Fairies in my Visions of Magic and Mysticism

As an artist, I seek to create imagery that draws the viewer into an ineffable sense of mystery and spiritual revelation. Some of my work may be considered obscure, but here’s samples of light imagery from my fairy series.

 Learn more about my work at http://www.deerapposelli.com

All about the Magical Wand on YouTube

All about the Magical Wand: the quintessential tool of magicians, fairies, witches, and all manner of other magical folk. Here is a quick video on the history and lore of the magical wand. A more in depth free pdf booklet is available through my website www.sorcerersandmagi.com where you can sign up for other free pdf downloads on magic, mysticism, and spirituality and check out my fiction inspired by authentic magic and mysticism. 

Upcoming free pdf downloads:

• The Arbatel, Olympic Spirits and the Seal of Secrets of the World
• Meditation and Its Effects 
• The Stele of Jeu (Bornless Ritual) and the Divine Light
• On Vedanta

Disposing of Sirens -- Excerpt from The Fallen Fairy -- Fantasy Fiction Ebook, Magic and Occult Insight

deerapposelli.com

Sirens were creatures that were half-bird, half-woman, in origin, perhaps like the Egyptian ba. To the ancient Egyptians, the ba was the surviving part of a person that flew to the Underworld when a person died, but sirens were renegade creatures. According to classical myth, they lived on treacherously rocky isles off the coast of Sicily. They wanted nothing more than to entice passing sailors. Being lured, these sailors, thinking they’d get good head, instead found themselves in listless, dumbfounded stupors from which they languished and died.

It was portended that if a ship passed in which the occupants were resistant to the sirens’ song, the sirens, in frenzied dismay, would kill themselves. Thus, it is told in the Odyssey that these creatures leaped off cliffs when the epic’s hero, Odysseus, and his crew sailed by.

The sirens descended to the Underworld where they continued to sing, this time in mourning for the dead. Their imagery became mixed up with that of mermaids who themselves, in lore, were the mystical remnants of disposed-of women. Taking vengeance on the violence done to them, mermaids, thus, lured men to their deaths with the promise of sex through the sweetness of their song.

It all meant something metaphorical about men, women, ecstasy, sense control, and, of course, sex and death. One had to ponder it and trace the meme across cultures and time. To say that Aisa Morae was a siren—or a fairy—a banshee or strix—was mere convention. No one knew what she really was except that she was something of a Pandora’s box that had a thin layer of jewels at the top under which scorpions rustled.

But it could be argued that, since Aisa Morae was more a magical entity than a person, she was actually a “thought-form.” That is, she was really something that someone had magically thought up in such a way that the thought took on form and came to life.

Thought-form‒like beings could linger indefinitely, although they might become increasingly unstable over time.  Aisa conceivably could go on for lifetimes, becoming increasingly fouler and more erratic. It all depended on the prowess of whoever had set her in motion in the first place. . .

The burning question for Michael was whether Aisa Morae was ensouled or whether she was more of a phantasm. If she were ensouled, disposing of her would be a criminal act. If she were a thought-form—that is, a mirage of the imagination—especially if she were a troublesome one—then making her go away might be a good deed.

The Olympic Spirits Part 1 Phul Luna, Diana, the Intelligence of the Moon

Phul is the Olympic Spirit associated with the Roman goddess Diana, the moon, and the elemental realm, including the fairy realm.

The Olympic Spirits and the Seal of Secrets of the World

Phul, the Governor of the Mysteries of the Moon

Seventhly the [wisdom of the] Pigmies pertains to the lowest place, including they who inhabit the elements and things related to them.” –from Aphorism 9 of the Arbatel

Phul is the Olympic Spirit associated with the moon and the Roman goddess Diana. In Sanskrit the word Phul  means “flower.” The word for “moon” in Sanskrit is soma, which happens to be the Latin word for body. If we understand the wordplay correctly, then we can understand that Phul is associated with the material world, the body, sense experience, and the elements, including the fairy realm, which the writer of the Arbatel –the quintessential medieval book on the OS -- refers to as “the Pigmies.”

Phul said to rule 7 Provinces. This translates into the equation 7 x 1, making Phul’s value 1. Its geometric form is the point and its placement in a diagram described in the Arbatel called the Seal of Secrets of the world is its center. In addition to Phul, this center may be associated with the dimensionless point  which according to Empedocles, is “the circle, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.” The Arbatel’s instructions for drawing the Seal of Secrets says:

Projecting from the center, this is the invisible God in the entire creature.

