Why all magicians are slightly paranoid

One of the things a person will notice is that magicians are all slightly paranoid. Sooner or later, we all undergo a bout of paranoia, believing that someone else is out to get us. It is one thing for an outsider to believe that they are being hexed; it is something completely different for a magician to believe it.

It is not something that you would expect logically from magicians. After all, we know how much work it is to actually target someone. We also know how pointless it is. There is a figure that is tossed around that 99% of psychic attacks are caused by people just thinking bad thoughts at you. Only one percent of hexes are actual "warmed up the cauldron, made thistle poppet, and poisoned their well" style cursing. And probably 99% of the actual curses are done by first year students---the more advanced students are too busy dealing with other stuff (like spiritual development).

So why are magicians so paranoid? Simply because by taking an active part in the creation of the universe (or at least how it looks right now), we know how fragile the universe is. That and if a magician thinks that the universe or someone is out to get them, the law of attraction (what you think about most is what you are going to get) is going to nail anyone that hasn't started to learn the real lesson of Daath. If you think that someone is cursing you, the magical mirror that is the universe is going to oblige you with signs and indications that you are indeed cursed.

The curse that most paranoid magicians recieve is the curse of thinking that they are important enough to curse in the first place. Everything else is a side-effect. And the guilty party is most likely the face that greets you in the mirror every morning.

Sid the cussing rabbit and the oral tradition

As some of you know, I watch Craig Ferguson. One of the bits that show up occasionally is Sid the cussing rabbit. Tonight he showed up wearing glasses. At first, Sid claimed they were for reading, then we learned that it was a disguise (to fool the censor).

Then Sid the cussing rabit made a "oral tradition" joke.

"Rabbits can't read. We are into the oral tradition. We sit around telling each other stories, and then we do the oral tradition. That's why there are so many rabbits."

(Ok, that was a bad paraphrase...but I think that you get the idea.)

Later, after the rabbit left, during the reading of the tweets and emails, the question came up about whether eating moldy halloween candy would make you high...no conclusive answer. But I agree with Craig, at least one of the audience had to be wondering that...heck, I imagine at least one of my readers will wonder about it.

After that, Betty White came out and said that she lost her money the same way most Americans do---calling telephone psychics. But fear not, Cleo said that her luck was going to change.

Ok, none of this has anything to do with magic---it just amused me. It is not everyday that you encounter an "oral tradition" joke, wonder if melted, moldy candy will send you into vision land, and hear Betty White make jokes about telephone psychics. Or at least, you do not hear it on TV that often. Maybe in the ritual room of your local lodge, but seldom on TV.

Ask me a question---is asking an Ouija board about my future wrong?

Question: Is asking an Ouija Board about my future wrong?

Answer: Having done a clean-up operation after someone who used an Ouija board improperly, I would advise you to consider other options to learn about your future. The problem with an Ouija board in the hands of a non-initiate is that it basically opens up a channel with any spirit that is passing though while you are using it. Because of this, you have no idea what type of entity you are dealing with. And the more debased spirits will tell you exactly what they think you want to hear, and there will be no truth at all in their answers. My advice is just leave the Ouija board alone.

Wondering about my birthday surprise

One of the things that I joke about is that every year, the universe gives me a birthday surprise---a big hulking problem that is going to take me a year to deal with. The surprise gift from the universe does not necessarily arrive on my birthday (though it has revealed itself on my birthday on at least one occasion); there is a month's window for it to sneak into my life. (The earliest it has shown up is a month before, the latest a week afterwards.)

Maybe it is just an artifical pattern that I am seeing. After all, my birthdays were never pleasant when I was a kid. My wife has tried to reprogram me---with limited success. I still dread birthdays.

My childhood programing consisted of "You are a big boy now; and due to the monetary situation in the family, you need to just accept that you are getting nothing for your birthday. Well, maybe a pair of socks, but nothing more." Holidays also were a drag for me...I do not remember not knowing that there was no Santa Claus and Easter Bunny.

Somehow the universe did not get this memo. Now, as I said it might be an artificial pattern. I could just be tying events that happen around my birthday into one big delusion: a delusion that says that some aspect of the universe amuses itself by sending me problems to solve.

Now, I will admit that in the long run, some of the problems I have been gifted with turn out to be benefits...but it takes a long time to get there from the initial KABOOM!

Over the last ten years, I have been gifted with two relationships (one of which is my wife), a mortgage, unemployment, college, and some lovely family problems. Oh, and possibly a lodge. As I said, some turn out to be benefits; it just takes awhile to get there from the initial explosion.

