shadowx

You will not find a revenge attack. At least not for a low price. Why would someone risk their freedom for you? Firstly you need to realise you werent hacked. (or rather your friend wasnt hacked) but instead had their password guessed or found out, assuming we are talking about msn/IM or social sites, in which case it is a lesson. Get a better password.The people here will not aid you in hacking, however we will help you prevent it happening again.

Beh i cant edit, mods? whats the haps?anyhoo... firstly i meant deadmad, not deadman... Lets go from what you said...Are you trying to be funny or sarcastic? If so then please leave this discussion. If you are being honest then i would question the inclusion of the harry potter reference.... Magick and witchcraft are nothing to do with Harry Potter they are vastly, vastly different.What makes me wonder is your mentioning of more serious subjects with what seems to be competence. I dont believe in Satan, nor a devil of any kind. "Demons" to me are simply entities which choose a negative path.

Deadman i cant work out if you are being sarcastic or not, such is the medium of text.Networker. I have some news for you and you may not believe it... Halloween exists because of magick and witchcraft.Oh yes, it is a celebration of a time when the veil between the living and dead is thinnest, thus providing the best time to commune with the dead. Seen a jack-o-latern? (or in the uk here simply a pumpkin with a candle in it) well they exist for one reason... they are meant to guide the dead onto the path of light. They are meant as lights for the trapped souls who have yet to move onto the next world. Today it is all about dress up and what not, but it was "invented" if you will, as a tradition to guide and talk to the dead. Traditional pagan celebrations sometimes include laying an extra space at the table for relatives who recently died etc...I expect dressing up is a method of scaring off evil entities and negative energies, or simply to represent them. the sweets etc.. is a modern addon.you may not believe in the world of magick but it influences every day of your life. Most public holidays are pagan or magickal in creation. Harvest festival is pagan, christmas is pagan (hate to say it but its true), midsummer is pagan,even valentines day has some links to paganism, oh and easter too. christianity and the modern companies simply hijacked them to make money or control people.

Just to clear things up.... I have no desire to learn the dark arts in the forum of being able to curse etc... anyone, however, i merely wish to state that once i have mastered basic protection and wish to delve into powerful protection and curse, hex and negative energy removal then knowing of the attacks will greatly aid me. I do not need to practice curses etc... or even attempt to summon darker energies or attempt to expose myself or others to negative beings or people. I do however wish to learn how to defend myself pro-actively, and if this means using the light as a weapon then i will do so. I Wanted to state my objections to the Wiccan approach and say that i feel it is too simple, almost childish or "rose tinted glasses" to ignore attack as a form of defence. No good person would have any reason to fear me, if i had my choice i would make every dark entity fear me, however, that is not within the realms of possibility so i will have to settle with making it a very bad day if you happen to be a negative entity coming my way. We will see. Now... I dont know where you live, however, those newspapers are, almost without doubt, utter rubbish. Magick does not grant you the ability to summon in objects or living people, you cannot have everything you wish for. Imagine if you did, life would be pointless. It is much like sadness, without it there would be no meaning in happiness. Like a roller coaster without low tracks there would be no uphill, and no excitement in the peaks of happiness. Though sadness is not a thing we relish by nature, it is a necessity in the same way that lust, want and desire are so we can appreciate having what we do have. Magick is purely energy work. For example it is entirely possible to call up energy from within the earth, the sun etc... IMHO the energy comes from space, however it can permeate the earth etc... so you can call it forth. You can then shape this energy, feeling it slightly in your hands as a weak tingle, perhaps heat or cold or just "a feeling". you can see it in your mind and some people claim to see it faintly with their eyes. You can shape it into a ball, a fist, a knife, a shield, a bubble even an animal which will walk beside you. It may not have a mind however it is an extension of *you* Willpower can have vast effects on the astral planes through the energy there and here. If you created the astral animal as an extension of your own mind it would react to magickal attacks etc... however it is not a new soul, nor is it alive. And it would exist only in the astral realms meaning you could not take it for walks etc... you would see it in your mind yet you would feel its presence as a tingle, perhaps a sound or just knowing etc.... Magick can grant you some things such as aid in getting a job, healing, protection aids in concentration and some believe it can influence your wealth. HOWEVER... This is immoral and frowned upon by all but the most selfish of practitioners and the universe works in very strange and indirect ways. You may do a spell to grant you money but it wont fall out of the sky, nor would you win the lottery, instead perhaps you would be granted an opportunity for a new, better paid job. Perhaps would find some of your own money or valuables you had lost, or perhaps more sinister... Perhaps your parents or children would die and leave their money to you. Every decision in magick has to be taken with utmost consideration. Every action can have vast, or little consequences. The responsibility lies within yourself if something bad should happen. Also please note that sacrifice or dead things arent needed for magick... (well except the sacrifice of time) so if someone offers you a monkey hand for luck or a childs finger or hair for protection please stay well clear. These people exist only to make money of the foolish. Why would a dead monkey or child offer you it's aid? It would not. It is hard for me to find reading material that i can get into. Much of it mentions "god" as a christian sense af an all powerful being, which immediately makes me close the book. I abhor the idea and it completely makes me uncertain of the book itself and the practices within. Magick without faith in magick is nothing. The rest is largely trained at teen audiences with love spells, exam spells etc... Utter tosh IMHO. You want to pass an exam then STUDY! and then what remains is american... And sorry folks but the American language is just awful, not to mention irritating... Sorry, its a fact! For those who are interested and in America look for "Silver Raven Wolf" she has a series of teenage witchcraft books. However they are very American and rather childish, but do contain some useful information. Thanks for the links mahesh, have you ever been interested yourself? Im not recruiting, i just wonder how anyone who believes in witchcraft could turn down the opportunity to research it. Perhaps its just me.

you may have accidentally removed the backup operating system.... Go back into the control panel where it shows which operating systems are on the computer. You should, i think, have two. one is windows 7, the other is the recovery system. IF you only have windows 7 then it seems you may have deleted the recovery one.

I must admit to using proxies while in secondary school (11-16yrs) and at college i made my own browser to bypass their proxy completely and often used firefox... So i cant really say much.... I agree there are reasons to bypass filters. Still my warning remains! another way to do it is using google translate or google cache. Search the site you want in google with the full https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/overview/ format and then the first reult should have the "cache" link under it. This trick sometimes works fairly well (it also lets you around sites where ou have to register to read the forums) Translate is another one, just go to https://translate.google.com/ scroll down to where it asks if you want to translate a page and select english in both boxes and type in your site Neither are particularly effective though. I need to get ready for work... as a network technician where i am going to to try to stop kids playing games using proxies etc.... how ironic!

science wont get everything 100% right but i look upon what i will call the supernatural (for lack of a better word) as quirks in the quantum world. Things like entanglement to me sound like magick... two particles communicating over BILLIONS of miles or even just a centimetre instantly, is that not essentually telepathy on a tiny, tiny scale? I see magick as a purely natural part of the universe in the same way that radiation etc... is, it is just a part o the universe that we dont understand. I do think one day that science will prove the existence of a soul and discover what i term "raw" energy. If you think about it truly raw energy is undetectable, if it isnt heat energy, light energy, magnetic etc.. then how can we detect it? We cant, so in my theory we are surrounded by pure energy constantly and through magick we learn to tap into it. IMHO this is a purely natural thing. So not true... a title is simply something you choose to call yourself, the magick comes from within and without. The world around you flows with magick, as do you. Calling yourself a witch does nothing to this energy, you need to learn to feel it, direct it, control it, transform it etc... before you can truly create change. you are correct in saying a magickal life is not easy. Though i have no experience yet i know that i will need to make very, very tough decisions, face danger as well as ridicule and the act of studying the arts is something you never stop doing and dedication is a complete must (which is my falling point, i need more time in a day!) I never said i wanted to learn the dark magick as such, though i do feel if i am to become strong with protection i will need to learn *about* the dark arts. But that doesnt mean working with dark energy as such. But i do think it is foolish to ignore the dark arts and learn only of "the light". Without shadow the world would be nothing. There would be nothing to see. PS. Witchcraft is nothing like harry potter or anything else the TV shows you. You cannot levitate books and make them carry themselves to your lessons, you cannot make potions that turn you green nor will you see sparks of energy (not with your physical eyes anyway)

I understand that the internet is full of absolute rubbish, and you may be correct in your definition of warlocks Vs Witches, but to me a warlock does have negative connotations, i play world of warcraft (dont bang on me about WoW and paganism and the differences and everything else... i was interested in paganiosm before i heard of WoW) and the Warlock character there is one who uses demons and demonic magic, also warlocks in the media are presented as negative, their mere name implies battle (WARlock) and sounds to me something like "one who is at war, or uses magick for war") the thing with magick is it is very personal, so in essence neither definition is wrong. I would almost err on describing myself as a pagan/druid due to my absolute reverence for nature which isnt a requisite of witchcraft. An interesting quote, and im sure it is quite true. However i still stand by the fact that you cannot defend without at least some knowledge of an attack. This does not mean you will need to experiment with darker magick, or in our examples it doesnt mean you need to be a hacker to stay safe nor learn to use a sword to be able to use a shield, however... without the knowledge of how a curse, a virus, or a sword works how can you expect to prepare an adequate defence? IMHO you cant. For example a sword and a battle hammer are vastly different in their applications and their weaknesses. A sword is faster and due to that much weaker, so your defenses can be better tailored instead of having a very heavy, strong shield a lighter one would offer the same protection and free up some weight which you could use to wear protective shin/leg armour whereas against an axe or mace the shield needs to be very sturdy. IMHO this is applicable to magickal defence too. If you know there are faster, smaller attacks that try to consistently wear down defences then you would perhaps use a defence magick whereby the shield is slightly weaker but still adequate and conserve energy, whereas if you anticipate a massive attack in one burst your shield needs to be top quality and as strong as possible. Celtic lore and mythology does interest me, purely as story more than anything. I know that some traditions have their feet in myths and lore and that some things resulting from lore and myth are effective. It is interesting though, especially when one sees its influence on the modern day society. Relating to science V religion IMHO they are one. Religion is simply the stuff that science is yet to understand or perhaps cannot understand due to the fallibility of the human brain and technology has its fundamental weaknesses. As a scientific person i question everything, the things i cannot question i deem as worthy of research. This is one of the many hurdles facing a solitary practitioner, every coven has their own book of shadows which is cloaked in secrecy, and for good reason. Personally i think that some things can come from feelings alone, for example affinity to certain herbs, elements, locations etc... If i have learned anything about the craft it is that the ingredients are not that important. It is what you do with them that matters, and how you believe they work. The power ultimately comes from the energy, channelled from the universe through yourself and the objects you choose. IMHO at least the objects are focussing aids and "tanks" to hold the energy and direct it. The exception in my eyes is crystals who's role i feel is linked intrinsically to the crystal itself. Even from a young age i identified with quartz as a powerful channelling agent. Long before i knew that paganism even existed. I am still really interested in hearing from other "intelligent" spiritualists and their views. (again, i mean no offence, nor to make myself appear higher than anyone else here, but i want to avoid the twaddle that usually follows such discussion.)

But thats another point of prison. Punishment.I know it may be a bad experience but that just makes you not want to do it all over again. And thats the point.

I do agree completely, (the drinking example was a fairly poor one, i give you that ) However i cannot live by only putting my faith in "the light" which is a term i will use to describe magick for good causes. Back to my computer security analogy, as a programmer i cannot possibly defend my creations without first knowing how to attack them. An example is SQL injection. The long and short of it is that by entering a username as: ' OR 1=1; (or something very similar) i can effectively bypass any unsecured system. It simply tells the database that if the number 1, is the same as the number 1 (which of course it is) then i should be logged in, or it will cause an error and show me a password or two. My early codes were not protected against this, but as soon as i learned how to exploit this i also learned to "escape" the input to prevent it. Sure, someone could have taught me to always use a certain line of code or all hell breaks loose but that doesnt further my education. For example, let's hypothetically say that some magickal attack consisted of shaping an amount of energy into a sharp point and sending it at the target. Now, i could be told to defend myself simply via a shield that is reflective and flat, but if the energy was strong enough it would pierce it like paper, so instead if i were to learn how the spear of energy is made, and how it penetrates perhaps i could put up a layered shield much like layered body armour and stop the attack. Of course this is merely hypothetical and i have no doubt it is also wrong, but the principal i believe is correct. To defend an attack you must first know how that attack is formed and how it comes at you. I did some martial arts (karate) before leaving due to irritation from my stepbrother who has ADHD and is just plain stupid... Anyway... i was there for a brief sneeze of time and learned very very little of the art, however the first thing taught is to avoid conflict. Just because you *could* defend against an intruder doesnt mean you leave your doors unlocked. So i understand your point about "cloaking" for want of a better word, in a magickal sense but as im sure you understand if you and i were in martial combat and i were to attack you with, lets say, a flail, it would be somewhat difficult to defend against with delicate body parts, if however you had wielded a flail, or even watched it being wielded and used and learned of exactly how one attacks with a flail then you could accurately gauge that as i swing the flail from left to right i am likely to strike on the return stroke from right to left and so you could aim a fist to my opened body as i changed stance for an attack and effectively get a free hit before moving out of the way of the now erratic flail attack. If however you had never seen a flail in action your chances would be limited. The analogy is not perfect however i think it works. One must have an understanding of magickal attack before magickal defence can be 99% effective. However, that does not mean you need to or should research attack before defence. In a magickal world you will need the defence to safely learn of the attack as you eluded to. There are the basic defences of shields, invocations, and general positive energy, but that wont stop someone determined. My understanding is still limited in the magickal world, and my experience even smaller. I have no intentions of learning any dark arts however i cannot rule it out as being needed to achieve my ultimate goals of strong protection.

Perhaps the prison system is not ideal, however it serves to keep a dangerous animal locked away. I do not say that with hate but simply as a way of equating it. If there was a wild lion killing people it would be much better to take it far away from humans than to put it to death. i agree that there are severe flaws in the system but i cant agree with culling innocent people while the true culprit walks on. You will also see that countries with the death penalty are no more secure than those without. The number of murders are higher, per 1000 population in the US, higher than in the UK and many other countries with the death penalty is in force actually have higher crime rates than those who dont. So it does not act as a deterrent to crime. It does of course stop repeat murder etc.. where it is imposed but i still cannot agree with it. The same applies to amputation and physical punishment. Personally if i were convicted and given lashings i would immediately hate the government and this would in turn spur me on to more crime almost as a way of saying "you cant stop me". Not that i intend on committing such crimes of course.

Interesting.... I stand corrected on the second statement. However i will have to disagree with the second statement. Some circles or covens or even individuals will indeed agree with you, however i think the majority (or atleast a very significant percentage if not the majority) would disgree. I was taught by websites, books and forums that a witch is one who practices the craft of witchcraft generally to "good" ends, regardless of gender. A warlock is one who also practices the craft but is untrustworthy, someone who would willingly delve into darker magick, and not always for "good" but instead to cause trouble. They arent necessarily "evil" however as a practitioner of the light you would avoid associating yourself with a warlock. This is similar to male nurses showing the difference between a doctor, which is traditional more male dominated, and a nurse which was, until recently, a title used for essentially female doctors as well as those who aid the doctors and surgeons etc... The term Wizard can be used but that brings up connotations of fairytales which is a bad image to use. Personally i dont yet classify myself as a witch, simply as a pagan. My magickal experience is far too low for me to classify myself as a witch in respect of those who have devoted their life and energy to almost earn the title of being a witch. What do i seek to gain from this thread? Interesting... mainly just to discuss my views and opinions with those who are equally minded and intelligent people. To try to wade through the fog and murk of miss-information and talk rationally about things we cant explain. To seek rational, almost scientific advice from which we can strengthen ourselves and generally see what others think from a scientific-religious point of view. Theories for how and why magick works, who if anyone is out there in the form of powerful entities of gods/goddesses etc.... I agree with you here but for slightly different reasons. I use the term "pagan" to refer to any person who believes in supernatural entities such as ghosts, gods, goddesses, spirits etc... and magickal energy, either through ritual, spells, talismans etc... technically this would involve those who use animal or human sacrifice but i extend its definition to exclude those types of religions and extend it to those religions and individuals who are nature based, druidic, celtic, aboriginal etc... Under that banner i class myself as pagan. However i do not believe in gods and goddesses as sentient beings in the "organized religion" sense (meaning Christianity, Judaism, Islam and to an extent Bhudism.) instead i perceive them as embodiments of the universe's energy. They may or may not appear this way when travelling in the astral planes. For example if i attuned myself to the higher vibrations after death i do not know if i could be able to see (for lack of a better word) the god and goddess which to me represent the duality of the universe and the male/female nature of everything as well as the elegance and power of everything combines) or if i would simply perceive a vast, powerful energy of greatness with the perception of duality. So based on that i feel i differ from the majority of pagan religions and traditions. Having said that i will still thank the god and goddess for a beautiful sunset even though i am simply talking to the universe. I would also use their names and other representations during rituals, purely to invoke the power of the universe in its dual nature. I do not believe that any sentient god like being would join me in that space but it would allow me to tap into the vast energies in the universe and relate to them as beings, rather than things i cannot possibly comprehend. so would i, however life has taught me that simply seeking to see only love and happiness does not mean hate and despair arent there. And anything that exists must be dealt with on some level. I would strive to drive off dark influences around myself and others, but i cannot pledge to you now that i will never seek to control darker energies. The overall goal of doing so would be for the "good" if such a thing exists, i would not curse or bind simply for pleasure but would only do so as a last resort of protection, like cutting the arms from a perpetual attacker, removing his weapons.

I strongly disagree.Imagine the situation. In a court room you are played a video of a man in a hood with hands in his pockets walking down a street at night in a known trouble spot. He looks shifty, nervous, checking over his shoulders, looking around etc... he walks out of shot. Minutes later the same camera picks up the same man identified by clothing etc... carrying a large knife or gun or other weapon running back, in the opposite direction.It turns out that later on a man was found with injuries consistent with a fist fight and claims to be the victim of a mugging.The accused stands in the doc waiting for your verdict. Is he guilty or not? If he is guilty what should his punishment be? After all, he confronted a man with a weapon and demanded money or belongings and then savagely beat him up. Lashings? Amputation? Well, this man is innocent. HE is the victim. He looked shifty and nervous because he was scared of being alone at night. The man who was beaten was in fact the criminal who had the weapon and tried to mug our shifty man. It went wrong and our shifty man beat him into submission, stole the weapon and promptly sought out the police. Before he could find the police the true criminal invented the crime and called the emergency number. You would have condemned an innocent man to a life of misery and lt the true offender walk free. There is no way to re-attach a finger, or hand in this situation, however you CAN pardon him from jail.Recently in the UK a man was cleared of the murder of Jill Dando, under your plan that man is dead. Cold and dead. His children grew up not knowing a loving home, their mother turned to drugs, prostitution and suffered from extreme depression and guilt. These children face a life of misery, poverty illness and likely crime. Because of *you*. However, as has happened this man was released from jail. I do not know if he has a family, if he does atleast they can try to make up for those lost years and his children can hug him and tell him how much he means to them. Under your plans this man is in a box, in the ground. Who is the real criminal here?Just a thought....

thanks for the support I am always wary of blowing my own trumpet by suggesting i know more than some other people, it may be true but alas they arent so keen to agree... Not that im a genius of course, i simply absorb what i read and i cant stand not understanding something which is why i work with computers, the thought of not knowing how these characters get from keyboard to screen would drive me mad until i eventually research it. I agree with what you say about neo-paganism being full of rubbish, WIcca to me is a prime example of this. I apologise to any Wiccans reading this, i once consider myself a near Wiccan, without an initiation rite i would not call myself Wiccan. But the Wiccan rede and tradition teaches never to cause harm in any manner. "An it harm none, do as ye will" This is a perfect ideology. if i want to have weird sexual orgies or indulge in a little drunkenness or even paint my house pink black and green then its fine, so long as i harm none. And i support this idea which is in fact very closely related to some of the ideas in Satanism (Not devil worship. Satanists do not believe in any form of devil or god.) However, consider this. You stand in battle against 10 men, all equally armed as yourself, all armoured, the only difference being instead of a sword you have 2 immensely strong shields. How long would you expect to last? Sure, your shields will defend you, but can you really outlast the 10 soldiers trying desperately to sever you limb from limb? Of course not. They will tire but there are 10 of them and one of you. You're dead! The only option is to take up a sword, block their attacks and strike back with your own, aiming for their arms and legs, preventing their attacks and advance. But according to Wicca your only option is to stand and die. This is where i disagree vastly with the Wiccan teachings. As you touched upon Wicca is a new age religion. It is indeed based upon those ideas of older traditions and as such it seems to have a lot of credibility but it also lacks the wisdom. Like a young priest embarking into the world believing hi and his god can convert the world and make everyone happy he is yet to learn that shadow and light need to bent together to achieve success in anything. You cannot have defence without offence, you cannot cleans without eradication and you cannot work with the light without understating its equal. This is not to say you must work with dark energies but you cannot discount them, particularly in defensive situations. I would equate this to computer security... How can i stop a hacker if i dont know how to hack? I cant. To defend you need to know how to attack so you can anticipate the actions. This is where i draw my solace from. I know in my mind that what i am doing is not mystical, or special even. It is something that many do not understand or know of but it isnt true magick, it is merely the application of my mind and body as a technology, a tool, to influence the universe. I do think that in time we will develop machines that can amplify this, perhaps telepathic devices that do not use radio waves but instead follow more closely the telepathy often regarded as magick and told in stories, we will develop devices to control the energies of the universe, lets not forget that something like 80-90% of the universe simply isnt there... we cant find it, see it, detect it. We only know it is there because of its effects on the universe. What if this energy that we cant find is in fact the magickal energy that we talk of? With regards to all men being equal i am unsure... There are the obvious examples of this not being true with mutations, IQ differences and the visual differences that everyone has. However does that mean our souls or spirits are not equal? I dont know... In my theory i do not know where spirits come from, nor exactly where they go. However re-incarnation is not something i subscribe to, it may be possible i dont know. So that means that souls must be made of something. Everything is made of something, so does that mean there is a limited number of souls that can be made? Or are we recycled in some way? Perhaps the universal energy is as infinite as the universe itself, in which case i would argue that all spirits are created equal perhaps by a natural process whereby the body needs a commander in the form of its soul or spirit which uses the body's eyes, ears etc... to help it survive (let's not forget that your body is not really one organism but rather made up of millions of cells, each one desperate to survive regardless of your survival, so it stands to reason that by banding together they can ensure that the heart cells will send the muscle cells the oxygen they need and in return the stomach cells will provide both with the food they need while the muscles and skin cells shield the stomach cells from attack... IN this theory the soul is simply created to make decisions) Another long post... but i am passionate about this and i plan of going to stonehenge in the southwest of england for the winter solstice. I would like to create a staff for use in magickal workings too, however obtaining wood is a problem... This is a really interesting post though and i would love to hear other "rational" explanations of the supernatural.

Relax folks! It's not *that* bad... I had braces for 2yrs, now that hurts! Basically i had too many teeth in my mouth and there would be no room for my wisdoms to come through, so instead of taking them out before they had formed i instead had the teeth directly infront of them removed which would make space for the wisdoms.The procedure took, at least in my eyes about 5 minutes, in reality is more like 20-30 but i was doped up it was almost as if i was high so i didnt know what was going on at all! They will ask you to open wide and stuff because you will automatically relax and you just do it, you dont need to think about it, in fact, without the thoughts in your head and the various staff and equipment the drugs themselves are fairly entertaining (and no, i dont take recreational drugs) The funniest part was when the nurse tried to help me to the recovery room, because i was conscious, and just "high" i was walked, with help, to the bed to recover. The only problem is i am over 6ft tall and about 20st, the nurse helping me was a guy who was about 5ft tall and wabout 8st XD it was hilarious!It is unpleasant, for sure. The recovery is the worst bit, i decided to have rice from the chinese takeaway that night with curry and sweet and sour sauces (i love food... i had 4 baby teeth removed then got chips on the way home from the dentist XD) which was a brilliant idea because i didnt have to chew... however... it did mean that i got grains of rice stuck in the holes where my teeth were... jeez... that was a bad idea... the pain was quite exceptional and i thought the white bits were bone or teeth, i eventually realized they were rice and fished them out with a sort of toothpick with a soft end, the pain went from 100% to about 20% straight away as soon as i removed it. So the moral of the story is this...dont eat rice...Make sure you keep the holes clean and the pain shouldnt be *too* bad, keep up with painkillers and remember that you should be able to take both paracetamol and either aspirin or, even better, ibuprofen. Just check with your doc if you unusure. Some asthma sufferers cant take ibuprofen.

This could prove an interesting discussion actually upon the importance of magick in everyday life. Just to clear up the "k" in magick is used by some pagans/witches to show they mean witchcraft rather than card tricks. I use it out of habit now for the same reason... This is almost exactly what i believe. Lets take harry potter as an example (stay with me here...) we are shown in the films and told in the story of moving pictures. Taken using a magical camera and then printed onto paper with some magical device the static pictures can wave, smile, talk and even interact in some instances with the observer. Fastforward to lets say, 2100 and i can almost assure you that this will become reality. A video camera would be needed to record a small clip and then implanted using bio-electrical circuits and displays into a paper like display. My point here is that magick is simply science we do not yet understand. Interestingly i was thinking the other day thanks to inspiration from a website about crystals. We know the science behind a crystal. It is a lattice of atoms arranged in smooth, flat sheets atop each other making a smooth crystal structure. Now, the basis for most magcik is vibration, the theory that everything vibrates, for example as a living person i vibrate slowly, i am not attuned to the universe and as living entity i am on the lowest plane of existence (in my belief there are 7, the 7th is the living world here and at the bottom, the 1st is where a "god" would reside, many religions call the 1st heaven as it is a place of infinite energy, bright, almost sacred if you will) Now, back to my point... Everything vibrates, the ancients knew this long before science discovered in sometimes in the 18-1900's i think... Now, the ancients and most modern witches appreciate the power of a crystal to channel energy, direct it, form it etc.... Science also recently discovered this ability, early radios were based on crystals (and still may be). These crystals (i think) of quartz are used (i think) as timing devices and possibly even as a sending device to project the information out in the form of a radio wave. Your watch would not work without these crystals. How is it that the ancients knew of their power before us? The ancients also propose the idea of multiple universes along the lines of the various planes of existence. They recognised that we do not go to another place when we die, like another world or planet or location but instead we are in the same place but on a difference plane, or in a different, parallel universe. Science is now trying to find these planes. If science is able to find these planes of existence does it mean they are no longer magickal? Yes, by definition it does because magick is essentially a reaction caused by a trigger who's method of operation we do not understand. As technology explains these things scientifically they simply change names to scientific. I have witnessed some otherworldly things, as a young child i described an imaginary friend perfectly. Turned out i had described a "dead" relative who died as an infant. My mum would attend a psychic circle where they would communicate with spirits, often she would see these spirits out our home (before i was aware of my own existence, either i was too young to remember or i was not born) my dad was a skeptic, and still is, however one night she saw a shadow walk through the room and she didnt mention it, he then turned to her and said something to the effect of "is that one of yours?" casually. He too had seen the shadow and there was no physical explanation. There is too much evidence for these things and yet i find myself torn between three states... One is the cold hearted cynic. Love is nothing buy a biological process designed to make me have intercourse which in itself is designed to make me have kids and further my species. Love acts as a binding to ensure i look after my partner and young to give the child the best start in life and ensure its survival. The feeling i get from seeing the sunrise is nothing but a reaction of my body to the coming sunlight which will enable my skin to create Vitamin E from it's light. The joy i get from seeing wild animals is nothing but my brain being happy at the fact there is food should i need it. then there is the Scientist within me. The one that tells me some things may be real however it is not all romance and fairytails. This part tells me that death is an impossibility due to the quantum mechanics of not being able to observe death of myself hence it cannot happen. Instead the universe splits and i live on, despite being dead in all other universes. This part tells me there is no soul, magick is mainly an illusion but can be effective through positive thinking. IE if i try to move a car for fun i wont be able to, however if i psyche myself up and there is an old lady under its tyres slowly dying i would find the strength and probably be able to move the car. This isnt magick as such but it would work. (EG if i want a job and dont believe in myself then i may cast a spell to help me, i would then believe in myself and go in feeling positive, enhancing the chance of me getting the job, is that magick? *shrugs* Then there is the pagan within me. A spirit waiting to grasp the power of the universe and channel its floes into immense defences and powerful healing. To ward off the dark and strike at its heart should it attempt to attack me. The witch within. Reading articles written by people who cant understand the science behind the sun for example and truly believe it is a god simply pushes me to the cynic. Telling me that these people are deluded, and yet i feel the tug from the universe, the forest and my inner self. I seek to talk with those who understand that the sun gods are simply a personification of a force which we have no control other. Much in the same way a scientist may call nature "mother earth" he does not believe nature is a goddess or a mother, but merely gives it a personality. Like i said, i do believe in vast energies in the universe, some of which we call gods and goddess, IMHO all are the same. The universal energy is neutral, it has no personality, nor conscious, but we can still form it with thought, will and our own energy... I can create out of it a ball of immense energy, pure light beaming from my being and commune with it, though it cannot reply for it has no mind or brain however it can react... I realize this post is long, but i wish to show my yearning for the arts and my enthusiasm and yet my doubts in the classical explanations which have no place in a modern world. Tell me how you feel about witchcraft, magick and its existence, what do you think it is capable of? And if you think the craft is evil then please, stay out of this discussion. This is not a place for narrow-mindedness, in fact if you feel this way i would urge you to create a new topic about your feelings so we may discuss it further.

