4.5 Parapsychology

      I have noticed that phenomena which fit into the category of parapsychological always accompany my Occult rituals if the rituals are carried out with a reasonable measure of success. Also, I have never experienced parapsychological events when I was not engaged in ritual Magick. This should not be surprising in view of the fact that one of the primary purposes of Occult rituals is to unite the conscious self with the collective unconscious. The feelings of the oneness of nature that are produced by Occult rituals are discussed in "This Is It" by Alan Watts. "The Roots of Coincidence" by Arthur Roestler also provides much information germane to this issue.

      The following account is a good example of the kind of psychic events which have accompanied my successful Occult rituals. When I was involved with the evocation of Astarte discussed in Section 4.4, I was in a rather destitute condition with no money and very little to eat. I decided to call upon Astarte to relieve my condition. Since She is a Goddess of fertility, it was very appropriate to use sexual energy to bring Her forth. Over the three weeks that I worked on the ritual, I used the image of a woman who I had known for sometime but had never had sex with to stimulate me sexually. I had not seen this friend for years, and had changed my residence numerous times since our last meeting. On the day of the dream in which Astarte appeared, this friend and a sister came to my house. The friend showed me a black spot on her hand which she said had first appeared about three weeks previous to her coming to my door. She also said that she thought it was a sign of the Devil, and had therefore been looking for me because she knew that I was involved with Occult matters. She had found me by accidentally running into a common acquaintance of ours who told her where I was living. The sister began looking through my occult books, and asked me a question concerning a picture in one of the books which happened to contain the answer to a problem which I had been trying to solve for some time.

      Soon after this incident, I was loaned a twenty dollar bill by someone. I cannot remember who it was, but my recollection is that it may have been the same friend with the black spot. I went to the grocery store and purchased a bag of groceries. I handed the clerk the twenty dollar bill. We were engaged in conversation as he took the change for the twenty dollar bill out of the cash register and handed it to me. It amounted to forty dollars and some odd cents.