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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Incubi, Demons, Dumb Witches and True Spells

Regarding the comments:  to those who submitted legitimate comments - thank you.  If you'd like to complain that you didn't get a response, complain to the host of the blog, not the owner:  I just found these comments in my inbox yesterday (the 15th of November) and some of them had been written back in September!

In an attack of whimsy, I hung my three framed autographed photos of my young Italian tenor on the wall and, beside them, hung a much larger framed print of a rather gloomy – but aesthetically pleasing - Phaedra. Without going into much more detail than that – walking by the wall "statement" several times a day makes me smile. At least I find the humor in it, anyway. And, fortunately, keeps my ... obsession from rearing its Phaedric head again.
 
I am still on my quest to figure out why the incubus and succubus were so dramatically carried over from the christian horror of sex into the wiccan women’s horror of sex ... in other words, witches who seem to forget the fact that the christian demonic entities don’t exist in the pagan world are still squeaking, "Bad! Bad! Bad incubi!" at anyone who asks a question about them. (No joke!) Well. Correct that. The precursors to the character of, for example, Satan do exist in the Pagan world, but not the christian version of him. Satan is entirely theirs and they’re welcome to him. Because christians were (and still are) so overwhelmed with the desperate fear of sex, they created all sorts of sex demons to explain their own lust. Here’s a terrific example:

Since demons, according to the traditional wisdom, were only spirits and had no corporeal form, the incubus was presumed to come upon his physical form in one of two ways: he either reanimated a human corpse, or he used human flesh to create a body of his own, which he then endowed with artificial life. Especially mischievous and clever incubi were often able to make themselves appear in the persons of real people - a husband, neighbor, the handsome young stablehand. In one case, a medieval nun seem to have been sexually assaulted by a local prelate, Bishop Sylvanus, but the bishop defended himself on the grounds that an incubus had assumed his form. The convent took his word for it.
http://www.whiterosesgarden.com/Nature_of_Evil/Demons/List_of_Demons/H-I-J-K_contents/incubus.htm

Of course it would have been nice if, once again, someone had provided a citation for that.  From one christian writer to another, medieval or contemporary, the definitions of demons and devils and lewdness vary, so merely trying to wade through their nonsense becomes a test of your sanity.

All manner of things are happening this month as I whisper ‘sweet dreams’ to my dogwood, already missing her full parasol of leaves and flowers over my head: my guilty pleasure – the last installment of Twilight - is arriving in the theaters this month on the 16th. To heck with Teams Edward and Jacob, I’m Team Gil Birmingham and Jackson Rathbone, really. Il Volo’s sixth album "We Are Love" (counting the first one, the Spanish one, the French one, the Christmas one and the ‘Il Volo Takes Flight’ one) is due out on the 19th. The Spanish version is due out in January, so of course everyone will buy two of them – again. Blake’s Pledge cd just arrived. Mr. Signpost appeared in Cambridge on the 9th, but there was no way I could stand on line, as much of a crippled gimp as I am ... but he’s coming back to Cambridge in January, so hopefully I’ll be able to stand for longer than two minutes by then. Back to the endocrinologist on the 21st. Thanksgiving on the 22nd. Don’t know if I plan to make an effort – probably not.

Second guilty pleasure at the moment: bypassing the novels and becoming addicted to HBO’s "Game of Thrones". Absolute favorite character: Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister. He just lights up every scene, in that series – what an awesome character! And I can easily see why he won "Best Supporting Actor" for the role.

Back to my complaint about witches trying to pass nonsense off as traditional witchcraft:

I have been utterly fascinated with Faraone’s Ancient Greek Love Magic, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (edited by Hans Dieter Betz), Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (John G. Gager), Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (Faraone) and Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman World (Daniel Ogden). There are more, a wealth of legitimately traditional spells, curses and magical herbs, ointments and charms.

