Free Witchcraft Newsletter: December 2003

December 2003 Newsletter.

The Starwise Society

Next Page (January 2004)

Fall Quarter 2003

December Newsletter

To previous page(November 2003).

Weather Today

The Return of the Starwise Society

The educational newsletter follows this one.

From the desk of the Grand Director,

Darrow Clark:

Season's Greetings:

December is a magical month. Even people who do not profess a belief in magic find themselves decorating their home inside and out at this time of year.

(Apparently they do this for some

sort of magical effect, or they

wouldn't go through all the work

and expense of decorating).

This brings us back to something we

pondered at the end of the October 2003

newsletter: namely, that many things we do

in ordinary life are actually magical in

nature, but usually we aren't aware of it.

The Craft is unique in its emphasis

on commonplace events from ordinary life,

such as the popular customs that you see

all around you at Christmastime. It is

unique in that it sees all of this through

the modern eyes of The Craft.

Consider, for example, the following

letter that was mailed to The New York Sun

newspaper more than one hundred years ago,

from a little girl who was unsure about

the reality of Santa Claus. The editor

of the newspaper answered her letter in a

loving yet understandably evasive way.

The Craft, to our own advantage, can

give a different response. It doesn't

have to be condescending. Her letter is

here posted --so very many years later--

directly to the Entity she believed in,

without the condescending assumption that

her belief in Santa Claus is something

less than our adult disbelief (because she

is only a mere child. Are children really

only 'mere', or can they sometimes see

and know better than adults?).

"Dear Editor--

I am 8 years old. Some of

my little friends say there

is no Santa Claus. Papa says,

'If you see it in The Sun,

it's so.' Please tell me the

truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon."

Notice that questions about physical existence, delivery location at the North Pole, and other requirements of ordinary reality do not apply in The Craft. Virginia's letter is issued directly to the Entity without any of our own limitations.

Here is the response to the letter that was mailed within ordinary reality, more than one hundred years ago:

(Originally published in The New York Sun in 1897.)

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood

Some readers think it odd for a little girl to refer to her friends as "little". They even go so far as to suppose that the whole letter from Virginia is a hoax.

Actually, she became famous because of it and because of this extraordinary reply by newspaper editor, Francis P.Church. (Notice that Church refers to skeptics as "little minds" in it. His father was a Baptist minister, so Francis was probably more than a bit miffed by the scientific intellectuals of the nineteenth century, who laughed at his belief in a God and Bible as taught to him by his father).

Virginia also continued to refer to her little friends as "little" years later, if I recollect correctly. Maybe she continued to be a bit miffed about those childhood friends who made fun of her belief in Santa Claus (I mean to say that it's almost certain they did make fun of her, kids being the way they are).

What I am building up to here, is that the desired indifferent acceptance of this and similar 'supernatural entities' in The Craft is rejected in ridicule by others, so a certain degree of secrecy is necessary when searching for supernatural realities.

Did Maurice get caught under the mistletoe? Expo67

From "gi gi", Maurice Chevalier:

"Thank heaven for little girls
for little girls get bigger every day!

Thank heaven for little girls
they grow up in the most delightful way!

Those little eyes so helpless and appealing
one day will flash and send you crashin' thru the ceilin'..."

Miss World 2003, China Pageant.

Miss Ireland Rosanna Davison waves as she celebrates being crowned Miss World 2003 in Sanya, on China's tropical island of Hainan, Dec. 6, Photo by Reuters (H).

The December educational newsletter begins here:

Educational Newsletter

of the Starwise Order

RESEARCH AND EVALUATION                                Fall Quarter 2003

OF INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE

INFORMATION AND IMAGERY.           Copyright 2003 by the Starwise Order.

"Devoted to the advancement of knowledge"

A nonprofit fraternal order.

DECEMBER 2003

Magical enlightenment in the search for knowledge.

SEARCH:Tripod The Web

This educational newsletter is magical in scope: it doesn't try to freeze time into history. It is and has to be 'letters that keep on changing'.

You don't throw away the October newsletter

at the end of October, for instance. It

stays around to haunt you months and years

afterwards, when you return to it.

And the subjects in it are more

popular, more adventuresome than usually

found in research newsletters because it

touches upon the unknown and supernatural.

Magical considerations...

Einstein and Russell established a precedent.

Einstein and Russell held the Mantle:

Behind the concept of the "precedent" as introduced in the past two newsletters, is the fact that Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell both held a position of preeminence in the past century that should not be ignored in this one.

That they both held the mantle in their time is a fact of magical reality transcending our ordinary acknowledgement of their place in the scheme of things.

The movie stars and recording stars we are listening to in these letters also have a placement in this magical reality --in addition to their place in the more ordinary reality of actual accomplishment. That is why we are taking the time to think about what they say, for they are coming from the same "space".