The Great Dreaming Tea Experiment

Happy Terminalia.

Well, actually, Terminalia was the 23rd; but I wasn’t online that day. So ... HAPPY TERMINALIA!!!

Back on 07 February 2011, I decided to change my religion to a perpetual worship of Terminus, the God of Boundaries. I announced that the "credo which must appear on the holiday cards which I fully expected my friends and relations to send me each February 23rd (and I’m still waiting): "Concedo nulli". Translation: "I yield to nobody". Each year I preach a sermon to the masses: ‘I VANT TO BE ALOOOOONNNNE!!"

It’s something akin to the official holiday of anti-social, grouchy people like me, who set wide and rigid boundaries around themselves. Love it!!

I’m continuing to read The Plant Spirit Familiar, becoming more and more engrossed with it. I wonder if the entire "wicca" century wasn’t really just an opening door for those of us who are intent on pushing wiccan boundaries back towards truth, angrily and forcefully, if necessary. I was screeching (a few entries ago) about defiantly forbidding the fear-filled beliefs of monotheism to infect our teachings; to question everything; to make certain we knew that our sources weren’t demonized now because christians had infected it with their intense fear of sexuality first.

Penczak has another version of that urge to push back against contemporary wicca: "As witches we are growing away from the model of using plants and tools of all sorts, back to an animistic wisdom, where everything is a potential partner, an ally, a familiar spirit, not a tool." (p. 281)

Considering how long most of us have suffered under others clinging to the (erroneous) belief that human beings are superior to every other living being on the planet – and that includes the planet herself, not just plants, animals, rocks, earth, fire and water … and every other type of resource! - I loved this concise summation of the way things should be.

I am teaching myself the principle behind the Doctrine of Signatures … I am astounded at everything I’m learning about natural spirits. Learned the coven of the guy who wrote it – a literal paragon of non-judgmental virtue, unlike a mess of other people I could name (like me) - isn’t that far away: just past the Methuen border into New Hampshire, in SALEM! (HAHAHA!)

Sorry, the irony of that never fails to hit me in the head. Slightly less than a year ago I was curled up in a fetal position, sucking my thumb and whimpering, "I will never ever EVER go back to Salem!!" – forgetting there were more "Salem’s" than just the Massachusetts one. And so here I am, thinking, "Hmm. I should go to Salem."

So here’s the first recipe I’m going to try: Scullcap. Hops. Valerian. Poppy seeds.

Fine. It WOULD sound disgusting, unless I quickly clear up three misconceptions: a scullcap is not a SKULLcap, we are not going to murder the Yalie valedictorian and chop him into bite-size meaty bits and make a stew out of him, "hops" doesn’t mean "beer" in this context and yes, you can visualize the Wicked Witch of the West crooning, "Poppies! That will put them to sleep! Sleeeeeep," while gleefully waving her mortar and pestle around, red smoke spewing everywhere. Yeah, like THAT happens every time I crush herbs. Red smoke spewing everywhere ... blinding and choking the winged monkeys. Poor li’l guys.

The recipe is for Dreaming Tea, but appears in the book after instructions for both water infusions and decoctions. My first question: so which is it? Do I infuse? Do I ... er ... decoct? Well, here’s my opinion: no time like the present to learn by experience. First step was to order the ingredients, none of which I had on hand, not even the poppy seeds. Here’s hoping the scullcap, hops, valerian and poppy seeds arrive sometime this week. And then I get to figure out what happens after I drink it.
Lastly, I finally had to come to terms with the fact that Massachusetts – despite its horrible history in Salem – still enjoys making life difficult for its witches – athames are illegal here, for some reason no one can explain to me. You can buy KNIVES all over the place, single sided and double sided, but you can’t sell athames here. So here’s my silver athame. It started out its life as a silver letter opener; now its a consecrated athame.

More later.

The Earth Collides with the Moon ... and I Think of Sex

Flipping through the March 2013 issue of Astronomy, we find an interview with Professor Sarah T. Stewart of Harvard who would, I am quite certain, be none too pleased to find herself in a magickal blog between fallen angels and incubi. But – oh well, tra-la-la, she’ll have to get over it. The details originally appeared in Science.

Along with SETI scientist Matija Ćuk, Professor Stewart has proposed a solution to the disputed notion that in Earth’s earliest formative period, she was part of a monumental collision, sending ejected material out into space – which eventually coalesced into the body we know as the moon.

If we temporarily set aside the mythology and only look at the science, some of the data raised by scientists in support of the collision theory include

(1) the volume of water on the planet – they believe the volume better matched a planetary body further away from the sun, which would be explained if a huge collision moved Earth closer to the sun that it had been originally. Another clincher:

(2) the earth and the moon contain identical isotopes.

