Beautiful Beige, Creators in Conversation, Art and Moloch

C’era una volta ... now we’re on to Moloch.  What an odd thing Moloch is ... traditional sources say he’s an evil demon that people sacrificed children to ... which makes zero sense ... in the days of tribal supremacy, children would be considered of a source of incredible value to the strength and power of the tribe, not something you had so many of you could sacrifice them ... and in fact, if you look him up now, there is a growing belief among scholars that he wasn’t connected with sacrifices of any kind.  Now, that old Sumerian bugaboo, Abraham – DOES have a rather well-known tale of attempted child sacrifice on his record ... which makes you wonder if the development of the character of Moloch as requiring it wasn’t a bit self-reverential – or at the very least, a major effort at (“Look! It’s Haley’s Comet!”) illusionary distraction - on the part of later writers of rabbinic texts ... which of course, christians inherited and didn’t even question.

Have been thoroughly engrossed in the Transgression:  Creators in Conversation podcasts on iTunes:  Menton J. Matthews, III, David Stoupakis and the awesome Damien Echols in intense conversations about art, energy, souls, magick, passion and creativity, meditating, creating things with thought (thought forms) ... consciousness other than our own ... external intelligences ... pushing yourself beyond your boundaries and stepping outside of your comfort zone, reincarnation ... sigils of the urban landscape, A Winter’s Tale, doing what is uncomfortable in order to grow,  “poetry in motion” posters on the subway ... just exhilarating to listen to, believe me ... if you ever have the chance to tune in – do so.  I still have about 4 or 5 more to go until I’m caught up.

One of the most resonating points for me came from Damien:  his view of art itself.  He had little use for “art for art’s sake” – people who created something because they thought it made them look “cool” or “hip” or it was what people expected of them or wanted ... or whatever.  None of them liked commissions where they were handed something specific:  “paint my kid sister riding a unicorn with a purple sunset and fairies in the bushes,” – they all preferred beginning with a general concept and interpreting that concept the way they saw it in their mind’s eye.

But as for that “general concept”, Damien’s comment was that it was, for him, almost a snapshot of a moment in his own experience; a relic, a souvenir of a moment.  Something you could look at and experience anew what you were thinking, what you were feeling when the first image or concept flooded your mind and you gave voice to it – however you defined that “giving of voice”:  be it painting, poetry, music, sculpture, architecture ...

In my case ... while working daily on C’era una volta, I’d finally finished Beautiful Beige, and was in the process of pinning the three layers together (top, batting, back) in preparation for quilting.  Looking at it, I immediately remembered the moment it depicted:  I was in North Andover, Massachusetts.  I was listening to the song again for the first time in years ... in fact, the last time I’d listened to it, I had been young and clueless.  This time I actually heard the lyrics.

An image came into my mind with the force of an epiphany ... I saw a woman’s hand, reaching out, trembling, to touch the spadix of a lily she has cultivated and planted in a precious golden cup on her windowsill, not aware of the hands reaching hungrily out of bright starry heavens in her direction ... the lily, having been forced to grow in such dry, airless sunlight, is sterile, blunted and sharp edged, but as she touches the one part of it that is sensuous and full, she experiences her own awakening, as a fire that begins to sparkle in the air around her ...

... and I did sense myself in the awakening woman, whose own unwillingness or fear of experiencing a complete surrender to love, has instead tried to recreate and grow safe images of love and all of its riotous blooming vitality, which protected her and kept her a safe distance away from the real thing. The epiphany was that being willing to love does require an unnatural fearlessness out of you ... the willingness to fail utterly, to be heartbroken and devastated ... but until you are willing to reach out fearlessly, you will never know anything other than false and unnaturally controllable images of the real thing.

It IS terrifying to reach out to someone who could possibly shatter your heart, not knowing what you’ll find when you do ...

... which led to the willingness as this blog began, to initiate the “search for a soul mate”.  And so many other things exploded out of that one moment, my Beautiful Beige moment.

In any event, the visual image percolated through moves, upheavals, family tragedies, everything that happened afterwards ... until it finally found its way out and into visual form.  Part of the rest of the story will be told through the quilting design itself.

Do Not Read The Next Sign!

I wonder if this has ever happened to anyone else.  You’re told – and it actually makes a lot of sense – that your thoughts are the creative force behind the world you live in.  Everyone pretty much believes that anyway, or you wouldn’t be bombarded with, “You have to think positively!” every time you turn around, to the point where you fight the urge to slap people.  So, okay, for the sake of this argument,  let’s say you believe it.  And you start becoming your own thought police.

The problem is:  there are some of us – and by “some of us”, I mean me – who have a contrary personality.  The minute you tell us we CAN’T do something, we immediately want to prove you wrong and begin plotting ways to do exactly what you’ve ordered us not to do.  The minute I read, “Do not read the next sign!” – you can bet your bottom dollar that I’m going to read it.  And of course immediately regret it, because it’s usually a stupid advertising ploy describing in gory detail the cruelty of your current brand of toilet paper on your sensitive ... whatever.  Point is, while I’ll deeply regret reading the second sign, I can’t seem to stop myself from reading it.  I’m annoyingly contrary (or gullible)  like that.

There are other reactions to a sign like that;  the people who already know it’s an advertising ploy and don’t give a crap about the second message, and those so beaten down that obedience is second nature.  The women who read the first sign and say, “Yes sir, I won’t read it!” – and don’t – are usually the republican women who hold obedience up as a beacon forestalling the encroaching gloom of their inevitable decline, and are also the women who fervently adore domestic discipline (and what’s even funnier:  they also  truly believe the husband is the embodiment of Jesus in their household, so in effect these nutballs are actually begging “Jesus” to spank them hard for being naughty, naughty little girls.  I’m not a biblical scholar or anything, but ... WTF?)

I digress.

So I have become my own thought police.  I discovered that I could go for years without being buried under horrifying thoughts, but as soon as I accept that my thoughts can materialize, I immediately have a hell of a time controlling them.  Would love to know how anyone else has surmounted the problem.

Synchronicity:  one of these days, I will try to describe my initiation ... it was one of those things very difficult to put into words that are sufficient enough to communicate the internal experience.

However, I will relate one very small portion of it – this was the instructions given to me by the two deities who initiated me.  Lots of things I need to do this year (working on disciplining my thought processes being one of them) – another was beginning to learn the art of invocation; it was suggested that there were many other beings who could help me with trouble spots, but I needed to learn how to contact them.  The idea of learning about sigils came into my head, or, more accurately, the picture that Mr. Signpost had posted of a sigil he had created.  I thought, “I should learn how to do that”.

