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As some of you have been reading our blog for the past few months, we thought you may like to know a little more about us and the way in which we work.

We are Holland & Flannery, we have both been working magick since childhood & formally for the past 30+ years. Working magickal partners for more than 20 years, initially our work together focussed on ritual magick, seasonal celebrations and working with the ‘Green Circle’. 13 years ago we started to work with ‘Celtic Rituals’ by Alexei Kondratiev, this greatly inspired us to step somewhat outside of our comfort zone, having previously worked with Qabala and the western mystery tradition. We realised we had allowed our creativity to become stifled, whilst our former work had given us an excellent magickal grounding, this new work gave us confidence and revolutionised our approach to the mysteries.
Our philosophical approach became more archetypal and we began to see the intricate & relational layers comprising multiversal manifestation. Our focus became the underlying metaphysical principles that are found in myths & legends the world over, which find diverse expression in cultures, faiths and esoteric traditions.
This led to us forming our own theories and magickal practices. Using the previous years work as a template we found our own path, devising ritual upon the basis of ‘what does this mean for us?’. However after two years we were living over 300 miles apart, (this is the UK!) but continued our work on the Astral and through cyber-space. A major breakthrough occurred during Angelic work, when at one point we both independently experienced the thought “that didn’t work”, but on speaking together we realised it had indeed succeeded, not in the way we had envisaged but as a shared astral experience at distance.
During this period our work focussed upon Angelic energies, the true nature of Pilgrimage, Celtic monasticism (‘A Pilgrim Way’ Ray Simpson) and ‘The ‘Glastonbury Tarot’. This initial distance work was followed by us working with our native myths and land, which we came to term ‘This Holy Earthe’. In addition we began working with Reiki and integrating our priesthood into all levels of our lives. Not all of our work is done over distance, we get together physically and work ritual on numerous occasions every year. 

Symbols and themes that revealed themselves in that early work, which hold great personal significance and with which we continue to work are: The Twin Streams, these are the pillars we walk between, as illustrated by John the Baptist & John the Evangelist (ourselves as the middle pillar), the Lemniscape, the colours Red & White, in the form of Dragons, Springs and the Rose & Lilly.
The vesica pisces, tree of life, wheel of the year & tetractys are employed as road maps for our work, not as absolute truths, but as useful & meaningful working models. The vesica pisces lies somewhere between model and personal symbol.

We are monotheists, polytheists, pantheists, panentheists, materialists, all at once or separately.

With regard to concepts of the divine most people will relate to it in one of three basic ways, as defined by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, (CAW).

1 The Gods as manifestations/personifications of the one, be it he, she, it, them.

2 The Gods as psychological or mythic archetypes.
a) those who perceive them solely as psychological archetypes, having no objective existence of their own.
b) those who perceive them as manifestations of the psyche, possessing transcendent existence in our collective consciousness.

3 The gods as individual personalities/entities.

Our own experiences have led us to neither subscribing or relating exclusively to any of the above concepts. Rather we see them as different lenses through which we may perceive the nature of the divine, seeing truth in each and all.

In terms of magickal systems we appreciate/acknowledge the value of the spirit, energy, psychological and information models as outlined by Frater U.’.D.’. We may choose one over the other dependent on the work at hand. We are willing to explore/apply new ideas and approaches as they arise, even if they challenge our current perceptions. The writers of the past, Butler, Fortune et al, held a broader view of the ‘machinery of the universe’, today there appears to be a narrowing and specialising. We avoid the tramline approach so as not to be constrained within a particular model. We are inclusive but never vague, neither dogmatist or butterfly, shifting paradigms as and when is relevant. Often the way in which to work is revealed to us organically.

We acknowledge the five classical magickal acts, (evocation, invocation, enchantment, divination and illumination), the five levels of magickal activity (sorcery, shamanic, ritual, astral and high) and the eight colours/spheres of magickal practice as identified by chaos magician Pete Carroll.
We also acknowledge Isaac Bonewits’ ‘Laws of Magic’ or as we and others prefer to view them, ‘useful beliefs’. 

What we are not:
Wiccan, Christian, Christo-Wiccan/Pagan. Neither eclectic nor reconstuctionist or exclusively Qabalistic or Hermetic.
We do not subscribe to a simplistic view of the laws of attraction as found in publications such as ‘The Secret’. We do not hold with the idea of ‘No effort magic’.

Current influences and areas of interest to us are:
‘EHE’ (exceptional human experience), block time, multi-dimensionality, ‘Flatlands’ (Rev Edwin Abbott Abbott), the meaning of pilgrimage, the nature of healing, noetic science, transpersonal & humanistic psychologies, parapsychology, application of priesthood (pastoral, magickal, ecclesiastical), freemasonry, alchemy, geomancy/sacred geometry, sacred space, voudon, and folklore.

Background info Holland: Rosicrucian (AMORC), Martinist, Servants of the Light, Priest of Melchizedek, Psychology (BA Hons), Reiki 2nd Degree, Co-Director Sang Rouge Terre Blanc.

Background info Flannery: Marian Green ‘Magic for the Aquarian Age’, Servants of the Light, Priestess of Melchizedek, Colour Therapist, Intuitive Counselling, PC Art Therapy, Reiki Master, Reclaiming, Co-Director Sang Rouge Terre Blanc.

We at SRTB hope you have found this informative and feel you now know us a little better.

Spring Blessings to all our readers.