Ask Angus
Melancholy: I feel so helpless about the sad and scary condition of the world. Everything seems to be falling apart and I am at a loss as to what I can do about any of it. Help!
Dear Melan,
- First off, yes, the world situation is indeed frightening. The humans are acting as they have always acted, only on more of a global scale and with zoomy new weapons from Patriarchy’s Toy Box.
- Second, not everything is falling apart. Take a walk up and down your street: folks are going on about their lives for the most part. Part of what you may be feeling is Seasonal Affectedness Disorder, or what we used to call the ‘Winter Blahs’: The Natural world is banking its coals for the Dark Time, and some if us just aren’t ready to come in out of recess and go back to school.
- Thirdly, here is what you can do about helping the world: Help yourself. The third part of the phrase “Think Globally, act locally” should be, “Start internally”:
- Take a big ritual bath, make that walk up and down your street a regular occurrence. Make (and keep) that appointment with your therapist. Now make one with your massage therapist. Take a fencing class, and let loose your inner pirate. Be nice to yourself. You deserve it.
- Next, act locally: replace the I in your world ennui with ‘we’. There really is safety in numbers. Also strength and power. Connect with your community. Join a letter writing club. (Those things really are read and counted.) Vote. Campaign. Sing in a chorus. Be part of the ritual crew. All of these things enhance your town and define your role in it. And volunteering is a great channel for world-weary frustrations. (I recently rode my bike to Bonny Doon beach for a beach clean up and there was no living with my ego for the rest of the day.)
- Lastly, Think globally. What is your conduit for the news? TV? NPR? A news magazine? The Comic News? Headlines on your home page? Shouldn’t it be all of these things? How ’bout a few more? How about thinking globally? Tune into the BBC telecasts on the radio. Pick up a Sunday Irish Times at a bookstore. Make email pen pals with folks all over the world. Al-Ahram, a daily newspaper from Egypt, does a weekly summation issue in English that will blow your mind.
So get-out and power-walk with a friend and discuss current events on your way to volunteering at a bake sale. You’re helping yourself, your community, your city, and the world. In that order.
Mit: From a pagan standpoint, what comments do you have regarding evidence for the survival of consciousness after 
physical death?
Dear Mit,
‘Evidence’ is a big word. But its not big enough. When one uses it one usually has to prop it up with an additional word or two. Hence; hard evidence, circumstantial, and in this case: anecdotal. This is a huge question that will only net you little answers. (But I think that each of us furnishing our little answers is why we are here.)
Life after death will forever be a mystery, because it is something wholly other than conscious life. It just doesn’t cross-platform easily. If we ever did get the Hard Copy back from the Great Beyond Life as we know it would forever be radically altered – for the worse. It is the grim enigma of Death that truly makes us what we are. So ‘evidence’, as Court TV defines it, is scant.
The vast tonnage of Deja-Vu’s out there is telling, as is the visitations in dreams and signs. The farther West I traveled in England, the more I felt at home -Why? (“home” in the bloodicaical sense. In my case, Ireland). Also the dimension that we Witches fly in seems to be neighborly with the lowest level of the Other Side.
Mostly for me though is the girlfriend I once had who channeled. Every Thursday night I would help her practice by hosting a talk show of the dead with various ‘regular’ personalities and also guest spooks. (It was fascinating to watch my lover morph into all of these various characters.)
My sister, dead now for 28 years, visited my Mother for years, ‘rocking’ her waterbed gently when my Mom was sad. But all of this is personal, and contextual. The anecdotal evidence across the planet is staggering, but it is not ‘true’ evidence, nor is it Universally acknowledged. The only thing Universally known about Death is that it comes for us all. Other than that its every belief system for itself, and everyone’s ideas are welcome. Or, as one ghost told me, “Hey, that’s just how I see it from here.”
Dennis: What is the lowest level of Hell?
Dear Dennis,
The lowest level of Hell keeps morphing. Its the original “Trading Spaces” of the Mythological Realm. In the early 1300’s one Dante Aligheri, the Rick Steves of his time, wrote a guidebook for the most reluctant of tourists. In rhyme no less. He describes, in infinite detail, 9 different levels of torture, pain and suffering. (And Dante cheekily titled his Magnum Opus “The Divine Comedy” – but don’t look for it with the George Carlin and David Sedaris books.)
Hell begins in the Vestibule wherein you are endlessly pursued by insects, continues across three rivers (Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon) and a frozen lake (Cocytus) to the bottommost rung, wherein you are lodged in Lucifer’s mouth, somewhat like a piece of chaw I’m guessing.
This is level 9, that reserved for “Treacherous Fraud”. For those of you playing along at home, up just one floor on level 8 – 
“Simple Fraud” – is where you will find the Magicians and Astrologers. Our eternal punishment is to have our ‘heads twisted round’, (though this chiropractic procedure may be covered by your insurance plan.)
In our time various prophets have stepped forward to claim that they have redecorated Satan’s Sub-Basement as their own:
- The Onion reported on a new, 10th level, the “Corpadverticus Circle of Total Bastards”, but they may have been kidding.
- Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has made repeated protestations to the effect that the lowest level is to be him, and there may be some validity to this idea.
- Me, I’ll go with the bassman in the fishing hat, Les Claypool of Primus, who testified: “I’ve been to Hell / I spell it…I spell it DMV / anyone that’s been there knows precisely what I mean / stood there and I’ve waited / choked back the urge to scream / now Life’s a bowl of bagel dogs / but there are unpleasentries / cold toilet seats, dentist chairs / and trips to the DMV.”
Standing in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles then is the modern equivalent to forever being Lucifer’s wad of gum. And until the Austin Lounge Lizards write a song about being surrounded by Cell Phone Users for all Eternity, we’ll go with the Prophet Claypool.
~Ask Angus
@AngusMcMahan
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