CONTENTS/SKIP TO:

• MAGE Bibliography
• AD ASTRA
• THE AVATAR PAGE
• AREAPAGES
• WoD ESSAYS & COMMENTARIES
• MY CHRONICLES
• OUT OF HASH

AD ASTRA
        This is the Page where I detail my perceptions, musings, and theories on the Astral World and the Otherworlds -- Faerie, the Umbra, Hells, Heavens, Earths, etc.

THE AVATAR PAGE
        This page details the elusive thing known alternately as the Avatar, the Oversoul, the Higher Self, the Superconscious, the Higher Guardian Angel, and the Divine Self.  Remember -- it is the Avatar that Awakens, the mortal was always awake.

• Avatar / Mage Relationships -- Puppetmaster, Enigmatic Guide, Distant, Partner
• Disharmony and its Effects
• Quintessence: Crown & Halo
• Avatar-Families -- Hermetic, Elemental, Essential
• Avatars & Past Lives
• Corruption and the Widdersliante
• The Shard Realm of Neptune

AREAPAGES

STAND-ALONES -- My ideas for chantries, caerns, whatever...with little or no description of anything outside that one location or group or whatever.

• The Dark Tower Marabout
• Silver Threads: Strange Things at the Renaissance Festivals
• The Rainwater Inn
• The HOMC in Greenwich Village, NY

• Rage Across the Rockies -- Werewolves in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana
• Mystick Colorado -- the Awakened in Colorado & surrounding areas
• Waking Up In New Orleans -- mages in the Quartered City of the south
• WoD: The Nation's Capitol -- mages, wraiths, and shapeshifters in D.C.  Includes a coven of ceremonialists and witches tending a Node hidden in Rock Creek Park, Ecstatics among the bohemians near Dupont Circle, the ways of the NWO and It'X in the US Government,
• Northwestern Shadows -- mages, shifters, & fae in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia; a House Fortunae Chantry hidden in the hills, the Technocracy Stronghold in Seattle, various Nodes and occulted groups

WoD ESSAYS & COMMENTARIES

• Sorcerors vs. Magi, when to play what
• Magick and Finding Your Car Keys
• Mages & Humanity
• Does Reality = the Laws of Physics?
• Manipulation of the Masses
• Is There An Enlightenment?
• Enlightenment vs. Self-Actualization
• Beliefs, Integrity, Confidence & Compromise
• The Importance of Knowledge
• Changing the World: Will & Word (Mages of the Really Real World)
• Ascension / Humanity's Destiny
• The Morality of Seeking Power

MY CHRONICLES

• The Apprentice -- Four ceremonialist sorcerors in the Pacific Northwest are inducted into a mysterious occult group known only as The Order
• Ring-Stories -- Peregrine, Meriadoc, and Samwise
• Myth & Man -- there's an ancient, inactive dimensional gate in Scotland...is it faeries or little gray men?
• Mythic Dominion -- rogue Technomancers find themselves lost in an alternate reality where the Order of Hermes--instead of the Order of Reason--took over Reality in the 1600s
• Shadows of St. Petersburg -- set in the 1920s, Rasputin: Isadora Duncan, & others
• Life of the Nazarene -- Yeshua of Nazareth and his cabal of 12

THINGS WoD MAGES SHOULD AVOID:

1. Leaving thaumaturgical links lying around (e.g., getting a haircut and leaving hair-clippings all over the store, letting strangers take a blood sample)
2. Going to doctors, taking any prescribed medicine
3. Using a computer without proper shielding (most technology is Union-influenced, with Mind-rotes woven subtly in or at the very least limited to Union-approved functions only) or without alterations to the computer
4. Eating fast-food, drinking soft-drinks and other foods of masss consumption (Progenitor Avatar-killing additives, mood enhancers, contentment simulating drugs)
5. Displaying obviously mystickal foci or other symbols of deviant belief in public
6. Watching television, especially without proper shielding (loaded with Mind-rotes and propaganda, not even very subtle)
7. Having bank accounts or using ATMs and other such machines
8. Disclosing their Social Security Number (which functions as a kind of True Name for Technomancers)
9.  

3rd Eye -- Correspondence (6th Sense), Mind (Auras), Spirit, Prime
Auras -- Mind, Prime, Spirit
Shields -- Mind, Correspondance, Forces, Prime (Time)

"Nwyvre" -- life-force, quintessence, chi (Druidic)
Kundalini -- serpent-energy, the serpents Ida & Pingala (Eastern)
Serpent's Egg / Adderstone / Druid's Gem
"Pheryllt" -- Druidic alchemists, glassmakers (mesons, glass rings, "time drawers", faerie rings)
 

SOCIALIZING
    Socializing describes how socially active and locally well-known the character is.
        1 -- Hermit; sees no one
        2 -- Shy; rarely goes out, a few acquaintances
        3 -- Typical; seen often, good-sized circle of friends
        4 -- Very Social; an active life, many know him
        5 -- Sam Ritter; always busy, knows everyone

MUNDANITY
    Mundanity describes how normal or strange the character seems to common people.
        1 -- Deviant; obvious weirdness in clothes, speech, etc.
        2 -- Eccentric; only seems really strange to those close to her
        3 -- Typical; seems like a regular gal
        4 -- Mundane; avoids standing out
        5 -- Drab; attracts no attention at all

COMMITMENTS
    Commitments describes how many elements of life tie the character down and limit his actions.
        1 -- Free; no ties of any import
        2 -- Loose; a few friends and minor promises
        3 -- Solid; in the middle of some projects, possible family or allies
        4 -- Strong; very busy, deeply involved
        5 -- Like Steel; Destiny or solemn oath bonds you to certain people or projects