As for the original story of the collision – I do remember the mythology: Earth and a planet called Tiamat (others say Theia) collided in a gigantic explosion, returning the earth to its molten state and sending a big chunk of itself rolling and spinning out into space, where it became the moon.

But how did the Sumerians know this? Not sure … I want to say that Zecharia Sitchin credited the inhabitants of the supposed Planet X itself – called the Annunaki - with passing the info along, but don’t quote me on that, either.

I may have had lot of respect for the Sumerians, but did I believe Zecharia Sitchin’s Planet X/ Nibiru/ Annunaki story?? No, I did not – or at least, not the “we’re all gonna die!” version of it you see all over the internet. Mainly because of the fact that if Sitchin were correct, we would have seen the planet approaching, coming in out of its 3,600 year-long orbit a long, long time ago. I mean, really, some of these conspiracy theorists are too silly – they seem to believe that a gigantic planet would appear in the skies out of nowhere, and only start causing havoc all over the place when it got within a few miles of Earth. Ain’t gonna happen that way. Hasn’t anyone read the reviews of the movie Melancholia? Every scientist on the planet – not to mention a lot of laypeople as well - made fun of the (complete absence of) astrophysics behind it.

There are telescopes on satellites from every civilized country out there in immediate orbit around Earth – even if the U.S. government decided to keep it a big secret, you don’t think other countries would go along with us, do you? Ha! Trust me, we’re not THAT well liked.

Besides, trying to keep it a secret would be futile anyway: NASA is correct – it would be visible to the naked eye while still a huge distance away, and would be the brightest object in the night sky – again, while still a long, long way away. It could not “hide behind the sun” – given our own orbit, we would have seen it a long time ago. Things that big don’t just “show up” out of nowhere. Nobody could have kept it a secret.

But if you’re interested in the original article on the theory of the moon being spun off from earth following a collision:
Ćuk, M., S. T. Stewart. Making the Moon from a fast-spinning Earth: A giant impact followed by
resonant despinning. Science, 338 (6110), 1047-1052, doi:10.1126/science.1225542, 2012.

And now … ahhh, the joy of returning to the topic of sex.

“GOOD LORD! IS THAT ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT??” you shriek.

“Why, yes. Yes it is,” I reply calmly. “That’s all I EVER think about. Morning, noon, night. Always. Sex, sex and more sex.  It’s constant. It’s relentless. It never ends. It’s the exclusive focus of my entire existence. A perpetual Dionysian drool-fest, born of desperation and wanton craving. I’m completely overwhelmed with white hot passion, twenty-four hours a day. I hunger with desire, from sunrise to sunset; I am submersed in raw, untrammeled, raging lust!!”

[PAUSE]

Okay, not really. But why do you even CARE?

Ahem. As I was saying … ahhh, the joy of returning to the topic of sex.

So I was reading the The Plant Spirit Familiar, by Christopher Penczak. Not the first book you would open, were you to be researching incubi, and in fact, I wanted to read about people who could hear plants, trees, flowers, etc. Last time I brought up this topic, I was the only one who could hear trees scream, because, thanks to christians, I had to endure that misery almost every year.

“Oh, PISH-POSH!” snaps the know-it all from Yale. “How could they scream? They don’t have vocal cords!”

(*SLAP!!!!*) (Heh, heh. I always wanted to do that, just slap a pretentious Yalie upside the head, for the fun of it. Don’t worry, Harvard, you’re next).

“The ‘scream’ is my interpretation of what I feel when I’m near a christian christmas tree lot, Yalie boy,” sayeth I in annoyance. “Pressure. Frantic pressure. The urge to run, to escape. Panic. To cover my ears or to cry. Physical pain. It’s horrible; a horrible sensation. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It’s the christians who aren’t emotionally or mentally – or spiritually - evolved enough to be aware of the damage, destruction and death they cause to other living beings. And then they dress the corpse up like a Las Vegas showgirl and prop the dead body up in their living rooms. It’s horrifying. How can those evil christians not HEAR what they’ve done? When I was a child, I’d actually throw up.”

But I digress.

All of a sudden I flip open the book, see a chapter on “Sexual Congress with the Green”, and I’m reading about incubi. I’m sure your first thought (as was mine, I’m ashamed to say, so I can’t really pick on you) is, “He’s having sex with PLANTS?!?” No, he is not, so you can stop trying to imagine the logistics and visualizing yourself covered in grass stains with thorn scratches in peculiar places on your body – unless you enjoy that sort of thing. (And not that there’s anything wrong with that!) What he IS talking about are spirits associated with various trees and plants.

Before that, however, he devoted a paragraph to the history of the incubi/succubae. Made me smile.

