Still today the stereotypical image of a witch is that of an ugly old hag wearing a broad brimmed, tall, black pointed hat.  But where did the hat originate?

In medieval times, woodcut images of witches show them as wearing a verity of costumes associated with those times, including headscarves and hats of differing fashions.  Many are also shown bareheaded with their hair locks blowing in the wind.

Is it possible that the witches hat is an exaggeration of the tall conical ‘dunce’s hat’, popular in the royal courts during the 15^th century, or the blunt-topped hats worn by the Puritans and Welsh of the same period?  At one point long ago, pointed hats were a fashion icon in the city of London (then the fashion capital of Europe), but it took a long time for fashion to trickle into the country, and by the time they did, they became way out of fashion in the city.  City folk called country folk ‘pagani’ (which means country dweller), much the same as calling someone a ‘hick’ today.

Pointed hats soon became considered something only the ‘pagani’ would wear, most were herbalists and farmers wife’s who lived in the country and understood the land.  Since they were wise to the ways of nature and could grow and harvest herbs, so the pointed hat became associated with the ‘wise woman’ or ‘witch’.  During this same period, the Christian church chipped in and associated pointed hats with the horns of the devil, by which time they frowned upon their use.

Brimless, conical hats have long been associated with male wizards and magicians, Goya the famous artist painted witches wearing such hats.  It is possible that other artists somewhere along the way added the brim to make the hats more appropriate for women.  By Victorian times, the tall, black, conical hat worn by an old crone became readily identifiable as symbols of wickedness in illustrations of children’s stories and fairy tales.

Another possibility is that the witch’s hat may date back to antiquity.  Ancient Etruscan coins from the city of Luna depict a head on one side of the coin; some believe it to be the goddess Diana, who is associated with witches.  The head on the coin depicts the wearer with a brimless, conical hat.

Today most contemporary witches go bareheaded or wear ritual headgear such as headbands with a crescent moon or other religious symbols on it.  Normally the symbol is positioned on the forehead.  During rituals in which the Goddess and Horned God are represented, the high priestess may wear a headband or a crown, while the high priest may wear a helmet with horns or antlers.

by George Knowles

Print PDF

Mercury, the planet of communication, turns retrograde in Virgo from August 20 to September 12.

Three or four times a year, Mercury appears to move backwards in the sky for approximately three weeks. This is an optical illusion since no planet actually moves backwards or even slows down in their orbits around the Sun. However, it appears to move backwards from our perspective on planet Earth, since the planet may be orbiting at a different speed than the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

Mercury retrograde periods introduce a certain level of confusion for us earthlings. As the planet of communication, Mercury rules speech, our listening abilities, negotiations, buying, selling, travel formal contracts and documents amongst other things – all of which are affected when Mercury seems to slow down. Mercury rules how we perceive and interpret information and how we in turn act and react to that information as we interact with others.

The Leo Sun also opposes Neptune on August 20, which can have a lackluster, low energy, and marginally disappointing influence leading to muddled thinking and lack of motivation as we start this retrograde period. However, Neptune can be healing and very spiritual, and this can be an excellent time to chill out. August 20 can also have the thrill and flavor of romance about it and definitely a time to make your feelings known since we have a delightfully passionate and enthusiastic meeting of Venus and Mars in an exactly aligned conjunction in Libra.

Mercury retrograde periods affect each one of us differently depending on the placement of this planet in our individual birth charts. The effect on Gemini and Virgo signs, ruled by Mercury, will be stronger, but for other signs it is a time of trivial irritations. Being forced to slow down and develop patience can, however, be a blessing in disguise. It gives us all time to stop, go inward and reflect. Mercury retrograde periods can be times of heightened awareness and creativity, and an excellent time for out of the box thinking, which can sometimes lead to startling revelations.

Source

Print PDF

When entering a hotel (where she and her husband were staying), Gladys, a devout Baptist, noticed a shabbily dressed man lounging idly in front of the newspaper stand in the lobby.  She noticed that several men stopped to talk to him and gave him a little money.  He seemed so cheered by the encounters.  She impulsively put $10 in an envelope, wrote “God Bless” on the outside and handed it to him.

The next day, the man stopped her on the street.  “Here’s your $250,” he said, cheerily.  “God Bless won, 25 to 1!”

Print PDF

Do guardian angels exist? Do they sometimes come to the aid and comfort of humans in need? Why do they appear to and help some people and not others? Do you have a guardian angel? If so, how can you find out? And how can you contact yours?

A recent poll published in Time magazine revealed that 69% of Americans believe in angels, and 46% of that group believe they have a personal guardian angel. Ultimately, angels are most often a matter of faith, and many believers have offered their opinions on what a guardian angel’s role can be in a person’s life and even how you can enlist their help.

