Occult Link Roundup

There's an awful lot of talk online lately about paganism dying - the last time I cruised by Patheos the subject made up about half the posts. Myself, I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other. This may be because I am not a terribly community-minded person to begin with, and also because I have always been of the belief that the gods find a way regardless of what humanity gets up to.

Timely.

I also view myself as a witch before a pagan - religion is secondary to magic, for me, or perhaps so deeply entrenched in it that it seems like cutting it out from the sorcery would be castrating it. Whether paganism as a movement lives or dies is not something that overly worries me provided that witchcraft survives.

(And it always does. You cannot kill the witch.)


A Witches Resistance and Action List

Aleister Crowley and the Primrose League

Reel Paganism: The Folk Horror Revival 

The Wizard of Oz

Devil Monk

In my last post, I ended by saying that I had used the 40 Servants online deck and pulled the Devil card. I spent the rest of the month petitioning the servant, burning a candle for him and asking to be shown what my limiting beliefs are, and asking to free myself from whatever is holding me back. I put the image of the card and its sigil on my phone, so I could see it daily.

For the first few weeks, I honestly wasn't sure what it was that could possibly be blocking me. After all, I engage in introspection perhaps a little too much, how could I possibly have such a blind spot? It took a while for it to dawn on me that it was very likely that I was holding myself back in my physical endeavours. Exercise, and dance - these are places where in the past I have doubted my ability.

That leads me to the past weekend. I preformed at the Taboo Revue - my Bride number again, and a trio with Melody Mangler and my sister. I did not fuck up horrendously, I had fun, and I'm proud of myself.

The very next day I went and did the Vancouver Sun Run - my very first 10K. My sister and I were in the slowpokes division and all told I only ran 3K, but we still finished the bloody thing in one hour and forty-three minutes.

Instagram

So, now what?

Back to running regularly - just doing the run reminded me how much I do enjoy it, and now that I'm not working two jobs and the days are longer and slightly less shitty, I can discover good routes that let me absorb nature.

I'm co-hosting the Stephen King "We All Float Down Here" show at the Rio with Gidget - it will be my first time as a co-host on a large stage, and it should be loads of fun.

Since I had so much success with the 40 Servants, I pulled another virtually. This time I pulled The Monk. This coincides with the astrological forecast in terms of simplifying life, something I don't mind doing at all. I'll be a dancing, running, meditating freak.

Now have some motivational music!

Double Ds

Sometimes things happen very quickly. Too quickly - all you can do then is put on your boots and roll with it as best you can.

Tommie Kelly released The Forty Servants a while ago. I read Tommie's blog, but I admit I didn't pay much attention to the release - I tend not to enjoy oracle cards very much. Turns out this is an exception.

You can try the deck out in virtual form here. I did, and the very first card I pulled was The Depleted.

My good friend Andrew pulled it, too. We both reacted the same way: "goddamn son of a bitch." Because it was right - we were both completely burnt out.

I can't speak for Andrew, but myself? I'd been working two jobs, my father had recently had major heart surgery at nearly age 70, my sister was suffering from severe anxiety and in the process of breaking up with a partner, a friend had to be rushed to the hospital... everything was shit. And in the middle of this, I volunteered myself to preform at the Vancouver Burlesque Centre's Student Showcase. Yeah, sign me up, I haven't been on stage in at least a year! Fuck it, how hard could it be?

Goddamn son of a bitch.

Some of it I did to myself, but even the shit I didn't plan on is no excuse to curl up into a weeping ball of marshmallow fluff. (This is not to say I did not weep, because I totally did. I came home fro my second contract and cried in my closet one day because I couldn't find a misplaced lab coat.)I am an adult - part of that is owning up to the responsibility of my reactions. I am also a fucking occultist - part of that is manipulating my goddamn reality.

This spring has been hard. But so what? Embrace the thorns of the plants trying desperately to find the sun behind the grey and omnipresent clouds. You're alive, witch, do something with that.


