occult
CTCW is going Virtual this year!
We have to learn some new skills, which has me a bit nervous, but when do we not have to learn? This will allow CTCW to reach people farther away than could come physically, and also some who couldn’t afford the travel and hotel will be able to afford the $25 cost! But how do we let everyone know that we are happening, and in a new way?
We’re going to have a weekly Podcast!
We’ve got a CTCW channel on Youtube, and I am going to be doing a weekly show: live, so people can call in, I’ll be interviewing some of our teachers, moderating panels, and essentially, we’ll have a free weekly CTCW class or panel, or chat with one of our great folks, as you may have in the Hospitality room, or a hallway. The live shows will be from 8-9 pm EST Wednesdays.
We’ll be using this new platform, Zoom, to share our workshops and panels, and Hospitality (chatting space) this year at CTCW. We’re expanding to a whole week, with evenings Monday through Friday, and full days of Panels and Workshops on the Weekend (with the chat room open at the same time to see old friends and continue talking about topics). Zoom allows us to record our workshops, so we’ll be posting them on You-tube. That way if you miss one, you can watch it later.
When I heard about this, I thought, I can use this to give folks a chance to see what we’re about by doing a talk show and put up an hour a week. That should give us about 20 panels or workshops between now and then to share the stuff we like to, and let people find out what we’re about.
What is CTCW about?
We don’t go for big name guests, but have a lot of experienced people sharing how to do the stuff we are doing. By “Stuff”, I mean Paranormal, Occult, Supernatural, Metaphysical stuff- the stuff that’s not supposed to exist, but some of us use it every day. If we learn how to use it better, maybe people will stop scoffing and start using these useful techniques.
Science jumps on the occult because it wants everything to be replicable. The problem is- it’s something people do. If you run, you can learn to run faster, but none of your “runs” will be exactly the same. If you sing, even when you sing the same song, each time you do, it will be a bit different. If you bake, even though you have a favorite recipe, it won’t come out exactly the same every time.
The Kreskins of the world say that if they can replicate an effect with trickery, that proves that it can be done that way, so it must have been done that way when we do it. Really? In what way is that scientific?
People are nervous about the ‘occult’ because it’s hidden. A lot of it was hidden because if they caught you doing it, you could be punished- even killed. And yes, this was done, many times, by the Church that was trying to make sure that they had a monopoly, because many of the healing and divination and manipulation of odds was done with the help of spirits, that the Church designated as evil. They especially reviled healers because they were very good at energy healing, so it was a huge selling point in early recruitment situations to claim that they did it better. Later, they just wanted to keep people coming back and not accepting help from any other entities. That intolerance was horrible, but I think they’ve stopped that, so we don’t need to hide any more, or complain about what they did. (Only complain about when individuals and groups do bad things now.)
If you define something as impossible, it’s hard to learn to do it well. Any time you want to learn something, it helps to have someone help you- show you better techniques, explain which conditions make things work best, what the best tools are, etc. That’s what we are doing.
If you want to talk about something you do, I’d love to have you come on the show, if you have questions, listen and you’ll be able to ask them. 21st century technology will let us record it, share on Youtube, so others will be able to find out about us. If you have friends who haven’t heard about CTCW, let them know about us, and this will help spread the word.
Times change, the World needs to change for the better. That’s what we’re doing with CTCW. Won’t it be a better world for future generations if we can use all our talents and not pretend they don’t exist?
Speaker Spotlight: Ariel Sirocco
Ariel Malachi Sirocco is an Integrative Hermeticist following the Corpus Hermetica and related writings; as such, he is a hardcore Panentheist. He frequently teaches ancient Hermetic history and traditions and has taught at several esoteric conventions along the Northeast and at countless private gatherings. Ariel has an academic background in biology (Q.C.) and 15 years with the American Museum of Natural History. To this day, he weaves his scientific knowledge with his ritual.
Ariel has been a practicing occultist since 1983. He was
initiated as a High Priest of the Minoan Temple, Inc. of New York in
1998 and The Temple of the Spiral Path-NYC in 2004. During this time, he
realized that the scientific and the esoteric were two sides of a coin
named “Ritual” and, thus, began his true pursuit and calling: Hermetics.
He
moved to Connecticut for several years where he started Coven Quiddity
(2006). It grew into the Akashic Temple (2009) and ran monthly meetings
and a few major events during the year. In 2007, he joined the Masonic
fraternity and his attentiveness quickly raised him through the ranks
reaching Master Mason in 2008. In 2012, he became a 32-Degree Mason of
the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and Washington Council Princes of
Jerusalem, Master of Ceremonies (2012-2013) of the Scottish Rite, Valley
of Bridgeport, Ct. In 2017, Ariel became the Worshipful Master of
Union Lodge No.5 in Stamford, Ct.
During this time, his passion with
Hermetics led him to reach out across the United States and abroad to
Amsterdam, NE in search of Elders. In Amsterdam, he reached out to and
visited the world-renounced University of Hermetics (@ U.o.A.).
However, he found his teacher on the West Coast – in California and in
2015, Ariel was granted an encampment charter from the Ordo Templi
Astartes (OTA) for New York City area.
