Nothing Magical About It

Lady Gaga's performance at Sunday's Super Bowl has been hailed by music critics as quite impressive. The singer performed a medley of some of her most popular hits, along with a coordinated dance number that included a wire flying harness and pre-programmed drones. And she sang the whole thing live while dancing (and flying above the stage) energetically, without any lip-syncing and without missing a beat.

But for conspiracy nut Alex Jones, the performance was far more sinister than an excellently executed musical number. Because Jones doesn't actually know anything about magick, he decided that the performance had to be a Satanic ritual and an act of "lesser magic." You know, whatever the hell that's supposed to be.

However, before the match started, infamous alt-right spokesperson and InfoWars founder Alex Jones took to Facebook to warn followers not to watch Gaga’s show because she’s the spawn of Satan and part of the ‘New World Order’.

After claiming Gaga “does rituals” and pointing out she once wore a meat suit, Jones said the Super Bowl “organisers are deciding to defile America and break our will by having us bow down to this.”

“They say she’s going to stand on top of the stadium, ruling over everyone with drones everywhere, surveilling everyone in a big swarm,” he said. “To just condition them to say ‘I am the Goddess of Satan’ ruling over them with the rise of the robots in a ritual of lesser magic.”

He continues to rant about the ‘New World Order’, how Trump has ruined Gaga’s Satanic plan to dominate the world, and slapping himself on the back for being a ‘free thinker’.

I'm convinced that a big part of where all this comes from is that Alex Jones is literally too stupid to recognize a magical ritual if it came up and bit him. Remember his ranting about the "Satanic Magical Ritual" performed by the Bohemian Society at their Bohemian Grove retreat? Here's what that bit of "magick" actually entails.

A group of people dressed in robes carry a fake body on a stretcher. They place the body inside a giant stone owl that speaks with the recorded voice of Walter Cronkite. It used to be the real voice of Walter Cronkite, who was a member, but after he died they have had to make due with a recording. All stand solemnly while the fake body burns inside the owl. The name of this ceremony is "The Cremation of Care." Its intent is to dramatize members setting aside their material and mundane concerns and just hang out with their brothers - and be, you know, Bohemian.


Since tons of business deals and political alliances are in fact formed at the Bohemian Grove retreat, it seems ridiculous to think of this as some sort of spell. There's an intent there, but it clearly doesn't work. And there really are few things in the world less threatening than a non-functional spell. I've been convinced for years that the only reason the members try to keep it secret is that they look so ridiculous putting on this silly pageant every years. "Hey! That guy in the robe there! Isn't that George W. Bush?" Bush is in fact a member, and apparently first talked to rich donors about running for office at one of the retreats.

I'm a magician. I cast spells for real. And I have no idea what Alex Jones thinks a "spell" even is. Apparently, in his mind, anything that looks weird must be a manifestation of functional spiritual technology, and a frightening one at that. So I could probably just put on a robe and a pointy hat, wave at Jones, and yell "Booga booga!" and he would be absolutely convinced that I just cast an evil Satanic spell on him. You know, instead of just messing with him. What I really don't get though, is that anybody takes him seriously as an authority on magick.

I have never seen a performance from Lady Gaga that looked anything like a magical ritual. She does performance art, which is totally not the same thing. For a magick to be magick, it must at the very least have a specific intent to produce a specific change, and better still, should call upon paranormal forces like spirits. That anybody with any interest at all in the subject doesn't know that is pretty embarrassing, given the ubiquity of the Internet. Even the statement above is unbelievably easy to shred.

First off, the idea that Lady Gaga is a "spawn of Satan" is in and of itself pretty dumb. There kind of is no such thing, unless you're talking about a system like demonolatry, and even then, they're spirits, not people. How a Lady Gaga show could "break our will" is likewise silly, unless you're talking about locking someone up in a shipping container and blasting it 24/7 for weeks on end. Also, there's a Goddess in Wicca, and then there's Satan. They're not the same. I suppose a "Goddess of Satan" could be a personage like Lilith, but I'm willing to bet Jones doesn't even know that.

And anyway, the intent is always what's entirely lacking. People like Jones are always accusing "the Illuminati" of "declaring" things. Which, from a magical standpoint, is a big pile of nothing, at least the way he means it. I expect just about every rock or pop show is constructed in some sense for the performed to declare how awesome he or she is. AND THAT'S NOT MAGICK. It's... let's see... a show. A performance. Those are the words I was looking for.

I think just about the only case you can possibly make for somebody declaring how awesome they are causing real harm is the election of Donald Trump. After all, that's all Trump did, day in and day out, and thanks to his skills as a salesman people believed him - and voted for him. And his executive orders have already caused what I consider real harm, even to the people who voted for him. But oddly enough, Jones fully supports Trump. It just goes to show that the guy's thinking is so muddled that it doesn't even make sense when it comes to anything occult.

And yet, people still believe him, and apparently are unable to perform a simple web search to find out that real magick is nothing like what he says it is. It's a strange world, folks, and at this point that's really all I can say.