Friday, January 8, 2010

Kabbalah for the Wicca

To kick off its series of workshops for the year, I am holding a lecture for the Philippine Wiccan Society[1] on occult symbols of the Western mystery tradition, which will hopefully be followed by a workshop on talismanic magic.

I'm having a blast making the PowerPoint slides. It takes me a while to finish one slide because I am so amused by the animations that I play them over and over again.



I'm being careful that the slides illustrate my ideas clearly since I am hardly eloquent at explaining stuff. The lecture will be geared towards beginners and casual magicians so I'll try not to use any Hebrew or Gnostic terms - without resorting to bullshit.

Part of the lecture is a discussion on cosmology since I feel that this must come hand-in-hand with the study of occult symbols. While symbols help put abstract metaphysical ideas into context, cosmology binds them together into a coherent whole.



Western mysticism is usually associated with Hermetic practice, but a basic study of it is also important for Wiccans. I think the Western mystery trad, which is mostly rooted from Greek philosophy and Jewish mysticism, had more influence on Wiccan ritual practice than European folklore.

I usually hate public speaking but thankfully the thing about giving a lecture for the Philippine Wiccan Society is that I am not speaking to an audience, but to friends.

Basbasan Nawa!



[1] http://philwiccansociety.forumotion.com/
     http://philwiccansociety.multiply.com/

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