“Modern psychologists speculate that the mythos of the succubae/incubi stemmed from religious guilt over erotic dreams and men’s nocturnal emissions, and provided an explanation for both sleep paralysis and pregnancy out of wedlock. The concept of something evil seducing one into the pleasure not normally allowed to them by those who felt it was wrong to experience and enjoy such things, provided them with the opportunity to have the experience but ultimately take no responsibility for it, though such confessions usually led to other problems, such as clergy believing such people were bewitched. Some even speculate that the mythos acted as a coping mechanism to help people deal with issues of rape and sexual abuse, particularly when the clergy themselves were the perpetrators. Devout parishioners couldn’t face that fact, so the myth of sexual demons was created.”
Penczak, Christopher. The Plant Spirit Familiar: Green Totems, Teachers and Healers on the Path of the Witch. Copper Cauldron Publishing. 2011. Page 262.

THANK YOU!!!!

Although actually, I tend to think that last speculation on clergy being the perpetrators came from the historical record I published here earlier of a nun’s complaint against a priest and his response that an incubi who looked like him had done the deed, not him. (And the convent believed his version of the story over the nun’s “That letch humped me like a dog!” version. Oh, what else is new?)

What Penczak does point out – and I now want more information on this:

“If you go into surviving tribal shamanic traditions, you will find the concept of the shaman’s spirit lover, or spirit wife, as a primary inner world tutelary spirit and initiator. You will find a similar concept in the Celtic faery traditions of a Faery Lover, Faery Bride and every Faery Queen/King mating,”

and …

“Sexual union of this nature, i.e. the transmission of such energy between incarnate and discarnate entities, was both initiatory and sacramental, benefitting both entities in their spiritual evolution and development. Only in a dark age, where such knowledge is lost, would potentially holy contact with the spirit world be interpreted as demonic.”

THANK YOU!!

I hadn’t thought of these days as “The Dark Ages”, but from our perspective they really are, aren’t they? Those westerners whose beliefs pre-dated or stood outside of monotheism really were made to suffer for a long, long time. Only now are we regaining any space for our own beliefs, and grudgingly at that. In the news as I write this are the stories of Fox News jumping up and down and squealing hysterically over a decision made by the University of Missouri:

Students at University of Missouri don't need to cram for exams that fall on Wiccan and Pagan holidays, now that the school has put them on par with Christmas, Thanksgiving and Hanukah.

The university’s latest “Guide to Religions: Major Holidays and Suggested Accommodations” — designed to help faculty know when and when not to schedule exams and other student activities — lists eight Wiccan and Pagan holidays and events right alongside more mainstream occasions. It's all part of the school's effort to include everyone's beliefs, although some critics say listing every holiday associated with fringe belief systems is a bit much.*

(*And by “some critics”, Fox News meant, of course, Fox News, “the official mouthpiece of the lower intellectual echelons of christian fundamentalism”).

Penczak also wrote The Green Lovers, which I want to read next.

Finally, another idea I hadn’t thought of is learning the skill of creating an “artificial familiar”. Also known as a “tulpa” in Tibet, or a “thought form”, this is basically a being that you create with your own mind and will for a specific purpose. We already know what the specific purpose is; now, we need to learn how to do it.

More later!

Fallen Angels, Apprentice Wizards and Corset Damage

"He (Eros) smites maids’ breasts with heat, and bids the very gods leave heaven and dwell on earth in borrowed forms."

Seneca, Phaedra, 290ff

I just began flipping through Oberon Zell-Ravenheart’s Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard. I’ll say one thing for the book – even though it is aimed at a much (oh, MUCH!) younger audience, there is still something to be said for good foundational footing – I have a lot of respect for the intelligence of the authors of many of the Enochian Magick books I’ve begun to read, but many of them assume a basic pre-foundation of experience or knowledge that not all of their readers have. On the other hand, a downside of the audience age bracket for this particular grimoire is self-explanatory: no, I will NOT be asking my parents if I am allowed to read the book, thank you very much! } :=\

One thing I hadn’t thought about: just how many names are used for magickal folk of all spiritual persuasions: wizard, vizier, mage, sage, mystic, Druid, bard, magician, alchemist, sorcerer, sorceress, enchanter, enchantress, soothsayer, seer, necromancer, prophet, philosopher, shaman, cunning man or woman, witch, wicca, pagan, priest, priestess, and the last, warlock, which is actually a huge insult (meaning: traitor or liar, in Old English). I’m sitting here, trying to remember if I’d heard any other descriptive words for magickal beings ... "wise woman" would probably fall under wizard (same root: wys), but Susun Weed pretty much made that phrase her own with her Wise Woman Herbal Series.

Anyone who has been reading this blog knows just how fond I am of "rules" when we’re talking about magickal behavior. Sometimes it’s good to have rules – can you imagine the hell that driving anywhere would be if there were no "rules of the road"?

Corset advertisement, 1869

But way too many women have been raised in such tightly corseted* lives that they can’t live without binding their fellow witches in non-traditional, christian restraints, and that is where they lose me completely. And they should lose everyone else as well, but too many women are so familiar with those ropes and restraints it feels natural to them, and they see nothing wrong with binding everyone else.

