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housewife begins preparing the dinner after hearing the advance sounds of her husband's home- coming, so that everything will be ready by the time he actually gets there. Although the Vardeger has a Norwegian name and a Norwegian tradition, he appears regularly in other countries. Scottish people have reported the projection of an astral forerunner. Charles L. Tweedale who was Vicar of Weston, England, describes his own experiences in his book, Man's Survival After Death: "This extraordinary faculty of the projection or excursion of the ego has been manifest in my own person on many occasions during the last few years. Very many times I have been heard to come into the house, open the door of my study, or pass upstairs, my footsteps being plainly audible to my wife, children and the servants. On going to speak to me on these occasions they found no one there, but I invariably arrived a few minutes afterwards. At first I could scarcely believe these accounts, although the witnesses firmly protested their truth. On several occasions I have been seen where my corporeal body was certainly not present at the time. These experiences happened many times, as recorded in my journal, and almost invariably took place when I was hastening home or proceeding to some spot with some fixed purpose in mind." Usually the Vardeger announces itself only by imitating sounds made by inanimate objects, but there have been times when he has materialized himself into the exact likeness of his possessor. Here he is guilty of overlapping the functions of the astral bi-locator, or possibly the human apport - except that his appearance always heralds the imminent appearance of his human counterpart. Sometimes Vardegers travel in family groups. The Reverend W. Mountford of Boston relates an experience that was documented and published in the massive Myers-Gurney-Podmore tome, Phantasms Of The Living. The hostess looked out the window, saw them approaching and noted aloud that their horse, old Dobbin, must have recovered from a recent injury because it was this horse that was hitched to the wagon. To the astonishment of the waiting family the horse, buggy and riders kept right on going and disappeared around the bend. No one could understand why they hadn't stopped. A few moments later, the hostess' niece appeared, obviously agitated, and said her parents had just passed her in their rig on the road and both stared straight ahead, with no sign of recognition. While everybody was discussing this mystery, the real Dobbin, the real rig and the real parents pulled up and entered the house, indignantly disclaiming that they had done nothing but come directly from their own home to this. This story can give courage and inspiration, even to farm animals ... Even a horse can become a Vardeger! 43 - Witchcraft The twentieth Century may go down in history as the era in which Witchcraft became respectable. It is considered very chic to be a witch today, and Sybil Leek, who is the best press agent for her sisterhood - and a very engaging one, at that - has parlayed her witch-ness into a career as a magazine and television columnist, working astrologer and professional ghost hunter. The great mission of witches of the twentieth century is to restore the good name of their belief. Witchcraft is a very old religion; in fact, it is fondly referred to as "The Old Religion" by its adherents. It has been known as "The Faith of the Wise"; "wicca," from which the word witch stems is the Old English for "wise." According to Robert Cochrane, descendant of a hereditary witch family that dates back to 1734, witchcraft is concerned only with total truth. During the Middle Ages all witches, and their religion, took a tremendous beating that lasted down to our own Cotton Mather and the Salem trials. Because so much of the rituals and beliefs of witches were involved with psychic phenomena, they were considered collectively to be tools of the devil and sentenced to the devil's own fiery lair. During the Inquistion, religious fanatics condemned to death countless people who were merely performing the same feats that Jesus and his disciples performed in the New Testament, a bitter irony that must have added to the torture of the victims squirming against the stake as the flames licked up toward them. There are said to be 100,000 practising witches in the United States today, and that includes not only the traditional female witches but their male counterparts, known as "warlocks." They look just like anybody else, and fly on airplanes instead of broomsticks. But they do meet regularly in covens and carry out the ancient rituals of their kind. A typical coven consists of thirteen people, six couples and a leader. Very often but not always - their rites are performed in the nude, the theory being that clothes hamper the build-up of the tremendous "Cone of power" that is created when a large number of psychic people get together. Witches are very much aware of the existence of the psychic "aura," and want to eliminate anything that would impede its power. The Great Sabbats of the witch world occur four times a year: the night of February 1, the night of April 30, "Lammas," the last night in August, and of course Halloween, the last night of October, which is also the beginning of the Celtic New Year. Their rites are very close to the earth, close to nature. The time when the moon increases is of utmost importance. Witchcraft is very prevalent in England. There are certain areas that are known to be "witching areas" or "zones of magic." There is Glastonbury, where the thornbush flowers at Christmas, in any weather. And there is King Arthur country, and most all of Salisbury and Stonehenge, home of the druids. And there is the New Forest. This area, extending north-ward from Southampton, is the oldest forest in England and is steeped in history. It is full of gypsies, artists and writers who come here for inspiration and for the proper atmosphere for expressing themselves in their Bohemian way. It was here that Sybil Leek went, as a young girl, to learn from the gypsies the lore of herbs and incantations, and the wisdom to be found in the stars. The Isle of Man is a famous stronghold for witches, and even boasts a witch museum. "Wanda," a typical witch residing there, looks more like Samantha in the popular TV show Bewitched than one of Macbeth's hags. She is trim, blue-eyed and 29. She takes her witchcraft seriously, as does her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |