First of all, let me personally welcome you to the Victorian Society of Metaphysics & Magic (VSMM) website! We are so happy you’ve found us, and we hope that some of what we teach, celebrate, write about, create, and do here becomes a little of the inspiration for your own journey!
Of course, I should give a little biographical information about me, my much better half Lee, and our mission through the Society, this site, and our work in the world? So, here we go!
I’m a forty-something who currently works as a speaker and adult educator. I have been both a professional artist as well as a commercial airline pilot. Over the years I’ve felt the sting of subjective criticism in the arts, but also felt the almost lost confinement of a highly technical but not so creative or spiritual career. Throughout it all my connection with the Greater, has always been my centering and grounding force. For years now it’s been my desire to more fully commit myself to intellectual studies, teaching, and helping others grow, heal, create, and prosper in their own lives.
Geographically I have called many areas home from the east coast to the west coast. I also have ties to many places throughout the world. I think my blessing in being able to weave the energies of those different places and people together shines in my outlook on life and also on my compassion for the whole of humanity and not just sheltered regions and groups.
Religiously and spiritually, I grew up someplace between the Catholic religion and Lutheranism, all the while calling myself a Buddhist from an alarmingly young age (at least according to my grandmother). In the dogmatic Catholic murk, I always enjoyed the ceremony and the ritual while still being aware of much of the hypocrisy and confinement of the church. I felt that much of the Lutheran church still wants to echo the sound of the Ninety-five Theses being nailed to the Catholic door, but in my heart it always felt like a hollow promise after so many generations and dogmatic institutionalizing on its own part. Thankfully my family, although somewhat skeptical, gave me enough latitude to look within myself and see that the tenets of neither resonated with me. In an interesting twist, such freedom actually brought me back to parts of the TRUE Christian meaning after many years of searching.
In high school, I began studying several Eastern forms of thought and religion. Although I was, and still am drawn to much of the philosophy, I still felt like something was missing for me. I love the fact that emphasis is put on the inner being and the enlightenment of the self, but I still felt like there was an outer world and subtle energies, that we are all connected to, that needed to be a part of my balance.
From that jumping off point, I’ve spent my life studying and exploring ideas, philosophies, religious practice, and ritual that has often times been described by titles and systems like Eastern, neo-pagan, druidic, Wiccan, shamanistic, new-age, etc. I’ve spent years finding clues and piecing together the story of my own journey in places like Reiki, the Kabbalah, native American studies, coven work, Hermetics, the Vedas, Greek mythology, High Magick, science, and even the Bible; just to name a few.
I believe that none of us have or ever will have THE answer, but I firmly believe that there are many truths that we can experience along the way and align with spiritually. As my own path has become more defined, I’ve realized that, for me, a polytheistic world is most in line with my experience and spiritual intuition. I’ve also realized that, no matter how much technology we look at to justify science, there are still mysteries and magic left in this world. If you wish to pursue the reasons why, please feel free to read several of my articles on this website about my reasoning or join me for a talk sometime.
The Conception of an Idea
Several years back I met a person who transformed my life. Although I’ve been blessed enough to have met celebrities and spiritual leaders, it wasn’t until I met my soul mate that the world became what it is today. I know the term soul mate gets used and sometimes abused in modern parlance, but for me and my journey there could be no better phrase. As our years together have gone on, we’ve worked together, grown together, and sometimes suffered together, but throughout it all she has been the one that has brought me closer to balance through her love and support of my journey as well as our journey together. She has always listened, embraced, and accepted my searching, while at the same time offering her own opinions, thoughts, and energy to the mix. I wouldn’t be where I am today without her love and own spiritual nature in my life. She has been the principal driver as the path has gone from one of thoughts and ideas to one of actions.
Always in the back of my mind, the desire to start building a community, writing, teaching, and creating has continuously grown over the years to a point, recently, when I couldn’t overlook it any more. I started a blog a few years back in response to a political and social situation that felt like it had hit crisis proportions. I desperately wanted to believe that it was a brief moment in time and that we’d collectively find ourselves and remember things like respect and love for one another. The unfortunate thing is I feel we’ve only gotten father away from such ideals. The political and social climate of late is almost heartbreaking, and the fact that we haven’t moved towards healing is even more disturbing. That is what really called me to action. I truly believe that many of us are looking for a clarity in our world that seems ever more clouded by hate, fear, violence, isolation, and introversion.
Through the physical community of the VSMM as well as this website and our work in our community at large, we seek to foster constructive dialogue, learning, understanding, acceptance, love, growth, and inner peace through techniques and teachings that we feel are very powerful and necessary in our chaotic world. We also seek to use those connections to others to raise powerful energies in celebration, ritual, and magickal workings.
Some might label us neo-pagan, new-age, or any number of things, and we ourselves end up using some of these terms just to have a common reference, but my sincere hope is that we can transcend such labels and stereotypes and move forward in perfect love and perfect trust. Through our efforts we hope to bring together people and ideas that might have been foreign to each other.
There are many voices in the spiritual communities today, and I think each serves a purpose to some people and places. I also have found that some of those voices seem to alienate rather than working toward inclusive union to grow from the collective energies of many different types of people. From time to time, I’ve seen Wiccan groups who have lost sight of the meaning of their practice in favor of a more theatrical penchant for making news, or making a scene. I’ve witnessed some feminist groups undermine their own worth and rightful place in the community by exhibiting almost a reversed bias toward others and ending up the same people they revile but with different opinions. I’ve known political action groups to call themselves new-age only to push agendas that are one sided and in obvious contrast to holistic healing and the greater good of all. It is actually easy to get wrapped up in these black and white struggles when we have evolved in the shadow of things like monotheistic religions telling us there IS only one right way. It’s easy to not want to deal with the harsh questions that live in the gray areas. Together as an inclusive community we seek the power and courage to look at the grays and search for the real truths within them.
At the VSMM, it is our mission to foster different viewpoints, opinions, dialogues, spiritual teachings, and real-world actions to promote humanity as a whole. We will strive to overcome the barriers of requiring anyone interested in our philosophies to look or speak a certain way, while at the same time promoting a strong sense of community and connectedness. Together, we believe we CAN effect change within ourselves, our communities, and our world for the greater good and in love and acceptance. From that foundation then we can explore the mysteries of this incredible world.