From the last couple of entries, you could probably understand why I might feel the need to modernize the writings of the Magi from the turn of the century. Damien said somewhere – may have to dig for it again, though – that the knee-jerk reactions of nutball christians against Aleister Crowley (although in Damien’s defense, he didn’t use the phrase "nutball christians", that was my choice of words) came about because they didn’t understand him, and I’m quickly beginning to see his point. I would add to that comment that the same holds true for twinkie witches as well: the girly-girly, frou-frou, bleached blonde, morality-police twinkie witches didn’t understand Crowley either, or they wouldn’t be spreading around the christianized form of witchcraft they’re spreading around like so much manure. Definitely makes me wish that he’d stop re-tweeting some of the more egregious members of that frivolous coven, but since he has to live in the same town as some of them now, he’s probably being neighborly.
Or at least, I’m fervently hoping that he hasn’t abandoned Crowley’s common sense for some of these twinkies’ nonsense.
I can envision a goop of Gardnerians jumping up and down like Mexican jumping beans and yelling, "You know NUFFINK! You cahn’t be re-writing and modernizing NUFFINK!" To which I reply, "Huh? Speak English! Oh? That actually was English?" – and then, "Well, that’s really the point then, isn’t it?"
If I start out knowing nothing, then I’m the most gullible fool out here, aren’t I? In which case, I need every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed to make sure I’m not being taken advantage of, don’t I? What’s the best way to do that? Make sure every one of you handing me written information purporting to be experts called by your deity to teach me something can CITE YOUR SOURCES! If you can’t do that, then we have a problem, don’t we?
If you can’t cite your traditional and verifiable sources, then as far as I’m concerned, you’re making it up. And as I said, I have no problem with people making stuff up – really I don’t! Shows creativity and originality. But if you’re not telling me upfront that you made it up, as far as I’m concerned, you’re a fraud. Pretty much the end of that story, isn’t it?
Here’s a perfect example of the most appalling made-up nonsense I’ve read yet:
"One modern scientist once went so far as to say that the moon could not exist because its presence simply could not be scientifically explained."
McCoy, Edain. The Witches Moon, "Introduction", Page x"
[BLINK] [DEAD SILENCE] [ANOTHER BLINK]
Say what???!!!??? That sentence can’t possibly be correct – no legitimate scientist in their right mind would have said that. In fact, without footnoting that stunning announcement, she just lost 98% of her educated audience. Is she an idiot???
The last group of people who had absolutely NO grasp of science, scientists, theories, the research process (or much of anything else for that matter) was the far christian right, who have made it their life’s work to transform the once great ... ok, the once overhyped ... United States of America into "The Land of the Poor and the Chronically Stupid". These are the same people who are such idiots they keep squealing, "If we descended from apes, how come there are still apes?" – no matter how often you tell them that Darwin never said any such thing, and that they have no concept of anything the theory of evolution actually SAYS.
Point is: I may be a conspiracy theorist myself, but I strongly suspect that Edain McCoy is actually a propped up decoy by the far christian right ... someone they can point to and say, "See how stupid these witches are?" Who else would have printed something so ridiculous?
Trust me, no legitimate modern scientist ever said any such thing. Not with a solar system surrounding all of us populated with planets - many of which have their own moons. That was such a flagrantly appalling and idiotic thing to say, there’s no way she should have ever gone without citing that, and yet she did. Was the scientist subsequently put away for mental illness? Laughed out of town? Was the "scientist" still in 1st grade?? Trust me, NO scientist of any merit would have said that.
But to make certain I wasn’t going to regret blowing up like an overfed boiler, I googled that. Found it. Scientist?!!??
Here are the other topics from the unidentifiable author of the website:
The Truth At Last: exposing the real culprits behind September 11!
THE MOON: A Propaganda Hoax
Exposing the DRESDEN DECEPTION (A response to Ernst Zundel's "Z-Gram")
THE PARTHENON: A post-Hellenistic Fabrication
The IRISH POTATO HOAX of the 1840's
THE TITANIC: Hollywood Propaganda Fraud Exposed!
A MAD REVISIONIST Special Campaign:
A monument has been erected in the heart of Washington, D.C...
It sits on American land, paid for by American tax dollars...
And yet, it is dedicated to the glorification of a special interest group who are not even Americans...
Click here to help THE MAD REVISIONIST to resist this brazen expression of arrogance!
[Psst. He’s talking about dinosaurs.]
