1. p.15
Darkness fell, and the stars were shining in a moonless sky. It took two hours
for Birda to tell the stranger her life story. She tried to look for facts that would
explain her interest in magic – childhood, visions, premonitions, an inner calling – but
could find nothing. She simply felt a need to know, that was all. And because of that,
she had taken courses in astrology, tarot and numerology.
‘Those are merely languages,’ said the Magus, ‘and they’re not the only ones.
Magic speaks all the languages of the human heart.’
p.16
‘Before our first lesson, I wan to remind you of one thing,’ he said. ‘When you
find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make
mistakes. Disappointment, defeat and despair are the tools God uses to show us the
way.’
p.35
‘By taking risks.’ She said to Birda. ‘By risking failure, disappointment, disillusion,
but never ceasing in your search for Love. As long as you keep looking, you will
triumph in the end.’
p.51
‘I know how you must be feeling,’ she went on. ‘Sometimes we set off down a
path simply because we don’t believe in it. It’s easy enough. All we have to do then is
prove that it isn’t the right path for us. However, when things start to happen, and the
path does reveal itself to us, we become afraid of carrying on.’
p.58
‘The soil needs the seed, and the seed needs the soil. (interdependency of
thoughts) The one only has meaning with the other. It is the same thing with human
beings. When male knowledge joins with female transformation, then the great
magical union is created, and its name is Wisdom. Wisdom means both to know and
to transform.’
p.71
Every woman can make use of the Four Rings of Revelation. You have used
only one, the wrong one’
‘You know what we mean; they said. ‘The virgin, the saint, the martyr and the
witch.’
‘They are the ways in which a woman can commune with the Universe,’ the
Voices said, as if it were important for her to recall these ancient things. ‘The Virgin
has the power of both man and woman. She is condemned to Solitude, but Solitude
reveals its secrets. That is the price paid by the Virgin - to need no one, to ear herself
out in her love for others, and , through Solitude, to discover the wisdom of the
world.’
‘And the Martyr has the power of those who cannot be harmed by pain and
suffering. She surrenders herself, suffers and, through Sacrifice, discovers the
wisdom of the world.’
‘You could have chosen the revelation of the Saint, even if it wasn’t the right
ring for you. The Saint has the courage of those for whom giving is the only way of
receiving. They are a bottomless well from which can constantly draw water to drink.

2. And if the well run dry, the Saint offers her blood so that others need never go thirsty.
Through surrender, the Saint discovers the wisdom of the world.’
p.76
‘God manifests himself in everything, but the word is one of his most favoured
methods of doing so, because the word is thought transformed into vibration, you are
projecting into the air around you something which, before, was only energy. Take
great care with everything you say. The word has more power than many rituals.’
p.78
‘I just want to say one thing to you. Don’t bother trying to explain your
emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift
from God. If you think that you won’t be able to stand a world in which living is more
important than understanding, then give up magic now. The best way to destroy the
bridge between the visible and the invisible is by trying to explain your emotions.’
rationalisation
p.79
‘The Cathars, or the Perfect Ones, were the priests of a church founded in the
south of France at the end of the 12th century. They believe in reincarnation and in the
existence of absolute Good and absolute Evil. The world was divided into the chosen
and the lost, which meant that there was no point in trying to convert anyone.’(Tao:
When the good is created, bad is also created!; determinism or fatalism?)
p.88
Life is so complicated. You have to take risks, follow some paths and abandon
others. She remembered Wicca telling her about people who followed certain paths
only to prove that they weren’t the right ones, but that wasn’t as bad as choosing a
path and then spending the rest of your life wondering if you’d made the right choice.
No one could make a choice without feeling afraid.(Existential anxiety? Facing
uncertainty? Uncontrollable?)
p.93
Sometimes, certain of God’s blessings arrive by shattering all the windows.
(All old perspectives no long hold; breakdown of core belief. Window equates lenses
I use to view the external world; cognitive psychology: top-down procession of
perception is guided by perceiver’s anticipation and expectation, say kitchen schema)
p.95
Birda was different. Her prayer had deeply touched the Magus’s soul. She had
understood that no human being who has walked this planet was or is different from
the others. Few people were capable of saying out loud that the great Teachers from
the past, had the same qualities and the same defects as all men, and that this in no
way diminished their ability to search for God. Judging oneself to be inferior to other
people was on of the worst acts of pride he knew, because it was the most destructive
way of being different. (Alder’s Inferiority complex; oneness of universe;
impermanence of Buddha)
p.113