This is a weird one. I consider myself "intelligent" and somewhat scientific. I dont mean to make myself seem better than anyone but the scope of this is important.I consider myself a pagan, and i am interesting in learning more of witchcraft or magick. (K is intentional) I have worked with energy before and meditation, i fell out of practice after i once followed Wicca and learned more about it, life changed and i fell out of practice. Ive since turned away from Wicca, it seems far too "love is everything" for me. I also cannot explain the existence of of a god and goddess which are sentient. I can however comprehend the existene of vast reserves or energy due to the fact that according to quantum mechanics such things could in theory exist. Anyway.... The point is this... Are there any intellectuals out there who also believe the existence of witchcraft and magick. Like i said, i dont want to insult anyone here but i read some sites and resources and there are so many spelling and grammar errors, so many silly little problems that suggest the writer has less than average IQ, which concerns me. How can i believe anything they say on such a matter when they seem under-intelligent? What really angers me is things where people claim that things like the Flu, are caused by the god and goddess (of Wiccan and some pagan traditions) when we know it isnt. It is merely genetic code that simply lives in humans and has the adverse effects. This is just foolish drivvle.Anyone?

Avast is damn good, i read somewhere that it is the most popular free AV and also one of the best in tests (wikipedia i think....) I Expect some of the data is outdated but personally i dont trust paid software one bit!

Here in the uk we are very fortunate, i can buy a pack of ready boiled noodles, a pack of stir fry vegetables and a stir fry sauce and have a lovely chinese stir fry. Basically you would prepare the noodles as you said, boiling them and what not. Then heat up the oil and if desired add some meat such as pork or chicken and while that is cooking mix up a sauce of honey and soy sauce, you could also add some chopped chilli to this or other herbs to taste. Mustard can work well too. You only need a little of the sauce and taste it as you go along to get it just right. Per person you would probably need about one egg cup (or about 3-4 tablespoons (15ml = 1 tablespoon))Now the meat is cooked (if not using meat skip the meat part but still make the sauce) so add in some onion, chilli to taste, garlic and fry off to make the garlic less strong and sweeter. If preferred you can use whole cloves of garlic and then remove them prior to the next step. They will still add a mild garlic flavour. Otherwise finely chop or crush the garlic. Now add chopped cabbage, beansrpouts (if you can get them) bell peppers (IE the non-spicy peppers) raw sweetcorn (preferably fresh, you can also use chopped baby sweetcorn for a nice crunch) and any other crunchy vegetables you like (you could try some carrot if desired but it would need to be sweet carrot, perhaps baby carrots) give a quick toss and then add the noddles, stir and shake it and cook for a few minutes to cook the noodles and veg, then add the sauce in and cook for a further few minutes before serving.You could add pineapple if you like it or any sweet or mild tasting veg. You dont want to overdo it. The sauce is more of a "to taste" thing, just keep adding stuff until it tastes nice! Like i said, usually we buy packets of ingredients and simply cook the chicken, add the veg and noddles and sauce and then serve. Its a very nice meal and providing you use only a little oil and take the fat from the meat you use (if any) it can be very very healthy! Plenty of veg, little fat and a nice amount of calories. Perfect! Except i like it so much i often have more than one plateful XD noodles also make a great change to ric to have with a curry, or even in addition to rice. If you have a lot of sauce in a stirfry you can even add some cooked rice to soak up the flavours. On a related note you can also make some lovely fried rice very easily...boil some plain rice. cook chicken or other meat (or eggs) in a little oil and once cooked add in some peas, beans, a little onion, some garlic and plenty of salt and pepper. and then add the rice and add a few more tablespoons of oil and keep stiring and moving the rice until it takes on a slightly darker colour from the oil. Keep tasting it and adding garlic or onion, soy sauce etc... until the taste is just right and serve. I quite like this but my brother isnt so keen. you can serve it with a sweet curry if you wish (i say sweet due to the rice being fairly salty and garlic tasting) a Thai green curry would probably be quite nice or a sweet chinese curry or any sweet chilli style curry would be idea. It would probably also go with many indian type curries, especially a korma (which in the UK is based on coconut milk and i think almonds, sultanas and possibly honey. It is very sweet and creamy and not spicy at all) or even a nice tangy tikka (again in the uk this is a sort of tangy curry which is very mild, red in colour and i think contains tomatoes, lemon juice, onion and plenty of indian herbs)

Well like i said Comodo is 100% free for the personal edition. The test results may be slightly outdated, but personally i wouldnt take my chances

