Because getting something done at the last minute, is still getting it done. Read more
August 22, 2019
Invoke Often
August 22, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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"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
August 5, 2019
Of Baltimore And Magic
August 5, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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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
August 4, 2019
Imposition of order = Escalation of Disorder
August 4, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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“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
July 28, 2019
Minds Do Change And That’s Magic
July 28, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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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
July 19, 2019
Space Is For Robots (For Now)
July 19, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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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
July 17, 2019
Buddha Touched The Earth: A Zen Pagan Ritual Cycle
July 17, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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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
June 2, 2019
Pagan Priests Vs. Whitman’s Kosmos
June 2, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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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 30, 2019
Walt Whitman: Proto-Pagan At 200
May 30, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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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
May 16, 2019
Reason, Rhetoric, and Identarianism
May 16, 2019 By Tom Swiss
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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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