January 2012 Workshops

Pagan Discussion Night (MPRC) FREE

Every month on the first Thursday, the MPRC (Montreal Pagan Resource Center) hosta a free discussion on various current issues in the pagan community. All are welcome, though occasionally the content may not be appropriate for minors.

Thursday, January 5th, 6:30-8:30pm – FREE

Gypsy Magic 101: Beginnings of Magick (Ameara)
This introduction to gypsy magick will explore working with magickal energy, how to cast a spell, how to call upon the divine forces, herbal properties, and candle magick. We will walk through what magick is, how to call upon the elements for simple intention magick, what herbs and colors to use for a purpose, and what divine powers to call, associations etc.
You will walk away with a few simple spells to start their magickal practice:
Making Money : With simple cinnamon, green tea, and a green candle
Attracting or Choosing a Lover: Bottle caps or other objects in water as well as a simple attraction magick candle spell
Calm and Clear mind: Herbs to use in baths or aromatherapy to aid in meditation and clarity of mind spell
Friday, January 13th, 7-9pm - $30

How to do a Ceremonial Banishing- The LBRP (Eri)
In this workshop we will be learning the history, symbolism, visualizations and theories behind the famous Qabbalistic and Ceremonial Magic ritual of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. Students will also go through a practical demonstration and learn how to do this powerful ritual on their own. The LBRP uses divine and angelic energies to remove influences from your sphere and is great for banishing, balance and protection.
Saturday, January 21st, 1-3pm, $25 

Tarot Series (Catharine)

This solid program introduces you to the major and minor arcana of the tarot, along with various techniques and skills for reading the cards. Please contact the teacher for more information (river.rain.catharine@gmail.com).

*Please bring your own deck.

Cost is $40 per class (or $300 if you register for the entire series starting January 21 through April 28 for a discount of 50%)

Major Arcana part 1: Saturday, January 21st, 12-2pm

Major Arcana part 2: Saturday, January 28th, 12-2pm

Major Arcana part 3: Saturday, February 4th, 12-2pm

Major Arcana part 4: Saturday, February 11th, 12 -2pm

Minor Arcana swords: February 18th 12 -2pm

Minor Arcana Wands: Saturday, February 25th 12 -2pm

Psychic Development Series (Catharine)
Introduction to the many abilities that fall under the term "psychic". Exploring your own intuitive gifts with like-minded people so you trust yourself more than ever before! Please contact the teacher for more information (river.rain.catharine@gmail.com).

Cost is $40 per class or $230 for the entire 9-part series (that is a discount of $130)

Clairvoyance: Saturday, January 28th 3 -5:30pm

Clairaudience: Saturday, February 4th  3 -5:30pm

Clairsentience: Saturday, February 11th 3-5:30

Predictive Dreams: Saturday, February 18th 3-5:30

Channeling: Saturday, February 25th 3-5:30

Cleansing and Smudging: Saturday, March 3rd 3 - 5:30

Spirit Contact - Guides, Angels, Entities: Saturday, March 10th  3-5:30

How to Give a Reading: Saturday, March 17th 3-5:30

Practice Practice Practice: Saturday, March 24th 3-5:30

CMS Open House

Welcome to Crescent Moon School, Canada’s longest running public training school for magic and Paganism since 1995.

This Open House is a unique opportunity to see what students of all levels have done, speak with teachers and students about what it is like to attend classes, and to register for the coming session.

Go to http://www.mtl-magicalcircle/cms for more information about the school.

Level 1 New Session: Wednesdays, 6-9pm, starting February 8th for 20 weeks

Cost: $300 (3 installments of $100 every 6 weeks), includes 3 workbooks & a reading pack

Come to our Annual Hourly Boxing Day Sale!

Hope you all had a great Christmas. Today is Boxing Day! and we have specials happening ALL DAY!

Store hours: 1-6pm

Specials Today:
1-2pm 10% off all Candles
2-3pm 10% off all Apothecary related stuff (incense, powders, oils, bath salts, etc.)
3-4pm 10% off all Jewelry
4-5pm 10% off all Books
5-6pm 10% off all Tarot

Have a great Boxing Day and take advantage of our in-store specials!

