Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

August 2004

"Receiving Divine Messages
Part II
Initiation"

Send books for review in this column to: Jacqueline Lichtenberg, email jl@simegen.com for instructions.

Healing Magick by Mary Taffs, Awe-Struck E-Books May 2004

Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction And Fantasy Writers Discuss Their Favorite Television Show, edited by Glenn Yeffeth, BenBella Books Oct. 2003

Thief of Lives by Barb and J. C. Hendee, Roc pb., Jan 2004

Book One of The Vampire Earth: Way of the Wolf by E. E. Knight, Roc SF, Sept. 2003

Dreamspy by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, BenBella Books, TP 2004

I Thirst For You by Susan Sizemore, Pocket Star Books, June 2004.

It is generally understood that to read Omens or do any sort of Divination work, one must have been through several demanding Initiations. Most people think of "Initiation" as a ceremony done in Circle, behind wards, and involving sacred vows. But that isn’t the most powerful form of Initiation.

Ceremonials can be a good jumpstart onto a Path, but by and large, it’s what happens after the ceremonial that is the real Initiation. However, aspirants can grasp the concept of the Ceremonial Initiation much more easily than they can imagine how Life Events are an Initiation.

A Ceremonial seems to have validity because there’s a tangible authority figure who sanctions the acts and accepts the oath which gives entre into a fellowship. A Life Initiation is usually embedded in the solitary fury of daily living, and sometimes passes unnoticed until decades later.

A Ceremonial is something that seems to be done to you; a Life Initiation is something you clearly do to yourself. Both, to become active, must be Free Will Choices.

How do you teach your candidates to understand this vital difference? How do you teach them to recognize the harbingers of Life Initiation when appear? How do you teach them to read what the Divine is really saying?

The best method I’ve yet found to get this very intangible and difficult point across is reading and discussing fiction. SF/F lends itself most gracefully to this course of study, but other types of fiction – Mystery, Adventure, Intrigue, Romance that I’ve reviewed here – also have authors who have grasped the essence of Initiation and routinely put their main characters through the entire course.

For a discussion of this process in fiction, see my article in Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction And Fantasy Writers Discuss Their Favorite Television Show, edited by Glenn Yeffeth. I focus on the Life Initiations of Buffy and Willow.

Once the "shape of lives" is grasped through fiction reading, it’s much easier to teach a candidate how to use an Astrological natal chart. So learning to read fiction is an essential skill in the training of a Magician. Let’s look at a few books which explore Life Initiation

Mary Taffs has been developing a magickal universe in her fantasy-romance ebook series, Magick for several years. You’ll find more on her books at http://www.marytaffs.com . I’ve recommended the first two here in Nov. 2002 and June 2003 columns. This third book in the series, Healing Magick (Magick, More Than Magick were the prequels), weaves an increasingly complex tale of communication with the Divine entity underlying and commanding the world.

Suppose the divinity in charge of your life, your Inner Planes Master, were a Matchmaker? Suppose your mate was chosen for you by divine fiat, and it’s a person you can’t stand to be near? Meanwhile, this soul mate is the magician you must work with to save the world. What now?

Well, with or without ceremony, marriage is definitely an Initiation. Who ever said Initiations were easy? Mary Taffs is a good writer working out a very recognizable story against a fantasy background that is not so recognizable. If you’ve never bought an e-book, try this series first!

My review of the prequel to Barb & J. C. Hendee’s Thief of Lives, Dhampir was printed in the July 2003 issue. Now Thief of Lives continues this adventure which shows how the lives of these scam artists are turning into an Initiation.

In Dhampir, a half-elf and a daughter of a vampire by a human team up to run a scam, pretending to exterminate vampires plaguing villages. They make enough to buy a bar in a coastal town and settle down. However, they must first clean out a nest of real vampires – something they’ve never actually done.

Now, they have almost repaired the damage to their bar and their lives when another demand to fight real vampires comes at them. Unknown to them, they are being manipulated (much as a Marshal conducts the Candidate through an Initiation). How these ex-scam artists discover they’re being played gives this initiation tale a twist.

One very common initiation especially among young men is war, first blood, first kill, finding and unleashing the pure beast that lives within all of us, the beast that will not give up, will not die, will not concede.

What Initiation Path you choose in youth determines what will be available to you in Age. Remember, there are occult reasons for King David not being allowed to build the Temple because there was blood on his hands. But still, he was King and he did defend and save his Kingdom – at a price. He is still revered for his poetry, but he did kill.

The worth of a society may well be determined by how many youths must pay such a horrendous karmic price as the taking of a life. Magically speaking, a righteous killing is still a killing and the karmic price must be paid.

Book One of The Vampire Earth: Way of the Wolf is set in Louisiana in 2065, and introduces a future where Earth is occupied by some bad-guy aliens. Earth’s finest young men, raised in secret, trained by the remnants of the US armed forces, mount a terrorist war against the invaders. Outnumbered, out-gunned, and opposed by humans who have capitulated, these young warriors throw their all into making the world safe for their children. Some seek revenge for the deaths of their families.

The male "coming of age" Initiation, the Warrior Initiation, tests courage, self-reliance, determination, and staunch adherence to a code of ethics while facing certain death.

One would think that young women would benefit by passing through that Initiation too. Much of the women’s movement sees the shutting out of women from active combat initiations as barring women from the positions of power attained within the society of Warrior Initiates.

But there is another way to look at it. Many women are born with the Warrior traits fully functional (though in some societies those traits are beaten out of baby girls). They don’t need the Warrior Initiation for they’ve brought it with them from a prior life. Beyond the Warrior Initiation comes the use of these traits, courage, self-reliance, goal-directed determination and ethical behavior, on the field of Intimacy.

Since 1993 my columns here have traced the hidden genre, Intimate Adventure, spreading throughout many genres. Intimate Adventure explores the Initiations beyond the Warrior and even beyond the Priest. These are the initiations discussed thoroughly in Tarot, and have much to do with the 1^st House/ 7^th House polarity in Astrology.

Mary Taffs is writing Intimate Adventure in her Magick series. Susan Sizemore has written a marvelous introduction to the new edition of my vampire-telepath novel, Dreamspy, which shows her familiarity with Intimate Adventure. Now, in a new Vampire universe of her own, she tackles Intimate Adventure from another angle. Starting with her acclaimed and hot-selling I Burn For You the new series continues with the June 2004 sequel I Thirst For You.

In this Vampire universe, certain vampires are destined to find their psychic-bond mates among humans. These vampires exist without wholesale killing of humans, but with sufficient provocation, sufficient Thirst, they might indeed kill.

Marcus Cage is such a vampire, and he has been held by a military research hospital and experimented on until he Thirsts beyond all sanity. He escapes. While running for his life into the desert, he "happens" across a woman whose mind calls to him – his one and only soul mate whose call he can not resist. But his nature could cause him to kill her.

It’s hard to be emotionally honest with someone who would kill you if he misjudges how much blood you can lose. It’s very hard to love a man who attacks and nearly kills you on first meeting then kidnaps you . It’s even harder when for the first time in your life, and against all sense and reason, you find you have telepathic contact with this kidnapper who drinks your blood and sucks your mind.

Things get complicated when this kidnapper turns out to be the undeserving victim of a larger conspiracy by your own people. Now that is a Woman’s Initiation few men could survive. The men who can are the real Magisters of this world.

To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg, jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.