*And to show you how bad corsets are, read an essay on corsets in the "Mistaken Perfection" blog, which only seemed to exist in 2010, unfortunately.

"The corset has been blamed for causing dozens of diseases, from cancer to curvature of the spine, deformities of the ribs and displacements of the internal organs, respiratory and circulatory diseases, birth defects, miscarriages, and "female complaints", as well as medical traumas such as broken ribs and puncture wounds."http://mistaken-perfection.blogspot.com/2010/01/structured-torso-bindings-of-corsets.html

Needless to say, when I opened a chapter in Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard and read, "Rules of Wizardry", my first thought was, "Oh no ... here we go ..." and prepared myself to throw the book across the room.

Luckily, one wizard’s "rules" are another witch’s "common sense" – and I was delighted to discover that his "rules" were along the lines of, for example: "never invoke something you can’t banish". Well, *duh*!!! But yes, there are a lot of people without a lick of common sense, so there you go.

Another "Rule" I particularly appreciated: Question Authority!!!

Fortunately, none of the listed rules were anything remotely like the stupid Tinkerbelle girly-girly white glove wicca-christian rules, so I relaxed. No enforced "christian" morality that stripped real witches of their power. No non-traditional nonsense or political correctness which the women of the United States are cramming down everyone else’s throats and then calling it "witchcraft". None of that. Nice.

I realize it’s probably not the best idea to study more than one book at a time, and while Apprentice Wizard does mention sexuality as a sacrament briefly – and trust me, I think that’s awesome! - I am still researching the topics of incubi, succubae and spirit lovers. Not an easy assignment, as one has to research the subject while slogging through the christian carryover of labeling everything that even veers in the direction of human sexuality as demonic. Far too many so-called "witches" are paying that forward when they write their books. They need to stop and think about what they’re teaching people, and too many witches are not doing that. We need to be seriously questioning this crap!

And so, to conclude the list of "fallen angels":

17. Tûrêl. Other Names / Variants: Turiel, Turael. Meaning of Name: "rock of God". One of the 200 angels listed in The Book of Enoch who followed Semyaza in the descent from Heaven to cohabit with the daughters of men, an incident touched on in Genesis 6. The sigil of the fallen Turel is pictured in The Secret Grimoire of Turiel, p. 39. As Turiel, Turel is a messenger of the spirits of the planet Jupiter; also, a messenger for the angel Sachiel or Setchiel.

18. Yomiel or Jômjâêl in later translations was the 19th Watcher of the 20 leaders of the 200 fallen angels that are mentioned in an ancient work called the Book of Enoch. Michael Knibb translates the Ethiopic version of his name as "Day of God". The Ethiopic Book Of Enoch., Knibb, Michael A., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978, repr. 1982.

19. Sariel, 'Command of God', is one of the archangels mainly from Judaic tradition. Other possible versions of his name are Suriel, Suriyel (in some Dead Sea Scrolls translations), Esdreel, Sahariel, Juriel, Seriel, Sauriel, Surya, Saraqael, Sarakiel, Jariel, Suruel, Surufel and Sourial. Suriel is sometimes identified with Ariel, Metatron, and Uriel. In 1 Enoch, he is one of the four holy archangels who is "of eternity and trembling". In Kabbalistic lore, he is one of seven angels of the earth. Origen identified Suriel as one of seven angels who are primordial powers. In Gnosticism, Suriel is invoked for his protective powers. He is commemorated in the calendar of the Coptic Orthodox Church on 27 Tubah.

Like Metatron, Suriel is a prince of presence and like Raphael, an angel of healing. He is also a benevolent angel of death (one of a few). Suriel was sent to retrieve the soul of Moses. It is said that Moses received all his knowledge from Suriel, (although Zazagel is credited also with giving Moses his knowledge).

According to the Book of Enoch, Sariel (same angel as archangel Saraqael (communicants of God) & Azrael (whom God helps) according to Al-Qur'an (angel of death, malaku I-mawati) was one of the leaders of angels who lusted after the daughters of men. They descended to the summit of Mount Hermon, in the days of Jared, to acquire wives and lead men astray**. Sariel specifically taught men about the course of the moon. Knibb's translation of the names of the Book of Enoch says it is possibly "light of God" or "moon of God" however he is listed as Araziel. His name is also listed as Arazyal and Asaradel in some 1 Enoch translations. The name being a combination of sa'ar and 'God'. In the book of 2 Enoch he is usually listed as the fourth angel with the name of Samuil or Sariel.

