Printing out a large Death card

...and we will update this horrific story of the 2012 nuclear meltdown as soon as we have more information. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program, "Who the heck let Morgan into the Golden Dawn?!"

How to use Adobe Reader to print out a really big Tarot card.

One of the things I have been doing lately when I am just too fried from doing too much research to do any actual homework or Russian Bride fiction (damn you History Senior Seminar) is working on the script (really I plan on having a script...that will not be used) and the props for the late June Open Full Moon Ritual (Hearthstone Community Church).

One of the props that I decided that I needed was a really big version of the Death card. And by big, I mean poster board size. At first, I thought I was going to have to use the old grid method or perhaps draw one completely freehand. Then I stumbled across a neat trick using Adobe Reader X.

By clicking on the "poster" button in the print menu, and adjusting the tile scale, you can print out enlarged sections of a picture which can then be glued to a poster board. Therefore, with just a little glue and some help from the Secret Chief in charge, I will have a honking big Tarot card to make the local Wiccans and pagans think that I am completely out of my mind.

Cool, isn't it?



The Secret Chief in charge believes that I need to adjust the sections of the card.



Proof that I also own a copy of Pat Zalweski's Magical Tarot of the Goklen Dawn.



GD War Rules Double Standard

One of the things that can be seen quite clearly today (especially today) on the Golden Dawn blogosphere is the fact that we have a double standard going on here. In other words, what is fair for one party to do is not fair when another party does it.

First, we have individuals who are ok to be used by one side as witnesses and evidence, but are declared "innocent bystanders" when it is decided by that they are now fair targets. Let's be clear--if you use someone as an example of evidence that you are right, they may actually still be an innocent bystander; but when someone who goes on record as a witness saying that someone's opinion is wrong, they just turned themselves into a fair target.

And given how much photoshopped stuff is trotted out, a simple screenshot seems harmless. Maybe if they had been cropped the people into Lisa Simpson, it would have been ok.

Second, hackers do not just delete one post--they trash your entire site and blog. Are you sure you did not hit the wrong button and revert your post to a "draft"? If I have done it on occasion, it is possibly that you have done it also. But then again, double standard, one side is capable of being human and making mistakes, and the other side is perfect and must have been hacked.

Third, it is ok for one party to copy and paste entire blog and forum posts on their blog and forum, robbing the other party of readership and context, but it is wrong when someone does it to you?! Let's be clear--if it is a violation of copyright for one party to do so, it is a violation for all parties to do so. There have been several occasions that I felt that my copyrighted posts were being unfairly used, but I held my tongue.

And you do not need to post a notice that your material is copyright protected to enjoy the protection of the law...so don't even claim that it was fair because there was no notice visible (because you had no visible notice until you felt wronged). The truth is that the instant I, or anyone else, writes something it is under copyright until seventy years after the time the writer dies. No notice needs to be given.

Therefore, the next time you copy any, and I mean any, amount of a blog or forum post and post it on your blog or forum, you will recieve a nasty comment from the person that you just copied from. Again, if the rule applies to one, it apply to all parties.

Fourth, why is it wrong to mock the whole conspiracy idea? If any of the rest of us would have floated the idea, we would be mocked to the next Sunday. So why shouldn't we mock you?!

Fifth, one party cries that their material was wrongly published, yet they encouraged people to download for free the entire course material of a rival Order. Let's me buy you a hint--your excuse that the other Order was ran by a crook does not excuse the behavior. If one Order's material is fair game for publication, especially because it is all "public domain" material, then that rule also applies to your material that is actually in public domain.

In summary, you may think having a double standard where behavior is perfectly acceptable for you, and the signs of conspiracy and flame-war when done by others is fair; but the rest of us believe that using a double standard makes you a bigger hypocrite than the rest of us.

If brothers and sisters go to war, the rules of war should not be based on a double standard. Unless you are sibling below the age of ten...then we might have to spot you an extra card or two.



Time to summon up sock puppets to call me a very evil man.



Kicking around Neophyte Oath changes

Lately, I have been kicking around rewriting the oath of obligation that my lodge uses in our Neophyte (0=0) initiation.

Here are the changes as I currently see them.