Synchronicity strikes again!!!  Within a few days, he announced he was giving classes in just that very subject. In Salem.  As he appears to have moved back to New York City, his announcement of a Salem class was a bit of a shocker.

Well, for two reasons.  One:  the very deity (Sekhmet) who – whether he knows it or not – has her paw on his shoulder every time I see them together, is the one who gave me the instruction.  And two:  Sekhmet, being my courage-inspiring Goddess, is now making me face returning to Salem, Massachusetts, after I’d sworn I would never set foot in the place ever again, after my brother’s death.  In other words: no sooner had she issued the directive, she’d handed me two tasks in one:  learn about sigils and magickal invocation from Mr. Signpost himself, and secondly, overcome an emotionally debilitating aversion to Salem, Massachusetts.

She doesn’t miss a trick, that magnificent lioness.  If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that she has little patience for whiners and whimperers – “I’ll help you get there, but you have to stand up and walk with me; I’ll not carry you.”  That’s basically the way she is with me.  She was willing to give me a breath of courage to overcome a lifelong needle phobia and inject myself with insulin, but I was the one who had to learn the process for doing it, take the deep breath and actually do it.  No one was more stunned than I was when I did do it. 

Piero Goes to Venice, I Contemplate Cesare

This has been such a week of synchronicity ... not sure why Piero is in Venice, but there he is ... in my second home, more or less.  (New York is first, Venice is second, Boston isn’t even on my radar, I’m just in exile here; the jury’s out on New Hampshire until I move there.)

(Addendum:  Ah.  Performing at The Venice Film Festival.  Makes sense!)

And, of course, since I’d just finished discussing Venice in my past life discussion, suddenly I’m seeing this, and could hear the music of the water in the canal in his ears right now; could smell what he was inhaling at that moment; got tears in my eyes.  I love this city so much.

Mr. Signpost, meanwhile, was in Paris and made mention of the home of medieval French hermeticists, just as I was reading about them.

And it occurred to me watching re-runs of “DaVinci’s Demons” in anticipation of this week’s new episode, that since 2011, the painting over my head here in the study watching over me – another serious hunk from Italy of course – was of the one and only (another l’uno e solo) Cesare Borgia, who, like Lorenzo (see reference to Elliot Cowan, the seriously hot hunk playing the role of Lorenzo), was a patron of Leonardo DaVinci’s for a time.

Watching Over Me From Above (On the wall, that is): 

Cesare Borgia

I think I just won this year’s award for a run-on sentence.  Sorry about that.

Thought:  “Ooooh!  I wonder if they’re going to introduce Cesare in this series!”  If they do, I hope they do a far better job of casting him than that other series, “The Borgia” did – that actor was definitely not up to Cesare Borgia-esque standards of attractiveness.  The real guy had women falling all over him ... which is probably why he ended up with a bad case of syphilis, or whatever STD he had ... although I suppose he was fortunate in being killed in battle before it really started eating away at him.

The family crest was a depiction of a bull in red – believed to represent the Apis Bull – which is appearing in “DaVinci” in their discussions of the Book of Leaves ... which I don’t believe is based on a mythological artifact gone missing.

“The Apis Bull was originally the Herald (wHm) of Ptah, the chief god in the area around Memphis.”, sayeth Wikipedia ... and Ptah was the spouse of ... Sekhmet!!  Who Mr. Signpost posed with, in New York.

In any event:  back to the color red.  Lorenzo’s clothing (always red), the Apis Bull in red and Z always wearing red as well.  I seem to be in a red phase, surrounded by symbols and colors and images that all tie together in one way or another, overlapping, resurfacing.

Z, by the way appeared ever so briefly in a black scrying mirror a few days ago.  I couldn’t bring myself to pack it yet, so was sitting on the bed, peering into it during a meditation.  I didn’t see the clouds everyone supposedly sees, and which I was looking for; I did see a faint red glow, far off into the depths of the mirror – I knew the glow came from the mirror, as there wasn’t anything around to reflect a red glow.  A few twinkling red lights ... I knew who I was seeing – or who I supposed I was seeing, I should say – and smiled.  Still haven’t evoked, but I did buy him a red onyx goblet, by way of a future offering of wine.

In a way, I keep wanting to wait until I’ve moved and am settled into my new home ... the chaos here (boxes upon boxes upon boxes and an inability to find anything I’m looking for) ... has been utterly  distracting.  Not to worry ... I’ll be moving with a few weeks.  I also be working my ass off, going on a business trip, and generally in a state of high pressure.  Not the best time to be focusing on more important things, like actually developing a meditation schedule or Rite of General Offering or invocation schedule.

My horoscope of a few days ago:

You take your commitment to love quite seriously today and want to share your perspective with anyone who will listen. [That means you, readers!]  But the reflective Moon in your busy 3rd House of Communication can create logistical cross-currents as everyone distracts you from your agenda. Don't change directions now; just temporarily operate on blind faith. Your unwavering devotion should bring you closer to your goals sooner than you expect.

Cross-currents.  That’s a good word for it.  Every time I go hunting for a specific book, I’ve already packed it.

So I contented myself reading American Gods (Gaiman, Neil, 2001)  on the train  … and I have a vague memory of reading it on the bus out of Port Authority.  Have no idea why I never finished it, and suspect it is packed in a box somewhere in New York.  Premise:  all of the European gods brought over with immigrants are forgotten and left to their own devices.

I enjoyed it, up to a point, because it seems that Gaiman never quite grasped the reality of his own premise – those gods have NOT been forgotten, by a long shot.  In every town in America, you will find someone, somewhere (if not many someones in many places) who still worship them, quite fervently.  Every time there was a whiny discussion between, say, Odin and Ibis (Thoth) about no one loving them anymore, I could only snort, “What a pinhead!”  (“Pinhead” being directed at the author, not Odin or Thoth.)  In this author’s twisted fictional world, all of the old gods spent all of their time killing people.  He probably should have done a little more research on what each of his gods actually did before he started writing THAT novel, IMHO;  it would have been more appealing and a lot less stupid, I think. 