What Are Guardian Angels?

Guardian angels are thought to be spiritual beings that are ‘assigned’ to assist people here on earth in various ways. Whether there is one angel per person, one angel for several persons or several angels for one person is open to question. But whether you believe in them or not, or whether you want one or not, believers insist that you do have a guardian angel.

What is their assignment? According to “Encounters of the Angelic Kind” at Future365 (now defunct), “they intercept at many junctures in our lives and help wherever they can to make our lives run smoothly. Sometimes this is by inspiring a thought to spur us into action, at others it is to lend us super-human strength, such as in the case of a woman being able to lift a car long enough to free her trapped child. Or we hear of a runaway truck, with an unconscious driver at the wheel, inexplicably swerving sharply at the last moment to avoid a bus stop queue of people. In fact, there are many instances, which are often put down to luck, coincidence or even a miracle, but which have the touch of a hand of light behind it.”

So, why don’t angels come to a person’s aid every time it’s asked for? Sometimes, the article contends, “angels must stand back, whilst giving loving support only, as we work things out for ourselves – these are the times when we feel alone, the dark before dawn.”

How Do We Know Angels Are There?

Even those who believe in the existence of angels concede that they rarely make a physical appearance. However, there are other ways guardian angels can make their presence known, they say.

“Some people say that they hear angelic sounds totally beyond human description,” according to the article “Angels” at Future365. “Others have a feeling of sudden warmth or comfort, or, in times of sadness or grief, a gentle cloak of feathered wings wrapping softly around them. Sometimes angel energy may feel entirely different – like a sudden rush of air created by the passing by of an ‘angel on a mission’ at the speed of light. This is often noticed at times of impending disaster. At other times, simply an inexplicable presence is felt.”

How To Contact Your Guardian Angel

Robert Graham, in an article for Psychic Journal, suggests that we all have guardian angels that are willing to communicate with us, but that most of the time we are just too busy to listen. If we are attentive, he says, and are willing to remain open to this communication, we can receive subtle messages that can help us in our daily lives.

“If you want a clear and concise message from your angel,” Graham says, “you must ask a direct question. Your angel will always answer your questions. You must ask your question out loud. Clear, concise questions will get you clear, concise answers. Answers will always be tangible and explicit, something you can put your hands on. The answers I’ve gotten I could pick up and examine. Asking a frivolous question will get you a silly answer. The universe will match your level of sincerity.”

Angels are always willing to help us, according to Doreen Virtue, but we have to be willing to accept the assistance since we have free will. “To ask for angelic assistance, you needn’t conduct a formal invocation ceremony,” Virtue says. The methods she suggests are likely to be much more familiar and comfortable to most people, including writing a letter to your guardian angel – spelling out your problem and your need, visualising – ’see’ protective angels around you in your mind’s eye, call them mentally – think your plea to the angels, speak aloud – state your case verbally.

“Connect with Your Angel” suggests yet another method: meditation. “Make yourself comfortable, sitting or lying down. Be aware of your breathing. Let your body become limp and relaxed. Empty your mind; create space, just as though the whole of the universe was there, inside you. Now just be. No doing. Only being.  Communicate to your angel that you wish to connect with her/him. Wait in peace. Be aware of what happens. It may not seem much at first. Be patient. Subtle changes will occur. You may see light, colours or form. You may be aware of a presence. You may feel tingling sensations. You may feel emotion. You will feel love.”

Is all this just superstitious folly? Is the idea of guardian angels just a human invention designed to help people cope with difficult problems? Or are they real beings? The matter cannot be proved or disproved definitively. Perhaps only your own faith or experience can determine their reality for you.

Click on the Guardian image at the top
to purchase this gorgeous fantasy art wall print to watch over you.

Source

Print PDF

I’m so very excited about sharing how proud I am of myself!  Today’s the day I stopped smoking one whole year ago and, like James Brown says, I feel good, I knew I would!  I no longer smell like an ashtray, I’ve saved about $4500, and I’ve added more years onto my life!

Have you tried to crack a bad habit that’s just too hard to break?  Yes?  No success?  Yes?  I hear you loud and clear, but I simply decided one day that enough was enough and I stopped on the spot with the help of hypnotherapy.  After a 60-minute session, ta-da, like magic, it worked – no more cigarettes!

If you choose hypnotherapy as your healing tool, please, please make sure that you’re dealing with a specially trained therapist.  Rick Collingwood is one of those reputable folk, whose Life Improvement Personal Hypnotherapy CDs have been featured on A Current Affair.  A few of his CDs have even earned ARIA awards, gold and platinum!