"Sariel" Artwork:  http://www.elfwood.com/art/a/n/andreak/sariel.jpg

Judaic-Christian texts say Sariel is the angel of death attributed to the fifth angel Apollyon. Some Enoch translations for Sariel use Arazyal/Araziel/Asaradel which in its anglo translation sounds very similar to Azrael. If Azrael is the same as Sariel he is one of the four Islamic angels in conjunction with Mikhail, Djibril, and Israfil. The name Azrael is listed in Muslim and Islamic theology as the angel of death "forever writing in a large book and forever erasing what he writes: what he writes is the birth of man, what he erases is the name of the man at death". We also see parallels in Rabbinical lore for Sammael, Falasha for Suriel, and Azrael in the Arabic.

Sariel is identified as being the same angel as Saraqael, said in the Book of Enoch to be the fifth archangel, set over spirits who sin in the spirit, change into all virtues, to eradicate particularly widespread vices of a city or a whole district and transform into all virtues. Before the identification of Sariel/Saraqael as the fifth archangel, however, the Book of Enoch identifies Sariel as one of the fallen host's "chiefs of tens."

And those are the 20 fallen angels.

**Note the interesting variation on the fallen angels ... the Book of Enoch said nothing about "leading men astray", only about lusting after women who were "unclean", and then teaching the women (their wives) those special skills; and teaching about the moon almost sounds like the earliest form of Dianic witchcraft. I don’t know where that variant now involving men came from, but it sounds like sleeping with "unclean women" and teaching them cool stuff wasn’t enough for the men who passed along the written stories; they had to throw the whiny "we were led astray!" in later versions to show how bad those darn angels REALLY were. Riiiiight.

Sariel is an excellent example of why christians can never be trusted as a source on angelic beings: is he a bad guy or a good guy? Is he a fallen angel or an archangel?

And again, the reasons as to why they were categorized as demons in the first place had everything to do with the uncleanliness and filth of women and nothing to do with the angelic beings themselves. So you’d think at some point, this would be noted and discarded as a solid reason for something being evil, but ... women are STILL filth in the judeo-christian-islamic world, no matter how polite a veneer they all try to slap all over it, so there you go.

Seven more days until the next full moon, on the 25^th of February.  This one is called the Full Snow Moon.  One guess as to why!

A Blizzard Named Nemo and I Think Outside the ... Embroidery Frame

To the spammer who prefaced her spam with, "Do you have problems with spam? So do I! Check my blog out if you don’t believe me!" – may I offer a few observations. First, if I’m going to see any spam by logging into your blog, all that tells me is that YOU’RE too stupid to control it. So why should I visit a blog run by someone that dumb? Second, while there may certainly be bloggers stupid enough to fall for that obvious opening line, I’m not one of them. If I see a link ANYWHERE in a comment, you’re tossed out as spam. Do NOT use this blog as cheap advertising for your own. Won’t work.

Friday the 8th: Preparing for two feet of snow ... well, ok, I’m not sure how one "prepares" for that beyond staying indoors and peering out the window nervously every once in a while, but I am eating artichoke hearts. And you might ask, "How does eating artichoke hearts help you prepare for two feet of snow?" Easy-peasy! I happen to love artichoke hearts. Eating them makes me happy. Digging myself out of two feet of snow and sitting in the dark when the power goes out does NOT make me happy. I’m hoping one balances the other out.

Saturday the 9th: It worked! No lights went out! Alright, I haven’t ventured out of doors yet, but as for the absence of a power outage: ah yes, the top secret, never before published, magical Artichoke Hearts Munchies spell came through! Oh, what a truly gifted witch I am! This spell works every time - which is to say, er ... once. :=\

Sunday the 10th: So this morning I had to stumble outside and dig my car out of two feet of snow. Afterwards, stumbling back indoors with the backache of the week, I realized I needed a spell for situations like this, to wit:

"Got hit with a blizzard and it was a zinger,
Free my car now without my lifting a finger!"

Of course, it would have been more useful had I come up with the spell BEFORE I went outside and dug the car out. (*Doh*!) (<---- Witch With Dangerously Low Preparatory Skills)

There must be some sort of witchcraft instruction somewhere that reads, "Create magic out of the things you know best.", or "Create magick from your strengths." Something along those lines. That basic "ism" hit me like a lightening bolt between the eyes when I happened to pick up Dorothy Morrison’s Utterly Wicked: Curses, Hexes & Other Unsavory Notions. Her comment in the Introduction is wonderful:

"This is not a book for those who believe that life can be lived without ever harming anyone. This is not a book for those who are overly concerned with Karma, the Threefold Law, and the Golden Rule. Nor is it a book for the squeamish, the straight-laced, or the easily offended."
Morrison, Dorothy. Utterly Wicked: Curses, Hexes & Other Unsavory Notions. Willow Tree Press, 2007. Page 1.

Ahhhh, lovely. I like her already.