Now, there are many of these spells which would be difficult if not impossible to perform accurately. Most of us can’t come up with, say, an upper tooth of a spotted heifer to wear as an amulet, to use an example from Ancient Greek Love Magic. So this would be the debatable portion of the spell: what would I substitute and why? What was the use of the upper tooth of a spotted heifer? What did spotted heifers represent to this society? What did cows mean? How can I accomplish the same result with something I can find today?

Not only should that be clearly written out as part of the spell for documentation purposes, it should be written out as part of the spell so that an intelligent wizard could pick up the spell, read it and say, "Wait. I have a better idea." If I provide all of the document source material, I have spared him having to go through all of the original research again, which is what just about every witch or wizard with a witchcraft book in print has done to everyone else. Wasted everyone’s time, and dumped a lot of hoohah on them.

But spells such as these should – SHOULD but aren’t – be familiar to anyone learning witchcraft, presented with respect, thusly:

1. Here is the original traditional spell (source cited). These witches MUST go back to an original source, confess they made it up themselves or be charged with fraud. In case someone missed it the first 5 times I said it, I’ll repeat: I have no issues with witches inventing their own spells. I do have issues with witches inventing their own spells and claiming or implying they’re traditional when they clearly are not. THAT is fraud.

2. Here is my variant of that spell, in detail.

3. I substituted these following ingredients or components for THOSE ingredients or components and – here’s an important part of that! - this is why I did it.

4. Herbs and other ancient references: the Greeks (or Romans or Sumerians or Egyptians or Italians or Anglos or Saxons or Irish) may have known the herb as "X"; how would we know it today? Requires "RESEARCH" and most women writing contemporary twinkie witch manuals are too dumb, fat and lazy to make the effort.

Optional inclusion: the personal Book of Shadows details: results, who the spell was used on ... those sorts of things.

I have to add that the bibliographies and source references of all of these books are awesome ... why witches writing books today got the idea that these weren’t necessary I have no idea, but most of them should be slapped upside the head ... I’d curse them with stupidity, except it appears that has already been done.
More tomorrow.

Sex, Sin and Sumerian Magic

Recovering from a fund raiser held at Sal’s, my favorite Italian restaurant, in Lawrence. Stayed out way past my bedtime, drank too much and paid the price in severe leg and foot cramps. So for the last couple of days I’ve been limping and hobbling around the apartment, groaning. I dusted, reorganized my altar, washed clothes and dishes, sewed another blouse, taught myself how to set in a shirt yoke, set up a small "study corner" and bookcase under one window in the bedroom. Damn. I’m acting like such a June Cleaver girly-girl I’m making myself sick. So I went back to reading Old World Witchcraft in an attempt to witchy-witch myself back to normal. Better witchy-witch than girly-girl. (Note to self: hey, you should needlepoint that and hang it on a wall somewhere). Arrgh! I’m corrupted beyond all hope! Someone needs to slap me silly!! OK, forget the needlepoint. Next thing you know, I’ll be wearing lace granny panties and knitting tea cozies.

Anyway. Old World Witchcraft . Same author – Grimassi - who wrote about streghe, or stregone, or whichever term you want to use. But even he tiptoes around the reality that the concept of "Do as ye will an’ harm none" certainly never came from the old world, I don’t give two figs what the Gardnerians say.

One of my favorite courses in my final year at the University of Michigan was "Mesopotamian Witchcraft and Magic" – about which you would think: "Wow. THAT had to be an easy course!" And once again, you’d be dead wrong. YOU try reading ancient Sumerian runes sometime and interpreting who a given spell was being cast on and why. We used to get into the biggest classroom debates with each other. And some of those spells were absolutely disgusting.

The point was that, in those days, people went to the Sumerian magi to not only get protective spells, but to get love potion spells, zap people with curses, etc. First thing you read in the "girly-girly" books on "How to be A Witch" is "Never use spells on other people without their permission!" And you think, "Well, what’s the frackin’ point, then, you pinhead?" If everyone fell in love with you on their own without even blinking, you wouldn’t need a love spell, now would you?

