Kat was away on a trip last week. We do a daily meditation together in the evening, but we weren't able to do it together because of the trip, so instead we opted to do it via phone. I would put her on the speaker phone and then we'd do our meditation chant and afterwards meditate in silence. Each time we'd end our meditation at the same time, without any prompting from the other person.
What we both noticed was that despite the distance we felt like we were next to each other. Kat told me that even though she was in the hotel she could smell our house while we were doing the meditation. It was interesting me to because it showed that the daily work we were doing was creating a connection that carried across the distance. It likely helped that its easy for us to visualize each other and that we've been doing this daily meditation for a little while now, but it also speaks to the value of doing daily work with magical partners. It builds more of a connection between the two or more people doing the work.
I've done long distance workings in the past with other people, and what has always indicated the success of the long distance workings has been feeling the presence of the people I'm working with. If I feel their presence, I know I've connected with them, and we can always verify that by seeing if our reports are consistent with each other. If they are, then we know the magical work is happening across the distance.
Book Review: Darwin's Pharmacy by Richard Doyle
First a caveat. I know the author and actually took classes from him in college.
This is is an intriguing book that explores the rhetoric of entheogens and how people discuss the experiences they've had with entheogens. The author interweaves his own narrative and experiences with the analysis he provides about entheogens. If you are interested in entheogens this book will be a good read that provides you some fascinating insights into the subculture around them. The author also bases a lot of his discussion around the works of Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, the McKenna brothers and other luminaries that have discussed entheogens in their own work. What I found particularly fascinating was the connected he made to Darwin's Theory of evolution and how work with the plants is a symbiotic relationship of evolution for both humans and plants.