The Psychic Guide
Part 2: G – L
The Psychic Guide was a popular and integral part of the Diary for many years. I’m not sure which year it first appeared – it ‘s in the 1994 Diary, the earliest that I have in my archives (f you have any of the earlier Elfin Diaries, I’d love to see them!) Originally subtitled “A Miscellany of Curious Information”, it was just that – items that Caroline thought were interesting and / or odd. It was edited, updated and added to every year; and I intend to likewise keep this web version regularly updated.
Gaia
Gaia/Gaea was the earth goddess in Greek mythology, mother of many of the other gods and godesses. It was her name that was invoked when the Greeks swore an oath, she appears in many ancient Greek poems and plays, and a mystery-cult was devoted to her.
Gaia Hypothesis, The
The Gaia Hypothosis was proposed by James Lovelock in 1970. It holds that all organisms on a life-giving planet regulate the biosphere in such a way as to promote its habitability, by the use of biological homeostasis . In plain language, the resident life forms of a host planet, coupled with their environment (soil, rocks, the atmosphere) form a single, self-regulating system by that keeps lesser systems in balance. The name ‘Gaia’ was suggested to Lovelock by the novelist William Golding.
Galactic Centre, The
Located in the Sagittarius constellation, approximately 8 kiloparsecs (26,000 light years) away from us, this is the Milky Way’s gravitational centre. A supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A* lies at the centre, surrounded by thousands of much smaller black holes. Away from the black holes, there is a high concentration of red giants that are older than our Sun and which may have developed fron Sun-like yellow stars. So it seems entirely possible that life would have developed on planets orbiting some of these stars billions of years before it developed on our own planet – imagine what the inhabitants of such planets would have seen in their night skies!
Galactic Year
A galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the time required for the Sun to orbit once around the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy. One GY (Galactic Year) is approximately 225 million Earth years.
God Particle, The
This is the popular name given to the Higgs boson, an elementary sub-atomic particle discovered in 2012. The particle has nothing to do with any god; the name comes from the title of a sensationalist book on the subject and physicists themselves never use it.( See also the Oh My God! Particle).
Gods & Goddesses
Gods and Goddesses are said to be supreme beings that have power over nature and human fortunes. In all religions, God is seen to be the supreme being and creator of the universe. Therefore the idea that a supreme power of god is the way that man, who represents the microcosm, can relate to the higher power in the macrocosm. Man needs this intermediary stage to be at one with the universe and various religions acknowledges many different gods and goddesses (the Trinity for Christians, Krishna and Jambavati for Hindus, Zeus and the Oplympians for the ancient Greeks, the Horned God and White Lady for the Wiccans, Isis and Osiris for the ancient Egyptians). All gods have one thing in common – they are considered to be the masters of the universe and human destiny, and there are lesser gods who are supposed to make it possible to approach ‘God’ with personal requests. This does not just occur in Paganism – Christians approach their god through saints, apostles and martyrs.
Hades
Hades was originally the name given by the Greeks to their God of the Dead and ruler of the underworld, where the shades of dead humans and mythological creatures were thought to be confined. He was a son of Cronos and Rhea, brother of Zeus and Poseidon, Hera, Hester and Demeter, and the consort of his niece Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. He was often referred to as Pluto. However, he was not much worshipped by the Greeks as his reign was confined to the dead, therefore he possessed no interest in the living. When the Universe had originally been shared out, Pluto had been given the underworld, Zeus the sky and Poseidon the sea. Hades is now more commonly thought of as the location of the Underworld, rather than its god.
Harvest Moon, The
This is the Full Moon that falls closest to the Autumn Equinox. The 2026 Harvest Moon is on the 26th September.
Hermetic Doctrine
‘As above, so below’ comes from The Emerald Tablet of Hermes, a text whose origins are from the 8th century or earlier, stating that God is all, God is within, giving life and inspiring all that we do. These were sacred texts of a minor sect who worshipped the Egyptian god Thoth, the ibis-headed god, divider of time, law giver and counter of the stars. He was identified with Hermes, the Greek god concerned with wisdom and learning. Hermes was thought to have written these sacred texts, hence the name ‘Hermes Trismegistos’ (Thrice Greatest). The first Hermes was in all probability a pharaoh, who wrote much on magic and is referred to in the Egyptian Book of the Dead as a wise physician and magician.
Holy Grail
In Celtic myth the Grail took the form of a magical cauldron that could bring people back to life; it belonged to the god Bran. Later Christians saw it as a large dish which contained many magical powers, and much later it became the cup used by Jesus to perform the rites of the Last Supper. This cup was brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea and thought of as a sacred talisman. It was then lost around Glastonbury and later one of King Arthur’s knights, Sir Percival, found it and went through many spiritual trials in order to understand its power. The Grail has been lost since then. It symbolises the search for wisdom and immortality.
Humours
Hippocrates (fifth century BC), in an attempt to explain the nature of humanity, put forward the four humours – blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, and four temperaments – sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric. Good health depended on the correct mixture of these and an imbalance brought on illnesses.
Hunter’s Moon
This is the Full Moon that follows the Harvest Moon, so called because it provides light for hunting. In 2026, it will fall on October 25th/26th.
I Ching
Aldo known as the Book of Changes, the I Ching is an ancient Chinese divination text; the earliest version dates from around 750BC. To use it, yarrow stalks or coins are cast to calculate the numbers of a set of hexagrams which are then looked up in the Book Of Changes to give an answer to a particular problem. There are 8 basic trigrams in the I Ching, which are combined to make 64 different hexagrams. The fundamental idea of the I Ching is that human nature and cosmic order are one.