You can get some idea of why Aleister Crowley finally got so fed up with the "girly-girly" version of witchcraft he stomped off in disgust and became known as "The Great Beast". True, a lot of women who knew him personally also thought of him as the "Great Perv", but there’s not much I have to say about that. Same thing with the injunctions against using dream walking to spy on people. WHY NOT? Because it’s rude? If we’re all connected, how much privacy could we each have, to begin with? I should add, before people start getting nervous, I still haven’t been able to engage in any dream traveling and spy on anyone anyway. I suspect it’s the anti leg-cramp meds. Would I, if I could? I can’t actually think of anyone worth spying on, so probably no, I wouldn’t; I want to watch the Eleusinian Mysteries. I just don’t like being told I absolutely can’t do something, or I’ll be punished in the hereafter. Sounds like the wiccan version of Dana Carvey’s Church Lady raising her blue haired head again.

I also have a real problem with the girly-girlies trying to make it sound as though it’s a traditional "no-no" while they’re slapping your wrist with their dainty little white gloves. It’s a western culture no-no, certainly. Traditional? I don‘t think so. Sumerian is about as traditional as you’re gonna get, historically speaking, and I sure didn’t see the Sumerians running around flapping their hands and squealing, "Oooo! Naughty spell! Bad! Bad!"

Anyway, a few days ago, Damien re-tweeted a quote issued by Sacred Leather: 

"The suppression of the normal sex instinct, for example, is responsible for a thousand ills."

Aleister Crowley

Never heard of "Sacred Leather", so went and looked at them. Found quite a collection of floggers, whips, cat o’nines, etc. Beautifully made, actually. Started to smile. Wasn’t sure a titillating flogging or two qualified as "the normal sex instinct", but I had absolutely no room to judge anyone as far as that went. What exactly IS a "normal sex instinct"?

Picture it: Manhattan. Some time ago. Met Bob, a head hunter, while looking for a new job. Ended up as a friend of both Bob and his wife. Bob & wife – when they weren’t working with suits filling legitimate 9-5 job openings - were actually in the sex ... excuse me, the "adult entertainment" ... trade, but next to nobody knew that. They owned a collection of call-in lines. Two of us who did know that were Suzanne and myself. She and I met because we were both looking for jobs and Bob introduced us. Suzanne and I used to go out drinking and picking up guys together.

Only time in my life I’ve ever been in a three-way with two voyeurs: business man from out of town wanted two-on-one action and some voyeurs. I have no idea how he and Bob met, but bottom line was that Bob pimped us out with the cover story that he and his wife were pimping out their coed daughters and had to supervise. Sick story, but the guy seemed to fall for it, sadly enough. Suze and I played the coed daughters, and pulled it off only because we got ourselves good and soused ahead of time. 

It was one bad casting job since the only thing she and I had in common was our bra cup size – we looked nothing alike. Didn’t even require sex; B&D mostly. I made enough money to pay 3 months rent, and at that age, that’s a lot of money. Anyway, Bob handed us a few bucks; Suzanne and I went out earlier that evening after work and bought floggers in preparation for being pimped out that evening to an unsophisticated dom. Guess where we went?

No, not Sacred Leather, the Pink Pussycat, but they had a whole bunch of floggers! I looked at the Sacred Leather website and started lopsidedly grinning. The website brought back unexpected memories of my one and only experience as ½ of a silly hastily thrown-together sub tag-team. Would I do it again? Hell .... no. Once was enough. I was young, horny - and incredibly stupid, or I never would have gone along with it.

And it seemed that Crowley was correct. How had the businessman been twisted enough where he thought "disciplining" two (supposedly) college girls was exciting – with their (supposed) parents looking on? How had Bob and his wife been twisted enough to the point where they enjoyed diving into the sex trade in their spare time? How had Suzanne and I been twisted enough that we got giddy and drunk at the idea of going along with Bob and his wife for this pimping-out plan?

