Saturday, January 1, 2011
Current project Splendor Solis coloring page
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
I need a stylebook for occultists
One of the things that I wish that I had was a stylebook designed for occultists. It may sound like a strange desire. But given the material that I write, I could really use one. I sometimes wonder if Llewellyn and other occult publishers have an in-house stylebook.
Has anyone seen something along these lines? How about one that is focused on astrology? Or the kabbalah?
Or do I need to create my own?
Has anyone seen something along these lines? How about one that is focused on astrology? Or the kabbalah?
Or do I need to create my own?
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
QoD George Eliot on Belief
We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us.
--- George Eliot
--- George Eliot
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Is Griffin the King of Witches
Looking into my cracked crystal ball, I see that David Griffin is about to declare himself the King of the Witches...I think that I might have to burn my union card.
Last night, I was reading Frater Barrabbas' Talking About Ritual Magick blog, and he was talking about the Secret of Pagan Magick. It was a good post, and it was building upon a blog post that David Griffin had wrote about the symbolic and operative traditions (Lunar and Solar Mysteries).
It was a comment that Griffin left to Frater Barrabbas' post that makes me suspect that I am about to burn my union card. Let me just quote it:
....Regarding the Lunar and Solar mysteries in Paganism, I must respectfully disagree with you.... Your point of view is that of an Alexandrian Wiccan, and thus you see Pagan magick as a work in progress - a system still being assembled from an eclectic variety of magickal sources and systems.
Imagine for a moment, however, that there might be another possibility.
Imagine the implications for our modern Pagan movement if an ancient Pagan tradition should be discovered intact - one that fully restores our movement's roots in Pagan antiquity.
Imagine if this rediscovery were to include even its own unique and complete magical system encompassing both solar and lunar mysteries?!?
Would sort of spiritual boost and increase in magical current would such a discovery give Pagan religion in the 21st Century?
Would this not be the greatest gift of a dawning new Millennium for our Pagan faith?
Watch my blog for shocking revelation coming soon.
David Griffin
I am sorry. But the words "freaking unbelievable" and "frak me" leap to mind.
Now, for those of you who do not know David Griffin, perhaps some context is in order. Griffin's Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn big claim to fame is that they claim that they to be the only legitimate Alpha and Omega group in the world, the only living successor to Mather's original Order, and the only Golden Dawn Order in the world to have contact with the original Third (Secret) Order that provided instructions to Mathers.
Griffin collects old documents and lineages like I collect cats.
Now, I will admit that my biggest problem with Griffin is the simple fact that if you go by the rules of the 1999 reformation that I am no longer an Adept. The 1999 reformation that Griffin's Order declared stripped every existing Adept of their Grade. The only way to regain your Adept Grade? Simple, join Griffin's Order.
If I am reading Griffin's teaser correctly, he about to do the same thing to the Wiccan and Pagan communities. He is about to claim that he is the only one to have access to the true and original source of the Pagan Mysteries; and that if the rest of us want to continue to be witches and pagans, we have to join his group.
I hope that I am wrong. But I am not going to hold my breath.
Merry frakking Christmas.
[Full Disclosure: The opinions expressed by Morgan Drake Eckstein do not represent those of Bast Temple or any other Golden Dawn group. Nor do they represent the opinions of any coven, wiccan or pagan group. Morgan Drake Eckstein is solely responsible for these opinions, and consulted with no one (except maybe his cats) before airing his dread of future upcoming attractions.]
Follow-up on this blog post: On 3 February 2011, David Griffin came out of the broom closet and revealed his connection with a Streghera (Italian paganism) branch, Stregheria del Bosco Sacro of Benevento, which claims to have the Inner Alchemy tradition involving the Great Rite of paganism.
Last night, I was reading Frater Barrabbas' Talking About Ritual Magick blog, and he was talking about the Secret of Pagan Magick. It was a good post, and it was building upon a blog post that David Griffin had wrote about the symbolic and operative traditions (Lunar and Solar Mysteries).
