in sacromagical work one does in connecting with the land.

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Why you don't want to be an archetype

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I find it fascinating when a person overly identifies with a role they’ve taken on in their lives or profession. Part of the fascination is based off my pop culture studies, where I’ve noted how the persona in pop culture takes on a life of its own. The person who makes up the base identity of the persona is overshadowed by the persona and the attention and energy directed toward it by the people who are interested in the persona.

However this isn’t the only way that identity can be eclipsed by a persona. Identity can also be eclipsed by taking on an archetypal identity and overly associating with it. While there can be a lot of value in working with a given archetype, because of the patterning that the archetype provides, there can also be a limitation involved when you overly associate your identity with the archetype.

When I apply this awareness to my own life I consider that while I practice magic and write books (among other activities) overly associating with the role of magician or author would be very limiting. There are times to take on those roles because they serve a specific purpose and put me into a specific identity, but inhabiting that identity all the time would prevent me from experiencing the richness of my life.

Consider your own life and the archetypal roles you take on. How do those roles serve you? How do they limit you? Do you want to inhabit that role or is something you can outgrow and let go of?

For a long time I have identified myself as a magical experimenter. It’s been a good role to play, but as I continue to walk my life path, I also think about what other roles I might step into as well as what value might be discovered in the process. I will always experiment with magic, but it’s not the only purpose of my life. When I recognized that I was able to step into other roles and let go of some of the attachment I’ve previously held with the magical experimenter role.

We ought to consider carefully who we become as it relates to the archetypes we connect with. Each archetype has a purpose, but we also have purpose beyond the archetype. Getting curious about the overall purpose of your life and being can be just as empowering as any other role you might take on.

A Couple Factors to Consider in Fueling Magic

Whether you are creating a magical entity, putting together a magical working, or doing some other kind of magical operation, one important aspect of the work you always to consider is how you are fueling your magical working. Today I share why that’s important and help you consider the factors that are involved in such work.

How to use Tower Times as a catalyst for change

There are moments in our lives where it seems like the world is ending and everything is going wrong. I call these moments Tower Times and they can be moments that happen in a flash or they can be moments that last years. I have experienced a fair amount of what I would consider to be Tower Time in the last 6 or so years and with each of those experiences what I have discovered is how much they help me transform my life, especially when I took on a perspective where I welcomed the tower time as an opportunity for growth.

In the face of events where everything seems to come crashing down on you, it can be hard to cultivate a perspective where you welcome the experience. There is suffering that occurs during tower time and this is normal to feel. Life as you know it is changing and usually its changing in a way where you are losing something important to you. What are you losing though? Often what is being lost, as painful as it may be, is ultimately something that could be holding you back from something greater.

What is that something greater? The only way to discover this is to embrace the tower time as a time of growth. For example, I used a breakup to motivate me to explore my relationship with myself and my masculinity. I recognized I needed to change something about myself and that the tower was signaling the need for a significant change in my life. I also realized that my old patterns were simply not working and that I needed to break those patterns by choosing to do something, which in my case meant doing some deep work around my identity as a man.

Tower times challenge us and in the moment the challenge is happening it can feel like the situation is hopeless but by cultivating a spirit of curiosity, you can discover the opportunities that lie in wait and open yourself to new perspectives. It won’t necessarily make the experience easier, but it also reminds you that these times will pass and that if you do the work, you will gain clarity and focus around what really matters to you and make that the focus of your life.

With that in mind, I want to share some processes you can apply during a tower time event to help you navigate that event. These processes won’t make the tower time go away, but they will help you get through them to the other side.

The first process is to breathe and be present with yourself. That seems simple enough but it can be hard sometimes. What I also do in this situation is tell myself that I love myself. I remind myself that the situation will pass and that life will continue on. It may take a while before the overall situation gets better, but I find each moment and treasure it.

The second process is to do some activities each day that help you with your process. For instance, I meditate each day and I also go walking and do somatic exercises. These different processes help me work through whatever comes up and allow me to stay present with the feelings and thoughts.

