September 2022 Grey Matters
Grey Matters
September 2022
Table of Contents
1.) New Term Begins 2.) New Apprentice Leaders
3.) Deans' List Awards
4.) Lodge Cup Winner
5.) Zoom to Class This October
6.) Two Wizards Talk Episode 19: The Element of Earth
7.) New Class: Healing with Crystals and Herbs
8.) Zoom Class Signups: So You Want to be a White Wizard?
9.) Zoom Class Signups: Wizardry 100 and Wizardry 101
10.) Candle-Side Chat 9/4/22
11.) The Origins of the Universe
12.) Grey Matters Now Recruiting
New Term Begins
By Grey Matters Staff
Greetings, Apprentices, Magisters, and Friends of GSW! As of the Autumnal Equinox, the Wheel of the Year has turned and a new Term has begun. With that comes a new Scabbard of Apprentice Leaders, a fresh contest for the Lodge Cup, awards and honors to bestow, and more. Continue reading below the break for all the details!
New Apprentice Leaders
By Dean Emrhys Starhawk
Some exciting announcements today! First and foremost let's give a huge thank you to last terms Apprentice Leadership team! They did a great job leading their respective Lodges and assisting their peers. Excellent work!
Next let's give a huge and warm welcome to our new terms Apprentice Leadership team. Congratulations and welcome to:
Captain Macanrothaic Vice-Captain BlueCapucian Prefect Corvus Umbra (Flames Lodge) Prefect VenusHellfire (Waters Lodge) Prefect Mason Cunninghare (Stones Lodge) Prefect Cerberus Bindweed (Winds Lodge)
Let's have a great term everyone!
Deans' List Awards
By Dean Adservio
As of the end of the Spring Term on the Autumnal Equinox in the year 2022 CE, the following Apprentices have distinguished themselves through academic excellence and earned Dean's List nominations in at least three of their classes. By the power vested in the office of the Dean of Curriculum, I am pleased and honored to award these deserving individuals the honor of the Dean's List.
Their names are henceforth recorded here so that their achievement may be distinguished in perpetuity.
Apprentice Corvus Umbra (How Low Magick Works, Defense Against the Dark Arts 201: Bracing Yourself For a Bumpy Ride, and Basic Banishing).
Apprentice Fred (Writing and Citing: How Not to Plagiarize, Colors of Magick, and Conceptual Quantum Physics 101).
Apprentice Grey_Owl (Dragonlore 101: Europe, Discovering Fire: A Survey of Fire Science, and Dragonlore 203: Asia and the Near East).
Apprentice Luxx (Children of the Night, Defense Against the Dark Arts 101: Seeing into the Darkness, and Wizardry 100: Becoming an Apprentice).
Apprentice Lyssa (Heraldic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Werewolves 501: Fact or Fiction, and Dragonlore 407: The Natural World).
Apprentice Maxillara (Wizardry 400: Wizards Don’t Whine, So You Want to be a Green Wizard, and Introduction to Herbology).
Apprentice Phyrepharie (Wizardry 400: Wizards Don’t Whine, How Low Magick Works, Statistics 401: Description to Regression, and Common Magickal Pests).
Apprentice SelahNyx (Meditation 201: The Magick of Your Nature, Ethics 200: Know Thyself, and Introduction to Hoodoo: History and The Ancestors).
Apprentice Tsuki (Core Energy Practices 101: Cleansing, Shielding, and Meditating, Colors of Magick, The Elements, Mathemagicks 101: Magick And Number, Conceptual Quantum Physics 101, and The Mythic Masculine).
Please join me in congratulating these hardworking Wizards for their dedication and commitment to their studies!
Lodge Cup Winner
By Dean Emrhys Starhawk
Alright, it's time to announce the winners of the coveted Lodge Cup! This is a special award given at the end of each term to the Lodge who earned the most points by completing school challenges, assignments, and for other deeds or actions considered worthy of a merit by the Faculty and Apprentice Leadership team. So without further ado:
Congratulations to the Waters Lodge! Waters scored first place and have earned the Lodge Cup this term! Huge round of applause for the Waters Lodge Apprentices, Magisters, and of course last terms Water Lodge Prefect! Way to go everyone!