So this was my next question:  I was staring at the Invocation of the Bornless One, which came from the same book as The Rite of General Offering  (see last entry).   I must have read about four versions of this same invocation, all of them varying slightly, one from the next.  But all invocations were full of words without translations.  I know I mentioned here once before, discussing Maxine Sanders and her chant of “Eko, Eko, Azarak” that,

“She provided no explanation as to what was actually being chanted, which – to my mind anyway – is at best never a good idea, and at worst a possibly dangerous idea.  Who or what are we invoking with this?  Aradia I knew (I’m Italian, after all, and she’s ours thanks to Charles Leland), but who was Azarak, Zamilak and Karnayna?  And what did “Eko, Eko” mean?  “Hail, Hail” or “Come right in, have a spot of tea and take over my body!”?”

The same applies here.  I make it a rule never to chant anything – not a single word! – until I know what it is I’m chanting.  Dangerous, dangerous idea.

And yet here are all these so-called “nerd wizards” passing THIS around without translating a word of it, as though it was another daytime outing, skipping in circles and singing “Mary had a little lamb” in the park.  Ask almost any one of them what those words actually meant, and I almost guarantee you they’d stare at you with their best “deer in headlights” expression.  “*Duh* I read it in a grimoire and decided to use it ...”

Yeah.  Great idea, dumbass.

Blood Moons, Witch's Pyramid and Will I Won't I Will I Won't I Will I Go To Salem?

I’ve now de-evolved to the point where I lost track of yet another day …five days ago I could have sworn it was Thursday …. Nope!  Friday.

 From Damien Echols (“Mr. Signpost”) (whose tweets are so encouraging:  “The universe is going to take you to a level you have never seen before. Amazing things will find you,” and OMG, I believe him completely!) described the full moons which lit up the sky over the last several nights: “Tonight's full moon is called the Blood Moon or the Hunter's Moon. The only one I love more is the full moon of December.  In November it's called the Dark Moon. In December, it's the Cold Moon.”

And he’s right, today was the Blood Moon, which I wasn’t able to see until I was driving to the commuter rail lot in the morning.  What a greeting!  Initially, I could see only the reflected light behind a long line of clouds, when suddenly the moon burst forward from behind those clouds, and it felt so like a happy greeting!  I could only think how lovely it will be when I can free myself from the basement apartment and actually see the beauty of the moon from my windows ... or from my backyard!  Or front yard!  What an incentive to continue packing with anticipation.  Moon water!  Cleansing things!  Moon tonics!  Spells!  Possibilities are endless.

Speaking of Damien, he offered tarot sessions for people near Salem; I responded, “Sure, I’m near Salem”, before it hit me that maybe he meant I should COME to Salem.  Said, “D’oh!” because you all know how desperately I don’t WANT to go to Salem.  (The Massachusetts one.  New Hampshire one is fine.)  I was right in the midst of hoping he (or his rep) would say, “Ooops, changed my mind!” so I wouldn’t need  to show up for the session crying hysterically.  Instead, the response was that his next appointment was a workday – yay!  I’d forgotten that I was probably one of the few witches who worked first shift and couldn’t sync up with anybody, even if I had no problem meandering up the road to Salem.

Personally – given how thoroughly and near magically he whipped all the pain out of my back with just a hand clasp – I think his tarot reading would be awesome.  I just can’t bring myself to go back to Salem, Mass since my brother died.

They say (regarding affirmations) that they should be positively charged (“I have a beautiful, flawless body!”), as opposed to the negatively charged (“I hate these ugly warts on my toes and want to banish them.”)  And no, I do not have any warts, ugly or otherwise, on my toes, I’m just sayin’.  I flip through our current textbook (Christopher Penczak’s, The Inner Temple of Witchcraft, now dog-eared, stained and completely un-re-sellable, as if I would anyway) using his affirmations as templates for mine.

As he said, you must know what you want before you can make it happen.  The first affirmation you know as well as I do, because this blog started out as a Search for a Soul mate up until April of 2010 when I was riding a bus that was broadsided by a jeep, and nothing was ever afterward the same.  The Search for a Soul mate came to a screeching halt as I went through all of the agony, the surgery, the side-effects and the aftermath, followed by the deaths of everyone I loved.  And I still haven’t recovered (see entries on screaming leg cramps).  So I went from trying to envision the love from a human soul mate coming right around the corner to realizing I still wanted a soul mate, desperately, but I needed to re-envision him in a big way.

I needed a lover that could do everything a human lover could do without the pain.  Inadvertent pain, obviously, but just hitting the apex of that roller coaster and momentarily freezing in place while I  enjoyed the ride was enough to disable me for a week.  All of the muscles and tendons of my upper legs, lower legs and feet muscles cramped and twisted so violently and for so long I would leave teeth marks in pillows, trying not to scream so horribly the neighbors would dial 9-1-1 and I would have to explain myself to the friendly neighborhood gendarmes.  (That would be the armed and dangerous North Andover police swat team, to those of us who don’t live in France.  Which I don’t.  And I’m not even French, so I have no idea why I said that.)

The second affirmation?  No, not releasing my sudden strange affinity for faux French affectations, like, you know, “gendarmes” and “faux” instead of “fake”, but ridding myself of an emotion I seem to have in abundance.  You might have guessed that one, too, just reading this blog.  Releasing the anger.

No doubt you’ve seen the anger I hold for really stupid, narcissistic and obnoxious women and really evil corporations (not to mention dumb twinkie witches who can’t spell), but you may not have seen the self-directed anger, which I also seem to have in excess.

Now to think of a third affirmation. while my mala beads wind their way through the post.  A WCI classmate wisely suggested tying knots in a string (there will be a pause while I try to figure out how long it would take me to tie 108 knots after losing track of the number after every third knot). 

Okay, maybe I do need a memory retention affirmation.  I had actually purchased a skein of yarn to make a witch’s girdle (not the same thing as a Playtex girdle, sorry) and still haven’t managed to find the time to do it, so I’m guessing having someone else count up and connect the mala beads is probably a better idea.

Later:  noshing on a BLT (with yummy sweet Vidalia onion and kosher dill slices in there) on a sandwich-sized toasted (as Americans would say) English muffin, and as the British would say, crumpet, and the last of the Vina Temprana 2012.

I’m contemplating, as I nosh, on the origins of the “Witch’s Pyramid”, which seems odd, as I’m wondering why witches don’t more respectfully refer to it as an “Egyptian pyramid”, as that seems to be where the concept originated.

Some theorize that the theory goes back to the hieroglyphics on the Sphinx – I have yet to find a citation for that – others from 1896; still others think it originated far more recently, in 1981.

