Bob felt oppressed, and had asked me to do a spell for him. As the moon was waning, I decided to do a banishing spell. I burned some nice-smelling incense, more to put him in a meditative mood than anything else. I put a blue candle (for protection) on the mantlepiece next to the bed, told him to lie down (it was after midnight on Saturday) and relax. Bob being the nervous type - like me only worse - he has trouble doing this, so I went through the process with him, from feet to head. I was sitting with my back against the wall next to him.

Next I did the purification/breathing exercise I usually do when meditating, I've already written it somewhere in this blog. It's a lot harder to do if you're telling someone else how to do it at the same time. Then we visualized the room being purified too, and then I got down to the serious business of banishing whatever it was bothering him. I asked him to concentrate his consciousness in one place on his body, and imagine that in front of him was a staircase going downwards. As he went down, the temperature dropped, and his shield of magic strengthened. There was something at the bottom, but nothing to worry about, because we were in his mind. At this point I started to worry a bit because he seemed to be snoring slightly, but sometimes that happens to me too, so I continued as before.

There were eleven steps. At the bottom (using geek imagery, obviously) I gave him an obsidian sword with a silver handle (I'm sure that kind of this could never, ever really exist) and told him to banish whatever harmful things were in the room (or "dungeon"). The moment I said the thing had disappeared, he opened his eyes suddenly. He looked at me, surprised, and said "Am I not supposed to wake up yet?"

I said "not yet", and we went back up the steps together. Then I said he could wake up when he wanted to. Ten minutes later he still wasn't awake, so I shook him gentle and said I'd be back in a minute, to which he turned over and mumbled something about absorbing good luck from the earth instead of the air around him. I got ready for bed and for the first time in months, Bob went to sleep at a reasonably normal time.

The next day (today), I asked him to describe what exactly he saw, and learned that not only did he manage to expel all negative energy from himself and the surroundings with only the beginning meditation, but after that he stopped listening to me...

Past the initial vexation, I realized that he'd also astrally projected (lucky fool), seen himself and me from the outside, vaguely laughed at his own messy hairstyle, and decided to go back "in" again. When he got back, it was all black, because he was alseep, so he drifted off properly.

The question is, is this a success or not?

Bob got up at 6 a.m. because of a sore wisdom tooth, and has been playing Kingdom Hearts ever since. He says the oppressed feeling has gone, so it was probably just an accumulation of negative feelings and worries. I'm insanely jealous of his ability to astrally project or lucid dream practically at will. Will continue practising.

Dreams lately have had my middle sister in them. I've often had dreams with the littlest one, but the for two consecutive nights I've had dreams with my fifteen-year-old middle sister. They've both involved her being careless or putting herself in some kind of potential (but not yet real) danger, and at first refusing to let me speak to her, before finally and grudgingly listening and doing what I say. Maybe I worry too much about her.

Yes, Samhain is already here, and with it the beginning of the cold, bitter winter. I can tell because I'm sitting here with the heating on high, wearing those knee-length woolly socks with seperate toes, and a duvet cover over my legs, and I'm still shivering. Also, my city is in a sort of bowl surrounded by mountains, and they're all full of snow now. Trees are nearly bare of leaves; gold, red and green are replaced by dull whites, browns and greys. Clones in black scarves, hats and coats hurry around town, hunched against the icy wind. The car takes ages to start.

As you've probably guessed, I don't like winter very much, apart from Yule celebrations, I spend as much of it indoors as possible. And why not? Nature sleeps in winter, why should we not burrow ourselves away for the season too? I am of the opinion that you can worship nature from indoors, and that goosebumps are not magical, as some author I can't remember once said. And since I'm a geek, and therefore definitely an indoor person, I celebrate Samhain as the beginning of the season in which I have an excellent excuse not to leave the sanctuary of my lair.

For many of you, Samhain is a time to remember those loved ones you have known who have passed on. While I sympathize, I have been so far fortunate enough not to lose anyone close to me yet, so my Samhain celebrations weren't about that. They say the veil between this world and the next is thin at this time of year, and I wondered if it might be appropriate to try astral projection again, or some form of divination or other magic.

Unfortunately I wasn't feeling particularly celebratory last night. In fact, I've been feeling quite restless for a while, due to my continuing unemployment. I tried meditating for a while, then pulled three medicine cards (I usually only pick one) and did a tarot spread. Meditation yielded little, and the cards even less. Only one medicine card, the reversed wolf, mentioned that I should perhaps be more open-minded about my prospects and seek advice. The tarot said that I'd probably made some mistake in the past (in my choice of studies, perhaps, or the town I chose to do them in? Should I have moved to Lyon instead?) and that although I would keep going, there were more tough times ahead.

I had had a strange dream that morning, about being a village witch. There was something about sacrificing a baby, but the baby was too old so I spared it, only the reincarnation of this spirit stayed inside the body of a golden-haired youth and had the mentality of a baby as a result. There were crows at one point. I had another dream this morning that was equally strange, but I can't remember it. Since I have vivid dreams in phases, I'll start keeping an pen and paper next to my bed. Other than that, my path is so obscure that the only way I see forward is to keep on going as I have so far, and wait and see. Divination isn't helping right now, and I should probably pay attention to what is happening around me, because I may be so busy poking at spiritual things to see what they say that I can't see the huge opportunity right in front of me.