Waters Lodge: 20.31 Flames Lodge: 14.18 Winds Lodge: 13.25 Stones Lodge: 12.54 Psyche Lodge: 2.85
Good work to the other Lodges who fought hard!
Zoom to Class This October!
By Provost Nicholas Kingsley
Well met Wizards, and Wizards-to-be!
Interested in joining your peers for class on ZOOM?
This October some of your favorite Instructors, Professors, and Deans are offering a few of their most popular courses on ZOOM!
To enroll in these ZOOM classes you will need to first be enrolled in the usual class on the class site. After you've done that you can leave a message on the sign-ups (linked below) that interest you most!
The Classes on offer for Zoom in October are...
Wizardry Department - Wizardry 100
Wizardry Department - Wizardry 101
Dark Arts Department - Children of the Night
Dark Arts Department - Introduction to Poppets
Ceremonial Magicks Department - So you want to be a White Wizard
Performance Magics Department - The Life and times of Jeff McBride
These Zoom classes will provide an opportunity to dive more deeply into subject matter and will take place weekly until classes finish. Those enrolled in these versions of classes will be expected to turn in work weekly as well. This ensures that all participants in the class stay on the same lesson. This departure from the work at your own pace system GSW normally employs can be an added stress to a busy Apprentice's life, so be sure to only sign up if you're ready for the challenge!
If you have already finished any of these classes and still wish to participate you may do so and receive merits in place of grades for turned in work!
Two Wizards Talk Episode 19: The Element of Earth
By Dean Adservio
In this episode of Two Wizards Talk, Provost Kingsley and Dean Adservio discuss the nature of reality and its connection (or lack thereof) to our senses and explore the deeper meanings of the Element of Earth.
Listen now at https://www.greyschool.net/videos?wix-vod-video-id=3d36f418cbe045aa886b0bc8384a4088&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-k3gbbox8
New Class: Healing with Crystals and Herbs
By Dean Adservio
Greetings, all! I'm glad to announce a new class that is available in our Healing Department at Level 2. Please check out "Healing with Crystals and Herbs," taught by the knowledgeable and esteemed Dean Katy Ravensong. This class offers a dive into the world of the healing properties of various crystals and stones, and the ways they can be combined with herbs to enhance those properties. Aspiring healers, take note and enroll today!
Zoom Class Signups: So You Want to be a White Wizard?
By Dean Adservio
Well met Wizards!
This October, you can complete "So You Want to be a White Wizard" over Zoom with our very own Dean Adservio as your teacher! In this class, Neophytes will collectively begin to immerse themselves in this most arcane and mysterious field: Ceremonial Magick. In these lessons you will explore the answers to sagely questions such as "What is the role of the white wizard? What is ceremonial magick? What practices or skills are developed? Is this a Department I want to Major in?"
If you have been harboring a curiosity about the Ceremonial Magick Department or wondering if it's something you wish to study, this is the class for you.
More info and signups at: https://www.greyschool.net/.../so-you-want-to-be-a-white...
Zoom Class Signups: Wizardry 100 and Wizardry 101
By Provost Nicholas Kingsley
We'll be covering Wizardry 100 and Wizardry 101 this October via Zoom!
These Zoom classes will provide an opportunity to dive a bit more deeply into Wizardry and will take place weekly until the classes finish. Apprentices enrolled in these versions of the classes will be expected to turn in work weekly. This ensures that all Apprentices in the Zoom class stay on the same lesson. This departure from the work at your own pace system GSW normally employs can be an added stress to a busy Apprentice's life, so only sign up if you're ready for the challenge!
If you have already finished the Wizardry 100 or Wizardry 101 classes and still wish to participate you may do so and receive merits for turned in work. That said, the grade you received taking the class the first time will remain.
The First Class for Wizardry 100 will be October 1st at 6:00 PM EST to roughly 6:45 PM EST and the first class for Wizardry 101 will be on October 2ed at 6:00 PM EST to roughly 6:45 PM EST though we may go over time slightly.
To sign up for these classes you'll need to post on their respective forum threads, links are provided below.
I look forward to seeing you soon on Zoom!
Wizardry 100 Sign Up: https://www.greyschool.net/.../wizardry-100-zoom-lessons...
