Course Four: Rites 159
Synchronicities, Perspiration, and Manifestation.
An example is this Grimoire I am writing at this
moment. It began with an inspired Vision, which I
had when I went to see the first Harry Potter movie in
December 2001, with a bunch of kids like you. My
Witchy wife, Morning Glory, and I had been invited
to come and talk to a Jewish schul (“school”) about
real Witchcraft and Wizardry. After the talk, we all
went to see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Morning Glory and I were in our full magickal rega-
lia, of course, but many of the kids were also wearing
capes and cloaks. The theater was packed, and we sat
way in the back. As I looked over that huge audience
of all those kids, I had several flashes of insight.- Inspiration
The first thing that came to me was that many of
the kids in this audience (and in similar audiences all
over the world over the next few years, as new books
and movies keep coming out) are going to be inspired
to become Witches and Wizards themselves. And I
thought, how can I, as a practicing
Wizard, offer something to help?
So my next thought was that
the first thing they will
need to do is establish
a personal altar. And
I make altar statues.
So I decided to create
a pair of special God
and Goddess altar
statues just for kids.
My third thought
was that you will need
a handbook of real
Wizardry. So at the
same time I was working on the statues, I started mak-
ing an outline of what such a book should contain. I
wrote the opening “Wizardly Soliloquy,” which I read
at our Bardic ritual for Imbolg, in honor of Brigit,
Irish goddess of creative inspiration. Over the next
few months, I kept coming back to it and adding more
stuff, rearranging the order, and putting in notes. - Synchronicities
The new statues arrived from our factory at the
beginning of June, 2002, and I set up a little altar with
them, and did a ritual for success in reaching the teen
market. Then over Summer Solstice, I went to the In-
ternational New Age Trade Show in Denver, Colo-
rado, for the first time to show off my line of statuary
to prospective stores. While there, I ran into a Wiccan
friend, Trish Telesco, who has written about 40 books
on Witchcraft and magick. She chided me over not
having yet written any books of my own and offered
to introduce me to her publisher, New Page Books,
who happened to have a booth there also. So I sat
down to talk with these fine folks, and of course they
wanted to know what kind of a book I had in mind to
write. I explained my idea for this Grimoire, and prom-
ised to send them a proposal and chapter outline.
A few weeks later, I was attending a large
magickal festival as a speaker, and I ran into a friend
who had modeled for one of my statues. And she told
me that she was now working as a publicist for New
Page! By this time the Synchronicity Wave was get-
ting far too big to ignore. When I got home, I received
a huge bouquet of flowers, with a card saying: “From
your friends at New Page.”- Perspiration
Over the next few months we were in constant
communication, working out the details of what this
book would look like—contents, size, cover design,
everything. Over the Internet, I contacted other Sages,
Mages, Wizards, and Wise Ones I knew throughout
the magickal community and set up the Grey Coun-
cil. Everyone was very enthusiastic about this project.
I re-read all my favorite fantasy books fea-
turing Wizards, and I dragged dozens of my
magickal books off my shelves and started
looking things up, spreading books open all
over my desk and floor. I also began avidly
watching all the TV shows featuring
“magickal” kids in high school: Sabrina,
Buffy, Roswell, and Smallville. I wanted to
completely saturate myself in this milieu.
And writing—every day I am putting
in at least a good 8–10 hours at my
console. I am thinking about this book
constantly—even in my dreams! I am
meeting regularly with several new
Apprentices, showing them each Class
as I write it, and using this as our actual study mate-
rial. And all this energy will be released for me in De-
cember when I send off the finished copy to be printed. - Manifestation
And now, finally, you are holding this Grimoire
in your hands, and reading these words. It came into
being through magick, starting with an inspired Vi-
sion. And all the rest has been a process of turning
that Vision into a concrete Manifestation. This is the
way true magick works, and you can do it too. All
you have to do is wrap as many things in your life as
possible around the thing you are trying to accom-
plish, to the point where it becomes the focus of all
your thought and attentions. And thus, you shift the
probabilities so that, as suffragette Susan B. Anthony
said, “Failure is impossible.”
“To accomplish great things we must not only act,
but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”
—Anatole France- Rites.p65 159 1/15/2004, 9:08 AM