Whether it’s to stop smoking, enhancing your intuition, losing weight, freeing yourself from physical pain, insomnia, or even depression, we have a range of Rick Collingwood’s hypnotherapy CDs available through our online shop that can safely and effectively help you in the privacy of your own home.  Enter the code RICK during checkout for free shipping of your entire order.  Be quick, though, because offer ends 31 July 2010.

I’ll be celebrating my special milestone with a glass of bubbly shortly and will be sending healing energy out to, hopefully, at least one person who has been touched and has had a change of heart by reading these words.

Heal your life and change it for the better, like I did.  You’ll be glad you did, and we’d love to hear about it!

Blessings,
Louise x

Print PDF

It seems to be a fairly common belief that children are more open or receptive to experiencing paranormal encounters than grownups are.

Could this be because children see the world differently than the rest of us?

Who hasn’t seen an infant lying in his or her crib looking playfully at the air and giggling in delight at something that the rest of us cannot see? Many times reports of paranormal occurrences do indeed surround young children and teenagers, such as in reported cases of poltergeist activity.

Is there a known reason for this? Is it that children are more in tune with the spirit world? Are they able to see beyond what we know as reality?

Part of the reason may be that children have not yet developed the filters or prejudices that most of us have in place as adults. Years of being told what is and is not possible, and what is and is not real can have a way of callusing the perception.

Studies have shown that the adult brain can develop the ability to altogether block out or fail to ’see’ something that does not register as being normal or in the right place, especially if we are not looking for it specifically.

Most parents unwittingly (for the most part) begin defining reality to their children at a very early age, especially in the vital years, where the imagination is being developed. Could your child’s imaginary friend be a ghost?

Is there a chance that there could be more to his or her imaginary friend than imagination? Is there a possibility that a spirit may be trying to communicate something to the only person perceptive enough to notice within the family?

In presenting our children a closed-minded view of the world we may be subconsciously sending them a message that they cannot trust what they see and experience, ultimately they train themselves to block out or ignore what they think cannot be real or is not acceptable.

On the other hand, it is possible that in admitting that we do not have all the answers and that there are many things that still need to be explored and discovered, some parents could actually nurture a healthy sense of curiosity in their children. As may be the case with those who desire to objectively study parapsychology or the paranormal through a deep sense of longing to seek out understanding despite the closed-mindedness of others.

Through the growing interest and exploration in this field, researchers have come to define poltergeist activity. For years, it has been observed that poltergeists were always active, or seemed to focus around an adolescent child (now called the ‘agent’), usually in their mid to late teens.

Among parapsychologists, typical poltergeist phenomena are now known as Recurrent Spontaneous Psycho-Kinesis, or RSPK. This term is used to describe the outward physical expression of intense emotion from a human agent through inexplicable force or action imposed on the immediate or surrounding environment through psychological means.

The agent is usually oblivious to the fact the he or she caused the disturbance because it is the subconscious mind, which is releasing repressed or unexpressed emotion through psychokinesis. In addition, poltergeist activity without the presence of an agent is attributed to the remnants of intense emotions in a particular location, a psychological imprint if you will.

In either case, poltergeist activity is believed to be an outward manifestation of human emotion. Whether these assumptions are accurate or not is disputable, yet it is evidence that progress has been made on a subject that otherwise would be left misunderstood and unexplored had it not been for open-minded research and for people who were not willing to have someone else define to them what reality is.

Are children born with an inexplicable sense for the unknown?

No one can say for sure, but as parents, we should not be willing to dismiss everything our children have to say. We should listen and discern if what they are telling us is simply child’s play or if there is something more …

Ask questions and play along; don’t you remember what it was like to be a kid? You could learn something, you’ll never know, unless you take off the blinders and look around you.

Source

Print PDF

Do you see a certain sequence of numbers regularly?  Yes?  You’re not alone!  If your experiences are anything like mine, we’re talking every single day, sometimes more than once a day, and been going on for years now – thankfully, with break periods in between!

What the?

Why are we seeing it all the time?  What does it all mean?  Are we the ‘chosen ones’?  Is it a co-incidence?  Is it a call for spiritual awakening?  Does it always seem to tie in with other synchronicities that are happening in your life at the time?

According to Doreen Virtue, these number sequences are signs and messages from angels, our guardian angels.  Others say that seeing 11:11 has something to do with 21/12/2012, the end of the world as we know it according to the Mayan calendar.  Did you notice that the numbers in the date all add up to 11??

Mystical Parties has two fantastic books on this subject.  One is called Angel Numbers 101 by Doreen Virtue.  If you see a variety of number sequences regularly, this book explains them all.  If you only ever really see 11:11, our book called 11:11 The Time Prompt Phenomenon is definitley the one for you.

