One of my favorite books on magick, a great beginner's book and his story is amazing.Many people say that this is one of the best books for beginners.
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At age 18, Damien Echols was sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit. "I spent my years in prison training to be a true magician," he recalls. "I used magick—the practice of reshaping reality through our intention and will—to stave off incredible pain, despair, and isolation. But the most amazing feat of all that practice and study was to manifest my freedom." With High Magick, this bestselling author shares his first teaching book on the powerful spiritual techniques that helped him survive and transcend his ordeal on death row.
Though our culture has consigned "magic" to fiction, stage illusions, or superstitions about dark practices, the magick Damien learned is an ancient Western tradition equal the Eastern practices of Buddhism, Taoism, and yoga in its wisdom and transformative power. Here he brings you an engaging and highly accessible guide for bringing magick into your own life, including:
• What is High Magick? Damien clears away the stigma and reveals the history and core teachings of this extraordinary art.
• The Four-Fold Breath—a foundational meditation practice to train your mind and body to channel subtle energies.
• The Middle Pillar—how to bring divine energy into the central channel of your body for empowerment and healing.
• The Qabalistic Cross—a centering technique to help you stay balanced and protected regardless of circumstances.
• The Lesser Rituals of the Pentagram—powerful practices for banishing negative energies and invoking energy to manifest your goals.
• Working with angelic beings and other spiritual allies to support your practice.
• Creating thoughtforms to assist you in your ongoing magickal development.
• Guidance for overcoming your doubts, enhancing your visualization skills, creating talismans, practicing magick ethically, and much more.
"Magick is a journey," writes Damien. "It’s a continuously unfolding path that has no end. You can study and practice magick for the rest of your life and you will still never learn everything that it has to teach you." If you’re ready to discover your untapped potential for co-creating your reality with the energy of the divine, then join this extraordinary teacher to begin your training in High Magick.
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Kind of curious what the argument for this is because it seems overwhelmingly obvious he was scapegoated.There are those who think that Echols and company were, in fact, guilty. As one article put it, the real miscarriage of justice was in releasing the trio.
Google around a bit. Thoughtcatalogue.com has a piece, as does crimerocket.com. I seem to recall the Arkansas Supreme Court cleared the way for new DNA tests some few weeks back. If those are available and in Echols' favor, the guilt-sayers' contentions become pretty moot. Still, I've been leery of "overwhelmingly obvious" since at least the Dreyfus case straight on down to St. Floyd of Fentanyl.Kind of curious what the argument for this is because it seems overwhelmingly obvious he was scapegoated.
Literally every group out there paints itself as the persecuted few clinging to their craggy outcrop of Masada. Personally I find the pose mawkish.@Xenophon
I did do the research, but i also am shameless in "tribalizing" us. When real crimes and tragedies happen
they were very quick to label us all. When rock and metal took off they were very quick to encircle everyone remotely
different. When someone was talented they just said the devil gave him the skills. And the likes of Paganini or Crowley monetized that
But when it turns out it was a set up, not a peep.
Even today and especially before, your individuality meant nothing you would burn with the rest of them.
There are never too many of us running around and i dunno, i feel like we should watch out for eachother.
But also stand in the way of those of us who go to the other extreme
In this case, the two are not separable. There's enough magickal dreck out there, it's a potentially inspiring thing to find someone whose practice carried him through a genuine shite-storm. (Assuming that's what in fact took place)Y'all are supposed to discuss the book and not the man, otherwise this posting would be better suited for the Lounge or other subforums... but I guess it's inevitable, not least because of the subtitle of the book.
What I really like about the book is that it's down to earth without dumbing things down. Echols calmly and reasonably explains things without any pseudo-romantic claptrap like "secret ancient knowledge" or wordy apologetics - "This is what it is and that's how you do it." No-nonsense and easy to read, fairly traditional content-wise without being old-fashioned, in a simple writing style without literary frills or pretensions. Ideal for beginners starting out on the Western Path, IMHO.