The chapter that really knocked me for a loop, though, was the brief chapterino (a "very small, teensy-weensy, miniscule chapter") on the magic of stitchery. Trust me when I tell you that if there’s one craft-y skill I do have, it’s needlework. Quilting and embroidery, mostly. Okay, quilling too, which isn’t needlework, but it IS craft-y, and which I learned at Kensington Palace. But mostly the first two … although on some days when I’m feeling particularly brilliant, I can work myself up to sewing on a button.

I came across the tiny chapter on imbuing needlework and stitchery with magical intent and, because it never once occurred to me to try and combine the two, the proverbial light bulb over my head lit up.

Coincidentally – yes I know there ARE no such things as coincidences – I was reading Jonathan Cott’s The Search for Omm Sety at the same time. For those who have never heard of Omm Sety: born Dorothy Louise Eady in London, she is best known for her belief that in a previous life she had been a priestess in Ancient Egypt, and a lover of Pharaoh Seti I. According to Wikipedia, a New York Times article described her life story as "one of the Western World's most intriguing and convincing modern case histories of reincarnation."

While she was also a greatly respected Egyptologist, it is her role as the reincarnated beloved lover of Pharaoh Seti I that interested me, as (according to Omm Sety herself) he waited eons in the afterlife to find her again, and after doing so, paid her regular nightly visits, to her great joy – and mine, too, when I read about it and realized that such things were perhaps possible – spirit men in all of their anatomically correct magnificence … and living women. He was able to draw from her life force to create a solid physique that enabled their lovemaking. Yet he remained seemingly unaware that she was now a middle-aged Englishwoman – he still saw her as a young, virginal Egyptian girl that he fell in love with in his temple in Abydos. It seems that their initial sexual union (resulting in a pregnancy) was such a crime that, rather than betray him, the young priestess committed suicide, devastating him, as he was unaware as to why she died.

For those who remember the traumatic lifetime in Venice that I remembered when I was there, suicide played in a role there, too. So many aspects to the story caught my attention. Not to mention that Omm Sety was also an embroiderer, and supported herself selling embroideries of Osiris, among other things.

So many coincidences … so many ideas … so little time. I knew I needed to begin studying correspondences, symbols, sigils – physical symbols I could fill with magic intent. I also got ideas for pendulum boards, tarot layouts and all sorts of things I could embroider onto linen. I could also teach myself Shisha embroidery (mirror-work, where small pieces of mirrors, coins or other shiny objects are embroidered onto fabric), but use it for also attaching small crystal fragments if crystals were used in a spell.

Meanwhile I happened to stumble across a love spell. I won’t cite the source; suffice it to say it was written by another dumbbell of a woman. The spoken part of the spell goes like this:

"I call to thee, beloved one,
To love me more than anyone,
Seven times I pierce thy heart,
Today the magick of Venus starts.
I bind thy heart and sole to me;
As I do will so mote it be."

[Blink] [Blink, blink]

"I bind thy heart and sole to me"????? What, the idiot is ordering her readers to bind themselves to some guy’s fish dinner, or to the bottom of his foot or his shoe???

The Grammar and Spelling Psycho Police Squad

ARRGH! No, no, no, no!!! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Spellcheck! Grammar check! Spellcheck! Proofread! Proofread! Soul! Soul! Not sole! Sole is a fish! Sole is the bottom of the foot, or the bottom of a shoe! SOUL is the … actually, I’m not sure WHAT the technical definition of a soul is. One moment, please.  (tap, tap, tap) (sound effects of a computer keyboard) Ah. Thank you. SOUL is "the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal"! (And thank you, Dictionary.com) KERBLAM! KA-POW! KA-PLOOEY!!

[*heavy sigh*] Thank you.

So, I suspect I’ve identified my own path, after all of the preliminary research and jumping up and down with frustration. Wicca? Definitely not. Enochian? I believe so. I’ve started reading Aleister Crowley’s Magick. (Hey, at least Aleister proofread his stuff, setting him light years ahead of most of these twinkies.) We’ll see how that goes.

Vindication and Sex Magick

Another wonderful and incredibly timely book. Miller, Jason. Protection and Reversal Magick: A Witch’s Defense Manual. 2006. The Career Press, Pompton Plains, New Jersey. Right off the bat Miller quotes Robert Cochrane. No matter what you may think of Cochrane (and some didn’t like him very much), his point of view here made a lot of sense:

"If one who claims he or she is a witch can perform the tasks of witchcraft, that is, they can summon spirits and spirits will come, they can turn hot into cold and cold into hot, they can divine with rod, fingers and birds, they can claim the right to omens and have them. Above all they can tell the Maze and cross the Lethe. If they can do these things, then you have a witch."

First question we should all be asking ourselves: how many of the books I’ve been suffering through have taught me ANY of those things? Absolutely none. In fact, 100% of the wiccan nonsense I’ve read so far has done nothing but try to carve an immobile, inept, powerless twinkie out of me – and might have succeeded had I not begun to grate mightily under the emotional and childish silliness of the vast majority of these women writing books that taught me little beyond how to feel foolish.