And in answer to your question: yes, they hurt. They stung and burned like hell, those things. Some people find them very erotic, and that’s fine. Me, I’m fine with being threatened with pain – and I’m not sure why that is, but I guarantee you it’s a holdover from a previous life, because my parents certainly never went to town on the physical punishment end of discipline - but I’m not so good with the pain itself. I’m a serious wuss, actually.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not subscribe to the judeo-christian concept of sex equaling sin by any stretch of the imagination. But I also don’t believe that the appalling "sex" crimes we all keep hearing so much about - Penn State and the Vatican come to mind - have anything to do with sex anyway. Mostly, they have to do with power, with rage, arrogance, with control, with acting out childhood abuse, with dominance, with violence, with everything except sex.

I was brought around again to the question I was going to ask Damien someday. First time I asked this, he was in New Zealand for the first time; here we are – he’s in New Zealand for the second time almost a year later: why is it that incubi are always considered to be demons? That they are always identified as such, along with their feminine counterparts, the succubae, strikes me as yet another judeo-christian finger-wagging response to "sex" – i.e., in the judeo-christian world view, they would have to be demons, because they equate sex so completely with sin. But why should they be?

The reason that the question came up in the first place was a matter of personal safety. These days, you never know, when you spin the "pick-me-up" roulette wheel, whether you’ll get a glorious man who truly believes in the sacredness of sex, or another Craig’s list serial killer. So why not a spirit who truly believes in the sacredness of sex?

The reason the question came up the second time had to do with a twisted face, a non-stop running nose, and violently cramping legs and feet any time I tried exercising them, or even straightening them out and trying to point my toes. Needless to say, anything that might resemble having fun - in that sense – has been shot out the window, possibly for good. I remembered the erotic dream I’d had a while back that was interrupted by vicious leg cramps. Even if I managed to up the meds high enough that the leg cramps didn’t happen as often, would the meds also put an end to the big "O"? Besides, I still had the twisted face. At least temporarily. Perhaps permanently.

"Normal sex" in my world now simply meant, "getting the biological urge met". An incubus seemed the safest and least painful way to do that. So WHY was an incubus considered a demon? Why not an angel? Why couldn’t I invoke one? "Get the urge met" without screaming in pain as though I’d been mortally wounded because all of my leg muscles seized up at the same time? And as self-conscious as I was about my face now ... trying to meet someone new was so out of the question it had passed "ridiculous" last Thursday.

If he knew me, I suspect that Damien - Mr. Signpost - would not only treat the question as a serious one, but be one of the few people whose answer I would trust, who wouldn’t make "Church Lady" judgments as he answered the question. But he doesn’t know me. It’s not as though I could tweet him the question right out of the blue. So, I’m back to trying to do research on the topic, and you’d be surprised how many stupid women – christian, witch AND pagan – still have the "sex is sin" thing stuck firmly in their heads and couldn’t be trusted to offer an honest, thoughtful answer. (*sigh*)

Damien Echols and My Daybook

Day #19 in my Search for my Soul mate

Well, I have to say, Damien Echols gave me a boost in the … er, well, he gave me some inspiration, as far as this project went.

You probably have to understand who this guy is. He started out – in the world of ‘Public Figures’, that is – as a teenage high school dropout in the backwater of West Memphis, Arkansas with a penchant for the gothic, the wiccan, Stephen King and Metallica. In a small town packed to the gills with empty-headed, black-souled and vicious Southern Baptist Church Ladies, his behavior immediately pegged him not as a young man forging his own unique creative path through life and art (as it should have), but as a demonic Satanist, capable of murdering small children in cold blood.

