T. Thorn Coyle - Kissing the Limitless: Deep Magic and the Great Work of Transforming Yourself and the World

What a magically refreshing breath of air this is! Thorn Coyle is a welcome and unique voice, a true modern adept who has mastered her subjects, her craftand most importantly, herself.

Lodn Milo DuQuette, author of Enochian Vision Magick and My Life with the Spirits

At a time when most books on occult spirituality splash around the shallows or pass down recipes by rote, Thorn Coyle's Kissing the Limitless takes the reader on a dizzying and rewarding plunge into the deep places of magic. Thorn's passion, knowledge, and extensive experience of magic inform every page of this significant new work.

John Michael Greer, author of The Druid Magic Handbook

Lucid, frank, creative, and firm, Thorn Coyle is an engaging guide to the work she charts in Kissing the Limitless. Though she draws on a wide range of sources for inspiration, Coyle's work is rooted in a direct, practical concern for discerning and enacting practices that will make life richer, more solidly grounded, and more rewarding.

Eugene V. Gallagher, Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College and author of The New Religious Movements Experience in America

What Thorn Coyle does in this book is no less than the miraculous. She offers real insights and real exercises that lead to a new form of the Great Work that results in a unification of the modes of the mystic, the magician, the witch, and the shaman. If you are willing to apply the fullness of yourself to what is contained within these pages, you will be transformed.

Ivo Dominguez, Jr., author and elder in the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel

Masterful magician and extraordinary witch, Thorn Coyle places the emphasis of magic upon the Great Work, not only for the development of the self, but also for the entire planet. Weaving together many traditional spiritual perspectives with personal insights drawn from her own practice, she guides us through the elements of the world, into the darkness of demons and back into the light of reintegration. Kissing the Limitless is both an amazing manual and a much-needed map for those on the path of self-possession.

Christopher Penczak, author of The Inner Temple of Witchcraft

Rarely do you come across a comprehensive magical text that approaches the subject of personality integration with such directness, clarity, and compassion. Thorn succeeds in not only the call to awaken, but to arise and take possession of life and light. In the final portion of Kissing the Limitless, a more mystical and subtle aspect of alchemy unfolds; an identification with unity has taken the place of the sleep of fragmentation.

J. Aeptha Jennette, Director of Light Haven

Coyle offers readers a deeper level of magical work at a time when renewed engagement and rediscovered purpose is essential not only to our fulfillment, but to the future.

Phyllis Curott, Priestess and author of Book of Shadows, Witch Crafting and The Love Spell

First published in 2009 by

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

500 Third Street, Suite 230

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2009 by T. Thorn Coyle.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 978-1-57863-435-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

Cover and interior design by Maija Tollefson

Typeset in Bembo

Cover illustration Lunagraphica/iStockphoto

Author photo Paul Nordin

Printed in Canada

TCP

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www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter

I give thanks to all of my students, teachers, friends, and peers, and to every spiritual seeker and magic worker engaged in the Great Work of becoming fully human and fully divine. You all inspire my way. Thank you to everyone at Weiser for your efforts on behalf of this book. Thanks to Valerie Walker and Lillitu Shahar for graphics help, to Ruby and Ellen for being first readers, to Sarah Whedon for research and her 11th-hour indexing help, and to Robert and Jonathan for love and support.

May our work be blessed. May our work be a blessing.

LVX Amor,

T. Thorn Coyle

The price of kissing is your life.

MEVLANA JALALLUDIN RUMI (IN Open Secret BY JOHN MOYNE AND COLEMAN BARKS)

Each human has the potential for full integration: the constant awareness of and union with our emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual parts. In exploring the Great Work spoken of by ancient alchemists and magicians, Kissing the Limitless provides a contemporary spiritual map for attaining clear communication with one's divine nature, and further, opening to a luminous connection with the Infinite Divine.

Taking possession of our souls opens our lives to vibrancy, grace and power. As students of the Great Work of transformation, we make magic as we never have before and step fully into our humanity and our divinity. Be we activists, parents, teachers, or planters of trees for a new generation, we take our rightful places in the world.

This is a book of deep magic, of high magic, of magic for our hearts and souls. The potency of this magic rests deeply within us, and the universe supports its unfolding. We step into the flow of Love.

Magic is the marriage of breath, will, and desire. Continuous exploration of these three weds our deepest parts to our highest, leading us into self-possession. This place of wholeness is one of human health and integration, which is the necessary step toward enlightenment. Anyone can have a spiritual epiphany or a flash of deep connection, but for most of us these will quickly fade. Sustained change, however, requires a good foundation, and building a foundation requires effort. With breath, will, and desire, all things become possible.

This book helps to guide seekers through the stages of growth and personal consciousness that will enable us to step into inclusive consciousness, a consciousness that encompasses the personal, political, environmental, social, mental, and transpersonal. Inclusive consciousness enables us to reach the Limitless, also known as the Divine, Goddess, and God Herself. The magic of self-possession is the magic of inclusion.

Self-possession integrates all of our parts with the fullness of our divinity. Reaching the self-possessed stage, rather than simply walking through random states of presence or the lack thereof, requires the examination and commitment of every facet of self. Rumi's price for kissing the fabric of all is that of pledging our whole lives. It is worth the cost.

One man, upon being introduced to these concepts and practices, remarked, I just woke up for the first time in forty-five years. I didn't even know I was asleep. And therein lies the power of magical practice and the hope for integration. Too often we, like the man above, have been practitioners of a spiritual path for many years and have never tasted the possibility of deep magic or touched the core of the work. We have practiced the form without grasping the essence.