The Yule Sabbat

Tonight is the longest, darkest night of the year; it's also an important holiday if you celebrate the Wheel of the Year. The Sabbat known as Yule is celebrated on the Winter Solstice, which falls on December 22nd this year. By tradition, we consider Yule to begin at sundown, the night before the 'calendar date'. That means that many Pagans will be celebrating Yule tonight!

The God's Rebirth

If Samhain is the end of the year, then Yule represents the beginning. On Samhain, the Goddess mourns the passing of the God. On Yule, the God is reborn from the Goddess once again, and we celebrate his return to the world. Since the God is associated with warmth and sunlight, we consider dawn the moment of the God's arrival: the moment of his rebirth.

Symbolism

Yule is just as much about the symbolism of kinship, family, and rebirth as it is about the God's actual rebirth. The winter months can be cold and bleak, and that's why it's more important than ever to remember our better qualities and help the people around us.

In many ways, the dark cold winter is the perfect time to keep a fire going in our hearts, minds, and hearths. Yule is about sharing your warmth with others, and about being with your family-- both the family you grew up with, and your second family: the friends you've chosen yourself. All beings are the children of the God and the Goddess, and kindred in spirit and divinity, so remember during this season that even complete strangers on the street are a part of your larger family. Give what small kindnesses you can to those you can, and allow yourself to shrug off the everyday irritations and upsets of life. Take care of yourself, knowing that a new day is just around the corner.

Ritual Celebrations

Most Pagans will light at least one candle when the sun descends in order to keep the light going and encourage its return tomorrow morning with the sun. Another common Pagan tradition on Yule involves a night-long vigil, held until the first rays of dawn; during this vigil, by candlelight or firelight, you are given a chance to review your past year and make resolutions for the new year ahead.

Though the release of old things is more of a Samhain tradition, I personally enjoy writing down my anger, upsets, regrets, and embarrassments from the past year and throwing them into the Yule fire in order to symbolically let them go and move on to new things. Alternatively, you might write down your dreams, wishes, and goals for the new year and tie them to your Yule tree to strengthen your resolution and keep them in your mind. When the Yule tree comes down, bury your resolutions somewhere and let them spur on new growth, or burn them in a cauldron and spread the ashes somewhere with verdant plant-life.

Holiday Schedule

Happy Holidays! Here is our Holiday schedule for the rest of the month:

For the next week we will be open until 9pm every day to help you get all your last minute shopping done:

Monday Dec. 19: 10am-9pm
Tuesday Dec. 20: 10am-9pm
Wednesday Dec. 21: 10am-9pm (Happy Hannukah!)
Thursday Dec. 22: 10am-9pm (Blessed Yule and Tohji-taisai!)
Friday Dec. 23: 10am-9pm
Saturday Dec. 24th: 10am-3pm

Sunday Dec. 25: Closed (Merry Christmas!)
Monday Dec. 26: 1pm-6pm (Happy Kwanza!)
Tuesday Dec. 27: 10am-6pm
Wednesday Dec. 28: 10am-6pm
Thursday Dec. 29: 10am-9pm
Friday Dec. 30: 10am-9pm
Saturday Dec. 31: 10am-3pm

Sunday Jan. 1: Closed (Happy New Year!)
Monday Jan. 2: Closed

Holiday Hours

Melange will be open until 9pm all week until Christmas Eve to help you get that last minute shopping done!

So, just to be clear, our schedule for the Holidays is:

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we are open from 10am-9pm.
Saturday we are only open from 10am-3pm and we are closed on Sunday the 25th.
We will be open on Boxing Day from 1pm-6pm.
The 27th and 18th we will be open 10am-6pm, the 29th and 30th we will be open 10am-9pm.
New Year's Eve we will be open from 10am-3pm.
New Years and the day after (the 1st and 2nd) we will be closed.

Happy Holidays!

Yule Sale

Le Melange Magique / The Magical Blend

Online shoppers! Local shoppers! Yule is fast approaching...
This Sunday is our Yule Sunday Sabbat Sale where everything is 10% off all day.

If ordering online then you can enter the code YULE2011
(valid only this Sunday December 18th, 2011).

SUNDAY SABBAT SALE
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18TH, 2011

FAQ: What is the LBRP and what is it for?

