Who Do They Think They Are?

It has come to my attention that Watchers of the Dawn, a website originally dedicated to posting snarky comments about the various Golden Dawn orders, apparently fancies itself the new Augoeides. Don't believe me? Check out the screenshot above that I took just last night. You can click on the image to enlarge.

Let's see - not a single Golden Dawn story on there! To be fair, those are just the most recent six stories on the site and there's one more row on front page, with Golden Dawn stories in positions #8 and #9, but still.

In the screenshot, they have the "Obama sacrificed Scalia" story at #6. #7, which you can't see, is about Saudi Arabia's anti-witchcraft squad. And #2 is crazy stuff from Pat Robertson, which I cover all the damn time.

I was considering covering #7, the anti-witchcraft squad story, and #1, the Goddess Temple trial in Phoenix over the weekend. I still might. I will say that I've backed off the African witchcraft stories for the most part, so they can have #4 and #5.

But how dare they? This is my beat, man!

Now it hopefully is obvious at this point that my comments here are all tongue-in-cheek, and other websites can post whatever the heck they want. I do think it's kind of telling, though, that they decided to move beyond Golden Dawn snarking and into more general occult news territory.

Because really, when you get right down to it, only so many people are that interested in the Golden Dawn and the twisted political nonsense that goes on between the different groups. Personally I avoid it like the plague. On the other hand, everybody likes to make fun of Pat Robertson. I think that statement might even be axiomatic.

Augoeides had a slow January, with me starting a new job along with continuing to putter away on both Mastering the Great Table and yet another new fiction project. So maybe they just decided to cater to folks jonesing for their Augoeides fix after a paltry month of only four posts, and I can't say that I blame them.

But have no fear, I'm currently in the process of ramping the posting back up to where it was a couple months back. I'm even going to up my game a bit and start posting more serious magick articles, like I've been promising for awhile now. Monday's piece on Goetic Circles and Operant Fields was just the beginning.

Let's see if Watchers of the Dawn can keep up.

Vampire-Paller Jeb In Trouble

Ever since I exposed Jeb Bush as a vampire-paller last year, I've been waiting for his campaign to collapse. I'm a bit saddened that no opposition researchers seem to have found my article or had any interest in using it, but that's probably because Jeb has been shooting himself in the foot all on his own, over and over again.

The South Carolina Republican Primary this weekend could very well be ground zero for Jeb's campaign. According to recent polls, Trump is ahead by a large margin among likely primary voters, and while Jeb sought the endorsement of popular South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, it instead went to Marco Rubio. The next few states look even worse, so a bad showing on Saturday might just do him in.

One could imagine GOP front-runner Donald Trump getting away with it -- calling himself the greatest presidential disrupter or whatnot -- but coming from Bush, it felt forced and unconvincing, as if he were a 22-year-old pitching a venture capital firm on Tinder for gerbils. Trump could pitch that -- it’d be a great, great place for classy gerbils to meet -- but you could tell, deep down, Jeb knew how ridiculous it sounded.

“Disrupter Jeb,” who’d set aside his glasses for a more youthful, contacts-based look, was just one of numerous Jebs put forward by the candidate that night. There was "Swagger Jeb," trying to mimic Trump’s bluster and self-confidence, boasting of his abilities. There was "Tea Party Jeb," stressing how he’d move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on his first day in office and countermand President Barack Obama’s executive orders. There was "Adult Jeb," highlighting his experience handling natural disasters and battles with teachers unions as Florida’s governor.

And then there was Jeb Bush, a member of today’s most successful political dynasty, highlighting the hawkish foreign policy of his brother, former President George W. Bush and the strong moral fiber of his father, former President George H. W. Bush. “If every child had parents like George and Barbara Bush growing up, we’d be a completely different country,” he told the crowd.

It's possible that Jeb might be a better president than his brother. At least, I would sure hope so. But what he's shown so far in the race for the Republican nomination is that he's a flat-out terrible campaigner, while his brother was an excellent one. And by the way, I expect that's pretty much the nicest thing you will ever hear me say about George W. Bush.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, appears set to duplicate his big New Hampshire win on Saturday. I think those witches who tried to hex him need to go back to the drawing board, because he's doing far better than anyone expected at this point in the race.