I hope so anyway. It would make things lots easier if there were a huge opportunity right in front of me, and I only had to lift my head to see it.^^

Tonight is a waning moon, and I am feeling suitably contrary. Having woken at 4 a.m. and been unable to sleep again until a throbbing headache around six-ish this evening left me drained, I have again found myself wide awake at one in the morning with this article trotting in my (now mercifully painless) head. It is, in keeping with my contrariety, an article about something I don't believe in. You don't find many of them on the witches web (unless of course they relate to Christian beliefs) so make the most of it.

The other day I went on a little bit about astrology, and my doubts concerning its accuracy. But I do at least give astrology the benefit of the doubt: if there is one form of divination I find absolutely ridiculous, it is numerology.

Pay attention here: I do not mean the use of numbers in magic. To me it would be perfectly logical to engrave a number 2 on a red candle for a love spell. That makes sense, at least it does if you're monogamous. What I'm talking about is the more complex - and therefore more dubious - form of magic in which your name or birthdate is converted into a certain 1- or 2-digit number which is supposed to tell you all you'll ever need to know about your personality. Know that the references I used for this article came from wikipedia, for a reasonably objective overview, and a site called www.astrology-numerology.com, which isn't objective at all.

My first doubts stem from the fact that there are several branches of numerology and each claims to have the best method. Sounds too much like organized religion to me. While it is generally accepted that Pythagoras invented - or developed - some of the modern numerology methods used widely today, there are also Hebrew, Indian, Egyptian and Chinese methods which, in some cases, don't even use the same alphabet. The Cantonese method doesn't even have the same number meanings - the number 4 is a symbol of bad luck for them, because it is similar to the Cantonese word for death.

I know that Pythagoras was a reknowned mathematician. Just because he is responsible for many a schoolchild's misery doesn't mean I'm going to use his divination system.

Even the Occidental methods contradict each other. Which method do we use? The one that says that A=1 and Z=26? The one that says A and J and S=1 (the square method where none of the letters equal more than 9 - see below)? Or the Chaldean method, which says A, I, J, Q and Y=1, and which I cannot make the least sense of? Also, what do you do if you're not English, and have a letter in your name which is not accounted for in the English alphabet?

Let us blatantly ignore that question for now, and take the method used in www.astrology-numerology.com, by one Michael Mc Clain; the square of nine method, or whatever you call it in numerology:

1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9
A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I
J    K    L    M    N    O    P    Q    R
S    T    U    V    W    X    Y    Z

As you probably know because, like me, you spent your entire thirteenth year trying it out on different people, the aim is to take the letters of your name or the digits of your birthdate and, using the square, convert them into numbers, then add the numbers up, then add the digits of the answer up until you get a 1-digit number, or one of two master numbers that are 11 and 22. Do not ask me why these two numbers are master numbers.

If, for instance, you were called Grace (which in reality I'm not, but we need an example), your calculations would go like this:

G=7, R=9, A=1, C=3, E=5
7+9+1+3+5=25
2+5=7

The sum of your birthdate is in fact much easier, at least it is in my case:
1+1+1986=1988
1+9+8+8=26
2+6=8

The sum of the digits in your birthdate is apparently called your lifepath number. Mine is 8: let's see what it says.

*5 minutes later* DAMN YOU DOUBTFUL MEANS OF DIVINATION! My lifepath number completely agrees with my sunsign (Capricorn) in saying that I'm a workaholic. Which might convince me if I wasn't a lazy sow. It also agrees in saying I have huge leadership potential and lots of ambition, especially in the material sense. It's not that I wouldn't like a new computer, preferably one without Windows Vista running on it, but I am not a born businesswoman. I'm not even a brilliant judge of character, and financially all I want is an office job with enough pay to live comfortably. I would like to publish a book or two some day, but that's about it. Most of my life ambitions are either artistic, family-based or spiritual.

The one sentence I agree with in this diagnosis is the following: "In relationships, you are frank, honest, and steadfast. You may be very much in love, but watch that you are not too busy and preoccupied to show it."

Let us see if my name says something else. In this site it tells you to use the full name you had at birth, which clears up my questions concerning my adoptive surname. The name number is called the destiny number: "Unlike the Life Path number which reads as you are, the Destiny number more correctly reads as you MUST or what you can aspire to become." I would advice Mr. Mc Clain to learn how to express himself clearly.

*5 minutes later* I give up. My destiny number is also 8. It basically says the same thing: that I should become a manager, business owner or political leader - something executive anyway. I don't want to! And I wouldn't be any good at it if I did. Load of rubbish.

'Tis feeling even more contrary, then, that I leave you, dear reader, and seek the comfort of my pillow to think over my apparent business potential and, just to spite those clever, conspiring divination methods I don't believe in, plan to take over the world. That'll teach 'em.