LOCAL FAME

        1 -- Unknown; who?
        2 -- Wallflower; seen occasionally
        3 -- Typical; comes to mind easily at name's mention
        4 -- Popular; known by many
        5 -- Local Star; lots of attention everywhere you go
 

CORRESPONDENCE

1. At this level of  understanding, the mage has begun to see the fallacies of orthodox spacial concepts, but is still caught in the paradigm of 3-D space.  Nonetheless, the mage possesses a keen understanding of how objects relate to space.  She can intuitively sense distances between objects, calculate the exact volume of objects, and sense objects in the immediate vicinity without percieving them through the normal five senses.
2. Most mages, aside from cyberwizards and those Hermetics who descended from the Ali-Batin teachings, never attain this level of understanding.  The mage has now shattered the spacial illusion of physical reality.  While the mage's understanding is far from complete, the mage can now use the Correspondence Point Theory as a gateway of sorts, to extend the five senses beyond the immediate environment.
3. At this point, the mage understands fully that all things exist in one Place, at a single Correspondence Point, thus realizing she is everywhere at once.  Furthermore, she can percieve other (or even all) locations in the same way that she views her "surrounding" location.
4. The mage's understanding of the co-locality principle increases...
5. No longer limited to herself or her senses...

1. Mentors of Entropy often begin their lessons by teaching their disciples to identify Entropy's existance, where and how it manifests.
2. By studying Entropy's effects in small events, disciples begin to learn control of the Entropic forces.

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MAGE PHILOSOPHICAL CONFLICTS
       OoH -- individual free will unimportant, serve greater whole, the Art; Discipline, organization, & knowledge are vital (CoE, Ver)
       Verbena -- Self is everything, embrace physical animal self, adore both carnal & divine, bright passions and dark ones, Unity is unimportant (Ak, Euth, Chor)
        Akashics -- no Self, only the mind and the Way... prefer solitude, carnality is a distraction, org. unimportant, physical body trifling and limited but worthy of honing as a weapon (CoE, Ver, Chor)
        Euthanatoi -- there is no free will, only Fate
        Dreamsp. -- obey elders, spirits, and tradition, not personal will
        Ecstatics -- let go, defy, be extreme, drink deeply
        Chorus -- lose Self in the One, join, give to the world but be not "of it"
        VAs -- ignore the carnal, data is everything (Ver, CoE, Euth)
        Ethernauts -- religious science, wait for the Messiah theory
        Hollowers -- no meaning, just pastimes, search the shadows
 

        The world is full of things that Sleeping senses never know.  The Awakened often know each other only by noticing that another has seen what they have seen; the terrifying chimera that surrounds a man on the bus, for example, indicating that he is tormented by horrifying dreams.  The archly pale aura of dead light glowing about that group of trendy night-clubbers.  The ribbons of energy that course through that grove of trees in the National Park.  The little temple in Chinatown that actually does resonate with a fractured kind of holiness.  The masses of people who walk the streets virtually soulless, or the one bright spirit that stands out among them.

        It is not so incongruous as I once thought, to see primals in the cities.  There are more people in cities today, especially smaller ones, than ever before... there must exist some primal shards even in those people.  It does make sense, however, that most of them would eventually choose to leave the patterns and spiritual emptiness of the cities, and return to their primal natures (eg, the unbalanced girl with visions of Kali in a law firm).

        What conflict should be in MAGE: inner transformation and conflict... a woman's Avatar aligns with the dark and active aspect of the goddess... a man, her lover, must learn passive acceptance of pain in order to balance and stabilize her destructive tendancies, to complete the cycle... he must learn to embrace pain, accept passively the actions of the dark feminine.  His mentor, an Adept, strives to teach him to embrace and envelop torment, but has trouble shattering the orthodox paradigm.  They meet, the man trying to show the dark subconscious of the woman his development... she continually rejects him, brutalizing him, until he is prepared, and continues upon her destructive path until he is.

       Sex magick: a mage-woman takes her lover, who is filled with tension and worry, and caresses the worry out of the body, easing the stress and bringing calmness.  The troubles are still there, but the outlook is calmer and more clear.  Keep in mind, however, the imposition of the mage's personal opinion; she believes that mellow calmness is the best way for her lover to face these realities, and has enforced her will thusly.  Other examples of sex magick include...

        Ideas from "Druids" by M.Llywellyn -- the Pattern (Entropy 1 to percieve, need Per + Occult to understand)... use of Mind magick to intimidate, communicate, etc. (sound of thunder, look like an elder, overwhelming will)... become strong, make bones brittle... sex magick, giving vitality and vigor to others...

       Chronicle idea: "Are we sane or mad?"  Invisibles-like cell of reality-terrorists, just initiated by a fraternal-seeming mentor, are left to deal with things on their own when the mentor is killed.  Reality has become strange indeed for them... he had told them that this was because they had Awakened to the true reality, begun to see past the static presentation crafted by the Enemy.  Epiphanies and seekings end with Contact, being faced with a mysterious blank entity of pure Enlightenment.  Extreme deviance -- transvestitism, craziness, destruction, lawbreaking, radical philosophy... Arcane focused through costumes, masks, facepaint, weird gear... codenames.  Entering other dimensions and realities, leaping off skyscrapers, seeing cities for what they really are, living through the eyes of a dove, brutally killing heavily-armed troops that serve the Enemy.  But who is the Enemy, and who is not?  Some claim to be allies but seem to similar to the Enemy, others act as enemies but seem to fight for the same things the cabal does.  Finally the question arises: are we sane, or mad?

       Chronicle idea: a young man starting a life, everything is being handed to him -- a house, a job, some hobbies, and there's even an attractive young girl who lives nearby and is the niece of one of the men who are helping him find a place.  But then he begins to have dreams about a fierce, strange girl...