It was a comment that Griffin left to Frater Barrabbas' post that makes me suspect that I am about to burn my union card. Let me just quote it:
....Regarding the Lunar and Solar mysteries in Paganism, I must respectfully disagree with you.... Your point of view is that of an Alexandrian Wiccan, and thus you see Pagan magick as a work in progress - a system still being assembled from an eclectic variety of magickal sources and systems.
Imagine for a moment, however, that there might be another possibility.
Imagine the implications for our modern Pagan movement if an ancient Pagan tradition should be discovered intact - one that fully restores our movement's roots in Pagan antiquity.
Imagine if this rediscovery were to include even its own unique and complete magical system encompassing both solar and lunar mysteries?!?
Would sort of spiritual boost and increase in magical current would such a discovery give Pagan religion in the 21st Century?
Would this not be the greatest gift of a dawning new Millennium for our Pagan faith?
Watch my blog for shocking revelation coming soon.
David Griffin
I am sorry. But the words "freaking unbelievable" and "frak me" leap to mind.
Now, for those of you who do not know David Griffin, perhaps some context is in order. Griffin's Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn big claim to fame is that they claim that they to be the only legitimate Alpha and Omega group in the world, the only living successor to Mather's original Order, and the only Golden Dawn Order in the world to have contact with the original Third (Secret) Order that provided instructions to Mathers.
Griffin collects old documents and lineages like I collect cats.
Now, I will admit that my biggest problem with Griffin is the simple fact that if you go by the rules of the 1999 reformation that I am no longer an Adept. The 1999 reformation that Griffin's Order declared stripped every existing Adept of their Grade. The only way to regain your Adept Grade? Simple, join Griffin's Order.
If I am reading Griffin's teaser correctly, he about to do the same thing to the Wiccan and Pagan communities. He is about to claim that he is the only one to have access to the true and original source of the Pagan Mysteries; and that if the rest of us want to continue to be witches and pagans, we have to join his group.
I hope that I am wrong. But I am not going to hold my breath.
Merry frakking Christmas.
[Full Disclosure: The opinions expressed by Morgan Drake Eckstein do not represent those of Bast Temple or any other Golden Dawn group. Nor do they represent the opinions of any coven, wiccan or pagan group. Morgan Drake Eckstein is solely responsible for these opinions, and consulted with no one (except maybe his cats) before airing his dread of future upcoming attractions.]
Follow-up on this blog post: On 3 February 2011, David Griffin came out of the broom closet and revealed his connection with a Streghera (Italian paganism) branch, Stregheria del Bosco Sacro of Benevento, which claims to have the Inner Alchemy tradition involving the Great Rite of paganism.
Policy Reminder Do Not Advertise in my comment section
A reminder to those who are attempted to use my comment section merely for their own advertising purposes---DON'T!
I moderate my comment section. And if I believe that your comment was made solely to advertise your product, blog, or Order, or coven, then I will not approve your comment. It is that simple.
I moderate my comment section. And if I believe that your comment was made solely to advertise your product, blog, or Order, or coven, then I will not approve your comment. It is that simple.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Memory problems part 1
Ok, I will admit it---I have a few memory problems. And no, I do not believe that it is early onset Alzheimer's disease either (that comment is directed at a friend who d*** well knows who he is). I first became aware of these problems a few years ago, though I view them less as a problem than other people do.
For instance, I remember very little of my life before certain dates. It is either brain damage from an head injury or simple suppression of unpleasant memories. I am betting on the suppression part, though I have taken more blows to the head than I like to think about.
Other people have memories of high school and the people they went to school with; I have few memories of that time period. Oh, if I really think about it, I could draw you a map of the school. But don't ask me to name my teachers, for I can only name two of them. And forgot me recognizing someone from high school without heavy prompting...the exception being a handful of people.
Why the difficulty here? Well, outside of classes, I really did not interact with more than a handful of people. Most of the time, I was too busy dealing with another drama. So it is not so much a memory problem as the simple fact that there are no memories to actually access in the first place.
Now, we have a myth that everything that we experience is stored in the brain. This is not true. There are several stages where memories can get lost between the experience and actual recall of the memory. For instance, if you don't get a good night sleep, you can lose a lot of potential memories as they are transferred to short term memory to long term memory.