As I said, the Sphinx hieroglyphics source has a big question mark after it.  In Transcendental Magick, Its Doctrine and Ritual, written in 1896 (Arthur E. Waite, trans), Eliphas Lévi wrote:  "To attain the Sanctum Regnum, in other words, the knowledge and power of the Magi, there are four indispensable conditions - an intelligence illuminated by study, an intrepidity [dauntlessness: resolute courageousness, fearlessness] which nothing can check, a will which cannot be broken, and a prudence [the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason; sagacity or shrewdness in the management of affairs; skill and good judgment in the use of resources; caution or circumspection as to danger or risk] which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate. . .” [Definitions added by me].
Source:  http://hermetic.com/osiris/onthepowersofthesphinx1.htm

I suspect the four conditions began with Levi in 1896 and were then given the “concept or model of the Pyramid” in 1981 by Clifford Bias, Spiritualist minister and founder of Universal Spiritualist Association and Ancient and Mystical Order of Seekers (A.M.O.S.). 

In his publication, The Ritual Book of Magic, Bias writes:

"The Magus, the Theurgist, the True Witch stand on a pyramid of power whose foundation is a profound knowledge of the occult, whose four sides are creative imagination, a will of steel, a living faith and the ability to keep silent."  Already the four “sides” have changed in significant ways:  we now have “creative imagination”, “a living faith” and “the ability to keep silent” – all of which in no way resemble the first list. Supposedly, the four indispensable foundations of magic weren’t attached to the physical diagram of the pyramid until 1981. 

Christopher Penczak has a terrific diagram of the concept in The Inner Temple of Witchcraft, but here’s another one.  The advantage to this one is the Latin (Italian), although the Italian is a little different (i.e., volere instead of ‘velle’) and the accompanying symbols.

Penczak’s version of this has the elements:  To Dare=Air, To Keep Silent=Water, To Know=Earth and To Will=Fire.  At the apex:  Wiccan Rede=Spirit.

This is probably one of the few times I haven’t gone ballistic at “Wiccan Rede”, which I believe to be wholly invented by Gerald Gardner and the furthest thing possible from “traditional” unless you follow Gardner’s beliefs religiously.  As I said, I have no problem with Gardnerians; I do have problems with people presenting Gerald Gardner’s invented stuff as “traditional” when it isn’t. 

The TOW is far more Celtic than I am; so .... let’s just say my affirmation to stop going ballistic at everything is working even before I started using it.  Woo-hoo!!

Worm Moons, Palms and Pine Trees, Leo Louis Martello ... and Piero Barone's Sexy Legs, Part II

Oh my, the beauty of the full Worm Moon this morning!

"Hands, palms up, under water".

Last Saturday was one of the few times I went so deeply into trance I had a slow time resurfacing. I had no idea why I was seeing what I was seeing, though, but it was very clear: I was staring curiously at my own palms – or at least I assumed they were mine – palms up, but under water. Water was clear and blue and looked refreshing and cold. But I was just staring at those hands, palms-up, under the water, and thinking, "What does this mean?" Feminine energy, healing, cleansing, purification, passion, emotion, subconscious? All of those, some of those, none of those correspondences?

I had just finished going into trance by staring at the tall, majestic pine tree outside the window of the Derry Town Hall, or whatever that building was in which the workshop was held, and breathing deeply. I rarely am able to achieve that level of trance during a group – hell, even a private – meditation session. If this wasn’t a directional sign pointing towards my working with trees, I don’t know what was.

It wasn’t until three days later, riding the train, that I decided that I thought the answer was: "all of them". The hands possibly represented "work", as in "working on myself". To raise energy, to heal, to cleanse myself, to purify myself, I needed exactly what this group "trance" had provided: meditation skills that would free my subconscious. Only that would open up the door to passion and emotional fulfillment, all of them properties of water.

And because my attempts at meditation with only myself as the guiding force had never really worked – as I said somewhere, as soon as I started a meditation ritual of any sort I tended to break into jaw cracking yawns – it seems that, in addition to a tree ally, I initially needed an exterior voice to provide the guidance, as I hadn’t started yawning in the workshop. Bob Hackett had provided the vocals at the workshop, but I doubt he had a CD of "trance inducing guidance rituals."

I briefly considered running the idea past Mr. Signpost, because goodness knows, HE has one of those voices that sends you into instant peace and tranquility. I still may do that, actually, but right now he’s preparing for a trip to Sweden? Denmark? Both? I can’t remember. Or he will be, around 09 April. In any event, I’ll suggest it later.

Ahh, but in the meantime, Christopher Penczak did! I ordered his one of his CDs, hoping he had a calm and soothing voice. My definition of "calm and soothing": a voice that can send you into a meditative head space; not a voice that puts you straight into a sleep so deep you start snoring in public. If not? Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Anyone who has studied Native American history is familiar with the late author, theologian, historian, and activist Vine Deloria, Jr. Probably best known for Custer Died For Your Sins; God Is Red: A Native View of Religion and Red Earth, White Lies, he was sharp, incisive, had a wicked sense of humor and could be very, very angry when confronted with ignorance, condescension, willful stupidity and blatant historical revisionism. I remember being completely blown away by him: he made me see things in a way I’d never seen them before.

I was reminded of Deloria when I started reading the late Leo Louis Martello’s Witchcraft: The Old Religion (1991). A lot of the same anger; I haven’t found Vine’s same satirical sense of humor yet, though. I read somewhere that Martello filed lawsuits against the catholic church and against the Village of Salem, Massachusetts for retributions for cruelty and inhumanity against, and the wholesale slaughter of, his ancestors. (Gee, I wonder how those lawsuits turned out?)

In some ways we’re alike – besides being Italian, I mean. He seemed to have very little patience with nonsense.

I had to keep remembering that he was a standing member of the Civil Rights generation – the AIM days, the Gloria Steinem days, Stonewall, Martin Luther King – a lollapalooza of seriously pissed off people, and Martello fought for witches’ rights amidst that passionate crowd, and in his favor, he was obviously NOT trying to placate christians threatening to start a bonfire with him as the kindling. Many of his predecessors – Gardner, Valiente, even Crowley - carried a great load of christian baggage on their shoulders. Martello did not. He carried anger.  Sometimes he was carried away by it.  At other times it was refreshing.

Still, I have many of the same issues with him – as much as I’m enjoying reading the book – as I have with some others. Some historical comments are cited; far too many of them aren’t. And usually the un-cited ones are the ones that make you go, "Wha …?"