Wizardry 101 Sign Up: https://www.greyschool.net/.../wizardry-101-zoom-lessons...
Candle-Side Chat 9/4/22
By Provost Nicholas Kingsley
Join Provost Nicholas Kingsley for this Candle-Side Chat recording from 9/4/22.
If the embedded video is not working, the video is available at https://www.facebook.com/TheWizardKingsley/videos/771657134111353/?idorvanity=1436042009981163
The Origins of The Universe?
By Apprentice Fred
The origin of the universe is a tricky pickle to try and comprehend. On the one hand, I grew up with the thought that a Big Bang was the initial wellspring from which all the cosmos derives. However, as pointed out in the lecture in "Introduction to Cosmology," that only begets further questions, which remain largely unanswered. I now side closer with the Steady State idea, simply because it is easier to wrap my head around. I do believe there is more we can learn, though, and while both of these models provide descriptions for what happened, reality may be stranger than either of these popular ideas.
When looking at the Big Bang theory, as explained on Wikipedia, one of the hardest concepts to understand, and provide evidence for, is that prior to the Big Bang, there was nothing. We have no matter or energy to trace back before that point in time, nor do we have our three physical dimensions or our one dimension of time. It’s like writing a string of text in Notepad: one letter, after another, writes out a bunch of information that you and I can decipher to be letters in patterns of words and sentences, making an idea. From the perspective of a single letter of a single word, were it to become conscious, it would notice itself, the letters on either side of it, perhaps the entire word of which it is part. It might even see all of the text on that single line, and it would ask, “where did this come from, and why am I here?” There is not enough information on that page to describe the world of the author in all of its three dimensional glory, nor enough to explain how time works, but only in one direction. That letter would know at one point it existed, and at some point prior, it did not, and it might suspect that at some future point it would once again cease to be. This may be akin to our experience in our universe, that by virtue or burden of the number of dimensions in which we exist, the totality of reality may simply be beyond our capability to reason and understand, and most certainly beyond our ability to measure empirically.
The Steady State concept, explored on Wikipedia, is much easier for me to comprehend. Imagine a well-mixed cosmos, uniform temperature, uniform density. As the forces that bind the universe, most specifically gravity, take hold, along with random thermal/kinetic motion, at some point enough matter and energy coalesce to form objects with enough of a gravitational pull that can, in some instances, start the workings of nebulae, and star systems. As matter reconfigures itself into what we see today as elaborate patterns of star systems spinning around, and light traveling across the cosmos, entropy eventually takes over, spreading matter and energy out once more. In this constant cycle of building and breaking down, the “beginning” may simply be as far back in this current cycle as we can see, and what we predict as the “end” as a heat death of the universe may simply be the end of one cycle and the beginning of something new that we cannot comprehend. This model is more like a snow globe, where a shake causes particles to go flying and rearrange in a new pattern, with the caveat that the snowflakes themselves can cause the entire globe to shake under rare conditions.
Ultimately, I would believe in the Steady State easier than I would the Big Bang, but both have similar limitations: our instruments, and thus our theories, can only reach so far into the past and future. I do not believe it is impossible to know the actual origin of the cosmos, but I do believe we need to break much more scientific ground in order to do so. I humbly posit that magick may provide insight and inspiration to point science in the right direction, and that utilizing all of the tools available to us, magickal and scientific, will be our best course in trying to understand this great mystery.
Works Cited
“Big Bang”. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang. Accessed 08 September 2022.
“Non-standard Cosmology”. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-standard_cosmology. Accessed 08 September 2022.
Grey Matters Now Recruiting
By Grey Matters Staff
Greetings, Apprentices and Magisters!
Have you been keeping up with Grey Matters, the Grey School's official monthly publication that covers news, announcements, and useful information for those who call GSW home? Have you thought about perhaps contributing to Grey Matters yourself?
Well, this is an opportunity for you! Grey Matters is looking to recruit a group of interested Apprentices and Magisters to organize themselves into a club-like structure in order to bring the publication to life each month. We need writers, proofreaders, editors, graphic designers and artists, and reporters to hit the "beats" in and around GSW and bring back content and articles for publication.
Please make a post at https://www.greyschool.net/forum/the-club-forum/interested-in-participating-in-grey-matters to express your interest or with any questions.