Wed. June 10, 1998 Mead Moon the fifth seance<BR>
After the horrifying last seance, I decided to follow the steps of a wicca sabbat and include the seance within a more powerful ritual. My goals were to continue Isabelle's healing, start a banishment, and petition Hecate for guidence. <BR>
In the "basement" beheath my room, I put out my Persian bedspread. On it a heavy box covered with a black sheet. On the wall the Tantric symbol Camille gave me. Behind me the potted plants from my terrace garden: St. John's Wort, rosemary, thyme, & wormwood. Red candle in black candelabra, black water dish/candle set up (what are these called?), dry rose petals, my powerful atheme, mirror, magnifying glass, incense dishes, oils (benzoin, eucalyptal, & peppermint), insense (frankinsense & sandelwood), sage branches, mugwort, the ingredients for my exorcism insense, and on the mirror my stones (lapis, snowflake obsidian, labradorite, rutilated quartz, jade, hematite, amethyst, tiger's eye, flourite, tourquise--set up to magnify the healing power of the lapis). Outside the mirror, more stones: azurite, the big Apache tear obsidian, and at the apex of the mirror my smokey quartz.<BR>
Within easy reach are a bouquet of white roses, a box of kosher salt, matches, extra candles, bottled water, paper and pencil.<BR>
The day before I had made a tea of hyssop and poured it all over me after I showered. I charged my stones in the moonlight. I put on my wearable jade, tourquoise, and tiger's eye before I went to bed. <BR>
In the afternoon of the seance evening, I drink yarrow tea.<BR>
I invite Cyndee and she says she'll bring a third.  She arrives late with two goth guys in tow. We go to the alter and get started. They sit down around the alter and I set about cleansing the ritual space with a burning branch of sage, working from the outside in. Then we get up and walk widdershins around the alter four times while I cast a salt circle. As we sit down I joke about feeling dizzy from walking in a circle. The others say they're a little dizzy, too. We joke that that's how people think they are seeing spirits: "Look at those tiny sparks!" "I see 'em, too. They're angels!" We laugh. I explain that we mean no disrespect, but are just going into the ritual with our sense of humor intact.I light the red candle and the water candle, putting in a few rose petals and a drop of eucalyptal. I invoke the elements and quarters. I put out ahes from the last seance in a bowl. I invite Hecate to guide my hands and voice. I state the purpose of the ritual and begin. (This is a "working" ritual. We are bringing things to a conclusion, starting a banishment, and petitioning Hecate for guidence.<BR>
The first thing I want to do is make the exorcism insence. I researched several diffent formulas and decided to make an original blend largely based on ingredients I grew in my own garden or had some background or faith in. First, St. John's Wort. I had some I had already harvested and dried. This I crumpled up into a dish. Then I grabbed the potted St. John's and trimmed off the dying old growth, asking permission and thanking the plant. I repeated the process with the wormwood, rosemary, and thyme. I crumbled up some horehound I had harvested from my garden and added it. I explain the significance of each to the observers. (Should I bring the horehound in, too? Couldn't hurt.) I add nettles and hyssop from my collection of medicinal herbs (I cured my allergies with nettles, hyssop goes in my absinthe.) In goes sandlewood and frankinsence. I drizzel it with benzoin and stir it up with my atheme. I put it aside within the salt circle. Later I add some local pine needles. <BR>
	 I am suddenly inspired to purify and adjust the healing stone circle and energy shield I have set up on the mirror. I rub some of the objects with mugwort and make a few key adjustments of the stones. Then I take up the dried rose petals.<BR>
	I burn three and summon Isabelle. She appears immediately. I start to cry. None of us see her but we feel an enormous presence hovering above the alter. The three of us males felt uncomfortably hot. Cyndee felt cold, and she was wearing a hot velvet dress.  I ask Isabelle if things were working out better for her (since I did the entrapment spell). The flame says yes. So, then we can get on with completing her passage out of this mortal coil, I prompt. No, the flame says. "You're dead," I say and the flame again denies it. We go back and forth about this. I try to position my argument. "We know alot more about death and dying now than people did in... when? 1934? I burn one petal. 1938? I burn another petal. Two yes's, but what were the questions? Listen to me, I say. You don't know what it is like, she says. "Yes, we do," I declare, "We know exactly what it is like and exactly what state you are in right now." I reach outside the circle and pull in my big guns: Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Raymond Moody, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I quickly read selected passages, each time challenging her to tell me it didn't happen that way. First I assert that immediately after her accident she was looking down at her body surrounded by her friends. Yes, the flame confirms. Then she felt moving through a tunnel. Yes, confirms the flame. Then she found herself in a grey room, not knowing if she was dead or not. Yes, spits the flame again. And there she was to meet a spirit guide, dead relative, or Jesus to be lead in the right direction. Yes, again. But it was there that she met Chester the imposter. Right, again. I stop for a moment, suddenly overwhelmed by the experience of talking to a ghost about dying. I start to hyperventilate and cry. I pull myself together and pass another petal through the flame,  and say "So, you agree that all those things happened?" "Yes," she says, "All that stuff may be, but that still doesn't mean I am dead." I almost laugh. Damn stubborn teenaged girl. I shake my head. I can't think of a single other thing to say. I thought I had it so wired. "Help her, Hecate, talk to her" I beg, and leave it at that.<BR>
	I move on to the third and final part of the ritual.  "We're almost done now," I tell my guests. (Who have been very good guests, I might add>)I take the billet from my pocket. Written in it is was my petition to Hecate. I hold my azurite in my left hand and burn the billet in the flame. I peer intently at the azurite. I bend closer, searching for the answer. The billet burns down. My guests are all bending closer, too, caught up in the intensity of it all. The billet burns out. I stare blankly at the rock. Nothing. I sit confused. This is too inconclusive. I pull out paper and pencil and write another question. This one burns quickly and I see the bright reflection in the azurite. A yes. Cyndee wants to know what I asked. I said the first question was whether or not I should proceed with the exorcism. The second question was whether the exorcism would remove Isabelle from the building (with "of course" being the answer.) So I guess it is up to me whether or not I do the exorcism. I'm still not sure that the exorcism will force her to move further along the passage, or just push her out of the building. 
	Finally, thank I the deity, giving her peppermint oil and benzoin in the water candle, and I take the bouquet of roses, removing one and giving it to Cyndee, and presenting Hecate with the rest. I repeat the traditional parting: "Go if you must, stay if you will. Hail and farewell. Blessed Be." And my guests repeat "Blessed be." (My friends are the coolest.) Then we undo the sacred space, repeating our previous steps in reverse order. Then we opened the circle. I said,"The circle is open, but unbroken. May the peace of the Goddess be ever in our hearts. Merry meet and merry part. And Merry Meet again!" Then we grounded by breathing three times.<BR>
	Afterward, we partied with my homemade absinthe.<BR>
Later on I decide that I had gotten a "no" the first skry.