Still mixing Wicca with Golden Dawn

There are moments I can tell that I am my mother's son; today is one of those moments. Yesterday, I was told by a couple of people that, in their humble opinions, I should not be mixing Wicca with Golden Dawn. In their opinion, the traditions need to be kept separate.

I tried a subtle "Gee, I guess that I am going to have to resign from one or the other." My friends probably caught the tone I used. No one else did.

This morning I realized that the only way to keep a tradition pure is to create separate communities for the traditions. Outside influences must be banned.

"Here is your copy of Regardie big book. This is the only book that you are allowed to read and use during your entire esoteric career. No reading of books by other writers, no talking to members of other groups or traditions, and do not ever shake hands with anybody."

The reason for such extreme measures? Simply, the "physical" body of the traditions (egregores) are human beings. Unfortunately, human beings cannot isolate experiences in separate files like computers do.

Human beings are organic computers that always have all their files open. Every experience we have touches all our other experiences. We are a holographic computer, reflecting everything that we have ever experienced.

And the only way to keep the traditions pure is to isolate its members (perhaps from birth) from the members of all other traditions. No TV, no books, and no internet. If someone is interacting with people who are not of your tradition, then you are going to have corruption of your tradition. The only way to keep a tradition pure is to make sure that your membership never deals with the information contained in the other traditions.

Radical? Yes. True? Hell yes.

I do not believe in pure traditions. I am a Global Rosicrucian. I am still mixing Wicca with Golden Dawn, Runes with Geomantic Glyphs, Chaos with Discordianism, alchemy with paints. I am a citizen of the planet Earth. I am not a nationalist, not a purist, not an isolatist.

And if you are a believer in maintaining a pure tradition, a pure egregore, you really should not be reading my blog or any of my writings.

Started working on the props for Junes OFM

Yesterday (partially because I did not feel like working on the writing and partially because I had help), I started to create the props to illustrate the floor diagram(s) that I am going to be talking about at the June Open Full Moon ritual.

Well, that is not completely true. Actually I started making the props several months ago. But they were drawn on the round cardboard pieces that you find under some brands of frozen pizza. It was not visually pleasing.

The new props are actually in color. I am using the traditional MM color scheme. And wax crayons...we thought of using pastels, but my container of sealant has...well, sealed itself.

We still have a way to go before the props are finished, but at least they have been started.

Working on the floor diagram for the June OFM

Given the fact that I cannot seem to get the willpower together today to write, I am going to work on the floor diagram for the June Open Full Moon Ritual instead. It is a combination of something that I was working on before Bast Temple started (actually before the EOEW formed), something that I grabbed from Pat Zalewski, and some research into the older esoteric systems.

A large part of the work I have to do is to create floor markers to illustrate the diagram for the audience (I think of them as an audience)---a small 8 inch square diagram is just going to be too small to be comfortably seen by everyone. So myself and other lodge member (and probably my goddaughter) are going to color floor markers instead that can be seen from the other side of the circle.

Of course, being able to see the markers from across the room is not the same as being able to understand what the diagram implies, but that is a whole different problem for another day.

Reminder and update about healing request for Isaac Bonewits

A reminder that tomorrow across the world, at 9 pm (your local time zone), that Phaedra Bonewits requests that you do healing magic for her husband, Isaac.

"Isaac's tumors fade away. Thirty more years with Phae."



The latest update posted by Phaedra:

Isaac is back in the hospital and is not doing well. He has bleeding from an undetermined source that may not be repairable. We are anxiously awaiting both test results and ritual results. From his hospital bed, Isaac can see the full moon through his window. Our thoughts will be will everyone during tomorrow night's rites.

It is the amazing Altar cam

It is the amazing Altar cam.....no, it is just a camera on the end of a taser.

Tonight, the local news was doing a report about how you can install a mini-camera on the end of a taser gun. There are some who are pushing to get all police departments to start using these taser cams. The purpose of them is to help figure out what went wrong when someone gets tasered by the cops (especially in the case of the prep being injuried).

Ok, maybe this would be a good idea. But an even better idea would be the Altar cam. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to replay your rituals and see exactly what you did wrong? "Gee, exactly when did I say that a visit from XYZ would be more pleasant than a plague of frogs?"

Now, someone will point out that this is the purpose of the ritual journal. Well, that may be true. But given some of my results, I would like a more detailed record. Besides a Altar cam would allow me to figure out what type of rituals the cats are doing when I am not home. And that is what really important, isn't it?

Trollish editing

There was some trollish editing done today, and I was the troll (or at least, that is how I am going to tell the story). But before I begin my story, here is my daily horoscope from Astrology.com (iVillage):

Expect a setback. It isn't likely to be the end of the road for any project, but it is likely to tie you up for longer than you would like. If you handle it well, you draw the right kind of attention to yourself.

Well, that last part is not going to happen (because I am a troll). As for the rest of it, this is one of those days when my daily horoscope was correct.

