Anyway. Old World Witchcraft . Same author – Grimassi - who wrote about streghe, or stregone, or whichever term you want to use. But even he tiptoes around the reality that the concept of "Do as ye will an’ harm none" certainly never came from the old world, I don’t give two figs what the Gardnerians say.
One of my favorite courses in my final year at the University of Michigan was "Mesopotamian Witchcraft and Magic" – about which you would think: "Wow. THAT had to be an easy course!" And once again, you’d be dead wrong. YOU try reading ancient Sumerian runes sometime and interpreting who a given spell was being cast on and why. We used to get into the biggest classroom debates with each other. And some of those spells were absolutely disgusting.
The point was that, in those days, people went to the Sumerian magi to not only get protective spells, but to get love potion spells, zap people with curses, etc. First thing you read in the "girly-girly" books on "How to be A Witch" is "Never use spells on other people without their permission!" And you think, "Well, what’s the frackin’ point, then, you pinhead?" If everyone fell in love with you on their own without even blinking, you wouldn’t need a love spell, now would you?
You can get some idea of why Aleister Crowley finally got so fed up with the "girly-girly" version of witchcraft he stomped off in disgust and became known as "The Great Beast". True, a lot of women who knew him personally also thought of him as the "Great Perv", but there’s not much I have to say about that. Same thing with the injunctions against using dream walking to spy on people. WHY NOT? Because it’s rude? If we’re all connected, how much privacy could we each have, to begin with? I should add, before people start getting nervous, I still haven’t been able to engage in any dream traveling and spy on anyone anyway. I suspect it’s the anti leg-cramp meds. Would I, if I could? I can’t actually think of anyone worth spying on, so probably no, I wouldn’t; I want to watch the Eleusinian Mysteries. I just don’t like being told I absolutely can’t do something, or I’ll be punished in the hereafter. Sounds like the wiccan version of Dana Carvey’s Church Lady raising her blue haired head again.
I also have a real problem with the girly-girlies trying to make it sound as though it’s a traditional "no-no" while they’re slapping your wrist with their dainty little white gloves. It’s a western culture no-no, certainly. Traditional? I don‘t think so. Sumerian is about as traditional as you’re gonna get, historically speaking, and I sure didn’t see the Sumerians running around flapping their hands and squealing, "Oooo! Naughty spell! Bad! Bad!"
Anyway, a few days ago, Damien re-tweeted a quote issued by Sacred Leather:
"The suppression of the normal sex instinct, for example, is responsible for a thousand ills."
Aleister Crowley
Never heard of "Sacred Leather", so went and looked at them. Found quite a collection of floggers, whips, cat o’nines, etc. Beautifully made, actually. Started to smile. Wasn’t sure a titillating flogging or two qualified as "the normal sex instinct", but I had absolutely no room to judge anyone as far as that went. What exactly IS a "normal sex instinct"?
Picture it: Manhattan. Some time ago. Met Bob, a head hunter, while looking for a new job. Ended up as a friend of both Bob and his wife. Bob & wife – when they weren’t working with suits filling legitimate 9-5 job openings - were actually in the sex ... excuse me, the "adult entertainment" ... trade, but next to nobody knew that. They owned a collection of call-in lines. Two of us who did know that were Suzanne and myself. She and I met because we were both looking for jobs and Bob introduced us. Suzanne and I used to go out drinking and picking up guys together.
Only time in my life I’ve ever been in a three-way with two voyeurs: business man from out of town wanted two-on-one action and some voyeurs. I have no idea how he and Bob met, but bottom line was that Bob pimped us out with the cover story that he and his wife were pimping out their coed daughters and had to supervise. Sick story, but the guy seemed to fall for it, sadly enough. Suze and I played the coed daughters, and pulled it off only because we got ourselves good and soused ahead of time. It was one bad casting job since the only thing she and I had in common was our bra cup size – we looked nothing alike. Didn’t even require sex; B&D mostly. I made enough money to pay 3 months rent, and at that age, that’s a lot of money. Anyway, Bob handed us a few bucks; Suzanne and I went out earlier that evening after work and bought floggers in preparation for being pimped out that evening to an unsophisticated dom. Guess where we went?