One example: "Many modern scholars believe that Jesus was an Essene; this sect was a secret society that had its roots in the worship of the Goddess Cybele, whose priests were eunuchs. It is believed that the thirty years of Jesus’ life of which there is no record were spent as a eunuch priest devoted to Cybele." (page 121, no citation)

Hell, I’m not even a christian and said, "Wha …?" Where did THAT come from? Those are the things we need to be seriously citing, along with avoiding the untraceable passive, "It is believed". By whom? Why? When? It isn’t believed by me right now, that’s for sure. As far as I can see, he’s the only person who "believed" that, because I hadn’t heard that before. Give me some serious reasons for paying attention to that and I might, but you can’t just throw out things like, "Jesus was a eunuch and a Cybeline priest" and expect people to nod, "Oh, okay, sure, that makes loads of sense!" Sorry.

Another example of sweeping generalizations:

"In the Craft, there is no hard dogma. Hard drugs are forbidden. Mindless morons can't be a compliment to our Mother Goddess. Sex is sacred, not something to be exhibited at a peep show. Power is something personal, not to be used over others, which is contrary to Craft ethics. Those who think the Old Religion will make them masters over others are slaves to their own self-delusions. A happy person is always a powerful person and is hated by those who aren't. A happy person is in many ways selfish; in the Craft we must protect our best interests and ensure that the power that comes from joy remains constant, knowing that none of us are immune from the vicissitudes of life, but that our Old Religion will help us handle an adversity."

I sighed heavily, reading this. Ah. "There is no hard dogma, but hard drugs are forbidden." Forbidden, are they? Really. Aren’t those two sentences rather … you know, contradictory? Did anyone tell the Eleusinian initiates that? John Dee? Aleister Crowley? The Sicilian witches in his own ancestry who concocted flying ointment? The shamans of South and Central America? The alchemists who were precursors to today’s chemists? And I’m wondering what Vine Deloria would have had to say about that – given that peyote is considered a "hard drug" in the minds of the U.S. Government, and is a key component of the spiritual practices of a number of First Nations, largely located in the southwest. The minute you start trumpeting ANY hard laws like that, we have a problem. So, the ethics of Martello’s witchcraft trump the ethics of Vine and the priests of Athens and the streghone of Sicily? What’s wrong with this picture?

"A happy person is always a powerful person and is hated by those who aren't."? Riiiiiight. That’s a bit … Tinkerbelle-ish, idn’t it? I know a lot of happy people who haven’t an ounce of power in their entire being, and aren’t hated by anyone. And does sex ALWAYS have to be "sacred"? Can’t it be … you know, fun?

And he should probably have left out the chapter on prophets – all of the "end of the world" predictions were dead wrong. How do I know that? Easy. We’re still here. 1981. 1999. 2000. 2012. All gone by.

Still, I could fully understand his anger, and it’s rather refreshing.

It's nice to have the One and Only back again ... preparing for their third South American tour, and posing for lots of pictures.  He really does have the most beautiful legs ...

 

Dreaming Tea Test #3 and Piero Barone's Sexy Legs

Dear Anonymous # ... whatever, there have been so many of them ... you’re absolutely correct: Bette Midler did release an awesome version of Peggy Lee’s "Is That All There Is?"

Morning after Test #3: "Dreaming Tea", this time prepared as an infusion, and prepared without Galangal Root Tea as an aperitif. Drank this one at 5:00 at night. Didn’t feel much of anything until about 6:30. Then I started feeling yawny and lay down to sleep. Woke up at 4:00 in the morning (my normal waking time) but couldn’t get functional, so laid back down again. Finally woke up at 9:30 in the morning. After fifteen hours of sleep, my second entry in the Book of Shadows follows. Ahem:
 

"Holy crap!"

Apparently, in Penczak’s world, "Dreaming Tea" actually meant, "If you want to wake up the next morning and get anything done, dream on."

Advantages: the taste was better; was able to drink the entire cup. The result was the same. Cannot recall any dreams, but woke up very groggy. Not as bad as last weekend, but enough that I spent the first 10 minutes stumbling around my apartment on a slant, leaning on walls.

But again: no dreams!

Now I’m thinking: okay, lessen the measurements? I was using teaspoons: 1 teaspoon hops, 1 teaspoon scullcap, ½ teaspoon valerian and 1/8 teaspoon poppy seeds. Ground in a mortar, infused with thanksgiving and intent. Cut the measurements in half? Although I’m not sure how you measure half of an eighth of a teaspoon.

I will say this: Penczak must have the constitution of a steam engine. I am not tolerating this well at all. Holy crap, indeed.

For those wondering why I haven’t mentioned "Mr. Signpost" in a while. Yes, I’m still following him on Twitter. But every once in a while, I wonder if he hasn’t been forced to politely drown in a sea of Twinkies - which I would never have thought of him. Not the guy who went to Death Row for having written "Aleister Crowley" in a notebook. Anyway, he’s beginning his next stage of his life: teaching meditation. When I read that, I thought, "YES!" because I’m sure he’d be the world’s most effective teacher – goodness knows, I’ve already learned all sorts of stuff from him - but he’s teaching the classes in New York and Salem. Since I can’t go to Salem ... I’ll either have to learn from someone else, or these will be the most expensive meditation classes since the Beatles went to India in a private jet.


Anti-Tinkerbelle/Wiccan Church Lady
Hyperventilating Police Squad

Perfect example of Echols drowning in Tinkerbelles: on Twitter, Damien commented that only in Salem would you find a Love Spell on the back of a menu and included a great photo of it. And THEN, up popped someone in a sickening Tinkerbelle moment of Twinkie condescension: "Dana Porter @sixaone @damienechols love spells are not kosher -interfere w/ free will.... cute thought tho. Salem must be wonderful!"

You know me. OK, if you don’t, go back and read this. Or that. Really, your choices are endless.

Steam started ejecting from my nostrils. The twit(terer) has no idea how many spirits were holding me back from flying through the internet and slapping her senseless. Wait, she already was senseless. Slapping her sideways! I typed a quick response. Erased it. Tried again. Erased that. Tried a few more. Erased them all. Fortunately, when I’d finally come up with a response that didn’t reek of condescension and irritability strong enough to equal hers, her comment was no longer on Twitter. So perhaps she thought better of it. Leave it to me to immortalize it anyway, on this blog. Heh! Well, that’s what happens when you try to spew such appalling nonsense at a real witch.