3. Birda find the nine gifts: the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith,
healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, the discerning of the spirits, speaking in
tongues and the interpretation of tongues.
p.131
‘Clothes always transform emotion into matter. It’s one of the bridges
between the visible and the invisible. Some clothes can even be harmful because they
were made for someone else, but have ended up in your hands.’ (Duality of mind and
matter; retrieval cues to traumatic memory)
p.125
So far, I’ve shown you how to return to the path that your soul travelled
several incarnations ago. I awoke that knowledge by speaking directly to it – with my
soul – through the symbols and rituals of our forebears. You might have grumbles a
bit about it, but your soul was glad because it was re-establishing contact with its
mission. While you were getting irritated with all the exercises you had to do, feeling
bored with the dancing and having to fight off sleep during rituals, your hidden side
was once more drinking in the wisdom of Time, remembering what it had learned
before, and as it says in the Bible, the seed was growing and sprouting, although you
knew not how. Then came the moment to start to learn new things. This is called
Initiation, because that is where you will truly start to learn the things you need to
learn in this life. The Voice indicates that you are ready. (Retrival cues or the royal
road to unconsciousness? Rituals (OCD) bring security and order to chaotic situation
and threatening perception.) (The strike of thunderbolt suddenly shatter and shudder
your core beliefs; restoring the equilibrium due to cognitive conflict means learning
new things.)
p.156,
I know all this, because I am a Teacher, I also know that we will never ever
know the ultimate reason for our existence. We might know the how, where and
when of being here, but the why will always be a question that remains unanswered.
The main objective of the great Architect of the Universe is known to Him alone, and
to no one else.
Right now, while we’re here eating, 99% or people on this planet are, in their
own way, struggling with that very question. Why are we here? Many think they’ve
found the answer in religion or in materialism. Others despair and spend their lives
and their money trying to grasp the meaning of it all. A few let the question go
unanswered and live for the moment, regardless of the results or the consequences.
Only the brave and those who understand the Traditions of the Sun and the
Moon are aware that the only possible answer to the question is I DON’T KNOW.
p.157
The only way they could truly participate was by following their own desires,
their own dreams, because that is how man becomes an instrument of God.
(Legitimate peripheral participation; Lave and Wenger)
p.191
It taught me something else that I’ll never forget: finding one important thing
in your life doesn’t mean you have to give up all the other important things.

4. p.223
(he should understand his encounter with his Soulmate). That was how things
were in the Tradition of the Sun; each person was obliged to learn what he needed to
learn and not merely what he wanted to learn. In his man-heart he would weep for a
long time, but in his Magus-heart, he felt exultant and grateful to the forest.
(Synchronicity; timing; rhythm of nature; natural order; follow the flow of Tao)
p.233
‘Never be ashamed. Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every
cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink
the whole bottle.’
‘How will I know which is which?’
‘By the taste. You can only know a good wine if you have first tasted a bad
one.’ (social comparison; empirical evidence)
p.238
He looked up at the sky, still full of low clouds. God was the God of the
Brave. And He would understand him, because the brave are those who make
decisions despite their fear, who are tormented by the Devil every step of the way and
gripped by anxiety about their every action, wondering if they are right or wrong. And
yet, nevertheless, they act. They do so because they also believe in miracles, like the
witches who had danced round the fire that night.
p.239
The Magus still had a distant look in his eyes. He was thinking about the
Tradition of the Sun, and how one of the most important lessons of the Tradition of
the Sun was Love. Love was the only bridge between the visible and the invisible
known to everyone. It was the only effective language for translating the lessons that
the Universe taught to human beings every day.
p.240
No one can possess a sunset like the one we saw that evening. Just as no one
can possess an afternoon of rain beating against the window, or the serenity of a
sleeping child, or the magical moment when the waves break on the rocks. No one can
possess the beautiful things of this earth, but we can know them and love them. It is
through such moments that God reveals himself to mankind. (Impermanence; accept
whatever come your way! Happy, sad; anxious; keep the faith; believe)