Heres a deal, assuming i remember i will come to this forum every day from 21st-25th december 2012 and post an annoying message along the lines of "*Begin body check...... 10%......72%......COMPLETE Status: Alive."The mayans did NOT predict the end of the world *sigh* read the truth.The mayans had a calendar, it was based on the winter solstice which usually occurs on 21st-22nd of december. The mayans were also not fools. But they also didnt have enough paper or tablets to write out an infinite calendar. It had to end somewhere. They simply chose 2012 and stopped their calendar. Does that mean the world will end? No.Every calendar has to end somewhere... Even ours isnt planned for inifinity, perhaps computers can calculate the days and dates of an infinite calendar but that does not mean we have the infinite calendar documented and written down or saved on a disc somewhere. Does that mean the earth will end when our calendar does? No. It means that someone, in many many centuries time will simply extend the calendar. I am not a cold hearted scientific person, though i am somewhat "grounded" i do believe in powers beyond what we can understand however, that does not mean i think the earth will spontaneously combust, or a might hand will descend from the skies and proceed to flick me off into outer space. No. I do however know it is possible for a cataclysmic event to end the earth. From giant collisions, the sun swelling up (which will NOT happen in 2012...) cosmic death rays produced by quasars, black holes etc... A supervolcanic explosion like that from yellowstone would not end the world. IT would end most of america, but not the world. It would make the world less pleasant, but we would still be here hundreds of years later, as would the world. The only way the sun could destroy all life on earth is through a spectacularly large coronal mass ejection (CME) in which the sun literally "sneezes" off part of its outer shell. If that were to hit the earth it would be an unpleasant mix of radiation that would cripple all technology as we know it and perhaps kill almost all life on earth via radiation poisoning. However, some bacteria would survive, as would some insects and many deep see creatures. The earth would continue to live, and if humanity has any sense in hiding then so will humans. Remember, there are bacteria that live on the rods inside nuclear reactors, they are quite capable of surviving a CME.

I came across http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ just now and thought it would interest many of you. I use Comodo which came joint first and is of course free And yes, the other first place went to another free bit of software Interesting when you break it down... The test sample wasnt ideal in terms of free vs paid but that wasnt the intention of the tests. Nonetheless there are 8 free products and 37 paid for. 4 out of the 8 free ones came in the "excellent" group, with a rating of 90%+ the other 4 were paid software. This means that 50% of the free software was rated excellent where less than 10% of paid software reached this rating. It gets better (or worse, if youre one of the people who think you need to pay people lots of money to stay safe) AVG, Norton, Trend Micro and Zone alarm all scored less than 70% (the exception being Zone alarm which scored 72%) AVG scored just 2%.... Nice... Real smooth. Windows One Care scored an amazing 4% Way to go microsoft, still, they did better than i wouldve thought. This means that even simple attacks involving killing the antivirus processes or modifying them in memory defeated the software and rendered it useless. Bad times.... The lesson? Trust free software. Comodo scored 100% and IMHO is the best software out there, it also has combined antivirus. I dont know the date of the tests but all were tested on WinXP SP3. The AVG and Norton results are accurate to 29th September 2009 so fairly recent and very sad. If you are at all worried about your level of security download either Comodo or PC Tools Firewall Plus. Both of these scored 100% and i can vouch for the rating of Comodo. Interesting.

Does there need to be a reason for life? Does there need to be a starting point? Or are these just limitations of the human mind, that we cannot imagine not having a purpose, or we cannot comprehend something without a beginning. Perhaps these things happen, but we simply cannot understand them.

The simplest option is simply to get Ubuntu on a disc, boot into the live version of the operating system and you will avoid all passwords set by windows.Google "ubuntu live disc tutorial". Once you are in the Ubuntu OS just go to "places" at the top and then to your hard drive which will be something like "80gb media" depending on your drive size and that should then be your "C" drive. In your case with the two partitions you will need to look at which media drive in ubuntu is the correct partition which you can easily tell from the size. Then its simple, just go into Docs and settings, then into Admin and then My Docs and you are sorted

With my beleifs in open computing and my work place being the IT office in a school im torn here... A few years ago at school and college i used to try to bypass security a lot, proxies, using firefox, even making a visual basic browser so i could hide it with a click of a button. So i agree in principal with this info being out there. However, consider *why* there are blocks here... Here at work we obviously have filters in place and that's because otherwise the kids just play games and go on facebook all the time and as a place of education these kids need to be taught. It's all well and good being on facebook during ICT lessons but what happens when you are at work in an office and someone asks you how to do something in MS Office? Or when you are home alone and need to print something urgently and yet you can work out how to open the document? These things are taught at school and without learning them you will fail at life. Also i highly doubt this would be effective against most filters. The best methods are... Well to remove or avoid the filters altogether. I wont tell you how, instead let it be a lesson about lessons. Using a HTTPS connection instead of a HTTP one is generally blocked because the filters look at the domain rather than the URL so http://forums.xisto.com/ is simply http://forums.xisto.com/ as is http://forums.xisto.com/ Xisto.com and http://forums.xisto.com/ and even HTTP encoded URLs have the same domain which is shown in the HTTP headers returned by the server. You cant avoid that... You can change the ones you send out but not what you receive. The only way to avoid that is to bypass the filters completely. Do that here and you get a 6 week internet ban... (anyway, with a 9am-3pm day if you feel the need to be on facebook and cant wait a few hours to get home frankly you need medical help, not internet access....)