No, Salem would NOT be even close to wonderful with cows thundering around in it mooing rules and regulations at everyone. Go back to the church or synagogue or mosque you grew up in, sweetie. You’ll be a lot happier there, corseted by millions of rules and regulations and hiding behind your prayer book, terrified of hellish punishments.

Women like that remind me of some of the great misogynistic quotes: "Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another" (Henry Louis Mencken). So what IS the word for women who are usually seriously disgusted by and pissed off at other women? Misogynista? Yup, that’s me: a misogynista of the first order. Grrrrr....

Oh yes, while we’re on the "Stupid Things Women Say Out Loud" corner of the page, another bunch of idiot women have taken it upon themselves to shriek, "Witchcraft is a CRAFT! Wicca is a RELIGION!" every chance they get. If you see that comment, trust me: a church lady with a pointy hat has flown into the room. Prepare yourself for a major case of nausea. And then, slap the b*tch. Really. She needs it.

It seems Il Volo is back in the U.S. and back on tour ... if by "On Tour" they mean, "On Tour of the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami, Florida". March 26th and 27th. Wha ...??? Are they filming an "Il Volo Live" CD or something? What an odd choice of things to do.

Meanwhile, here’s the One and Only and his beautiful, sexy legs, now in front of the Ocean Way Recording Studio in Los Angeles. Not entirely sure what the One and Only and His Beautiful, Sexy Legs are doing in L.A., but suspect they’ll be there for the next ten days or so, before moving on to Miami.

The gesture he’s making with his right hand probably means something entirely different in Italy than it does here, or perhaps means something in a non-magickal world than the magickal gesture I know ... this was taught to me back in Enchantments, although I’ve never had the inclination to use it.

Anyway, I was taught that the gesture should only be passed between two adherents of the old religion (la vecchia religione, Piero, if you’re reading this) and combines the yoni and the much beloved horned or priapic god into one symbol that (basically) means, "Please join me immediately if not sooner in a time-honored activity which I will not express verbally, as the Thought Police are watching attentively, but I will slyly pass you my hotel room key and fervently hope that you will appreciate the urgency of my respectful but eagerly desperate request."

Or something along those lines. ;)

There. Did it pass the censors? There’s definitely a more blunt way of stating the same thing, but I’m not going there. Enchantments was more versed in Celtic-type wicca than stregheria, which is why I’m pretty sure Piero isn’t saying THAT ... it’s just lovely thinking he is. Whenever he makes that symbol with his fingers, I get such a rush .... oooooooooh.

Damien Echols Booksigning in Peabody

Back to magick.

I’d forgotten that Damien was book signing in Peabody until he tweeted it, an hour ahead of time. I vaguely remember, when I first heard about it, looking up the store online and thinking, “Can I stand on line that long?” Then I ended up figuring that might be problematic and had decided that I couldn’t.

Spent the morning doing other exhausting things I needed to do: a car inspection, grocery shopping, and then the fun of having to lug heavy bags of groceries, one by one, into the apartment. Then collapsing in pain and exhaustion.

But then, when he tweeted about needing to prepare for the Peabody appearance, I took off without even thinking about it – it was merely an irresistible urge to go. If I wanted to paint myself as a logical thinker, I might have said that I wasn’t sure I’d have the chance again. No way in hell you’d catch me in Salem (don’t ask me to explain why again!), so Peabody had to be it. But no, I didn’t even give it that much thought. It was just a sudden sense of urgency ... “GO”. And off I went. Didn’t even get dressed up for the occasion, just gimped out the door. I must have looked like hell, but didn’t care.

He’s, what, 10 miles away from me, at this appearance? A straight ten miles up Route 114! – and again, I got lost, by being caught on a “right turn only” lane in heavy traffic, and couldn’t move left – I have no idea where Lowell Road went to (I know it goes to Lowell! Besides Lowell, although I have no idea where that was, in relation to 114, or which direction it was headed) , but I was on it, couldn’t get turned back around and became hopelessly, hopelessly lost. As usual. I ended up banging on the steering wheel with both fists and screaming my utter hatred for the State of Massachusetts and everyone in it at the top of my lungs, crying uncontrollably, screaming curses at the State’s refusal to take good tax money and buy street and directional signs with it, instead of forcing us all to hear tale after tale of Massachusetts politicians snorting it up their utterly corrupt noses. See? Even heading in the direction of Salem was hell!

Finally had to ask for directions back to 114, after half an hour of trying to get turned around, but getting more and more lost. When I finally made it back to 114, I was stuck in pre-Christmas traffic. Then I thought the Barnes and Noble was IN the North Shore Mall but it wasn’t. Of course, I wouldn’t learn that until I’d managed to hunt down a space to park and limp my way into the huge complex. One week before Christmas – took another 30 minutes just to find a parking space. Then another 20 minutes trying to find one of their mall maps screaming (“You Are Here!”) – which the mall had stuck in out-of-the-way places. What they DID have easily accessible were pamphlets with print so small no one could read them. The pamphlet locations are easy to find: just search for clusters of squinting people asking each other, “Can you read what this says?”

And of course, the Barnes & Noble was not only not IN the mall, but it was on the other side of this huge complex, and there was NO WAY I’d find another parking space. I limped from one end of that awful place to the other in a heavy winter coat, dragging my bum knee behind me. Took me at least 45 minutes to gimp through that awful place being run down and bumped and pushed by teenage shoppers. Took me another 20 minutes to gimp through three parking lots, dodging killer women in cars, cell-phone chatting and texting as they sped through parking lots and pedestrian crossings, to the Barnes & Noble, wiping tears of pain and frustration from my eyes. I was so late and in so much pain I was sure he was gone by then, but somehow, by some miracle ... thank you Sekhmet ... he wasn’t.

I found myself at the very end of a dwindling line. The advantage to it was that I was able to manage standing (sort of, as long as there was a wall to brace my back against, or a shelf I could lean on), because I was so late that the worst of the line had already come and gone. It didn’t take that long. Coincidentally enough, they had put him under a sign that said “Learning”. I saw that sign and started to smile. How absolutely perfect was that!

I don’t want to repeat everything I told him, although I did say he didn’t have to sign the book if he was getting hand cramps, because I only wanted to say something brief. He responded with something sweet about if I could stand on line for him that long, how could he not sign the book?, and I remember thinking, “He’s so nice ...” – in fact, he was so nice, I didn’t want to confess the truth about the hell I’d gone through to get there – really! It took hours to go 10 miles! – and that I hadn’t stood on line all that long; just gimped through a killer mall. Which might have amounted to the same thing, but was nothing compared to what he went through, so I wasn’t even ABOUT to complain about it.