The third process is to do activities which are enriching and nourishing for you, activities that you like to do which feed your soul. For me, that’s going to Kungfu, my men’s group, and also attending cultural events. For you it might be something else, but making time for nourishing activities and making the effort to connect with other people can make a significant difference in your life and how you handle tower time events.

The fourth process is to take a break from magical workings. You might be tempted to do magical workings to get you through a tower time more quickly, but I recommend slowing down and not trying to magic yourself through the tower time. Treat this tower time as a sacred experience that will enable you to grow and make space for it. You’ll know when to do magic and what to do as well.

If you need help with some of these activities sign up for my free class Inner Alchemy of Wintering. Joanna Brook and I will share our best practices for navigating tower time in that class, as well as other practices you can do to recharge.

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The Role of Boundaries in Spirit Communication

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When we don’t establish the right kind of container with the proper boundaries, spirit communication and work can become problematic. I discuss the importance of setting clear boundaries in your magical work and share why this can benefit you.

If you want to learn more about my upcoming class Advanced Spirit Communication, go here.

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The role of somatic meditation in spirit communication

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Somatic meditations can play an important role in spirit communication, helping us to connect with the spirit through the medium of our bodies and in the way the spirits interact with the body. I discuss that this experience can be like and why it can help you improve your communication with spirits

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Reading the darker side of Tarot

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I’ve been starting to read oracle cards and Tarot at metaphysical fairs and one of the fascinating trends I’ve observed has come in the form of people who get readings from me and ask me not to pull any punches with the reading. One recent customer shared with me that they didn’t want me to filter my reading for them in any way. I never filter my readings anyway and explained that to my customer but it got me to ask them a question in turn.

“Why do you think people filter their readings?”

“They probably don’t want to deliver bad news or share something that will make someone uncomfortable.”

I nodded and took that in and gave them their reading. I can’t really speak to the experiences that anyone else has around giving or receiving readings but in my own experience of giving readings I’ve always opted for trusting my intuition and telling the person what I’m actually getting about the situation. I trust that if anyone else have given me a reading they have done the same.

The exchange got me thinking about reading the darker side of Tarot and Oracle cards. In some cases you find that reading through reversals, but I actually think you can look at a given card in of itself and regardless of what the position is you can read it and look at all the angles.

For instance, if I look at the Hanged Man, the positive perspective I can take is that the Hanged Man represents presence, being still in the moment, and cultivating awareness. The shadow side of the Hanged Man could represent blockages and obstacles both internal and external. Both the shadow and the gold are present within any given kind of reading and yet it’s up to the reader and readee to determine what applies for a given situation. The way we read a situation matters because it tells what we can learn from that situation and the same applies to a Tarot/oracle reading. The most important skill you can cultivate in divination is learning to look beyond the surface meanings of a card, so you can read into the card and how it relates to the overall experience.

Want a reading from me? Schedule one at this link, and let me show you what happens when you combine two different decks for your reading.

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5 common misperceptions about communicating with spirits

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One of the questions I see frequently asked by other practitioners is how to test and verify if a spirit is on the up and up as it were with the information it provides. Another question I see asked is whether anyone has ever seen a spirit manifest in physical form. These types of questions are valid ones to ask but what they often indicate to me is that the person is caught up in surface level details and is missing out on the subtleties of spirit communication. This brings me to the topic of this article…

5 Common Misperceptions about Communicating with Spirits

The first misperception that many practitioners have around communicating with spirits is an expectation that spirits will communicate using the verbal language you are used to hearing. Naturally we want spirits to communicate with us in the language that we are used to using every day and some spirits may choose to do that, but more often than not I have found that spirits communicate in much more subtle ways, and through what I would consider to be a transmission of information, which acts as a download. Spoken and written language, in comparison are very limiting.

The second misperception is the expectation that spirits will appear in a physical form that you can see. This is one of those tropes of modern occultism where there’s a perceived value in a spirit manifesting physically even though said manifestation doesn’t accomplish much if anything meaningful. I’ve never had a spirit manifest in a physical form yet I’ve had efficacious workings with the spirits. The need for a physical manifestation is a vanity and ego play in occultism which keeps the practitioner from accomplishing real work with the spirit.