[I] solemnly promise to keep secret the true mysteries of this lodge and Order, its Inner Names, the names of its members, the locations and the proceedings of its assemblies unless authorized to do so.

{Yes, I am borrowing the "authoritization clause" from the A&O Mathers version; it addresses the fact that we have to give out a location to someone who is not a member, so that they can get there in order to be actually initiated.}

I solemnly promise to keep secret any oathbound information I may have gathered concerning this Order before taking this Oath.

{Basically, just because you knew the identities of several members before your initiation, it does not give you the right to "out" them. On the other hand, as you will see, I could care less about protecting secret documents that have been published a dozen times already.}

I will neither copy nor allow to be copied any unpublished manuscript, document, or symbol of this Order, physically or electronically, until I have obtained permission of the voting members of this Order or the original creator of the material....

{Again, I am concerned only with unpublished material, and only if it is still under copyright. One should not have to stress that if the original creator of the material is still alive, then it needs to be cleared with them, but some people do not understand this. On the other hand, thanks to the copyright laws of an earlier time, most (if not all) of the material from the original Order is already in public domain. And yes, I think that the public domain material needs to be published, so that all the various offshoots have a level playing field in that regard. Not that there is ever really a level playing field if living Adepts are allowed to contribute to the system--the better Adepts produce better material; it is that simple. Furthermore, I was taught that the original creator of a document had control of the copyright, and not even the Order could stop them from publishing it if they felt like doing so. And yes, by voting members I am refering to the members of my group--the same people who have the right to ask me not to publish something; it does not refer to people who believe that the entire GD system should answer to them.}

Sock Puppet Master says Meow

Your master will eat you dear sock puppet.

Oh c'mon now people of the Golden Dawn blogosphere---someone has to make a joke about the pending breaking dark news story. And if not me, then who?!

Of course, it is easy for me to make jokes about puppet masters being revealed. I know who my puppet masters are---my wife and a small pride of cats. The most common things I hear from them is "You are not doing anything important, go fetch me something to drink and eat" and "Meow." I trust that my readers can figure out who says which statement---well, maybe.

And I am betting that we are about to be served another round of "Golden Dawn students and leaders are communicating with one another without my consent, therefore it is a conspiracy that has been going on for two decades." That smelly sock odor is merely a bunch of people who had the balls to communicate with one another without the Secret Chiefs' permission---the great unwashed masses of Golden Dawn. Tasty sock puppets they are.

Remember I am here all week, bringing you bad humor and cat jokes. Next show is tomorrow at ten. Good night everyone!

Smashwords Sale until March 10 2012

Five Reasons Why Magic Fails

Smashwords is having a site-wide sale until March 10, 2012. One of my ebooks (really an article) is included in the sale---you can get Five Reasons Why Magic Fails for half off ($2.50) until the end of the sale by entering coupon code REW50 at the checkout. This small ebook sums up the five most common reasons why practical magic fails---at least according to my experience.

Five Reasons Why Magic Fails.

AoW Crowley in the Woodpile

A week ago (or was it two weeks ago?) I openly noted that I was kicking around the question of how one's lineage was affected by having a villian in your lineage. "Does having Aleister Crowley in your lineage make you less of an Adept?"

The reason that I started thinking about this question again (it is a periodic re-occurring question) was that I had encountered some blog posts about lineage that were arguing that you could not have an initiation higher than the person's initiating you; furthermore, Grades are actually a measure of spiritual development--and NOT magical development. Therefore, it is doubtful that a sinner could initiate someone into Neophyte even.

Now, this is always an interesting question for me...because if you believe the story that I was told by one of my initiators, part of my lineage actually traces back through the infamous Aleister Crowley. That is right, my lineage may go back to Crowley and MacGregor Mathers.

Of course, if you believe that a sinner like Crowley cannot pass on a lineage, then the initiations I got from that lineage does not count. In fact, I can point to dubious characters in all the other lineages that I supposely have. Therefore by the logic and beliefs of many people, I am not an initiate at all.

To add a cherry on top, having sat in the hot seat and initiated people myself into the Golden Dawn system, there are people who trace their GD lineage through me. While I am not as bad as Crowley, there are some people who think that I am more than slightly evil.

And there are some people who do not even know that their lineage traces through me. (Oh, you know how that happens.) One should really pity those poor souls.

