Still Not Occult Crime

As a fan of the True Crime genre, I am very familiar with cases in which false confessions get innocent people convicted. Such cases are practically cliche at this point. They usually are older cases from back when DNA evidence was not as easy to test, which means that testing evidence with today's techniques can yield an accurate result.

Richard Allen was convicted in 2024 of murdering two girls in Indiana. He denied killing them for months, but after being held in solitary confinement and interrogated repeatedly he finally confessed. His defense lawyers claimed that police had managed to convince him he killed the girls and he had "repressed the memory" of it.

Now that should throw up an immediate red flag with my readers. "Repressed memories" are not real unless you happen to be a police officer trained in a method called the Reid Technique. It is used by police departments all over the country, and whether you are innocent or not police can usually extract a confession using it. They often do so by convincing subjects that they committed the crime, but do not remember doing so because of "repression."

Prosecutors said Allen was armed with a gun and forced the girls off the hiking trail. They said he confessed to planning to rape them before a passing van made him change his mind and he killed them. An expert testified an unspent bullet found between the teens’ bodies “had been cycled through” Allen’s handgun.

Defense lawyers at his trial said no witness explicitly identified Allen as the man seen near the trail the afternoon the girls went missing. They also said no fingerprint, DNA or forensic evidence linked Allen to the murder scene. Allen was held in solitary confinement while awaiting trial. He denied killing the girls for months, but his attorneys said mental stress from isolation led to a steep psychological decline. Eventually, his mental state became so bad he convinced himself he killed the girls and confessed several times, his lawyers said.

“Allen lost forty pounds, was unable to care for himself, was tased, his face was black and blue and at times bleeding, and he was poisoned by fecal matter and toilet water,” attorneys Stacy Uliana and Mark Leeman wrote in their brief. Prosecutors said the statements coincided with Allen seeing evidence in the case including the conditions of the teens’ bodies.

“The discovery materials forced Allen to face the horrifying evidence of what he did ... images and events he had been able to ignore and repress over the five years in which his guilt had gone undiscovered,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita wrote in his office’s brief.

So far, so ordinary - at least as murder cases go. I'm not familiar with how you test if a bullet has "cycled through" a gun, so I have no idea how accurate that test is. The stress described by the defense is absolutely the sort of thing that could produce a false confession, so it is possible that this is another case of that. At the same time, there's no way to say for sure. If the bullet can be reliably traced to his gun, it sounds like that should be conclusive.

Now I know you're wondering - what does all this have to do with Augoeides' usual subject matter? I promise, we're just about there - because here's where the story goes weird.

Seb-Hed Ritual for 2026

Today's post is the full script for the Seb-Hed Ritual that we will be performing tomorrow evening, Tuesday September 22nd, for the Autumnal Equinox at the Ritual Workshop. The Seb-Hed is based on a rite of renewal practiced for the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, updated with modern ritual forms and so forth. It invokes the balanced energies of Set and Horus, who in ancient times represented Upper and Lower Egypt.

0. The Temple

The Set altar is in the North, and Horus altar is in the South. The material basis is placed on each altar; red wine or juice for Set, white wine or juice for Horus. A statue of each deity is placed on the corresponding altar. A third larger altar with a chalice is placed between them. The invoking wand and banishing dagger are placed on this central altar.

I. Opening

Officiant performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram using the banishing dagger.

Officiant: We take refuge in Nuit, the blue-lidded daughter of sunset, the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky, as we issue the call to the awakened nature of all beings, for every man and every woman is a star.

All: MAKASHANAH

Officiant: We take refuge in Set-An, the secret Black Flame that burns in every heart of man and in the core of every star, as we issue the call to our own awakened nature, arousing the coiled serpent about to spring.

All: XEPER (pronounced KEH-fer)

Officiant: We take refuge in Har-Wer, who wields the wand of double power, the wand of the force of Coph Nia, but whose left hand is empty for he has crushed an universe and naught remains, as we unite our awakened natures with those of all beings everywhere and everywhen, dissolving all obstacles and healing all suffering.

