Because getting something done at the last minute, is still getting it done. Read more
Because getting something done at the last minute, is still getting it done. Read more
"Invoke often." This simple advice has been offered by Robert Anton Wilson and Aleister Crowley as a key magical practice. But we knew it instinctively as kids, as we hung posters on our walls — posters of musicians whose creativity we wished to call into our lives, or of sports heroes whose prowess we wished to invoke. Read more
With just a bit of license, I might say that to be a Baltimorean — as my ancestors have been for centuries — is to always be in-between worlds. Read more
"What should we do? We have to do SOMETHING!!!" we yell, in our pain and confusion. And I imagine Eris and Lao Tzu and Bodhidharma reaching down and patting our collective head. "Poor child", they murmur, "'doing SOMETHING' is exactly what brought you to this pass." Read more
Magicians seek to alter the consciousness, change the minds, of other people all the time. Be it a love spell or healing work or prosperity magic to attract more customers to our business, changing minds is our game. Minds do change. That is a fundamental principle of magic -- and it should inform our politics as well. Read more
So it pains me to say this, but it's true: beyond Earth orbit, space is for robots and not for humans -- at least for the next century or two, until we have solved the fundamental problems of living on the homeworld. Read more
My inspiration for this year was that the story of the Four Sights could make an fine opening ritual; the story of the Buddha touching the Earth and the Goddess of the Earth bearing him witness could be an excellent main ritual; and Mara trying to tempt Buddha to stay under the Bo Tree in bliss rather than returning to the world could be a suitable closing ritual. Read more
But my Paganism is very much aligned with these words of Walt Whitman, from the preface of Leaves Of Grass: "There will soon be no more priests. Their work is done....A superior breed shall take their place … the gangs of kosmos and prophets en masse shall take their place." Read more
May 31, 2019 marks the 200th anniversary of Whitman's birth. It seems appropriate to reflect on his legacy. There is a direct chain of inspiration from Whitman to the important occultist and Pagan figures Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, and Gerald Gardner, via the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. Read more
What is special about propositions is that they are true or false no matter who utters them. We can use the methods of reason to investigate the truth or falsity of propositions regardless of our social status, regardless of race or class or gender or ethnicity or what pack you belong to. But the degradation of contemporary political discourse is demonstrated by how often someone asserting a proposition is met not with a debate about the proposition, but with accusations of the form "that's just what members of so-and-so group say!" Read more
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