UPDATE: So as it turns out, the polls were right. Trump won South Carolina, and Jeb is done. And to think it happened without anyone deploying my vampire-paller allegations against him! I'll keep them around, though, should he ever run for office again.

Whut?

That headline pretty much sums up my response to this story, which has to rank up there as one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on the Internet - and as regular readers of this blog know, that's really saying something. I talk a lot about how fundamentalists Christians seem like they inhabit their own insular universe, and this shows just how far removed from everyone else's reality they've managed to get.

So here's the deal. As just about everyone in the world now knows, United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in his sleep last weekend at a remote ranch in Texas. Scalia was a staunch conservative, so conspiracy theorists already are spinning scenarios in which he was murdered by some mysterious liberal assassin, rather than the official explanation of death by natural causes.

Scalia was very private about his health, but apparently he was suffering from some medical issues that could have contributed to his death. He was also 79 years old. But according to Christian radio host Rick Wiles, none of that is relevant. Wiles contends that not only was Scalia murdered, he was murdered by President Obama as a sacrifice to Lucifer to commemorate the Roman holiday of Lupercalia.

Yeah, that was about my reaction. And here I thought that Obama was supposed to be a secret Muslim.

Wiles explained that the “Luciferian” “devil-worshipers” who control the government are out for blood, noting that Lupercalia is observed between February 13 and 15. Scalia’s body was discovered on the 13th. “There’s always human sacrifice involved,” he said, claiming that Scalia was “killed” to mark the beginning of pagan fascism ruling over the U.S.

“The 13th was the 44th day of 2016, Obama is the 44th president of the United States,” Wiles said, “so you have this numerology thing taking place.”

Wiles said that the assassins who killed the conservative justice “deliberately left the pillow on his face as a message to everybody else: ‘Don’t mess with us, we can murder a justice and get away with it.’ And I assure you, there’s a lot of frightened officials in Washington today, deep down they know, the regime murdered a justice…. This is the way a dictatorial, fascist, police state regime takes control of a nation.”

Goetic Circles and Operant Fields

Regular readers of this blog know all about my advocacy of the operant field for practical magical operations. Instead of the traditional Golden Dawn use of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram followed by the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram, an operant field consists of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram followed by the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram.

You can also open an operant field using a banishing Star Ruby and an invoking Star Sapphire (which as far as I can tell is how Aleister Crowley intended those two rituals to work), or any other combination of a general banishing pentagram ritual and general invoking hexagram ritual. The point is that you banish at the microcosmic level and invoke at the macrocosmic level.

How I usually explain this is that it works by banishing or clearing out the microcosmic space of your field of consciousness represented by the pentagram, and invoking into that space the macrocosmic elements represented by the hexagram. This interlocks the microcosm and macrocosm, and creates a space or field within which internal magical intents can more easily manifest into the external physical realm.

This proposal generated some controversy when it finally circulated enough to make the rounds of the blogosphere, with folks such as the late Donald Michael Kraig arguing that the operant field method is not the right way to use the forms. But I keep at it, because it keeps working for me.

At any rate, the interlocking of microcosm and macrocosm is essentially a symbolic representation of the "operation of the Sun" described in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. Once the magician has created the field, within its bounds "that which is above" and "that which is below" merge more fully than they do during regular conscious awareness.

When you banish at both the microcosmic and macrocosmic levels, it could perhaps be said that both realms correspond because they are devoid of influences, but the boundary between them nonetheless remains. That makes influencing the physical world by means of concentrated thought far more difficult, as the continued presence of the boundary creates additional resistance to the propagation of your magical intent into the world.

Maplewood Ghost Attack

It's not every day that a weird paranormal story originates near your own home town. But I suppose it was about time. For anybody who doesn't know, I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis is one of Minnesota's Twin Cities, the other being the state capitol, Saint Paul, across the Mississippi River. The metro area includes both cities and the surrounding suburbs, with a population of about two and a half million people.