All: ABRAHADABRA

Officiant: For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

All: All is pure and present and has always been so, for existence is pure joy; all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass and are done; but there is that which remains. To this realization we commit ourselves – pure and total presence.

All: So mote it be.

Officiant performs the Comselh Ananael Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram using the invoking wand, replacing ARARITA with SOTHIS. This is because the rising of the star Sirius (Sothis) preceded the annual flooding of the Nile, which is when the original rite of renewal was performed in ancient Egypt.

Regarding Crystals

I recently came across a silly meme online asking how bad things could be happening in the world when so many people are buying crystals. Crystals are very popular in New Age spirituality and are said to ward off "negative energy" and the like. A lot of New Age practices are based on watered-down ideas from magical lore, and the alleged properties of crystals are no different.

I previously have covered some of this material in the context of talismans, but this basic point bears repeating - crystals do not do anything unless you actively work magick with them. The idea that you can set up a shelf in your house, put a bunch of crystals on it, and expect to be safe from negativity or whatever is essentially a cargo cult take on magick. Crystals, by themselves, are just regular objects.

In magical work, crystals are some of the best objects for anchoring talismans. They have a fascinating property called the piezoelectic effect, which means that (1) when they are compressed, a small amount of electricity is generated and (2) exposure to certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation will cause them to vibrate. This is why you can build a crystal radio without a power source - the crystal vibrates as it interacts with the radio waves themselves.

This also is probably why you can perceive vibrations in certain crystals. The modern world is literally awash in electromagnetism produced by radio transmissions, electronic devices, and so forth. A crystal that resonates with those frequencies literally vibrates at a low level. This is not necessarily a psychic effect, it can be entirely physical. This further feeds the proposed association between crystals and "vibes" of various sorts.

Christians Evicted from Burning Man

The Reno Gazette Journal reports that a Christian-themed camp was recently evicted from the Burning Man Festival. For those of you unfamiliar with Burning Man, a lot goes on there and it takes a lot for a whole camp to get kicked out. The Christians are now whining that they were evicted because of their faith, but as usual that's just not true. They were evicted for refusing to leave people alone, or as they call it, "sharing the Gospel."

Organizers of the "Shift the Atmosphere" complained on social media that they were targeted over their expressions of faith, which included preaching and on-site baptisms. But witnesses told the Reno Gazette-Journal the group used aggressive tactics on both adults and children to share the gospel of Jesus.

In a statement, Burning Man officials said camp organizers were repeatedly warned to change their behavior. While the group complained online that their eviction violated Burning Man's principle of "radical inclusivity," Burning Man officials said the group violated another core tenet: privacy.

As a private, ticketed event, Burning Man's annual Black Rock City gathering is subject to strict privacy rules set by the organization. Those restrictions, which also apply to the media, include limiting photography and video, typically by requiring prior consent of anyone being filmed.

Longtime Burning Man attendees said they'd never seen an entire camp evicted during the event. Instead, specific attendees are usually removed, or camps not allowed back the next year.

"Burning Man takes participants' right to privacy seriously. Seeking permission and consent before filming or engaging other participants in Black Rock City is a requirement and responsibility for anyone at the event," Burning Man officials said in a Sept. 3 statement. "This camp received multiple warnings and opportunities to correct their behavior, yet continued to violate our policies and were therefore evicted."

As usual, these Poor Oppressed Christians fail to understand that the problem is not their beliefs. If Christianity works for someone as a spiritual system, I think that's great. They should keep doing it. I may be a Thelemite and an occultist, but I have no problem with anyone personally practicing Christianity or any other religion. What they need to get through their heads is that people who don't share those beliefs want to be left alone. Being Christian does not give you the right to harrass people, even if you honestly think you're "saving their souls."