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram is a banishing ritual that first made it's appearance in the famous Ceremonial and Hermetic order, the Order of the Golden Dawn. No one is quite sure where the LBRP ritual came from. The founders of the Golden Dawn claimed to have received the ritual from the same "Secret Chiefs" who had theoretically passed to them all the information for the order. Certainly the LBRP draws on many Judeo-Christian and even Hindu mystical sources an some of the prayers reflect ones of Christian or Jewish origin so the LBRP as a ritual may be quite old. However whether Mather's, Westcott and Woodman were given the LBRP by the Secret Chiefs or whether they made it up (for which there is quite a bit of debate)it remains that the LBRP is am intense, powerful and balanced ritual. Since its first recorded appearance in the Golden Dawn the LBRP has been published in many different books on Ceremonial Magic, rituals, psychic and magical protection and metaphysical books and magazines, often with slightly different variations. Unfortunately due to the fact that the Golden Dawn is a secret society it is very difficult to pin point which version is the correct one, even among practitioners of the Golden Dawn today. However all the versions agree on the basic outline and principal of the ritual, and it is mostly upon the proper visualizations that the versions disagree.

The LBRP uses divine Qabbalistic symbolism to center, balance, cleanse and protect the practitioner. First the magician will draw divine energies down through their body in the shape of a cross touching upon Sephirothic attributions (the translations of which interestingly are the same words as at the end of the "Our Father"). This is called the Qabbalistic Cross and it helps to balance the practitioner and infuse them with energy. After this the practitioner traces four banishing pentagrams in each quarter (i.e. east, south, west, north) and infuses these with divine names which helps to banish and shield the sphere of the magician. The final layer of protection is made by invoking the four archangels associated with the four quarters who are placed around the sphere, protecting the inside. Finally there is an affirmation and a final Qabbalistic Cross to recenter and balance.

The LBRP is a very complex, deep and layered ritual that is extremely efficacious. In the Golden Dawn it was the only ritual that was taught before a member reached adeptship and it is often said that if you are going to learn one ritual, the LBRP is it.

December 2011 Workshops

Sacred Moons Series: 1st Moon: Birch/Cold Moon (Scarlet)
Throughout the year we often hear that there are 13 moons. There are! But the cycle is not exact. Each month has a full moon and every few years we have two full moons in a single month or two dark moons. We can blend this cycle with the 13 sacred trees of the Celtic Ogham and deepen our understanding of ourselves and our spirituality. The first full moon after Samhain is the Birch Tree or December Cold moon. Learn about the basic cycle of trees and moons. Explore how you can connect to the first moon of the new Celtic year. Join us monthly to learn about the next moon’s energies.
Friday, December 9th, 7-9pm $40

Tarot: Major Arcana part 1 (Catharine)
This course covers the first half of the Major Arcana exploring the major themes and progression of the cards. We always look at your deck with the group so you come away with a deeper awareness of your own tarot.
Saturday, December 10th, 12-2pm $40

Psychic Development: Clairvoyance (Catharine)
Introduction to the many abilities that fall under the term "psychic". Exploring your own intuitive gifts with like-minded people so you trust yourself more than ever before!
Clairvoyance or "clear seeing" is an ability that many of us can have or develop. We are a visual culture and we can learn to differentiate what is a psychic vision that is reliable vs our own projection or imagination.
Saturday, December 10th, 3 -5:30pm $40

How to Give a Reading (Catharine)
This course will show you how to do various tarot spreads, and give you good ways of approaching how to read for yourself and for others. We will be doing readings for each other to practice!
Thursday, December 15th, 6:30 -9pm $40

Major Arcana part 2 (Catharine)
This course covers the second part of the Major Arcana, once again considering your deck as well as others, and going into the themes and progression of the tarot as a whole life cycle
Saturday, December 17th, 12-2pm $40

LBRP Workshop (Eri)
In this workshop we will be learning how to perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram as well as some of it's visualizations and symbolism. The LBRP is a powerful Qabbalistic and Ceremonial banishing and protection ritual that uses divine and angelic energies to remove influences from your sphere.
Saturday December 17th 1-3pm $25

Psychic Development: Clairaudience (Catharine)
Introduction to the many abilities that fall under the term "psychic". Exploring your own intuitive gifts with like-minded people so you trust yourself more than ever before!
Clairaudience means "clear hearing" and is remarkably more common than you may realize. Many of us channel words and phrases without understanding it. Once you learn to detect this and know which messages to trust it can change your life for the better!
Saturday, December 17th, 3 -5:30pm $40