Anyway ... it was nice. I was able to tell him SOME of what I needed to tell him and that was all I wanted. And I have an autographed book. Oh yes, and I did make him chuckle mentioning that I could retire on what I could sell his first book for. He’s very easy to talk to. And what a soothing aura. Here’s what his aura reminds me of: the ability that Jackson Rathbone’s character has in the Twilight series: the ability to calm people into a peaceful state of acceptance just by looking at them. I wonder if Damien knows he has that ability. I relaxed so quickly just talking to him that a lot of the back stiffness I’d gimped in there with went away. And THAT was nice too.

So here was my badge of courage: the Sky Sadist had twisted my face with Bell’s Palsy and I had still worked up the courage to travel to New York to see Il Volo. Now the Sky Sadist had hairline-fractured my left kneecap (yeah, I haven’t mentioned that yet – sorry) so badly I could barely move, but I ignored it, listened to Sekhmet instead and went to Peabody to meet Damien – Mr. Signpost – even though I was afraid of looking like a deformed old crone. Fuck the Sky Sadist! And as I said, thank you Sekhmet. It did, it felt like I had earned the silver Badge of Courage, afterwards. It would have definitely been easier to stay home and hide.

Continuing with the Fallen Angels list:

4. Kokabiel, also spelled Kפkabמךl, Kפkhabמךl, Kakabel, Kochbiel, Kokbiel, Kabaiel, or Kochab, considered the 'angel of the stars,' is a fallen angel, the fourth mentioned of the 20 Watcher leaders of the 200 fallen angels in the Book of Enoch. His name is generally translated as "star of God," which is fitting since it has been said that Kokabiel taught astrology to his associates. According to The Book of The Angel Raziel, Kokabiel is a holy angel; in other apocryphal lore, however, he is generally considered to be fallen. Kokabiel is said to command an army of 365,000 spirits.

[An army of 365,000 spirits? For what?]

5. Tamiel, also spelled Tâmîêl, is a fallen angel, the fifth mentioned of the 20 Watcher leaders of the 200 fallen angels in the Book of Enoch. His name is generally translated as "perfection of God" (the combination of tamiym and El-God) but Tamiel is also called Kasdeja or Kasyade (meaning "observer of the hands") in the Book of Enoch, Chapter 69. Michael Knibb lists the translation of Tamiel as "God is Perfect" or "Perfection of God." Tamiel taught "the children of men all of the wicked strikes of spirits, [the strikes of] demons, and the strikes of the embryo in the womb so that it may pass away (abortion), and [the strikes of the soul], the bites of the serpent, and the strikes which befall through the noontide heat, [which is called] the son of the serpent named Taba'et (meaning male)" during the days of Noah, not the days of Jared.

6. Râmîêl is a fallen Watcher in the apocryphal Book of Enoch, one of 20 leaders, mentioned sixth. Ramiel means "thunder of God" from the Hebrew elements ra'am and El, "God". Remiel is one of the archangels of the Christian and Islamic traditions, the Hebrew name meaning "Mercy of God" or "Compassion of God" [wow, talk about your irony, eh?] (see Jerahmeel). He is often confused with Azazel who is also called Râmêêl ("arrogant towards God" or "evening of God") although they are not the same angel. Remiel is the angel of hope, and he is credited with two tasks: he is responsible for divine visions, and he guides the souls of the faithful into Heaven. He is called Jeremiel or Uriel in various translations of IV Esdras, and is described as "one of the holy angels whom God has set over those who rise" from the dead, in effect the angel that watches over those that are to resurrect. He is said to have been the archangel responsible for the destruction of the armies of Sennacherib, as well as being the bearer of the instructions of the seven archangels. He is mentioned also in 2 Baruch where he presides over true visions (55:3).

So obviously, none of the judeo-christian scholars can decide if he’s good or fallen ... which doesn’t say all that much for the judeo-christian scholars, does it?

Piero Barone and his Marshmallows, Fallen Angels and More Coincidences

To one confused commenter/question-asker/truth-seeker (unpublished, because apparently I’m now the "Font of All Weird Miscellany That Has Nothing to Do With this Blog", don’t ask me why):

No, Piero Barone did NOT sing a song called, "Marshmallow for Toasting", the song you’re looking for is, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year", a popular Christmas song written in 1963 by Edward Pola and George Wyle – so sayeth Wikipedia. Look for Il Volo’s mini-Christmas CD on Amazon. And actually, the line is "marshmallowS (plural) for toasting", I think, unless marshmallows are inexplicably scarce in Sicily, and Piero couldn’t imagine toasting more than one of them.
 

----------->

Not that I believe in coincidences...but if you knew anything about Mr. Signpost, you’d see the connection. Not only with "The Hobbit", but with both of them being in the same place at the same time. Why does it feel like everybody’s connected?

The second best part of Thanksgiving: the leftovers. Yum! A lot of the main meal is even better the next few days and even further if frozen. So, while I slurp up some egg-drop-leftover turkey & rosemary infused kale soup ... don’t ask for the recipe; I made it up as I went along and couldn’t recreate it even if I wanted to – let’s get back to the angels.

Less than one week after being released, Il Volo’s latest cd We Are Love went gold ... certainly on its way to platinum relatively shortly. I’m pretty sure they’re filming a performance video in New York, or at least they asked for NYC fans to check in for a private invitation to a performance. I am SO in the wrong state!! Argh.

But I still had to link to the first public performance of "Beautiful Day" - done on the Tonight Show.  My GOD, can that boy sing!  And they're all still teenagers!!

Oh, you thought I meant the OTHER angels?

I didn’t really explain my conclusion in my previous entry of the fallen angels being idiots and their deity acting like a spoiled two-year old, so I’ll do that now: the angels because, at least according to Enoch, they failed to react when their offspring ate all of the crops, and then started on the livestock, the wildlife and then the people.

These were the angels who taught people sorcery, astrology, geomancy, husbandry, plant division, etc., among other things – and they couldn’t figure out how to sow larger fields of crops to feed the offspring? They were magical beings, and couldn’t get the kids to stop gnawing on human bones? Riiiight. Another reason I doubt the story: all the way into the 18th century, human beings were spreading false rumors that their enemies were cannibals ... I’m guessing the Book of Enoch is where that habit got started?

