Hands down, the most-used tool in my magical repertoire is something called the Inner Sanctuary. In a nutshell, your Inner Sanctuary is your home base on the astral, a place that you can visit in meditation and dreams.
Why go to your Sanctuary? Where do I even begin!
Here are just a few super awesome reasons to visit:
To commune with spirit guides, both old and new. I have a core group of guides I chat with every day, but when I have questions outside their wheelhouse, the Sanctuary is my launch pad for meeting up with specialized guides.
To store magical knowledge. Have you ever heard of a memory palace? Also known as method of loci, this technique goes all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome where it was used by rhetoricians to help them remember gobs of information. As a magical practitioner, you can use it to commit all sorts of cool stuff to memory, like tarot, astrology, Enochian, ceremonial magick rituals–the sky’s the limit!
To understand hidden causes and patterns. I have a special room in my Sanctuary where I can call up a hologram of any situation or dynamic, and with the help of my guides I explore chains of cause and effect, energy drains and sources, and other elements. If there’s something I don’t understand, I can ask my guides, “What does this piece mean?” or “How does this play out in my day-to-day life?”
For healing. I have a chamber in the heart of my Sanctuary with healing waters, the walls lined with sparkling crystals, the air infused with vitalizing energies. When I’ve had a taxing day, I can soak in my spiritual hot tub, clearing and harmonizing my body, mind, and soul.
I could keep going, but this gives you a taste of how incredibly useful the Inner Sanctuary is. Whatever you need, from your Sanctuary you can call up a guide or a room or a portal to another realm that will speak directly to that need.
I even have a Sanctuary devoted entirely to my business, a place where I can balance and explore its energies, ensuring that I’m creating books and courses and other content that are most aligned with the soul of my biz.
In my business Sanctuary, there’s this really cozy room with a crackling fireplace–Jung’s picture hangs above it–long communal tables with vases of wildflowers, shelves crammed with magical and Jungian books, and cushy window seats for curling up with a cup of tea. It’s one of my favorite places to hang out on the astral!
So, what do you want to use your Inner Sanctuary for?
To help you locate your Inner Sanctuary on the astral plane…
…I’ve created a guided meditation (aka an Archetypal Attunement in Real Magic School speak) to take you there.
I’ve also put together instructions for creating an Inner Sanctuary altar here on the physical plane. Using a magical ritual, you’ll consecrate the altar to establish an energetic connection between the altar and your astral Sanctuary. Why do this? Well, once the link is established, any work you do on your physical altar will be enhanced by the energies of your Inner Sanctuary.
When I say “enhanced” this means that the actions you take on the physical plane are being mirrored and boosted on the astral, and since the astral is the blueprint for all of physical existence, you’re essentially shifting things at their source.
To use an analogy, instead of trying to alter the flavor of a cake that’s already baked and sitting on your counter–scraping off the frosting and filling, somehow willing the cake to shift from vanilla to chocolate–you can just use a different recipe. (And time works differently on the astral, so this recipe-swapping is effective even if, here on the physical plane, the cake has already been baked.)
Now, if all this talk of spirit guides and astral blueprints has you feeling a little, “Yeah, but is this really real?”
I hear you! I’m what you might call an agnostic witch who enthusiastically interacts with things that may or may not exist.
Are my spirit guides entities outside of myself or are they parts of my psyche? Well, they definitely feel like entities that are not me (as opposed to when I work with my inner child parts who might feel “other” at first but then become very much a part of me as I get to know them).
But IMO, it doesn’t really matter if my guides are me or not-me. The point is that I can work with them to access knowledge that’s way harder for me to reach through my ego alone. If I’m tapping into parts of my unconscious–cool! If I’m communing with entities from another realm–cool! (And who says it can’t be both?)
Is the astral actually another plane of existence or a part of my psyche? Again, in my book the distinction seems sorta pointless to get hung up on. How could I ever know for sure, because I’ll always be trying to figure it out through the instrument of my psyche?
It’s like “knowing” the color red without using my eyes. Is what I’m seeing the true essence of red or is that just how I see it? I can’t ever know! But that doesn’t stop me from using the color red in my art or talking coherently with other people about redness (even though we might be seeing slightly different things with our not-quite-identical retinas).
In other words, if something works, it works.
If you’re getting useful information from your guides, then you’re getting useful information from your guides, whether or not they’re “out there” or “in here.” (And maybe the point is that those distinctions aren’t as distinct as we think.)
If making a link to the astral realm causes your spells to work better, then make the link–it works!
And with that, I’ll leave you to your astral travel. Download your complete guide, which includes your Archetypal Attunement (guided meditation), altar instructions, and the magic ritual. Bon voyage!