It is Ariel’s belief that this
“New Age of Esotericism” deserves academic exploration without
sacrosanct or circular defenses. If this does not happen, the entire
family of “pagan and esoteric traditions” will fall into disrepair, ill
repute, and eventually dismissed as merely fanciful.
Contact at: arielsirocco@yahoo.com
Shocking Change
Yup. Changing Times-Changing Worlds folk who read Tarot and noticed that the theme this year is change may have been thinking about the Tower.
With a name like ours, and a goal to change the world (to make acceptance of the “occult” but natural parts of it more accepted), why did it take us 9 years to actually have change for a theme? Part of it may be that it was already covered by our basic goals, and also, it’s a challenging concept. Prosperity, Joy, Healing, those are more likely to attract people.
Change can be unpleasant. And yet as those who read Tarot know, sometimes even the most catastrophic change is ultimately good for you, even if initially painful. It gets you out of old patterns that may not serve, it frees you from old restrictions, it brings new knowledge.
Our family has an expression: “If the gods tap you on the shoulder and clear their throats, you should take the hint, because if you don’t, they will bring out the Cosmic 2×4”. That’s what the Tower is, and indicator that you’ve been ignoring all the prophecies, omens, hints, etc. that your guides, ancestors, gods, God, (or whoever helps you) have been sending your way, and they’ve decided you need the “clue by four” to get you back on the path you should be on. Expect revelation. Also expect a lot of work, because when the old is torn down, there’s rebuilding to do. Oh well.
We’ve spent many years building a base for this conference, this community. It’s time to expand and make whatever changes we need to make to better meet our needs.
Our goals:
To teach effective, practical use of energy work and magick;
To encourage intermediate and advanced work, classes and presentations;
To better grasp the history of esoteric studies and spiritual practices;
To foster communication between the communities who study and practice these.
Create the Change
You may have wondered about the rather unwieldy name for our conference. When we were designing the conference, we were trying to figure out what we wanted to accomplish. What we hope to do is to change our parent culture in which the reality of many energy fields, many beings and many effective practices that can enhance our lives are rejected out of hand. We were thinking how great it would be if our children’s generation lived in a world where it was accepted that people are psychic and you wouldn’t have to hint about it, talk around it, or pretend that it wasn’t real so that you wouldn’t be considered foolish. That’s backwards! How foolish is it to deny evidence‽
We feel that if we can get the world to accept these realities and both benign and useful (yes, some people still feel that anything “occult” must be dangerous!) that they will be available to enhance daily life. How much better off we are when we know the benefits of using herbs for medicinal as well as culinary purposes. Yet there are still people out there who figure that if a remedy doesn’t come in a box, it “can’t work”.
There are people who scoff at “water witching”, yet many people quietly have a dowser locate their well. The American Dowsing Society has groups that provide this service in third world countries, and their experiences show how well it works.
I know that I use dowsing nearly daily to find lost objects around the house. Our family uses crystals for healing, as well as homeopathy, acupressure and aromatherapy. All of these things are said by critics to be useless, and even harmful if they prevent people from going to “established” practitioners. If they weren’t working, of course we’d go to someone who could help.
But we need to change the story- the dialogue- how people talk about the unknown. At this point anything paranormal in film is still lumped into the Horror genre. As you may have noticed in the last paragraph, much of what I use these ‘supernatural’ techniques for is practical, finding lost objects or healing faster. The world would simply be easier to navigate if we didn’t deny an entire section of available human abilities. So when thinking about the future, think about a world where there is no resistance, no denial, no pretense that magick isn’t real. The world is changing, we just want to make it better.
Changing Times-Changing Worlds on the New Normal
Please join Tchipakkan a on the New Normal 8 pm Wednesday, July 5, 2017, 8-9 p.m. edt.
If you miss the live show, this is the link to the archive.
Some years ago some friends and I decided we needed
a conference for occult stuff in New England, and if no one else was going to do it, we’d do it ourselves. We wanted it to be more than just the “Spooky foo” collection of “isn’t that weird” experiences. Some of us had been doing psychic stuff and magick for 40 years or more, and wanted good instructive classes beyond the “introduction to” level. We also wanted to create / facilitate communication between different groups who do this stuff- who do energy healing, who talk to the dead, who dowse, who do divination, who know this stuff is natural and “Normal” (within certain parameters of normal). We called the conference Changing Times-Changing Worlds, because, as with the New Normal, we are hoping that in another generation we’ll have gotten to the point where the fact that people are psychic, that we can do magick, that “this stuff is real” will be accepted, and we’ll be able to mention it in public without worrying whether we’re going to be considered mad or stupid to believe in this.
The conference is going to be held in the Hudson Valley, November 3-5th this year, and if you want to learn more, listen on your computer at www.Liveparanormal.com, 8-9 edt Wednesday. (Or check out the w
ebsite www.CTCW.net , or both.)
If you’d like to join the conversation, ask questions, please call in 619-639-4606 (live only).
If you can’t tune in 8-9, Live Paranormal.com archives its shows by date, and I archive them by date, guest, and topic on my website: http://tchipakkan.wordpress.com/the-new-normal/directory-of-podcasts/
Hope you can join me Wednesday night from 8-9 at the New Normal on liveparanormal.com
