Preface





Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, The First Elegy, translated by Stephen Mitchell


There are things which cannot and should not be said, seen, or felt to a great extent--without dire, and at times obliterating consequences. Things beyond the mundaness of this world that are too hot, too fast, too deep, and too real for the inhabitants of this place with the passage of time that has separated them from their origins. But some seek to challenge this. There are things which if revealed to almost anyone will cause among other things disturbances, questions of sanity, sometimes madness, and at the very least some raised eyebrows. Minds will be reshaped, and tongues will wag in confusion to the consternation and disbelief of others.

Quiet, heartening yearnings of dreamy children closer to the past than us lead to fantastical things. Fairy tales fuel our imaginations and myths make us sigh, but soon enough, as we grow, or minds close to such ideas and learn to dream away any possibility of the impossible.

Our bones stretch, or hearts become tempered, and we live and function in a world devoid of miracles, magick, and myth.

Because now, in this day and age, such things are just not "real."

But, long ago, there existed a balance of light and dark, the two blended together, in and out of each other and were essentially one. Magick was real, in the everyday and in the consciously mundane and daily ways of life--and in so many ways things were not "mundane." There were no "superstitions" or "fairy tales" because such "fantasy" today was reality then. "Fantasy" was understood to have origins beyond the worldy perception of ordinary man, but was believed nonetheless and entrusted to those who were of a nature to exist between the clandestine Divide that separated the Worlds. Fairy tales were lived and mythical adventures were common. Today's "miracles" and "impossibilities" were yesterday's normalcy----but at some point in time consciousness and man emerged singularly with the exclusion of Others to form their own microcosm and then subsequently Light and Dark were distinguished from one another and created what is now.

What was once real--has now become fiction and the stuff of legends.

However, just because a split did occur and the curtains were pulled closely shut does not mean that anything was lost--rather only that things were re-arranged, hidden, and new Paths laid to those [now] distantly shadowed places.

An agreement was made, was reached by various Councils and Hierarchies to isolate this place from the magick that created it and to let man take its course. Magick was not removed let alone destroyed--but rather given a new guise in a new world and assigned to a new group of Keepers.

The majority of human intelligences became consciously isolated on this plane without conscious knowledge of other places. Those who could still pass between and betwixt the Veils that had been placed upon this realm were largely discredited with the progression of man away from the primitive and the advent of science and were only paid homage in small, backwater communities closer to the dawn of time than to realities of the present. They became the local witch, the village shaman, the town fortune teller, and the cunning folk.

How ones gets about going in between to these places is an art of an individual basis--and something which is infrequently and also discretely [if at all] discussed. It is guarded, and for good reason. The Veil is thick and closely guarded, and the repercussions that come along with revealing such knowledge can be high and the prices paid, dear. However, to those who understand such passage can be given.

For those who actively and consciously practice the Craft and understand the complexities of such a choice and are interested in discussing this way of life in a world that denies its existence, please read on.


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