The Arbatel suggests that, in addition to representing the Divine Ground from which all of existence emerges and spreads out into time and space, the center of the Seal/ of Secrets—where Phul resides–represents the body, elemental beings, and the microcosm, which is the reflection of the macrocosm.

Phul is said to make men to live 300 years. This  may be a cryptic way of saying that mastery of Phul consciousness makes one a master of the elemental sphere—Nature, including human nature within the terrestrial sphere. We know this because 300 resolves to 3, a number associated with, in the Arbatel, with Hagith, the Intelligence of the planet Venus. In this way, we see a relationship between the elemental and terrestrial spheres.

--ZSD23

All About the Magical Wand: the quintessential tool of magicians, fairies, witches, and all manner of other magical folk

 Free illustrated pdf booklet History & insight on the
magical wand and inspiration for making your own

Why is the magical wand the quintessential tool of magicians, fairies, witches, and all manner of other magical folk? Why and how would you make a wand of your own? Find out. 

The wand is the quintessential tool associated with the magical worker or occultist. It also is an important ritual tool in Western magic and mysticism. Not Harry Potter swish-n-flick (even though that is great too!). But real magic by real people in real history. --History that belongs to you and me!

My willow wand

Unlike the sword or dagger, which are aggressive magical weapons that cut through space and are traditionally used in banishing operations, the wand is used to command and move energy. As a ritual tool the wand represents the magical will and qualities such as command, heroism, determination, and efficiency.

The famed Victorian-era mage Aleister Crowley has said:

 “The Magick Wand is thus the principal weapon of the Magus; and the ‘name’ of that wand is the Magical Oath.”

A Little History

Just as dinosaurs are thought to have shrunk into birds and small reptiles over the course of evolution, the wand may be a mini-version of the staff or scepter. The staff or scepter is a stylized version of weapons such as the club and pike. The person who held the staff or scepter in ancient communities was the one who held the power.[1]

The wand or staff also may be related to mysticism related to snakes. 

The snake may have been equated with the magical staff and used in fake "miracle working" feats by ancient spiritual teachers.[1] When a snake handler presses on a snake’s head in a certain way, the snake is temporarily paralyzed  so that it takes the form of a staff or a pole. When the “staff” is flung onto the ground, the snake  revives and appears to be a snake again. Such an event is described in the Book of Exodus (7:8-13):

Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “If Pharaoh says to you, ‘Produce some marvel,’ you must say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down in front of Pharaoh and let it turn into a serpent. To Pharaoh Moses and Aaron went and did as Yahweh commanded. Aaron threw down his staff in front of Pharaoh and the court, and it turned into a serpent.  Then the Pharaoh called for his sages and sorcerers and with their witchcraft, the magicians of Egypt did the same. Each threw his staff down and these turned into serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up the staffs of the magicians.”

Aaron was Moses’ brother and apparently held political or magical power because Moses often is depicted telling him to use his staff to make magical catastrophic events occur. As in stories in the New Testament, the magical actions of the protagonists aren’t considered to be “magic” but acts of God, whereas the exact same actions performed by the enemy/rivals/nonbelievers are labeled “witchcraft.”

A similar scenario occurs in the New Testament Book of Acts in which stories of confrontations between Peter and magoi (mages), are related.[1-4 Like the story of Aaron and the Pharaoh’s wizards, the magic performed by Peter is considered to be a miraculous sign of God, but the magic of Simon and other magi are painted as misguided and diabolical.

Fresco of Jesus raising Lazarus from Dead

And so some controversy exists about whether early Christians thought of Christ as a kind of magician. A third-century fresco discovered in the catacombs of the St. Callisto Chapel in Rome shows Jesus holding a wand in his right hand while raising Lazarus from the dead. In another example from that era, a gold glass plate from the Fourth Century, now housed in the Vatican Library, shows Jesus using a magic wand to raise Lazarus from the dead. In a series of images on Christian sarcophagi dated to the 4th and 5th century, Jesus is depicted using a wand to resurrect Lazarus, turn water to wine, multiply loaves and fish, and heal the widow’s son.[1-4]

The staff/wand also may have had its origins in the staff of Asclepius, Greek god of healing  It is a single serpent encircling a cypress branch—a reference to a certain benign, tree-climbing snake that was common in the Mediterranean.