Of course, my short-short term memory is like swiss cheese when it comes to certain things. I have a devil's of a time with phone numbers. It is not that I can't remember phone numbers; it is that I can't remember them in the manner most people do. For me, someone firing off a seven digit phone number leads to a blank look on my face. My very own phone number is not remembered as a seven digit number, rather it is remembered as three numbers. For instance, I remember the last four digits of it as 66 and 84; there is one more step there, but you get the idea.
A few years ago, a friend caught how I rememebered a phone number that I dialed every day. She noticed that I could not remember the number unless my hand moved as if I was actually dialing the number. The memory of the number was actually stored in my muscle memory, and not in the normal usual place.
And that is something I always wonder about magical workers in general. Where are we storing our memories in the first place? For instance, according to occult theory, everyone has an astral body, and everyone astral travels (ok, I do know a theory that argues different, but it is a testing theory). Yet few people remember astral traveling on a regular basis before they get trained to astral project. And that includes people who have been witnessed by other people.
If you cannot remember astral traveling, then as far as you are concerned, you have not astral traveled. Much of learning to astral project is not figuring out how to leave your body as much as it is learning to be able to recall that you did so in the first place.
Look sometime at the number of energetic bodies that occult theory says that we have. Each one of these bodies potentially has its own set of memories. What is in our head is more than the circuits of the meat suit that we are wearing, or at least it should be if we are a magician. Which means that the memory problems that I am aware of are merely the tip of the iceberg. And that makes alzheimer's look like a welcome change from my normal experiences.
For instance, I remember very little of my life before certain dates. It is either brain damage from an head injury or simple suppression of unpleasant memories. I am betting on the suppression part, though I have taken more blows to the head than I like to think about.
Other people have memories of high school and the people they went to school with; I have few memories of that time period. Oh, if I really think about it, I could draw you a map of the school. But don't ask me to name my teachers, for I can only name two of them. And forgot me recognizing someone from high school without heavy prompting...the exception being a handful of people.
Why the difficulty here? Well, outside of classes, I really did not interact with more than a handful of people. Most of the time, I was too busy dealing with another drama. So it is not so much a memory problem as the simple fact that there are no memories to actually access in the first place.
Now, we have a myth that everything that we experience is stored in the brain. This is not true. There are several stages where memories can get lost between the experience and actual recall of the memory. For instance, if you don't get a good night sleep, you can lose a lot of potential memories as they are transferred to short term memory to long term memory.
Of course, my short-short term memory is like swiss cheese when it comes to certain things. I have a devil's of a time with phone numbers. It is not that I can't remember phone numbers; it is that I can't remember them in the manner most people do. For me, someone firing off a seven digit phone number leads to a blank look on my face. My very own phone number is not remembered as a seven digit number, rather it is remembered as three numbers. For instance, I remember the last four digits of it as 66 and 84; there is one more step there, but you get the idea.
A few years ago, a friend caught how I rememebered a phone number that I dialed every day. She noticed that I could not remember the number unless my hand moved as if I was actually dialing the number. The memory of the number was actually stored in my muscle memory, and not in the normal usual place.
And that is something I always wonder about magical workers in general. Where are we storing our memories in the first place? For instance, according to occult theory, everyone has an astral body, and everyone astral travels (ok, I do know a theory that argues different, but it is a testing theory). Yet few people remember astral traveling on a regular basis before they get trained to astral project. And that includes people who have been witnessed by other people.
If you cannot remember astral traveling, then as far as you are concerned, you have not astral traveled. Much of learning to astral project is not figuring out how to leave your body as much as it is learning to be able to recall that you did so in the first place.
Look sometime at the number of energetic bodies that occult theory says that we have. Each one of these bodies potentially has its own set of memories. What is in our head is more than the circuits of the meat suit that we are wearing, or at least it should be if we are a magician. Which means that the memory problems that I am aware of are merely the tip of the iceberg. And that makes alzheimer's look like a welcome change from my normal experiences.
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