Naturally, when three cub scouts turned up dead in that small pitiful town, all official eyes swiveled towards Damien and his best friend Jason Baldwin, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the crime. That was irrelevant, according to the Puritanical Salem Witch hunters of West Memphis. Thanks to a coerced confession out of a third teen with an IQ of 72 – a teen who obviously knew nothing about the case and was merely repeating what the police wanted him to say – by an incredibly corrupt and hopelessly incompetent West Memphis Police Force, (and thanks also to an evil and hopelessly corrupt judge), Jason ended up sentenced to life without parole, and Damien ended up on Death Row without a shred of physical evidence against either one of them. Were it not for an HBO film crew who caught this backwater explosion of appalling nitwitted evil stupidity on film, Echols would have been dead by now.

They are, thankfully, both quite alive and now free (see previous entry), thanks to an outpouring of intense revulsion directed at the State of Arkansas by practically the entire planet, after that film aired. And you know when even the drug lords of Columbia, South America are nauseated by the actions of Arkansas officials, things have gone pretty far afield. Particularly when the residents reward such appalling corruption by sending the key perpetrator – see evil and hopelessly corrupt judge, above -- off to the U.S. Senate. (See Senator David Burnett, Senator from Arkansas. And then people wonder what’s wrong with Washington, D.C. Look no further. He is still protecting his own corrupt hindquarters by sending minions – mostly women - off to post anti-West Memphis Three sentiments on message boards to this day. The guy needs help.)  Then there’s another batch of obsessive women who so desperately want to see Damien back behind bars you’d think he turned them down for the high school prom or left them at the altar. Hell hath no fury and all that …

Damien Echols and wife, Lorri Davis Echols

All of that aside, let us return to Damien Echols, the innocent man sitting on Arkansas’s Death Row after Senator David Burnett’s corrupt trial, which Burnett held in support of the evil felons making up the West Memphis Police department.

After a very brief stint of understandable self-pity, Echols pulled himself together. Got married. And what emerged into the sunlight not all that long ago was an enormously creative and spiritual man who had spent nearly twenty years educating himself, studying, writing journals, writing and publishing an autobiography, writing lyrics and short stories and gathering to himself a huge body of supporters, readers and admirers. (Not to mention the supporters who helped to finance the DNA analysis which proved that none of the three teenagers were anywhere near the crime scene.)




For me, he was basically “Mr. Signpost”! I was ambling in one direction; came to a crook in the road, was cheerfully sideswiped by Damien Echols one morning in August and ended up pointed in a relatively different direction altogether. My very own Carl Frost moment, minus the snow.

I had read Damien’s writings and was so moved by them I read more and more, and got all sorts of ideas about how to proceed with my Soul Mate search project. The man writes so well he reads like he’s sitting next to you in a rocking chair on the front porch and chatting amiably about one thing or another. And really, considering where he started out in life … a high school dropout from the statistically retarded State of Arkansas being beaten up by their evil injustice system, he’s downright amazing – his literacy, his style and his attitude. (One and only promotional line: Almost Home, by Damien Echols. At any online bookstore near your computer. His journal is on wm3.org).

As you’ll recall (or probably you won’t, so I’ll remind you), everything had stopped at the “write your negative thoughts down on small scraps of paper and burn them” instructions. I still have a metal mixing bowl sitting on my dining room table with small scraps of paper in them. I had so little faith in my own luck and so MUCH faith in my own clumsiness, I just didn’t want to start a fire in a bowl in my apartment; and have been seriously dragging my feet since then. In fact, it’s been so long, I can’t even remember what I wrote on those scraps of paper, and ought to open them and read them one of these days.

One way Damien sent me flying off in another direction was by mentioning Michelle Belanger in one of his journal entries. I didn’t realize I already was (vaguely) familiar with her until I’d already taken his lead and ordered one of her books. From there, I logged onto her website and uttered the somewhat insulting, “Hey, that’s the chick from Paranormal State!” Which is true, but she probably could have gone without being identified as a “chick”. Oh well, too late now.

