Rainbow Magick & Me

Rainbows. The symbol of hope for humankind for millennia. I can see how early humans must’ve felt after a bad thunderstorm when they first beheld that arch of colors in the sky. Humans didn’t know many facts back then, so they made up stories to fill the gaps. Some (the Greeks) made up a Goddess, the Goddess Iris, who gave Her name to my favorite flower. For the Jews, it was Yahweh’s promise that he would not flood the world again.

For me, it represents the full spectrum of possibilities that are open to me. I named my daughter Nadia, which means hope in old Slovenian. I named her after the Romanian gymnast Nadia Comenice (spelling?). Apparently other parents felt the same way I did, because there were other Nadias in her school. I told her that the rainbow was her symbol because it meant hope and possibilities. It was not until later that I learned that the gay community had taken the rainbow as their symbol. I still feel (sorry, Dylan!) that the rainbow should be primarily for children, since their lives are full of possibilities. No one (including them) knows who or what they’re going to be when they grow up.


A few years ago I was a reader at the Lynbrook High School all night graduation party. A group of parents had gotten together and decided to avert almost certain tragedy by hosting an all night graduation night party at the school. I worked very hard to make my interpretations as positive as possible, because these young adults had their entire lives ahead of them, and I wanted to do my part to make that as positive an experience as possible. I felt inspired being around all those young lives. The rainbow is good for them too, regardless of their sexual preference. A very wise teacher once quoted what I believe to be an ancient Jewish proverb (maybe even an Essene proverb): “Except as ye become as little children, ye shalt not enter the kingdom of heaven.” I think I know what he meant by that. The heart must be open, the eyes inquisitive, the mind open to the discovery of things unknown, to possibilities. The place, dimension, or state of mind represented by the image of the kingdom of heaven is a country undiscovered, as Shakespeare would later express it. But the so-called “ordinary world” of the living also has possibilities, and everyone must discover it for hirself.

But the subject of this blog is Rainbow magick. When someone finds out that I practice magick, they often ask: “Do you practice white magick or black magick?” I say “Neither. I don’t live in a monochromatic world. I live in a full-color world, a rainbow world.” That is why the long intro. I wanted to express what the rainbow means to me. My magick is the same way. I try to practice ethical magick. Magicians should go by the old 12 step word HALT: Do not do magick if you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired, because the results will be colored by your mood. Study color magick. Raymond Buckland has an excellent book on the subject: Color Magic [sic] (doesn’t Uncle Raymond have an excellent book on every aspect of the occult?), in which he describes the different kinds of magick by color. My favorites are green, gold, and purple or indigo. Green or gold for prosperity magick, and purple or indigo for all kinds of divination. But I shouldn’t leave out orange or yellow. Yellow would be for mental or intellectual pursuits such as studying, research, or writing. Orange would be for all pursuits related to Mercury and the Sephiah Hod: travel, business, and communications, which includes my favorite pursuit, writing.

Where I used to live, I would light an orange candle on Wednesday, the day of Mercury, and burn benzoin incense to remove psychic blocks to my writing. I got the spell out of my favorite book of spells: The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells. If the spell isn’t in there, you’ll probably have to make it up yourself, because just about every spell you could ever want is in there. You can probably score a copy of it on Amazon. Many of them are just in the book for completion’s sake, historicity and all that. It’s not at all intended that anyone would attempt these spells, as they are possibly unethical. You’ll know them when you see them. Judika Illes did a great job of collecting of these spells. It should be between $25 and $30. I paid $25+tax when I got mine at the brick and mortar version of Barnes & Noble. So far I’m on The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by the Matthewses. I have three more to read after that. They’re too big to take anywhere, and reading them before I go to sleep gives me really interesting dreams. So does tacking the Enochian Tablet of Union to the wall with pushpins just above my headboard.

Enochian magick is essentially angel magick. Angels are essentially spirits of extremely high vibration and intelligence. Angels are extremely old. They were originally servants and messengers of the Sumerian deities. From there the Assyrians and Babylonians acquired them for their deities. Then the Jews co-opted them, and had them be the servants of their one god. The Christians co-opted them from there. In the late 1500s, Dr, Johannes Dee, court astrologer to Elizabeth I, and Edward Talbot Kelley, a seer and somewhat of a con man, discovered the methods of Enochian magick. It has its own language. I don’t know about any of the rest of you, but I rather like the sound of Enochian. It sounds like what I think a magickal language should sound. It kind of sounds to me like a cross between Hebrew and French, if you can imagine that.

Chaos magick is a different kettle of fish entirely. It is an entirely modern system of magick started by Austin Osman Spare, Pete Carroll, and another guy whose name I can’t remember. Spare was an artist whose work was part of the surrealism movement of the previous century. Any time you create a sigil for the purpose of working magick, you are paying homage to Mr. Spare. A friend of mine, Layla, who is now dead taught me another more artistic method of creating a sigil than even Mr. Spare had devised.

The normal way to create a sigil is to write out your statement of intent in as few words as possible, then eliminate every duplicated letter in the statement. You may rearrange them until you come up with a Word of Power, or rearrange the letters until they form a symbol. Layla’s method goes further than this. When you’ve taken out all the dupes, transliterate the letters into Hebrew characters. Then translate the Hebrew characters into what they symbolized. Aleph is oxhead, Beth is house, Gimel is camel, and so forth. There are two eses in the Hebrew alphabet, so you’ll have to decide whether you want Samekh or Shin. Also there are two Ts: Teth or Tau, so you’ll have to decide which T you want. I usually pick Teth because it’s closer to the way I spell my name. Now you want to arrange the images into a pretty and effective picture. You can do the same thing with Runes. I led a workshop a few years ago on how to use this same method in Runes at Ravenwood a few years back, which was very well received. Having arranged the symbols to your liking, color with vibrant colors of the medium of your choice. Then charge the sigil with magickal energy. Do your ritual, then destroy it. Burning is good if you possibly can because then you will then be sending the message to the gods and goddesses.

We are trying to raise money for Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick. Call either 916-455-2267 (Stephen’s number) or 916-457-7476 (mine) for a reading or a class. For just $32, you can have either a reading with your choice of decks/methods/tools, or a class on any topic in the vast realm of magick, and for just $60, you may have both. I have not as yet hooked up my webcam or headset/mic, so if you want vision and voice (wasn’t that a book by Uncle Al?) call Stephen. I will let you know when mine is hooked up. The money can be sent to either of our Paypal accounts: tezra.reitan@gmail.com or abbottsinn@gmail.com.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog and may your magick always be colorful.