I had astrologers look at my solar return charts, but have yet to find one that is accurate enough to help me deal with the annual boom, not alone predict the form it is going to take. I am not sure if I want to argue that this is purely astrological. I suspect that part of it is initiatory, part of the package of being a working magician.

Anyway, in the next few weeks, if the past decade or so has been any indiciation of future trends, as my sun returns to its natal position, I will be gifted with a doozee of a problem. I am prepared...I am equipped with a monkey launcher, and have a bagful of evil flying monkeys just ready to send in the general direction of the favor. I may be delusional, but I am a barrel of laughs to be around.

If you already know the secret

One of the big questions about secrecy is when should a member of an Order be told something. There are some that believe that everything should be open; there are others who believe that following the strict Grade system is best. Then there are people like myself.

When I came into the particular branch of the Golden Dawn that I belong to, I will admit that I potentially had access to all of the published material. In actual practice, I had leafed though a Golden Dawn book or two, and had not done any actual reading. The book I was working my way though when Golden Dawn found me was Donald Michael Kraig's Modern Magick, a book that the members of the lodge I ended up in would roll their eyes at. Note that I said that I was "working my way though"---which is why I ended up getting into the lodge despite my sunny disposition. (If you did not get the gist and implication of this let me be clear: despite the many Golden Dawn books available, I knew almost nothing about the Golden Dawn before becoming a member.)

Now occasionally, I will mention something about my experience in Hathoor Temple online and someone will protest that they were not following proper procedure. For instance, I mentioned in passing once that I was told about godforms in Neophyte. I remember Nick Farrell replying that there was no need for me to have been exposed to that information as a Neophyte. He did not know the whole story, so I kept my sunny disposition in check.

Upon my entry into Hathoor Temple, I was rapidly placed in the "officer train", something that a lot of people do not think should have happened. (I understand the reasoning behind the modern idea that all officers should be Adept Minor or above---it just does not happen in my particular universe that often.) I think that it was a bloody test, though it was probably more likely that they foresaw that with my big mouth sooner or later I would be talking about the system and wanted me to actually know what I was doing.

The first office in the train is Sentinel. So why did I need to know about godforms as Sentinel? Well, I was sitting out in the outer hallway one night, minding my own business, when I felt like I was wearing a heavy all-body costume...complete with fleas. I remember saying afterwards that I thought that I was going "barking mad." The other officers thought that was really funny. The Praemonstrator rapidly came to the conclusion that I needed to be told about the godforms...and actually learn to work with them. (Personally, I think the "work with them" part was just the fact that the Praemonstrator really liked making my life difficult...the other possibility is just too harsh to give thought to.)

So should I have been told this? And should I tell the member of my current lodge who keeps seeing Egyptian Gods and Goddesses in the lodge room about the godforms? She started seeing them immediately---as a Neophyte. At what point should I break down and go "In Golden Dawn, we secretly work with the energies represented by the Egyptian Gods, and use their images to control the energies"?

If you already know the secret, is it wrong to be told the secret? According to Hermetic tradition, if you already know the secret, then it is ok for you to be told about it.

And I am not sure about anyone else, but there are books in my library that I swore that the book-fairies came into the house and rewrote them when I wasn't looking. Whole ideas that I did not spot the first time reading a book have leaped out at me later---I guess that some secrets you can't read, despite the words on the page, until you actually know the secret. It is one of the reasons that I think that the whole issue about secrecy is perhaps a little over-blown.

I am part of the mixed method magical camp

Over on the Magical Lotus, there is a post about the three methods of magic (I would have called them "approaches"). I am definitely part of the Mixed Method camp---when someone from the the Magical Method or Mundane Method complains that what they are doing is not working, I tend to point out the fact that they have forgotten something valuable from the other camp (aka I think that the Mixed Method is best). Often my pointer will be "Get up off the sofa" or "Why do you keep thinking so hard about the possibility of failure?"---which one will depend on who I am dealing with at that particular second.

Why concrete is best for a ritual room floor?

Last night I was doing a ritual with a couple of other people. And we were using an incense blend that had some large "tears" of frankincense in it. During the middle of the ritual, we were all reminded why carpet, vinyl, and wood are not necessarily the best ideas for a ritual room floor. One of the frankincense tears popped (ok, maybe exploded would be a better description), and hot pieces of frankincense went everywhere. Fortunately, the floor is actually just painted concrete (the carpet was yawked out a year or two ago); so no harm was done, though it was a valuable reminder that burning resins can be dangerous.