Maplewood is one of suburbs on the Saint Paul side of the metro. It's home to the headquarters of 3M corporation, the makers of post-it notes and a whole slew of other household and industrial products. It also is the site of today's story, which made the local alternative newspaper City Pages. According to the article, a Maplewood woman claimed that she was attacked in her home by two ghosts. She stabbed one of them with a kitchen knife and then lost consciousness.

The alert, which a user posted to imgur late last night, tells the story of a woman who was "unresponsive" and behind a locked door when her family found her. She was holding a large kitchen knife, and was covered in blood. Her body had no visible wound that could have accounted for that much blood loss.

Medics were called, and the woman eventually came back to consciousness. It was then that she told her version of the events that had led to her discovery in that state. "She claimed that she was attacked by two 'ghosts,'" the crime alert says, "and stabbed one of them in the chest before she went unconscious." Aside from the blood that covered the woman's face, neck, and hands, there was a trail that led all over the house — but did not extend outside it.

Of course, the Maplewood Police Department is not Ghostbusters, so they are treating the mysterious incident like a potentially serious crime. That would mean a live, human stabbing victim somewhere out there, who managed to escape the woman's home alive, though without leaving a blood trail.

I'm going to come right out here and say I have no idea what happened. The presence of blood suggests that the attackers were people rather than spirits, but why is the woman reporting ghosts? Was this a home invasion during which the attackers dressed up as the killer from Scream? There are special effects that the attackers might have employed to make it seem as if they were ghosts, too, but that seems like a lot of work to go to in order to convince one woman she is being haunted.

I'm sure the truth will eventually come to light. The attacker most likely figured out how to stop the bleeding before leaving the house, which would explain the absence of a blood trail leading outside. I know if I were stabbed and my attacker was unconscious that's what I would do. It might also be possible to identify the attacker by his or her wound, since it probably will require medical attention above and beyond basic first aid and hospitals report cases of knife and gunshot injuries to law enforcement.

More than anything else, I want the attackers identified so I can get some idea of why they felt the need to convince this victim that they were ghosts, and why they attacked her in the first place. Home invasions are usually robberies, but there's no mention of whether anything was stolen.

Exorcising Ted Cruz

I normally try to keep Augoeides as politically neutral as I can and only touch on electoral politics when something appropriate for the blog surfaces, like Jeb Bush palling around with vampires or the New York witches who tried to hex Donald Trump (which, by the way, at this point seems to have failed spectacularly).

But here's something you don't see every day on the campaign trail. During a speech in New Hampshire, which holds its presidential primary today, two men in the audience attempted to perform an exorcism on Republican candidate Ted Cruz.

According to The Dallas Morning News, Cruz had just finished his stump speech when the men began shouting at the candidate. “Ted Cruz look in the mirror and let the evil spirit depart!” one man exclaimed. “He’s possessed by a demon!”

As the crowd booed, Cruz suggested that the “very confused fellow” was part of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign. “He’s possessed by a demon!” the man yelled. “The demon has to leave. That’s why the body is so disgusting to look at!”

A second man holding a mirror urged Cruz to look at himself so “the evil can confront itself.” “Evil body! Evil spirit. Look yourself in the mirror!” the man said.

Given the crowded Republican primary, odds are that this stunt was probably some sort of joke or bid for publicity. It is very weird, though, that political agitators would choose this particular method to get their point across, and I don't see why someone from the Sanders campaign would bother, since Sanders is not running against Cruz in the Republican primary. On the other hand, Cruz won the Iowa Republican Caucus just last week, which puts him in the sights of every other Republican candidate hoping to unseat him.

Whoever was behind the attempted exorcism, I think that it has to be a first. I certainly don't remember hearing of anyone trying to exorcise a political candidate on the campaign trail, and I think if it had happened before I would have heard about it.