Following this disaster, their deity’s reaction was ridiculous. "WHAT?? You wanna have sex with human beings? You’re damned to hell for all eternity and I don’t care how much you beg, I will NEVER ever ever forgive you!"

Well, okey-dokey, then! This deity apparently has real issues with sex, even though, according to the judeo-christian-mohammedan mythology, sexual relations was pretty much the only method by which human beings could manage to obey the directive to "be fruitful and multiply". And then, before they even got rolling on that directive, it became such a horrifying and sinful thing to do, it got Adam & Eve tossed out of Eden and got the angels sent to hell for eternity, no matter how much they begged for forgiveness. Nah, I suspect that the terror of women and sex came straight out of the so-called "minds" of middle-eastern men (who carry it around with them to this day) and into the quills of sex-starved and depraved monks and priests in the Middle Ages, writing flowery hymns about loving their fellow men ... while simultaneously cursing women as the source of original sin.

Things that make you go "huh?", to borrow from an oldie but goodie. Talk about your irrational temper tantrums from the deity who wants his followers to learn about "forgiveness" and "mercy", huh? Lovely. He sounds like an insane serial killer to me. Another reason I’m not thrilled with this source.

On the other hand, a lot of detail from this source made its way into the christian bible, so we might as well take it seriously as a reason for incubi being thought of by christians and their ilk as demons, rather than benevolent and helpful angelic beings who can make a woman deliriously happy at night and teach her all sorts of wonderful skills ... which, I must confess, is how I’m starting to view them.

Enoch did us at least one favor in the midst of his illogical ramblings: he listed the chieftains of the 200 angels, leaving out the part where he explains why angels actually NEED chieftains or whatever they’re called in the first place (what? they don’t have a direct line of communication to the Home Office? They’re bleeping ANGELS! Let me shoot the computer screen again):

And in doing so, enabled those of us paying attention to recognize that there is a grimoire of Turiel – one of the angels – out there somewhere. But then, I still get confused by grimoirian diagrams.

And these are the names of their leaders: 1. Sêmîazâz, their leader, 2. Arâkîba, 3. Râmêêl, 4. Kôkabîêl, 5.Tâmîêl, 6. Râmîêl, 7. Dânêl, 8. Êzêqêêl, 9. Barâqîjâl, 10. Asâêl, 11. Armârôs, 12. Batârêl, 13. Anânêl, 14.Zaqîêl, 15. Samsâpêêl, 16.Satarêl, 17. Tûrêl, 18. Jômjâêl, 19. Sariêl. These are their chiefs of tens."

R. H. Charles translation, The Book of the Watchers, Chapter VI.

OK, let’s not mention the fact that he only listed nineteen leaders, including Sêmîazâz. So we have eighteen leaders of 10 men (180 so far) and Sêmîazâz or Samyaza who led the 18 – for a grand total of 198. We’re missing 2. Anyone wanna explain the math of this? (Looking at watch). That’s OK, I’ll wait.

[Next day]

Wow, no wonder the United States is #17 in science and math. None of you could explain the illogical math! Just for the fun of it, I raised the same question to some Illuminati to see if THEY could explain it. Interestingly enough, this group of Illuminati have a different interpretation than Dan Brown’s best seller did. I distinctly remember Tom Hanks explaining the Illuminati being scientists bent on revenge in the "Angels and Demons" film where Ewan McGregor set himself on fire. The group I asked believes the Illuminati are the descendants of the Angels and women mating ... although this would not explain how they all survived the flood which was supposed to have destroyed them, and why they’re not still giants. I’ll let someone else figure THAT contradiction out.

[Next day] You don’t want to know what nasty pinheads THEY were.

Meanwhile ... I don’t really want to identify and explain all 19 angels in this one entry, so perhaps we’ll spread it out.

1. Samyaza (Aramaic:

שמיחזה, Greek: Σεμιαζά) also Semihazah, Shemyazaz, Sêmîazâz, Semjâzâ, Samjâzâ, Shemyaza, and Shemhazai is a fallen angel of apocryphal Jewish and Christian tradition that ranked in the heavenly hierarchy as one of the Grigori (meaning "Watchers" in Greek). The name 'Shemyaza[z]' means 'infamous rebellion', the combination of 'shem' [meaning 'name' or 'fame' {whether positive or negative}] + 'azaz' [which means 'rebellion' or 'arrogance' as a negative particle]. Michael Knibb lists him as "the (or my) name has seen" or "he sees the name". The interesting thing about the second interpretation is there is a tale about Semjâzâ knowing the explicit name of God and making a deal with a human Istahar to tell her the name.

Taught enchantments and divination.

Some suggest that Samyaza is most likely another name for Satan (Heb: 'the adversary'), who was originally an entity created in the service of God; he was the caretaker of God's throne, but later fell from the heavens because of his pride according to some Abrahamic traditions. Jesus states that he saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning in Luke 10:18.

Others say that Samyaza should not be mistaken for another name for Satan, who some believe was "cast out" from the heavens because of his refusal to bow down to Adam as written in the Qur'an (7:11) and the pseudepigraphical Gospel of Bartholomew (IV:54-56).[2] This interpretation points to Rev. 12:9 and Gen. 6:4 as depicting two separate falls from heaven, one of Satan being cast down, the other of the sons of God choosing to come to earth to take human wives.

[I’m personally of the opinion that any ‘refusal to bow down to Adam’ – the ol’ cornerstone of the ‘men should rule the whole worrrld!’ society - should be met with a standing ovation and a promotion to the corner office, but that’s just me. Also, "pseudepigraphical Gospel of Bartholomew" refers to a text understood by most to be apocryphal (i.e., written well after the fact by a few centuries), describing a supposed conversation between Jesus and his followers over his descent into hell or Hades.]

2. Arakiel (Aramaic: פלא פקתן, Greek: ‘Αραθάκ Κιμβρά), also spelled Arâkîba, Araqiel, Araqael, Araciel, Arqael, Sarquael, Arkiel or Arkas, is a fallen angel ... who taught the "signs of the earth" (which suggests geomancy) to humans during the days of Jared. Arakiel is also called Aretstikapha (meaning "world of distortion" [the combination of arets + kaphah]) in Chapter 69. His name is generally translated as "earth of God"; the combination of araq-earth (Babylonian in origin) and El-God. Micheal Knibb lists him as a combination of two names "the land of the mighty one" or "the land is mighty".


More later

Special Interest Dinosaurs

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]