When I openly started kicking around this question this time around, someone pointed out that the question is really about the spiritual technology and not the person giving the initiation. That answer is fine...provided that there is only one true Golden Dawn, and everyone outside of the real Golden Dawn is not an initate at all.

(Please remember that everyone in the 80s and 90s claimed to be the one and only true Golden Dawn. Someone obviously had to be lying. My membership in an Order was based more on who I discovered first than on what they claimed to offer.)

Problem is that I do not believe that there is only one true Golden Dawn. I believe that all initiations have an effect on the person undergoing them. Therefore, the question is really about how badly does it affect someone to undergo an initiation where the officers are not ALL SAINTS armed with the COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF THE 10=1. Yes, I am serious. Saints who are 10=1s would be the ultimate initiation team.

(Of course, given the fact that there are only allowed to be twelve/twenty-four/thirty-six/seventy-two/whater-your-number-is Magus 9=2s in the entire world at any one time, logic tells us that the perfect initiation team is more myth than actual fact. Especially when you consider the number of groups that claim that there is only one 10=1 alive at any one time. And this is not even accounting for the groups who do not believe that Third Order Grades can be held by living physical human beings.)

Everyone who suffered with a team of initiators who were less than full 10=1s has been dealt a lineage with holes and problems in it. (I do mean the whole team has to be 10=1s--therefore the Neophyte Grade needs eleven 10=1s to man all the officer stations in order to properly do the Neophyte initiation.)

Lesser members do not have the full spiritual technology. Therefore, by logic of the spiritual technology model combined with the idea that officers must know and master it all (otherwise their ritual performances are flawed), only a person with access and mastery of the complete system, aka a 10=1, can provide a complete initiation. Logically by this style of thinking, only Third Order, and only those of the very highest Grade, should be giving initiations to anyone.

Yet we live in a world that this is not true. For instance, in the very first days of the Golden Dawn, there was only three officers and (let's be honest) they were not yet fully instructed in the system yet. Their rituals were flawed...their initiates were flawed...and the cycle goes on and on. Therefore, most initiates in Golden Dawn have undergone flawed initations.

So the real question becomes how do you deal with the fact that you have a Crowley in the woodpile. The answer is keep collecting lineages (to better your chances of connecting to a better stocked lineage) aka "healing your lineage" and/or by doing the advanced work of the system. The latter unfortunately requires finding the correct work to do, which also leads to collecting multiple lineages. Hence the only way to make sure that the rot of Crowley (or whoever your favorite villian is) does not bog you down is to join every Golden Dawn Order that will let you in the door. And don't trust anyone who claims to possess the only correct way to do things...because they might be wrong. You must collect all the lineages if you want to be absolutely sure that you have the correct spiritual technology.

Of course, if you are like me, a poor college student with little spare time and money, that is not really an option. In that case, you just have to make your best guess and cross your fingers. And in my case, let's be honest, everyone knows how incorrect my decision was.

"What the hell?! It is a tadpole--I wanted a dragon." "That is not a tadpole; that's a baby salmander." "A baby salmander?! I wanted a dragon." "Patience, patience, patience."

Rule 1 of magical mottos

[Here is a peek of one of the small ebooks that I am currently working on.]

The first rule to remember about your motto is that it is supposed to be personal to you. The motto represents a channel which the spiritual and magical energies that you are exposed to during initiations and your private magical work are directed through. This channel should represent your spiritual aspirations, and not those of another person.


The fact that it should represent your own spiritual aspirations, and not another person’s, means that being given a motto by someone else, whether a guru or Order superior, is undesirable. After all, who knows your personal spiritual aspirations best? Hopefully, it is you.

Likewise, recycling the motto of a previous member of the Order is unwise, for the mottos of previous members represent their spiritual aspirations, not yours. Furthermore, a recycled motto carries with it part of the karma of its original possessor. A common initiate that many people recycle mottos from is Aleister Crowley, the founder of Thelema. While it is true that Crowley was a great Adept, and perhaps even the higher Grade that he claimed to possess, his mottos come with a heavy price. Before even remotely considering recycling a previously used motto, one needs to consider if they are willing to help another initiate (living or deceased) work on their karma while ignoring one’s own karma and aspirations.