Ghost Riders

Here's a collection of odd paranormal stories out of Japan. Apparently, in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami in Japan that killed nearly sixteen thousand people, cab drivers in the coastal town of Ishinomaki reported picking up ghostly passengers, who interacted and rode with them for awhile, but then vanished into thin air. According to the article, the stories were documented by Yuka Kuda, a student at a nearby university, for her graduate thesis in sociology.

Every week in her junior year, Yuka headed to Ishinomaki. She hopped into waiting cabs and asked the drivers, “Did you have any unusual experiences after the disaster?” Most of the 100 she asked ignored her question, some got angry, but seven talked of ghost passengers they picked up shortly after the tsunami. Their stories are both eerie and heart-wrenching.

One driver said he picked up a woman in a coat in early summer, several months after the tsunami. “Please go to the Minamihama (district),” the woman said. He told her the area was empty — it had been devastated by the tsunami. Then, she asked a very strange question in a shaking voice. “Have I died?” The question was enough to make the driver turn to look in the back seat, but no one was there.

Another driver spoke of a man possibly in his 20s who climbed into his cab. He spied the stranger through the rear-view mirror, pointing forward. He asked the man for his destination and the ghost passenger said “Hiyoriyama,” which means mountain. When they arrived, the man vanished.

Are these stories just illusions? Perhaps, but Kudo makes an interesting point that weakens this explanation. All who talked about ghost passengers started their meters once the riders enter their cab. The meter is recorded. And when the ghost passengers disappeared, they had to pay their fares. Some of the seven who spoke to Yuka had recorded the experience in their logs, and one had a report that proved his unpaid fare.

Now it is true that memories can be fallible, especially following a massive tragedy like the tsunami, and Inquisitr is not always the most reliable news source. At the same time, though, ghost rider stories are a staple of urban legends and rate just below haunted houses in terms of frequency. Some ghost riders, such as Chicago's Resurrection Mary, even appear to multiple people over spans of many years.

Satanic Temple Wins Again

The Satanic Temple is at it again, this time in Phoenix, Arizona. Fundamentalist Christians keep trying to find ways to make sure that they can open legislative sessions with prayers that members of minority religions have to sit through, while making sure that no member of a minority religion can deliver a prayer that they have to sit through. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that if a member of one religion is allowed to offer a prayer in that context, members of other religions must be granted the same rights.

The members of the Satanic Temple for the most part don't even believe in a literal Satan and mostly use the name to shock fundamentalist Christians. But it works. After Christian lawmakers tried to pass all sorts of versions of bills that would give their religion the special privilege of delivering prayers to open sessions, the Phoenix city council finally agreed to replace sectarian prayers with a nonsectarian moment of silence. So by being blocked from delivering their prayer, the Satanic Temple actually won.

In a move that blocks a Satanist group from giving the invocation at the next Phoenix City Council meeting, the council voted 5-4 Wednesday night to no longer open each meeting with a prayer. Instead, it will call for a moment of silence. A member of the Satanic Temple from Tucson had been approved to give the opening invocation at the February 17 council meeting. But when the approval sparked outrage, council members decided to look into the way opening prayers come about.

They initially considered a proposal that would have allowed members to take turns inviting people from various religious groups to give the invocation. But Phoenix City Attorney Brad Holm warned that doing so would be viewed as an “as applied violation” of the First Amendment and, therefore, subject the city to a lawsuit. “Our view as the City Attorney’s Office — and my view personally — is that we would be likely to lose that case,” he told the council before the vote.

The Satanic Temple had threatened to sue if its representative was prohibited from opening the next official meeting on the 17th. Nobody from the temple commented at the meeting Wednesday on what the organization will do now that prayer has been eliminated.

See, the Satanic Temple is not about "worshiping the devil" or anything like that. What they really want is to see sectarian prayers eliminated from the public sphere, and they use their shocking name to outrage fundamentalists and get the job done. And in case after case, it works quite well.

Personally I like the idea of letting representatives of different religions deliver prayers so long as the opportunity is extended to all, but the facts are that fundamentalist Christians keep refusing to play nice with anybody else, especially a group with "Satan" in its name. That being so, a moment of silence is probably the best we're going to get.