Sun Hoax Revealed!
Do the Jews exist?
Report from Sydney: THE OLYMPIC HOAX
The Great Donut Conspiracy
A Revisionist Examination of the O.J. Simpson Trial
Proof of the Allies destroying Holocaust evidence: Fuhrerpants
THE MAD REVISIONIST guide to Revisionist Philosophy
Questions about Revisionism? Ask our resident expert, Dr. Leopold Iv, in Advice from the Sewer
This is her idea of a "modern scientist"? Does she even know what a scientist is? I just sat here staring at the screen with my jaw dropped. Now, in their defense (and because I didn’t have the time or inclination to read any of it), I suspected that it might have been composed as a spoof of conspiracy theories, and not as a web page composed by a serious lunatic. In any event, my greater concern was a dumb idiot claiming to be a witch and writing a book claimed this crap was the work of a "modern scientist". She is looking more and more like a plant of the far christian right.
Need a citation? Here ‘ya go!
http://www.revisionism.nl/Moon/Moon3.htm
[Heavy sigh]
The more eager I am to learn, the more disgusted I am by women (and a few men) who use their infrequently useful knowledge of witchcraft (although even that I’m beginning to doubt) to force their personal twinkie-ness down everyone’s throats.
They try to pass off wicca as a form of personal freedom when nothing could be further from the truth – their version of wicca is quickly becoming the nest of a gaggle of anal-retentive, condescending, pursed-lipped church ladies under pointy hats.
I’m not asking for much. Give me a witch. Give me witchcraft. Give me Mrs. Weasley blowing up Bellatrix Lestrange at the end of the Harry Potter series – now SHE was a witch! Don’t give me your twinkie b.s. and call it witchcraft.
These are women who take away your free will by forcing their make-believe morality on you; they force-feed you invocations and chants with the implication that there is some sort of tradition behind it – when there isn’t; they have made it up themselves to make YOU sound like a twinkie. They completely make-up channeling nonsense which is so goopy and girly they make every deity sounds exactly like every other deity – and trust me, they sound nothing alike; it’s just that the women making this shit up have high degrees – hell, they have PhD’s! – in twinkieness.
Example: I made the mistake of buying one of Edain McCoy’s books on Sabbats before discovering that she is so popular among the Irish they’re planning on passing laws to run her out of Kerry on a rail. (Actually, I don’t know where the McCoys are from – I just made that up! And here’s Example #1: if you’re going to make something up – which really is fine – tell your readers upfront that you made something up, affording them the option of adopting your made-up crap, or telling you to blow it out a convenient orifice). So here’s Edain’s invented (although she doesn’t tell you she invented it) way of cleansing a "tool" – an athame, for example – for spiritual use:
May this (name tool)
Be an instrument for my spiritual growth
An extension of my personal energies
Used only for positive ends in worship, in ritual,
and in magick
May the Goddess and God (or name of deities)
bless my work with fruition and abundance
And my life with their love and peace
In accordance with the free will of all ...
So mote it be!
Notice how she twinkie-fied this? I half expected her to stick a graphic of Tinkerbelle on the page as well. In the event that you haven’t had your morning coffee yet, I’ve highlighted her twinkies in red.
She is not talking about activities here, she is talking about ritual tools used on an altar. Why should the tool be an instrument of my spiritual growth? An athame is used for a lot of activities in witchcraft, and I have yet to see an athame defined as a "tool for spiritual growth". Now I can see meditation (among many other things) being used for "spiritual growth", but how often do you cleanse "meditation" before you use it?
Here’s the "Church Lady" part: "used only for positive ends". Really! By whose definition? And what if I don’t want to use it for positive ends? What if I want to blow up Bellatrix Lestrange and make an entire movie theater audience cheer enthusiastically? Is that positive? Or is it negative because I’ve made the decision to rid the world of a really evil witch? Point is: what I use the tool for is MY choice, MY decision, no one else’s. And certainly not Edain McCoy’s. She’s just bombarding her readership of confirmed Twinkies with a battery of buzzwords guaranteed to get their sterile granny panties all dewy: "fruition", "abundance", "love" ,"peace". Again, not her call to make. If I want to use my tool to cause diminishment, dearth, dislike and public disturbances, that’s my call, my decision, and – karmically speaking – something I may or may not have to answer for. My choice. Which makes her line about "free will" downright laughable.
Here’s my version. And – oh yeah – I made it up!!!