If you’re like me, the first thing you need to do is either stop watching the television program called Paranormal State, or at least remember that the investigators on that program are christians, often handing out blessed medals and calling in priests and christian demonologists to clear the environment. (In their defense they also occasionally call in native Americans and witches, so they’re not exclusively christianity-oriented. But they seem to have an excessive fear of people conjuring spirits.)

Still, the few "exorcism" sort of programs they aired contained people who were frighteningly unbalanced – I recall watching one of their exorcism programs, where they had a priest try to drive a demon out of a young woman. After a few minutes of watching (and I admit, I could be wrong, but I doubt it), she struck me as being not possessed at all, but emotionally unbalanced to the point where she was the one causing damage to herself through the force of her own will – and if any christian "demons" were involved - again, which I seriously doubt - they were only standing around and watching her do all their work for them.

The point is, though, that even the word demon was corrupted by the JDI (judeo-christian-islamic) crowd to mean something frightening and horrible and eager to send you to hell, perdition and damnation, when in fact its true meaning was very different.

Here’s the Online Etymology Dictionary entry for "demon":

c.1200, from Latin daemon "spirit," from Greek daimon "deity, divine power; lesser god; guiding spirit, tutelary deity" (sometimes including souls of the dead); "one's genius, lot, or fortune;" from PIE *dai-mon- "divider, provider" (of fortunes or destinies), from root *da- "to divide" (see tide).

Used (with daimonion) in Christian Greek translations and Vulgate for "god of the heathen" and "unclean spirit." Jewish authors earlier had employed the Greek word in this sense, using it to render shedim "lords, idols" in the Septuagint, and Matt. viii:31 has daimones, translated as deofol in Old English, feend or deuil in Middle English. Another Old English word for this was hellcniht, literally "hell-knight."

The original mythological sense is sometimes written daemon for purposes of distinction. The Demon of Socrates was a daimonion, a "divine principle or inward oracle." His accusers, and later the Church Fathers, however, represented this otherwise. The Demon Star (1895) is Algol.

Even today, in popular culture, people hear the word "demon" and run around squealing in terror, flapping their hands and envisioning Linda Blair upchucking yards of green goo-ish split pea soup and scampering downstairs upside down, like a spider.

Interestingly enough, the visual representation of the stony (and fictional) bad boy ("Pazuzu") who possessed Linda Blair’s character in the movie was based on an actual Sumerian god of the same name, spirit of the southwest wind known for bringing famine during dry seasons, and locusts during rainy seasons. Pazuzu was said to be invoked in amulets, which combat the powers of his rival, the malicious goddess Lamashtu, who was believed to cause harm to mother and child during childbirth. Although Pazuzu is, himself, an "evil spirit", he drives away other evil spirits, therefore protecting humans against plagues and misfortunes. (courtesy of Wikipedia again.)

Point being that the phrase "evil spirit" was just a christian interpretation of the word "demon" in describing him initially, and was no doubt the Greek definition of ""deity, divine power; lesser god; guiding spirit, tutelary deity", and more of a supernatural power in bringing famine and locusts.

Still, he was apparently seen more as a deflective idol or protective deity, used to deflect evil, not represent it. So there you go. That statue you saw Father Marin digging up at the start of the film was actually the GOOD guy! Hollywood screws it up again. Or maybe it was Blatty, who knows.

But the fear of anything that even sounds demonic sends most of these women thundering around in aimless circles, squealing like stuck pigs. If you ever needed proof of that, go to Google and ask a question like, "How do I summon an incubus?" – and I only suggest that because someone had raised that question already, and when I looked up the question and answers I was so disgusted at the childish and idiotic responses I read that my jaw dropped a few times.

Examples: (and when I tell you that 99% of these stupid responses elicited the Spelling and Grammar Psycho Police Squad, I’m not kidding. If you’re too stupid to proofread your own work or at least use "spellcheck", you’re not worth paying attention to. So let’s review the real responses from "Ask.com", shall we?

The Spelling and Grammar Psycho Police Squad

(1) "Incubus? I'm sure there is "something" sexual humanilting your astral body already...If you feel insecure about yourself...its happening in the astral-planes...so when it manifest into this world(physicality) you feel humiliation and fear! I suggest you astral project to see whats your astral body is doing or what being than to it. I found out my astral body was in chains and "things" were being done to it....that were sick and twist. It doesn't happen anymore, so I don't feel fear anymore....just anger!" [Riiiiight. And yes, that was completely unintelligible. KA-BLAM! KER-POW! KER-BLOOEY!]