My return to the stage was a Bride of Frankenstein number, set to Shearwater's Quiet Americans. A woman made by man for man, ultimately embracing her imperfect form and revolting against the very idea that she exists solely for her creator.

I got to throw a chair, it was boss.

Since then, more opportunities to preform have presented themselves. My second job will end on the 14th, leaving me with more free time that I intend to devote to running and writing. If nothing else, working more really does teach you that you can accomplish an awful lot before bedtime.


For fun, I just pulled another of the Forty Servants to see what I should bear in mind for the next lunar cycle.  I got The Devil. 

Well. That I can work with.

This is babel, sensurround now.

So, okay. This is a thing that happened last month. My almost!brother Pete and his actual biological little sister came to visit from England. As you can probably guess from the video, I had no idea about this plan. Pete and my sister orchestrated the whole thing behind my back. My sister even spoke to my supervisor and got me time off work. Sneaky bastards.

Pete stayed for two weeks, and his sister for one. We nicely stayed away from the truly weird topics (well, mostly) while she was present, but once she'd gone home... One night we stayed up until 4 am talking about the old Barbelith forums and the difference between the magical communities online back then versus the modern tumblr magic scene.

Why yes, I am on the tumblr. Why yes, it is filled with young people. Some of the stuff I see there in the magic circles is quite interesting. There does seem to be a different tone in the magical community there - some of this may be the age gap, but I don't think that's all of it. What I remember of the time period from about 1998 to 2005 is that experimentation was the other of the day. Now it often feels like people are more concerned with telling you what you're doing wrong than they are with trying new things.

Part of this is definitely an age thing. I remember being in my early 20s and thinking I knew a lot, so my job was clearly to correct people who might be ignorant.  I was a fucking know-it-all; a state that happens a lot with people who were really clever in school. There is also a greater awareness of various social issues. This is generally a very good thing, but it can have the unfortunate effect of dividing people who are - in the grand scheme of things - on the same side.

I'm thinking in particular of the anti-Trump binding spell that's been mentioned in a few different news sources. Now, when I first read the spell I admit I had a very dismissive reaction - "well, that's not how I'D do it" and then a bunch of quibbles with the whole "we're not CURSING" attitude and so on and so forth. After a few days of thinking about it, I realised I was being an ass. The spell was designed for everyone to throw their energy in together, and instead of just shutting the fuck up and doing the thing I was instead nitpicking it.

Which accomplishes nothing. 

It actually reminded me of something I had bitched about to Pete while he was here. When I had been trying to run the ladies' magic nights, one of the participants showed several times an unwillingness to go along with the group. This was a major issue that contributed to the dissolution of the group as it was (and the end of a friendship) and so to see it reflected in myself was a reminder not to be a dickhead.

Art: Chris Bachalo

It was wonderful to have Pete visit. I had been missing having someone to talk to about occult bullshit, and seeing him reminded me that you don't have to put up with people who are shit friends just so you can have a halfway decent conversation about bad vibes and hypersigils. Especially when you deal in magic, you want to surround yourself with people that trust you, and who you can trust in turn. I am truly lucky to have some people like that already in my life, and even luckier in that I am surrounding myself with more of the same.

Surrounding myself with people who enrich my life is a symptom of my ongoing plan to better myself in general. My health is also a priority, as is my writing (which is why I'm writing here now) and also my dancing. I've been away from preforming for a very long time, and I want to get back into it. I've changed my stage name to reflect this new beginning - it is now Emma Eldritch.

Not new beginnings, exactly. More like better choices.

Gouge Away

Well, America is living the plot of Transmetropolitan right now.

I have really nothing useful to say on the subject besides donate your time and money to fighting this  horseshit. Especially if you're white. Use that privilege, come on.

This is a magic blog, innit? Fine, make Spider and the Filthy Assistants into saints while you're at it and pray to them.