"I command this tool to be an extension of my will alone
Make it so." (Or "Abracadabra!" – your choice)
Here's my source for the Irish rebellion against Edain McCoy:
http://www.stopedainmccoy.com/?page_id=31
Back on steroids – again – to open up my lungs, and considering how poorly I do on steroids (see "Bell’s Palsy" entries), I’m steering clear of everyone until the steroidal rage dies down again and/or I feel better.
I had JUST managed to survive the Bell’s Palsy steroids, which made me blow up like the Hindenburg, and by that I mean before the fire ... just the hot air. In the span of a month, I went from "OK" to looking 9 months pregnant, chock full of pissed-off-edness and unable to tie my shoes because my hands and fingers were so swollen. "Not to worry," said my PCP with a yawn, "You can exercise after the palsy goes away."
Unfortunately, no, I couldn’t. No sooner had I recovered from the palsy when the dumb office bitch I mentioned caught a cold, coughed all over me – and gave me a whale of a case of bronchitis. Back on the steroids to clear the lungs. Couldn’t exercise because I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs, so I still looked 9 months pregnant, and was now wheezing and gasping for air. Unbelievable. WHY COULDN’T I GET WELL????
Mr. Signpost pops up: "Oh, by the way," he tweeted cheerfully, "I’ll be signing books in Harvard and in Cambridge."
I suspect that no one has shown him a map lately. Is he holding two different events, or only one – at Harvard IN Cambridge? Point still remains: Thanks to yet another idiot woman, I’m back on steroids and wheezing – mouth still lopsided and I look like the Goodyear blimp. Guy gets sick so often, he doesn’t need ME breathing anywhere near him. More specifically, I look like hell. Oh, this just figures. (*sigh*)
Dream journal: Nowadays, I only seem to remember the dreams I have during afternoon naps. Saturday’s weirdness: a dream I haven’t had since I graduated from the U of M, the "I’m in the midst of finals and haven’t attended class or studied all semester" dream. Usually, it’s a run-of-the-mill nightmare, in THIS dream, I was in the exam room with – who else? – Piero, who was not surprisingly acing the test, and oddly enough, it was a Spanish test. Never took Spanish in college, by the way, only Italian, Latin and Ye Old English ... eth. So, I’m struggling with this final exam, come across a word I’m quite sure I should know, and finally I turned to him and whisper, "What does ‘dejar’ mean, again?"
I couldn’t remember what his answer was, if he even gave one, so after I was awake, I looked it up. Primary meaning: "to give up" (!!!!) Dream interpretation: I don’t know the meaning of "to give up"? In Italian, the phrase is "arrendersi mai", i.e., never surrender, never give up. Where did I get "dejar" from??? And explain the idiocy of my own subconscious: why feed me that message in Spanish of all things?
The other weird moment out of that same dream was the translation portion of that same exam. I looked at the exam paper and read, Translate this into Spanish: "her appearance made him want to move in like the cavalry." I still can’t figure out what THAT was supposed to mean. Sounded salacious, though. And did I ever translate that into Spanish? We’ll never know, will we?
But speaking of universities, considering that I grumbled so much over the Hopwood Awards people at the University of Michigan never even acknowledging submissions, it seems to me that I should also be praising those who do acknowledge submissions. Winning or not winning an award is never the issue – it’s the common courtesy of acknowledging the fact that someone has sent you something precious to THEM, for consideration.
So ... a big thank you to "The Lighthouse" for their postcard with "Thank you for applying!" enthusiastically hand written – and signed by the person who wrote it - on the reverse of the card. No matter what happens next, that card made me smile, and it was all I could do not to frame it for posterity. Take that, you Hopwood Awards people!
Sunday the 30th was the start of the Celtic month of Ivy. A cool, comfortable, rainy day ... the start of the season that brings the leaves down from the trees, so I’ve started my habit of whispering, "Sweet dreams" to my favorite trees – my dogwood outside my office, the trees outside my window, familiar trees along my commute route ...
The Ivy Green
Charles Dickens
Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim:
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a staunch old heart has he.
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings
To his friend the huge Oak Tree!
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,
As he joyously hugs and crawleth round
The rich mould of dead men's graves.
Creeping where grim death hath been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old Ivy shall never fade,
From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant, in its lonely days,
Shall fatten upon the past:
For the stateliest building man can raise
Is the Ivy's food at last.
Creeping on where time has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