Michelle had written several books, one of which is entitled Psychic Dreamwalking. If I’m not mistaken, I have had a few (and far between) experiences of becoming conscious while dreaming, if only for a micro-second. As I read her book, I began to suspect the experiences I had weren’t episodes of "dreamwalking", I suspect they were episodes of "lucid dreaming" – moments of being aware that you are dreaming while you are still in the middle of the dream.

At the same time, I had begun re-reading anthropological articles and books about the ten days of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which occur right around the time of the Autumn Equinox. Why I was doing that, I will explain momentarily. Nothing I read divulged the true Mystery of the Mysteries, because in those days people could die for releasing any of those secrets or mysteries, and it must have been a believable threat because no one did.

The Greeks must have had one hell of a “Homeland Security” system in place to scare that many people into silence for that long. Or … here’s my suspicion: the awe inspiring Goddess Demeter is … wait for it … REAL!!! … and people protected her secrets out of love for 2000 years until the Southern Baptists of Arkansas showed up and murdered everybody! Hmmmmm. Things to think about.

Anyway, I knew all about the theory of the ergot on the barley causing hallucinations after initiates drank the kykeon, but I also knew all of the arguments AGAINST the ergot on the barley: (a) if that was all it was behind the Mysteries, people would be recreating the Mysteries at home, and didn't, and (b) all of the women initiates would be spontaneously losing infants all over the place, because it causes all sorts of horrible side effects. And how did the awesome huge jet of flame go flaring up into the sky over Eleusis? This was Ancient Greece. Flame throwers weren't around, and no one has found pockets of gas under the town. People would have noticed initiates erecting a huge pine tree and setting the top of it on fire, so I’m pretty sure THAT didn’t happen … someone would have mentioned it and didn’t. I found myself thinking, "Wow, I wish I could have been an initiate in those Mysteries to see what really happened ..."

And then, all of a sudden it occurred to me: [insert "Eureka!" music they always throw into cartoons when a light bulb goes on above some character’s head] Hey! Is it possible to dream walk into the past, into history?

And speaking of which, why is it that winnowing baskets – the same baskets the initiates carried into the Eleusinian cave as part of the initiation - all looked the same no matter where on the globe they were created? Like, how is it that the Ojibwa winnowing baskets in North America look the same as African winnowing baskets, before 1492? Or did they start looking the same after 1492? More importantly, do I get an award for the most irrelevant question set in the middle of a paragraph of 2011? Yes? WOO-HOOO!!!

But I digress. Belanger didn't discuss dreamwalking into the past - only how to pass along important messages, how to have sex in the dream space (well, that would cut down on wear and tear on the sheets, I guess), and most importantly, how to always ask permission first, or you could scare the *&^%$ out of someone, dreamwalking in on them when they weren't expecting it - but nothing about dreamwalking into history.

Trying to figure out what the difference between dreamwalking and lucid dreaming was, I also went and bought Mark McElroy’s Lucid Dreaming for Beginners. In answer to the question of the benefits of lucid dreaming, he says, “Live your fantasies … visit third century Rome. Go sky diving – without a parachute. Give yourself magic powers. Buy everything your heart desires. Meet your favorite celebrity. Heck, seduce your favorite celebrity! …)”

Ohhh-kay. On one hand, visiting third century Rome was closer to what I was seeking - the Eleusinian Mysteries went on for 2,000 years and so started waaaaay back in Greek history - but no, on the other hand, this really isn’t what I was hoping for. Exception: seducing your favorite celebrity? Helllllo, Viggo Mortensen!! No, wait. Hellllllo, Gil Birmingham! No, wait. Helllllo, Stephen Bowman! No, wait … (just kidding!) This sounded like an interaction with your own imagination, not dreamwalking.

Using Viggo Mortensen as an example, would the real Viggo Mortensen wake up the next morning and wonder who that ravishing succubus (humble, aren’t I?) was that he was boinking all night in his dreams? Not likely, as I would have been interacting with my imaginary version of Viggo Mortensen, not the real thing. I think we’re still discussing dream walking, not lucid dreaming.