 The staff represents the power of knowledge and healing and came to be confused with the caduceus of Hermes. Rather than the art of medicine, the caduceus of Hermes represents the balance and union of opposing or complementary forces and the self- mastery that is achieved by the person who can unite opposites.

Witchy Wands

Circe by John William Waterhouse

The first literary reference to a wand, which appears in the Odyssey, does not associate it with male power or sorcery. The wand is wielded by a woman--the sorceress Circe.

 Circe was associated with the goddesses Diana and Hecate, which in turn were later associated with the Fate (pronounced like fa-tay)—Italian fairies.

Italian fairytales were the first place that fairies appear in literature.[5] They are depicted holding wands, equating them with the sorceress Circe. They were the counterpart to more threatening ideas of female power, which also were related to Diana and Hecate--the mythical witch.

 The fairies depicted in Italian fairy lore were different from those in Northern European tradition. Italian fairies were full-sized, elegant, goddess-like women who  protected and performed favors for those mortals  they took a liking to.[5]

They evolved from the idea of the Fates (Roman/latin, Parcae; Greek, Moirae; Teutonic, Norns), who spun, wove, and cut the thread of life. 

Whereas the wand of the male magician or mystic represented masculine will, leadership, and potency, that of the female magician represented the power to weave and ensnare. Rather than a scepter or weapon, the wand of the witch or fairy may have derived from the distaff--a antique tool used to spin thread.

The flipside of the wand-wielding fairy is the mythological witch. Rather than a wand, the witch was depicted with a bifurcated branch—that is, a bune wand, which is a rough distaff—or else a broom.  

 Brooms were not only a kind of wand used for symbolic space clearing but also magical objects for fertility. Jumping the broom, thus, was—and continues to be—part of the marriage rite within folk culture. There is also evidence that brooms handles were used in provocative ways for trippy shamanic adventures involving flying ointment [6]. . . .

 Learn more . . . .

Free pdf download

Selected references

1. Joe Lantiere. The Magician’s Wand Parts 1-4. http://secretartjournal.com/author/joe/
2. Michael D. Bailey. Magic and Superstition in Europe A Concise History from Antiquity to the Present. NY: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2007.
3. Lee M. Jefferson. The Staff of Jesus in Early Christian Art. Religion and the Arts. 2010;14:221-25.
4. William Storage and Laura Maish. Christ the Magician. A survey of ancient Christian sarcophagus imagery. http://www.rome101.com/Topics/Christian/Magician/
5. Raffaella Benvenuto. Italian Fairies Fate, Folletti, and Other Creatures of Legend. Journal of Mythic Arts. 2006. http://www.endicott-studio.com/articleslist/italian-fairiesfate-folletti-and-other-creatures-of-legendby-raffaela-benvenuto.html
6. John Mann. Murder, Magic, and Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press. 2000.

Excerpt from Chapter  VI The Pyr Sacra Empowerment  in La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi

 

Leonard knew nothing was askew in the house—only he was, but as he had told his father, whatever it was, it wasn’t “bad.”

 He found Victor. He was the head of his father’s personal cadre of staff-bearers—his bodyguards. He lived with a wife and a pack of boxers on the property in a nice-sized stone cottage apart from the nestling of cottages in which the household help lived. He was a husky man with a strong but calming demeanor who approached his role as a chief attendant to the Consul with unwavering and ungrudging solemnity and faithfulness. Leonard found him at home, where he was propped on a sofa, watching a movie, and savoring pretzels and oatmeal stout while his wife was gardening in the moonlight.

He and Leonard and the canine guard skulked around. The dogs sniffed here and there, but neither the dogs nor that staff-bearer were willing to descend into the dungeon of de Lux senior’s tower.

 It was gloomy, with a single low-volt lighting fixture with which to illumine the shelves housing artifacts, worts, potions and props, organic materials, and metal plates and parchments of wicked sigils and defensive glyphs. The room had a well and a pit with a flue that took fumes of burned things through a tunnel in the ground to the outside away from the house. Nothing unusual seemed to be there.

 In the ground floor studio, Leonard found the big staff. His father didn’t tote it around in the way too many magical persons did their own staffs. The man could summon it through the ethers and into his grip on demand. The talent was fast becoming a lost art, primarily because persons weren’t as martial these days as in the past. (Schools didn’t allocate much time to perfecting the practice, and instead of staffs, more and more younger persons were carrying wands, which were more easily concealed and portable.)