IDIC
short for Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination. The concept first appeared in a Star Trek episode aired in the US in October 1968, where it was presented as a cornerstone of Vulcan philosophy. This quote from the episode sums it up: The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity. And the ways our differences combine to create meaning and beauty. This idea was adopted as the guiding philosophy of the Church of All Worlds, which had been formally chartered as a religion in the United States – the first earth-based faith so recognised – on 4 March 1968, a few months before the episode aired.
Ides, the
The 15th of March, May, July, October, and the 13th of every other month in the ancient Roman calendar.
Illuminati
A secret society founded in Bavaria in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, an academic and philosopher. Weishaupt, an atheist, was concerned by the tight grip that the various churches had on society at the time and formed a group of fellow-thinkers to spread rationalist and scientific thinking. Because secularists were discriminated against and sometimes persecuted, members had to be secretive and use aliases and secret signs. Curiously, despite the group’s dedication to free-thought, membership was restricted to Christians. And although originally against Freemasonry, Weishaupt eventually decided that he would get more members if he affiliated his group with them and adopted their rituals. In time, the group split into various warring sects, some of whom were recklessly open about their intention to bring down the Church and the monarchy. In 1785, an alarmed Bavarian government banned all secret societies; Adam Weishaupt fled the country and his Illuminati group disbanded. Enemies, however, continued to paint them as secret conspirators, claiming that they had masterminded the French Revolution and various other anti-monarchist rebellions. This has lead to modern ideas about an all-powerful secret society manipulating world events.
Kabbalah
The foundation of most Western systems of magic, Kabbalah arose out of 12thC Jewish mysticism in Spain and southern France. Its ‘foundation text’ – the Zohar or Sefer-ha-Zohar (Book of Splendour or Book of Lights) – was written in Spain around 1290 and states: ‘Love unites the highest and lowest stages and lifts everything to the stage where all must be one.’ Kabbalah is depicted as a tree of life in which all parts are interdependent. It has 10 spheres and when combined these represent all that exists in the universe, the cosmos being a living entity in which all parts rely on each other.
Kemetism
Also known as Kemeticism or Kemetic paganism, sometimes referred to as Neterism (from netjer, “god”) Kemetism is the modern revived (in the 1970s) form of the ancient Egyptian religion (Kemet is the ancient name for Egypt). Followers of Kemetism generally worship the traditional Egyptian gods – Maat, Bast, Anubis, Sekhmet and Thoth – but recognise the existence of every god. Kemetic worship takes the form of prayer and the decoration of altars, but there are no set guidelines for rituals.
Kibbo Kift Kindred, The
The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift (a Cheshire dialect term meaning ‘show strength’) was an English back-to-nature movement founded in 1920 by artist and writer John Hargraves. Concentrating on camping, hiking, handicrafts, and working towards world peace, he intended it as an alternative to the militaristic Boy Scouts movement. It had many celebrity suporters (including HG Wells and Rabindranath Tagore) and flourished for some years. However, Hargeaves was an autocratic leader with some eccentric ideas; he eventually decided that the way to change the world wasn’t through hiking and camping, but by destroying the capitalist system and repacing it with a Social Credit economy. In consequence, members and supporters started drifting away. In 1932 Hargraves changed the name to the Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit (with members marching military-style in green shirts), and the Kibbo Kift and its ilofty deals were no more. An early offshoot,the Woodcraft Folk, survived and is thriving to this day.
Kirlian Photography
This is a type of photography that is said to detect and display auras, discovered in 1939 by Russian inventor Semyon Kirlian. An object is put into contact with a photographic plate that is connected to a high-voltage source; the image subsequently recorded on the plate always shows a striking, radiating corona, often in a variety of colours. Many claim this is the life-force aura surrounding all living things; however, this “aura” is actually a simple electrical discharge produced by the attached electrical wiring and it can form around any object, alive or dead.
Knots
Knots represent a sealed bargain. Religious orders tie knots around their waist signifying commitment to their god. Knotting and binding during initiation signifies that the initiate is ‘bound’ to do good. A continuous knot takes the form of a figure eight which represents infinity. If you untie a knot you will have solved a mystery within yourself. Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot, which no-one had been able to undo, and it became a symbol of his power.
Lemuria
Lemuria was the name of a sunken landmass supposedly underneath the Indian Ocean. it was proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater. who had noticed that very similar lemur fossils had been found on both Madagascar and the Indian sub-continent (but nowhere else) and thought that this was proof of a ‘land bridge’ connecting the two.; other scientists then proposed that ‘Lemuria’ could be the ancestral home of humanity. This idea was picked up and popularised by Theosophy founder Helena Blatavasky, becoming a core part of Western esotericism well into the 20th century, when it was shown that continental drift could account for all such fossil anomalies.
Ley Lines
Ley lines are said to be straight lines of natural energy that flow along the earth’s surface. They were first described in The Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins in 1925 – he thought they were ancient trade and travel routes, as they often passed through towns, settlements. and ancient monuments Ley is an Old English word for a clearing; Watkins thought it significant that so many places in England have ‘ley’ in their names and proposed that such places were connected by ‘ley lines’.
Light
Light is a type of radiation which travels at 186,000 miles or 299,792,458 metres per second (this is the so-called universal speed limit- nothing currently known to us can move faster) It’s the visible electromagnetic radiation that stimulates the sense of sight. Light can be manipulated for use in delicate surgery and as a terrible weapon of destruction in the form of the LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). In astronomical measurement, a light year is the distance travelled by light in one year – 9.46 trillion kilometres or 5.88 trillion miles.
Love
Love is the most powerful thing in the universe and how we tap in to it depends upon our own consciousness and spiritual development; sharing on all levels is to love; being intimate is a demonstration of love. If you learn to love yourself then love will come to you, drawn to you by the energy your unselfish self love is giving out.