A couple of weeks ago, I got an inquiry about some of the information on the Bast Temple website. I hoped that it was just a misunderstanding, and not what I really thought it was all about. Today, any doubts that I had about the situation was cleared up.

The original inquiry was about the authority of Bast Temple. The inquiry indicated that there was some confusion about where the lodge's authority was coming from. I honestly did not see how anyone could be confused about it. The inquiry expressed concern that some might mistake Bast Temple as a lodge of the Order this person was a member of.

Today, it become "Cease and Desist of using our legally trademarked 'service mark.'" In other words, do not use the name of our Order, or any of its variants without legal permission unless you are giving a link to us, or acknowledging your past membership in the Order.

So I can't tell you the name of the Order in question. Nor the subject matter. If you are really smart, you can figure it out. A long memory will also help.

Now ask me what I think that this is really about? Go on, I dare you. Or better yet, just take a wild guess.

That is right---one of Bast Temple's pages was showing up on the first page of the Google results for this Order. And if you put in Denver or Colorado into the search request, the Bast Temple's page would be the very first result.

(The page would also got a lot of first and second page hits for the subject matter that this Order specializes in if Denver or Colorado was included.)

And it was NOT the page that the concern was being expressed about. Furthermore, this page actually gave a link to the correct web address of this Order.

(Let me explain the importance of that. A few of years ago, the then-current leader [aka webmaster] decided to close shop; and when the original Head and founder of the Order learned what happened, the founder decided to claim that the site had just moved instead. I know the truth; I have the webmaster's original announcement archived in PDF form, though I did modify my pages to match the founder's story. Bast Temple was the first to link to the new site after the original web site disappeared.)

Now, I suspect that someone wanted me to erase every page that mentioned this Order. To literally, lay waste to the lodge's website. Instead, I spent the day being a troll and just crossing out the name of this Order, one of its members, and making a new full disclosure statement. Oh, I did delete one page which was scheduled for deletion this summer anyways. If they would have waited until after the June OFM, their request would have been fulfilled without no ill-will at all being exchanged.

The sad truth of the matter is that Bast Temple was not getting that many web hits from the name of this Order, and definitely not any new members. If they think forcing me to remove the information is going to increase their numbers, they are sadly mistaken. And if the person who started this process thinks that it is going to result in him getting any members for his planned new project that he would not have gotten otherwise, he is also sadly mistaken (a lodge reworking that Order's material).

(And does he actually plan on mentioning the name of this Order in connection with this project? Place your bets now.)

The simple truth is that we are involved in catering to different markets. Bast Temple would be more likely to blackball an applicant suitable to this other Order than actually let them into the lodge. Hence, we wanted to redirect without having to do the work of the application process. Except now, we cannot actually direct them to the place that they are more suitable to go before they apply---because we are not allowed to mention the name of the Order that they actually belong in (and I do not give links without talking about the site or group I am linking to). And forcing us to talk to an applicant in person more suitable for them (and not just redirect them before the application process begins) just means that we get to tell the truth about why I left that Order---trust issues abound after that story is related.

(And I so want to tell someone that story about now, but I won't online for STRICT legal reasons. I am a troll, not a muckraker.)

Full disclosure: For STRICT legal reasons, I have to be a troll. I was willing to redirect people to this Order, and mention that I found some small merit in the sytem before today's events. Now, I can't. And I might be a little annoyed also. Hence, I have became a troll. At least now, I have an excuse not to trim my beard or get a haircut---so it is not a total loss. Thanks. Now if someone could point me to a nice local bridge to spend my summer days under, everyone will be happy.

Expensive but unused occult books

Yesterday, I was looking though my email, and opened the latest advertisment from New Falcon Publications. New Falcon is offering for sale five leather bound copies of The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic, one for each element (complete with an unique symbol), signed by Lon Milo DuQuette. They are going to retail for $999 each.

(There is a discount if you buy one before June 5, 2010.)

And my first thought was "Here are five copies of the book that are never actually going to be used."

At a certain price level, occult books hit the point where they are so expensive that their only purpose is as collector items; no one is ever crack the them open to actually use them because to do so would devalue them.

(It reminds me of comic books. There are people who buy comic books, seal them in plastic, solely for their investment value.)

The only exceptation to this tends to be books that a few people use for their "super secret initiated knowledge." And then they will sell you the information for a (large) pretty penny, though they will say it is "freely provided to the members of their Order."

(By the way, if you wrote the book in question, this is ok. I only find this really wrong when a Chief is ripping off the work of other writers and charging outrageous sums for access to the informatio. If you are the one that did the work, assembling it and expending it, you deserve the opportunity to try to make a profit from your own skull sweat.)

In general, expensive occult books do not get used. It does not matter how great a book is, if you put a large enourgh price tag on it, no one will dare open the book in fear of damaging it.

Fortunately for me, and the occult community in general, we now have a ground leveler---the almighty PDF. Say what you will about PDFs, but they allow everyone access to the expensive books without anyone having to worry about damaging the investment value of their expensive copy.