Magick Without Fears Interview

This last Thursday I sat down the Magick Without Fears podcast for an interview that covered a lot of material related to my magical work, Enochian and otherwise. I was trying to figure out how to do a direct link to it, but that's turned out to be more work than I expected so I'm just linking to the main page. You can click here or on the image to get to the site where you can listen to the interview. This was another fun conversation - it's always nice to connect with other practitioners and share notes, even virtually.

Enjoy!

Behold the Golden Calf

I have a serious question for my regular readers. Does this feel like some sort of a joke to you? Because it sure does to me. I mean, if I were the sort of person who wanted to make fun of fundamentalist Christians (which I am) and had ample opportunity to get it done, a statue of Donald Trump seemingly deliberately created to resemble the "golden calf" of the Bible would be exactly the sort of Borat-style prank I would pull at CPAC. The joke would be to see if any of the fundamentalist Trump fans got the reference, and then make fun of them when they didn't. Which is exactly what's going on all over the Internet right now.

The Golden Calf is one of the most famous stories in the Old Testament. The Israelites, newly freed from Egyptian slavery, have a crisis of faith while God is speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai. They melt down the golden jewelry to construct a physical god — a statue in the shape of a calf — to worship in place of their abstract, invisible deity. It’s a story about the allure of idolatry, how easy it is to abandon one’s commitments to principle in favor of shiny, easy falsehoods.

This biblical tale trended on Twitter in the US Friday morning because of the following video, filmed on the first day of the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Someone involved in the conference constructed a golden statue — not of a calf, but of Trump — and wheeled it out to cheers from conference attendees. “That is so cool,” one of the onlookers says.

There are so many reasons why this is a perfect metaphor for the state of the GOP after the Trump presidency. The party sacrificed its commitment to political principles, including previously cherished ideals like free trade, on the altar of Trumpism. White evangelicals abandoned their alleged commitments to godliness in public servants and embraced a man accused of serial sexual assault who had an affair with a porn star and paid her hush money to cover it up. Conservatism, once seen as a high-minded intellectual tradition, became undeniably base and degraded in the Trump years.

Other indications that this might be some kind of Obvious Plant trolling is that it's not an even remotely dignified statue of Trump. He appears to be wearing a suit coat, dress shirt, and tie along with American flag boxers, red flip-flops, and no pants. Come on folks, this has to be a joke! Because it isn't, I'll be forced to admit that my opinion of Poor Oppressed Christians who follow Trump is actually too high. I hadn't previously considered that possible. So I'm waiting with my fingers crossed for the truth to come out.

Because if this is totally for real, and totally serious, and not intentionally designed to resemble the idol of the Bible as closely as possible, the level of stupidity just astounds me. And as anyone who knows me will tell you, it's really hard to astound me with stupidity.

Evangelical Leaders Condemn Christian Nationalism

Here's a welcome development. A group of evangelical Christian leaders has come out against "Christian nationalism," which they describe as "heresy." Wow. I have to say, I didn't see that coming. I mean, the whole concept is obviously heretical if you read the Bible and understand Christian theology and all that, but I'm not a Christian so when I say it, even over and over again, none of them listen to me. Hopefully they'll finally listen to members of their own religious leadership.

A coalition of evangelical Christian leaders is condemning the role of "radicalized Christian nationalism" in feeding the political extremism that led to the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

In an open letter, more than 100 pastors, ministry and seminary leaders, and other prominent evangelicals express concern about the growing "radicalization" they're seeing, particularly among white evangelicals.

The letter notes that some members of the mob that stormed the Capitol carried Christian symbols and signs that read, "Jesus Saves," and that one of the rioters stood on the Senate rostrum and led a Christian prayer. The letter calls on other Christian leaders to take a public stand against racism, Christian nationalism, conspiracy theories and political extremism.

The letter reads, in part: "We recognize that evangelicalism, and white evangelicalism in particular, has been susceptible to the heresy of Christian nationalism because of a long history of faith leaders accommodating white supremacy. We choose to speak out now because we do not want to be quiet accomplices in this on-going sin."

Christian nationalism has a special appeal to Poor Oppressed Christians, that minority of Christians who feel oppressed by the mere existence of anyone different. By claiming that the United States was founded as a "Christian Nation" (when it was really founded on the idea of religious freedom), they can justify their un-American (and really, un-Christian) eliminationist beliefs as part of their religion. But they're really not.