(2) "Step 1) First, you need it to be raining. If there is no rain, perform Souix Tribal Raindance in the proper Souix Tribe attire.Step 2) Purchase the following materials... 7 eggs, a wizards hat, Nike running shoes (must be Nike), a XXXL T-Shirt, and a rubber chicken.Step 3) Once Steps 1 & 2 are finished you may now perform the ritual...Wearing the proper attire, recite each of the 7 deadly sins except for one of your choice. After each sin, smash egg in face. For final sin, locate a human sacrifice. Once located, pound your chest three times while saying "DIABLOS!" repeatedly. Proceed to throw the final egg at the sacrifice as hard as possible. The Nike shoes are for running away from the sacrifice. Once out of sight in an isolated area, you will be greated by an incubus. The rubber chicken is a peace offering to the incubus so that he doesn't kill you.Good luck. My last summon was a doozie." [Uh-huh. By the way, the word you were looking for was the "Sioux", dumbass. So if you were trying to imply that a member of the Great Sioux Nation was posting the response – as though they had nothing better to do and gave enough of a shit to post responses to Ask.com – you might want to spell their tribal name correctly. Not to mention specifying which tribe within the Sioux you were referring to. They are located in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Montana in the United States; and in Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan in Canada. Sheesh.]

(3) "I just open up the door, lean out and start yelling, "Heeeeere incubus incubus incubus! Heeeeeer incubus! Haunting time! Heeeeeeere, incubus" [Okay, that one was funny. But retarded. But still funny.]

(4) "Click your ruby slippers together or wish really hard on your birthday when you blow your candles out." [OK, being gay and into "The Wizard of Oz" shouldn’t make you so dumb you forget the real reason for clicking your ruby slippers together, sweetie. Come on, Ru-Paul. THINK. Something about "homes" and "no places"?]

(5) "I´m not fooling around.....my advice is, don´t invite either an incubus or a succubus (both are demon lovers). Why not get a human lover?" [OMG! And why don’t YOU stop being such a pretentious and condescending idiot, you cow?? I guarantee you the responder was either a christian church lady or a twinkie wiccan one. Here are some possible reasons: the person posting the question could have been injured, crippled, unsightly, incarcerated, stationed in a remote location like the arctic circle, had an infectious disease, was unable to get a human lover for some other reason.

My own personal reason: due to a bad accident involving a bus I was riding on, I can’t hold a position for longer than a few seconds without developing horrible and crippling muscle and tendon cramps in my legs and feet, so painful I find it difficult to even walk the next day. Shot my sex life all to pieces. Someone suggested summoning a helpful spirit to solve the issue; hence my question. They were NOT of the opinion that such a spirit would be evil, because they had the intelligence to think outside of the unbalanced JCI (judeo-christian-islamic) box. Unlike you, you stupid bitch. I didn’t want to burden any "human lover" with the guilt of causing me so much pain, but apparently you have no such conscience, eh?]

(6) "Wipe off the white face-powder, get rid of the thick mascara and for god's sake sort your fingernails out. Go out, meet a few people, find a nice bloke/girl and indulge in whatever depraved fantasy suits you both best. Just leave behind the idea that the occult is a toy designed to serve whatever bizarre adolescent urge you are currently suffering from." [As to your assumption of depravity, see response to Question #5, above. But first – what could "sort your fingernails out" possibly mean? Must be a British thing.]

Back to the book.

They say that – and no, I don’t know who "they" are, I should look that up! - "When the disciple is ready, the master will appear." – ah. Buddha. Thanks! Often changed to "teacher" and "student" in today’s parlance. And no, I’m not saying that "Jason Miller" is my newly adopted teacher, although goodness knows he has a pretty cool blog and Enochian lessons link ... but that he wrote in 2006 something perfectly aligned with my discoveries in 2012-2013:

"I have seen it written that no real witch would ever do magick to harm someone or influence another’s will. I have seen it argued that no genuine ceremonial magician would harm another because he knows that the law of karma would turn his work back upon him. I have also heard the argument that anyone with the power it takes to launch a successful magickal attack would be evolved enough to be beyond doing such things. All I have to say is: don’t you believe it! Such arguments help sell books and help make witchcraft more acceptable to mainstream society, but it’s just wishful thinking on the part of people who should know better."
Miller, Jason. Protection & Reversal Magick. The Career Press, 2006. p. 24

THANK YOU!!! I love this guy! Although, quite honestly, I think he’s being extremely generous to suggest that they "should know better". Most of these women (and a few men) writing such appalling "Introduction to Witchcraft" books genuinely DON’T know better, which is why an entire generation of possible witches and wizards are being seriously shortchanged in the "witchcraft" craft, and deprived of their power. And because those women writing these appalling books DON’T know any better, they are downright dangerous.

So to the Tinkerbelles and Twinkies (and you know who you are) who have been wasting everyone’s valuable time with their "church ladies with pointy hats" nonsense:

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