Speaking of succubi, this raised another question I couldn’t find an answer to. Why is it always assumed that succubi and their male counterparts (incubus-es? incubi?) are demons? You come across people raising the question in all sincerity on Ask.com and getting answers from even more annoying church ladies (or maybe they're the same ones from Arkansas) with withered-up and desiccated nether regions protected by sterile granny panties, and sniggering prepubescent boys trying to play “Skeptic”.

No one ever answers the simple question. Why the assumption of evil? Are they just passing along old wives’ tales? Has anyone ever seen one? Why assume they’re evil? Because they think sex is evil? Why do Westerners (translation: Christians) automatically think sex is evil? Too many people in this world just don’t question their own assumptions. Bottom line: why aren’t succubi/incubi merely spirits who enjoy the activity for what it is? More importantly, does this count as yet another completely irrelevant question in the middle of a paragraph? Yes? WOO-HOOO! Twice in one entry! And where is Damien Echols when you need an answer to something??? The guy is supposed to be really smart after all that self-disciplined studying he did for the last 20 years. Oh, right, I think he’s in New Zealand. (*sigh*) Someone tell Peter Jackson to quit showing him “Lord of the Ring Outtakes” and shove this question under his nose!

THE DAYBOOK
Back many, many years ago I had started a Day Book. There is (or was) a witchy little shop I loved, on East 9th Street in the Village, Enchantments, where I went through Wicca 101. Another reason why, when I read about Damien, I thought, “Thank goodness I lived in New York”, where they tend not to arrest you and throw you on Death Row for going to Wicca 101 classes.

If you ever find the store, not only is it the best-smelling store on the planet, they have the coolest stone carving of the “Green Man” hanging from the wall in the back of their tiny garden; something you never expect to find in lower Manhattan.

Anyway, I’d started the Day Book back in the Enchantments days, in lieu of a Book of Shadows (the book where witches are supposed to keep their spells and recipes) since I was pretty green around the gills (much like Elphaba) and had no spells or witchy recipes to record, beyond the usual, “Oops, I just accidentally set fire to the kitchen …”, or “Darn, I just blew up another cauldron.”

I was not a talented Wicca student in those days. Or these days either. Ever seen those funny Halloween decorations of a witch who has just crashed into a tree on her broomstick? That would have been me for real.

As it was, I went through the course, enjoyed it for the most part, made some new friends and then forgot about it until now. I’d also forgotten I still had that Day Book and spent an entire evening searching for it, hoping to start making entries again – I didn’t even expect to find it, but I did.

Anyway, the reason I’d pulled the Day Book back out again was to record one of the most beautiful examples of lyrical prose I’d ever read. Damien had written:

“On August 31st I’ll sit up all night long to see September in. At midnight she’ll begin to stir and stretch. When September opens her eyes I’ll be the first thing she sees.”

I absolutely loved that when I first read it. Now HERE was a guy who definitely should have been born and raised in the northeast instead of Arkansas; we are definitely a part of the country that makes a big colorful to-do about Autumn and fall leaves. But back to my dream-walking into history idea, I may be closer to being able to do that than you might think! Check this out!

The good news of the week is:

"Particles shot from European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) labs near Geneva, Switzerland to Gran Sasso, Italy, reportedly surpassed the speed of light by 60 billionths of a second. The experiment was part of OPERA, a project designed to test the oscillation of small particles called neutrinos." (URL: http://marquettetribune.org/2011/09/27/news/speed-of-light-comes-to-halt/)