No, not Sacred Leather, the Pink Pussycat, but they had a whole bunch of floggers! I looked at the Sacred Leather website and started lopsidedly grinning. The website brought back unexpected memories of my one and only experience as ½ of a silly hastily thrown-together sub tag-team. Would I do it again? Hell .... no. Once was enough. I was young, horny - and incredibly stupid, or I never would have gone along with it.
And it seemed that Crowley was correct. How had the businessman been twisted enough where he thought "disciplining" two (supposedly) college girls was exciting – with their (supposed) parents looking on? How had Bob and his wife been twisted enough to the point where they enjoyed diving into the sex trade in their spare time? How had Suzanne and I been twisted enough that we got giddy and drunk at the idea of going along with Bob and his wife for this pimping-out plan?
And in answer to your question: yes, they hurt. They stung and burned like hell, those things. Some people find them very erotic, and that’s fine. Me, I’m fine with being threatened with pain – and I’m not sure why that is, but I guarantee you it’s a holdover from a previous life, because my parents certainly never went to town on the physical punishment end of discipline - but I’m not so good with the pain itself. I’m a serious wuss, actually.
Do not misunderstand me. I do not subscribe to the judeo-christian concept of sex equaling sin by any stretch of the imagination. But I also don’t believe that the appalling "sex" crimes we all keep hearing so much about - Penn State and the Vatican come to mind - have anything to do with sex anyway. Mostly, they have to do with power, with rage, arrogance, with control, with acting out childhood abuse, with dominance, with violence, with everything except sex.
I was brought around again to the question I was going to ask Damien someday. First time I asked this, he was in New Zealand for the first time; here we are – he’s in New Zealand for the second time almost a year later: why is it that incubi are always considered to be demons? That they are always identified as such, along with their feminine counterparts, the succubae, strikes me as yet another judeo-christian finger-wagging response to "sex" – i.e., in the judeo-christian world view, they would have to be demons, because they equate sex so completely with sin. But why should they be?
The reason that the question came up in the first place was a matter of personal safety. These days, you never know, when you spin the "pick-me-up" roulette wheel, whether you’ll get a glorious man who truly believes in the sacredness of sex, or another Craig’s list serial killer. So why not a spirit who truly believes in the sacredness of sex?
The reason the question came up the second time had to do with a twisted face, a non-stop running nose, and violently cramping legs and feet any time I tried exercising them, or even straightening them out and trying to point my toes. Needless to say, anything that might resemble having fun - in that sense – has been shot out the window, possibly for good. I remembered the erotic dream I’d had a while back that was interrupted by vicious leg cramps. Even if I managed to up the meds high enough that the leg cramps didn’t happen as often, would the meds also put an end to the big "O"? Besides, I still had the twisted face. At least temporarily. Perhaps permanently.
"Normal sex" in my world now simply meant, "getting the biological urge met". An incubus seemed the safest and least painful way to do that. So WHY was an incubus considered a demon? Why not an angel? Why couldn’t I invoke one? "Get the urge met" without screaming in pain as though I’d been mortally wounded because all of my leg muscles seized up at the same time? And as self-conscious as I was about my face now ... trying to meet someone new was so out of the question it had passed "ridiculous" last Thursday.
If he knew me, I suspect that Damien - Mr. Signpost - would not only treat the question as a serious one, but be one of the few people whose answer I would trust, who wouldn’t make "Church Lady" judgments as he answered the question. But he doesn’t know me. It’s not as though I could tweet him the question right out of the blue. So, I’m back to trying to do research on the topic, and you’d be surprised how many stupid women – christian, witch AND pagan – still have the "sex is sin" thing stuck firmly in their heads and couldn’t be trusted to offer an honest, thoughtful answer. (*sigh*)
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