It's good to see evangelical leaders recognizing this and speaking out against it. Let's hope that a lot of these folks take heed and rein this nonsense in before more bad things happen.

Ritual Night Talk for February 23rd

Here is the video of yesterday's Ritual Night Talk with More on Gatekeeping. The donation link is here. The post I mention in the talk on "Blinds and Innovation" is here and my Path of Initiation articles can be found here.

I find the whole notion of gatekeeping in the esoteric world pretty silly. The whole notion of "occult authority" is fraught with pitfalls and always has been. Your best guide is to approach magick in as scientific a way as possible and let your results be your guide. Traditions have a place because they give you a starting point for your practices, but to really become good at magick you have to make it your own.

Gatekeeping is problematic because it can keep people from starting a magical practice until they fulfill whatever requirements the gatekeeper deems "worthy" or "good enough." But really, the requirements are just that you learn how to do the rituals and start practicing them. You're not likely to be a virtuoso right out of the gate, but hardly anybody is. And the way to get better is to practice as much as you can.

Enjoy!

Exorcise Your Cat!

No, not exercise, exorcise. Today's article can't help but remind me of Bill Murray in Ghostbusters 2 pushing his no-budget paranormal TV show. "Next week on World of the Psychic, hairless pets. Weird." The joke, of course, being that there's nothing paranormal or psychic or ghostly or demonic or whatever about having an unusual-looking pet.

Now that joke would be even funnier if there weren't clueless people out there taking it way too seriously. The article concerns a cat named Pixel who is a Cornish Rex. Cornish Rexes are a breed with far less hair than regular house cats, and they're fairly rare so a lot of people aren't that familiar with them. Pixel's owner, Alyson Kalhagen, recently posted some photos of the cat online and got some pretty bizarre responses.

One such message was from an exorcist who told Kalhagen that a demon was using her pet as a 'puppet' and instructing her to keep Pixel caged and pray 'over and over' in front of him to get the demon out. 'I had a message from this person telling me that they were an 'exorcist' and Pixel had been 'taken over by a demon that was controlling his face'.

'I think he was trying to tell me that's why my cat is making all of these crazy faces,' Kalhagen said. 'In that photo he's got kind of a blank stare with his weird little grin on his face - like maybe the lights were on or no one was at home, or whoever was at home wasn't up to any good.

'All the time people say 'this is the creepiest cat I've ever seen', 'my sleep paralysis demon has come to life' and if they saw him in the middle of the night they'd have a heart attack and it would scare them to death.

'People say all the time that he's a 'demon cat' who 'must be possessed' and that the devil's taken control of him. It's kind of a recurring theme. I think it's pretty funny because I usually just say 'imagine coming face to face when you're trying to scoop the litter box'.'

Praxis Behind The Obscure Interview

Yesterday I sat down for an interview with the Praxis Behind The Obscure podcast and covered a bunch of stuff related to my Enochian work and magick in general, plus my current ideas about consciousness and scientific approaches to magick. It was a good talk - give it a listen.

Since I mention it on the podcast, I'm in the process of working with my publisher to get the final technical issues resolved with Mastering the Thirty Aires, which means it should be out soon now. I know I've said that before and I apologize for the delays getting it out, but the book is going to be worth the wait.

Enjoy!

Ritual Night Talk for February 16th

Here is the video of yesterday's Ritual Night Talk, on Doing Magick Right. The donation link is here.

As a follow-up to last week's talk on Doing Magick Wrong, here's my take on Doing Magick Right. In this talk I explain what I have found to be "best practices" when approaching magick, especially as a beginner. A big part of that is ignoring wannabe gatekeepers trying to police your practice and doing what works for you.

To be clear, I'm not trying to come across that way myself either. If you have a practice that's working for you, keep it up - regardless of what I or anyone else tries to tell you. But if you're not sure where to start, I can recommend some good jumping-off points and basic rituals to get you on your way.

Enjoy!

Ritual Night Talk for February 9th

Here is the video of yesterday's Ritual Night Talk, on Doing Magick Wrong. The donation link is here.

Lots of folks on the Internet will tell you that you're doing magick wrong, no matter what you're doing. From authors arguing over whose book is the right way to do it, to people pushing their own special secrets that only they can teach you, these sorts of argument - especially online - are to be avoided as a beginning practitioner. It's much more important to do the work than it is to worry about making minor mistakes.

Enjoy!