Get your copies now, and more, at the Mystical Parties Online Shop.

For a 10% DISCOUNT on these books for the month of June, and hey why not off your entire order(!), type BLOG11 into the promotion code box during checkout and your saving will automatically be deducted.

Finding the answers you seek is easy as with Mystical Parties!

Print PDF

Not having much luck in love lately?  Relationship falling apart?  Maybe it’s those upside down dried flowers you have hanging in your hallway or maybe it’s the antique full-length mirror in your bedroom …

Feng Shui (pronounced Feng Shway) is the ancient Chinese art of rearranging design elements so that they harmonise with your environment.  Several systems are used to determine what should go where to enhance the love life, but the one that applies to anyone reading this is the Pa Kua system.  In Pa Kua, the southwest corner is the love sector of your home.

First of all, get a compass and find out what exactly is in the southwest corner of your building.  Is there a bedroom there?  Good.  A toilet there?  Bad.  It means your romantic prospects are getting flushed away.  Is your southwest corner a badly lit storeroom full of clutter?  Also bad.  It means your love-life will be as messy as well.  In fact, no matter what room that corner is located in, it now becomes your job to enhance it as best as you can, by getting rid of clutter and using decor.  You are also going to re-haul the southwest corner of your bedroom to double your chances of attracting romance.

What’s in southwest corner of your bedroom?  A closet?  Bad.  A vase full of beautiful flowers?  Good.  That will greatly enhance your chances of attracting a suitable partner.

To attract a partner, Feng Shui experts recommend putting a painting of peonies or a vase of the flowers there.  You could substitute any flower for the peony (as long as it’s not prickly like a cactus), but whatever you do, make sure the flowers are fresh.  The Chinese hate dead or dried flowers and would prefer that you have those rather than any kind of decay in a spot that signifies your love life.

Also lucky for romance, is a pair of wooden ducks or a painting of two ducks (as ducks mate for life).  If you don’t like how formal these ducks look, you can always do what I did and put two rubber ducks in your southwest corner.

Mirrors on the ceiling, especially full-length ones, or mirrors on the walls in the bedroom are a big no-no, as they symbolise portals through which an interfering third party’s energy can enter … Feng Shui masters don’t like to invite voyeurism.

If you don’t like Chinese decor, you could use my favourite westernised Feng Shui tool – the Lava Lamp.  Pink glowing goo moving up and down in your romance corner is sure to send out a sensuous vibe.  Pictures or statues of loving couples or love friendly Goddesses such as Venus and Aphrodite would also help activate the love sector.  As the southwest corner is symbolised by the earth element, it is also helpful to place crystals there, with the most suitable choice being rose quartz.  If you want to go all out, you might want to also consider painting that corner or adjacent walls a bright red, also to symbolize passion.

Whatever you do, don’t go overboard … you could end up with a bedroom that looks like a Chinese brothel or, worse yet, invite somebody over who is familiar with Feng Shui who might go, “Hmm, I see ducks, flowers, crystals, red walls.  I better get out of here!  This person is just a tad too desperate for me!”

by Sam Stevens

Print PDF

From blowing dandelion seeds into the air to throwing a penny into a fountain, we have all felt inspired to make a wish, to whisper our secret desires into the ears of the universe and wait for signs that we have been heard.

Some wishes come true while others remain ethereal visions that either stay with us or fade like a star in the light of morning.  Whether they come true or not, wishes are important missives, expressing our heart’s desire as well as our intention to create something new in our lives.

When we wish for something, our consciousness opens to receiving it, like a flower unfolding its petals to receive a bee.

There is something innocent and magical about making a wish, something that recalls the energy of childhood.  Wishing is not about formulating a plan and following it step by step to attain a goal, which is the realm of adulthood.  Wishing is more like a playful volley across the universe, an invitation to play.  Waiting for the response is an integral part of the process.  Wishing inspires an innocent opening to the possibility of magic as we wait to see if the invisible realm will bring our wish to life.  This opening is a beautiful gesture in and of itself, regardless of the outcome.  We place ourselves in a magical mind, and this mind is arguably as wonderful as the fulfilment of our wish itself.

In our straightforward, action-oriented society, we may tend to dismiss the power of this seemingly passive process, yet the power of a wish is well known, hence the cautionary phrase, “Be careful what you wish for.”  If you have given up wishing in favour of more adult pursuits, you might want to bring its magic back into your life.

The next time you see the first star of the evening, or find yourself in front of a birthday cake covered in flaming candles, give yourself the gift of the magical realm that you knew so well as a child – close your eyes, open your mind, and make your wish …

Source Unknown

Print PDF