Wands and staffs typically had a wood core, generally oak, yew, holly, ash, rowan, cherry, or willow. They all had specific magical properties. Oak was commanding; yew bridged the here and hereafter; holly drew on the energies of the element of fire as ash did those of water; rowan was mercurial, cherry good for love magic, and willow for moon magic and healing.

The wood would be sheathed in a full coat or lattice of metals: iron, silver, platinum, gold, copper, bronze, nickel, etc. and studded with special stones. The staff that Leonard’s father had asked him to retrieve was made of oak and hawthorn sheathed in a serpentine design of iron and tin, spotted with chips of black and red stones. An onyx finial of the sea-goat Capricornus—the zodiacal sign under which Leo de Lux had been born—was mounted on a jewel-crusted girdle of platinum on the top of the staff.

Oak for majesty, hawthorn for the power of lightning, onyx for smiting magical attacks, and the metals of Mars and Jupiter. Capricorn: the sea-goat; the southern gate of the sun; the Babylonian Ea, god of wisdom; Grecian Aegipan, restorer of Zeus’ might in defeating the Titans; saturnine, mercurial, and spanning the heights to the depths. This staff was a martial and lethal weapon but not because it made a good cudgel.

Victor jumped back when Leonard grasped the staff. The dogs barked and whimpered.

 “What are you going to do with that, Lenny?” the man nervously asked.

 “My dad told me to get it,” Leonard replied, “to protect myself, I think.”

 “Watch where you point it, son,” Victor cautioned. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

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The Dragon Dieth Not Unless It Be Killed by Brother and Sister at Once

Excerpt from Chapter 6 [The Lovers] The Sun and the Moon in  by The Fallen Fairy 

The “Law of Karma” posited three lines of force: sanchita karma, prarabdha karma, and agami karma. Sanchita karma was the momentum that had originated in some mysterious and distant past. It had built up over eons like a snowflake becomes an avalanche as it accumulates compacted snow, ice, rocks, twigs, shrubs, small animals, then big ones, all kinds of crap in the path of its ferocious trajectory. Wherever the exponentially building mass was as it fell was the present. That was prarabdha karma—fate, destiny—where the past caught up with a person, dictated the present, and set the direction for the future.

Then there was agami karma, which was where the avalanche might be headed and how its structure might change because of it. It was the potential future, predicated on both where it had been (sanchita karma) and where it was (prarabdha karma). Even though the residual effects of the past were relentlessly barreling from the present to the future, the present still could modify the future’s course.

Bellaluna Drago was a fallen fairy because having had the ill-fortune of becoming some sinister Renaissance necromancer’s pet (and Michael knew who that fiendish bastard now was), she had haplessly done something despicable that led to the necromancer’s and her own ruin. She was now clawing through lives and worlds in atonement. Her redemption had come. Michael felt privileged to play a role in it.

“There is a saying in the alchemical texts that goes like this,” Michael murmured. “The dragon only dies when he is killed by his brother and sister at once; not by one alone, but by both at once. That is, by the sun and moon.’ You and me,” he said.

“We’re compelled to create stories for the whys and wherefores of things in an attempt to trump a wild card, which is existence itself. And existence happens despite us and also is a product of our own making. It’s a bit of a paradox,” Michael continued. “You dream of being attacked by a man who would pull you down to Hell with him. This is all the fluff of the mind—a subterfuge for some other vexation that is limiting you. But even that is a mere projection of mental noise. We torture ourselves with it for no good reason.”

Michael told Bella this to console her, even though it was and wasn’t what was going on. Nevertheless, he continued.

“In creation mythology, we talk about the world forming from chaos and void by the will of a conscious entity—God. But the chaos—the so-called prima materia—is not matter, nature, or the world; it is the human psyche full of convoluted impressions, habituations, and the conditioning of nature and nurture. This is the seven-headed dragon that must be slain by the hero who is none other than the divine spirit within asserting itself. It rescues the damsel, which is the soul.”

The path of inner alchemy and of mysticism in all the great traditions founded in gnosis, Michael contended, was to transform the human creature, who was nothing more than a helpless gear of the world machine, into a real person with real will, intention, and creative abilities.

“Some persons call this enlightenment; some call it ‘being like unto God’; some call it the Great Work, which is magic,” he said.

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