I wanted my next post to be about my experiences of sight and sound; having recently undergone LASIK surgery a whole new world was for a time tantalisingly dangled in front and yet hidden from me but persistance showed the way and experiences I had never dreamed of came shining through; but something else happened, or maybe it happened as a result I am not sure which; during the many quiet hours I’ve had away from the computer and reading and for a short while even light many things from my past came swimming to the fore and I laughed at the irony of it as a friend had asked me just a mere few days before if I ever just sat and did nothing, my reply was, well not very satisfactory.

But this time of “altered” sight which was physically neither clear nor perfect showed me in great detail things I had not seen before; some of which is still happily swimming round and bopping me on the nose days and weeks later.

I’m not a newbie to the craft and the world of the Occult, but I wouldn’t call myself a learned master either, I’ve been on this road only slightly over a decade there are many twists and turns left to explore, I travelled for a while alone, but something made me seek out others to learn from them and thier experiences. A determined soul I searched and found, in fact I keep searching and I keep finding; the point is I found what I was looking for and needed then!

I remember somebody telling me I was an “old crafter” and the sooner I got comfortable with that the better but I had to go away and look to find out what that meant, the closest thing I could find to define this concept of “old craft” was the concepts of Gwyddon, Coven of the Scales and The Clan of Tubal Cain; none of which have a huge public presence that is for sure. I picked up the Bob Clay Edgerton Book published by Ignotus Press, and I picked up The Robert Cochrane Letters and The Roebuck in the Thicket by Capall Bann. I’ve picked up many other books along the way too, thousands of pounds worth actually on just about every subject imaginable, to the point we are seriously considering cataloging my books within the household insurance as we are not sure they would be covered under the general contents.

Yet despite all these wonderful tomes, these 3 little books not one of them priced above £12.99 are the most loved, treasured and refered to books in my collection; sorry things they are, backs all broken and torn, pages filled with highlighter pen and post it notes, pages all sellotaped together, and still they endure and call to me, perhaps less now than before, but even now 10yrs later I would say there is less than 6 months goes by without me referring to these books or working from them in some way.

A chance conversation happened this evening a fellow insomniac was bemoaning thier fate and I told them to take up spinning as it was very relaxing and was capable or putting any person into an alpha state within minutes with the right practise, I quipped that as a result of my spinning addiction I was more qualified to sign off FFF&F than many I know that have used it. And that took me aback because for many years I refused to use that as a sign off on my correspondence, to me, it should be used by only those who understood the concept of each and every one of those “F’s”.

And it got me thinking again, as a non pagan friend asked me a month or so back if I was a witch and I said categorically that no I really wasn’t one, well not in the way she was thinking anyway. But there it was shouting at me in the back of my head, The Ritual of the Castle, was I really one of the quick and the dead and maybe sadly or maybe other wise the answer was no I wasn’t. I am other, I am what Cochrane defines as witch. I personally think it is an entirely human condition and far from supernatural, its rather mundane actually when you get to the bare bones of it, but to be a member of her darling crew isn’t so much a doing but a being and I think this is where people who want lables fall down drastically.