The third misperception is the expectation that spirits have the same types of desires and needs that we have. This is reflective of a tendency to humanize spirits. We do this because we want to ascribe motivations and desires to the spirits that we can understand, but these motivations and desires are out of alignment with the nature of a spirit. A spirit may have desires and needs, but those desires and needs are based in the experience that spirit has, which is significantly different from our everyday experience.

The fourth misperception is a tendency to focus on specific aspects of what a spirit can do or provide without considering the bigger picture. This misperception is rooted around the tendency to focus on specific aspects of a spirit, such as its elemental correspondence or domain of influence, because you want the spirit to do something specific for you. It cherry picks the spirit for what is convenient for you and ignores other aspects that either might be helpful or detrimental…or may cause you to ignore other possible spirits to work with.

The fifth and final misperception is around the understanding of power and potential versus form and manifestation. Spirits don’t have the same material awareness or form that we have, but they have access to more power and through it potential. What they provide is possibility and influence which can be directed to help manifest a result, but we bring something essential to the equation as well. We bring the ability to manifest potential into reality through our material and manifest form. If you want to turn a possibility into reality you necessarily sacrifice power for manifestation.

If you want better communication with spirits, where you get consistent results that transform your life then you’ll want to sign up for the Spirit Communication class, where I’ll share my tried and true techniques for connecting with spirits.

Can you get results with spirits?

One of the questions that I see asked a lot about spirit work is whether or not you can get results with spirits that are tangible and real. Today I share my own thoughts on doing spirit work and what the results can be. I also discuss what your role and the spirit’s role is in this work.

As I mentioned in the video I’m teaching a class on spirit communication and how to get better results with spirits. If you want better results, sign up for the class!

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Why do people want to communicate with spirits?

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Communicating with spirits is an activity that fascinates people, regardless of what they believe about spirits. I share some thoughts on why people want to communicate with spirits and why spirits want to communicate with people and discuss the importance of building reciprocal relationships.

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The latest podcast interviews I've been on

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I have been getting interviewed a lot lately, both solo, and with my magical mate Joanna Brook and I thought I would share them.

I was interviewed twice by Chaos Vibrations. In the first interview we discuss living a magical life and in the second interview we talk about my newest book Scrying the Divine.

Joanna and I were interviewed by Vic Hyland about creativity, divine inspiration, poetry and cutup magick.

Joanna and I were also interviewed by the Knights of the Nephilim about mediumship, spirit work and magick.

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The rules of Spirit Summoning

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Photo by Farzad Sedaghat: https://www.pexels.com/photo/mysterious-shadow-behind-dark-backdrop-3809379/

Lately I’ve been reading books on how to work with Daimonic spirits, as research for my next book in the walking with spirit series. One of the subjects I find fascinating about the books is the rules that the authors provide for summoning spirits. From what I can tell most of these rules are arbitrary rules, personalized to the theories and ideas that writers come up with as a way of explaining how to safely call forth the spirits. While there is some consistency in regards to utilizing angels to help in the process of summoning the spirit, the process itself seems to vary from purely psychological and symbolic workings to elaborate ceremonial and ritual magic.

The question that arises in my mind is how much any of these rules are essential and how much of them are arbitrary, based on cultural and religious assumptions and modalities that create a narrow and limited perspective of what it means to work with a spirit. When we step outside the Western informed framework of spirit work what is discovered is a multiplicity of perspectives on working with spirits, all of which provide valuable insights and perspectives about how to work with spirits without necessarily employing everything that is brought into play with the Western model of spirit work.

One of the assumptions that we ought to question carefully is what we believe about spirits versus what we know about them versus what we are told about them. Take a piece of paper and write down what you believe, what you know, and what you have been told. Where did each of these perspectives come from in your life? What informs your beliefs, the facts, and your experiences?

And here’s another perspective to consider? What did your ancestors believe about spirits? You may be able to ask your parents or grandparents directly, but go back further. What did your ancestors a century, or two centuries or further back think or believe about spirits?