Pantheacon

I'm back from an amazing weekend at Pantheacon. I'd like to say a huge thank-you to all the Pantheacon organizers and staff for running a really great convention and generally being amazing. Workshops and rituals ran smoothly and almost everything was on time! Being a Virgo I kinda think pagan standard time is an abomination, so I really enjoyed things being quite punctual and fully believe the staff pulled off a minor miracle in making it happen.

I had the great pleasure of presenting a workshop on Magickal Self-Defense on Monday up in one of the big ballrooms. I had a decent number of people attend (maybe 70 or so) and was really impressed by their comments and participation. One of the most valuable comments had to do with my exercise in auric dimming.

Auric dimming is a defensive technique that keeps you from standing out. It's appropriate in situations where you're simply going about your day and suddenly the hair stands up on the back of your neck and you just get the feeling that something not so nice is nearby or is maybe even looking for you. This technique will help you to leave a place where you feel threatened without being noticed magickally – it does nothing for being physically seen.

In my exercise (listed in full below) I have people envision their aura as being made up of thousands of tiny threads originating in the center of the body and then spool them, like pulling in thread. One woman made the comment that for people who are more closely associated with water, it might be easier to envision the aura as a large calm lake flowing out into a stream. Instead of pulling threads into a spool in your core, you can envision the waters of the lake flowing out into a narrow river around the body. By doing so you end up with a very thin layer of fast moving energy very close into the body rather than a large amount of more dispersed energy. This can quite effectively shrink your aura, but you must be careful that that fast moving energy is pulled in to pretty much skin level, or else its intensity might attract attention as much as a larger calm aura would. Definitely something to think about.

Auric Dimming

This can be a bit tricky at first, but will get easier as you practice it. It can also feel very uncomfortable, like your skin feeling prickly or too tight. For starters, I wouldn't recommend doing this for more than a few minutes at a time.

• First visualize your aura. If you have learned how to see auras with either your eyes or your second sight do so now. If not, visualize your aura extending from your body out into the air by about six inches. You can visualize your aura in several ways: it can be the image of a halo of white light, the feel of static electricity, the smell of ozone, or whatever sensory visualization seems most natural to you.
• Now see/feel/smell/etc your aura going into your body as a series of individual threads that root themselves in a ball in the center of your body.
• Imagine that the ball is made up of swirling, spinning energy strands like a ball of yarn. Visualize all these strands wrapping around the ball.
• Visualize that ball turning very slowly, winding all those threads back up into the ball. Visualize the threads of your aura being very slowly pulled back in towards the center of your body, centimeter by centimeter. It is very important to do this slowly, little by little. You only want to contract your aura until its about ½ an inch out from your skin. This will feel slightly uncomfortable but won't hurt you. If you begin to feel light headed, panicky, or very uncomfortable unwind your aura immediately.
• To let your aura back out just visualize the ball of energy in the center of your body unwinding and releasing your aura back to its natural state.

It's a good idea to ground after using this technique. I would also recommend eating something connecting you to Earth, like bread, nuts, or cheese afterward.