“The report has sent scientists into a tizzy because "a particle traveling faster than the speed of light would violate causality. In other words, an event can have an effect on an earlier event," Michael Witherell, vice chancellor for research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, physics department, told TechNewsWorld. Though the difference of speed compared to light is small, it could challenge the entire law of physics, open up the possibility of time travel and play havoc with longstanding notions of cause and effect. A lot of science-fiction stories are based on the concept that if the light-speed barrier can be overcome, time travel might theoretically become possible." (URL: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/219577/20110925/particles-faster-than-light-neutrinos-opera-cern-einstein-s-theory.htm)

So, either (a) we've just discovered warp drive and can act out "Star Trek" for real, or (b) we can go backwards in time (yay! I want a ticket for THAT ride!) OR – (c) the Swiss miscalculated and their findings are incorrect. But think about it ... the Swiss miscalculating??? Come on - Just not possible. I'm leaning towards time travel. Or … well, okay … being a Ferengi might be fun for a day, too. :) And the really sad news was that most American media sources thought the idiotic Republican candidate squabble for president was more important than this news story!!??? I don't get it. Most exciting scientific news story in the last 100 years and it ended up mostly on the back pages. Unbelievable.

More URL’s:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/science-light-idUSL5E7KM4CW20110922

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/story/2011-09-22/particle-travels-faster-than-speed-of-light/50518790/1

http://marquettetribune.org/2011/09/27/news/speed-of-light-comes-to-halt/

So … the Daybook was something like this: if you were Hindu, this is what you might have posted on October 1st: that being the first day of the Festival celebrating Durga, the personification of the active side of the divine “shakti” energy of Lord Shiva, the ferocious protector of the righteous, and destroyer of evil. Durga is usually portrayed as riding a lion, and carrying weapons in her many arms.” So … for my Daybook entry on October 1st, I would record everything I could find about Durga, perhaps her picture, and some ideas as to how to celebrate her festival next year, (And yes, I agree with you, that graphic above DOES look like “I Dream of Jeannie” when she’s inside the bottle.)

Whle I was recording that, I made another brilliant discovery (I am learning the strangest things lately, thanks to that kid from Arkansas): why does frankincense smell like … cloves and anise and grapefruit? And what IS frankincense? (Pitter, patter of feet to “Google”): Hmmm. Resin of the Boswellia tree. Obtained by slashing the tree. Over harvesting is endangering trees. (blink) (gasp) They slash a tree for it???? The poor trees! Oh, lovely. Frankincense going the way of the American buffalo because human beings are so greedy and stupid.

Why Women Who Don’t Know Their Roots Should Never Make Daybooks: So I was over at Whole Foods. Reason: one of the root recipes for harvest time I recorded many, many years ago required burdock root, which I’ve never tasted, as I had no idea what it was, what it looked like or where you’d buy any. Only that it was supposedly very good for you. Someone said they’d seen some at Whole Foods, so off I went.

Produce packed in the stands very tightly together, so I picked up something that looked like it might be a root only to discover it was actually a radish, although it sure didn’t look like the small red, round radishes I was familiar with. Long, white, huge – looked like an albino carrot on a diet of excessive growth hormones. But since I’d picked it up already … I had to buy it, and was now stuck with daikon – a Japanese radish. A rather costly mistake. Had no idea what those tasted like, either. Never even heard of it. Brought it home, scrubbed it off, cut off a slice … {chomp!} … {chew, chew, chew} … {pause} …. {face turns bright red} …. {insert sound effect of five-alarm fire bell at local firehouse} … OH, JUST KILL ME RIGHT NOW! Like I don’t have enough body parts catching fire at the moment. (See knee socks of fire, previous entry somewhere)

Bottom line: if you love torturing yourself with really spicy stuff, try one of those, you’ll love it.

* *Apparently, cooking them reduces/eliminates the bite. Grated a root, added half a Bermuda onion and garlic, egg, bread crumbs added some spices and made some decent patties out of it – like those grated potato pancakes. Fried it up in olive oil. Not bad at all. Another recipe for the Day Book, October 1st, still celebrating the Autumnal Equinox!

Next entry:  what all of this has to do with my Search for My Soul Mate!