Plutonica.net » Essays & Opinion

Proper tea: some thoughts on piracy

Psyche — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:00:39 +0000

Khephra directed me to a recent episode of Greg’s Occult of Personality podcast in which he was interviewed.

It’s subject was the Occult Digital Mobilization, or Digimob for short, a community of occultists which gathers ebooks and other files for distribution in quarterly digests via BitTorrent.

While there is a selection process, its ins and outs weren’t discussed in detail, nor were copyright issues or the moral implications in a wider sense, and they displayed a superficial understanding of how the artist/writer/creator is affected and what the impact is for the larger culture.

Though danced around, arguments for piracy tend to run the same way:

The argument is that a pirated good rarely substitutes for the authentic original. Instead it allows the product to reach populations that can’t afford the original or otherwise wouldn’t have bought it.

The above excerpt is from a book I recently picked up, Chris Anderson’s Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing, a marketing book on how companies are using the concept of free to build their customer base, and how it works.

Free is often used as a model to direct consumers to another product or service which the user does pay for, and this was touched upon in the podcast as well in terms of books driving workshop sales, and so forth. The distinction here, of course, is that these businesses opt-in to this model.

Digimob has their critics, and culture-protection is a subject I touched upon a while ago, but it bears revisiting, especially in the wake of other posts which have cropped up on various blogs.

Piracy is still theft

Q: Why do anarchists drink herbal tea?
A: Because proper tea is theft.

In Free, Anderson describes piracy this way:

The reason piracy is a special class of theft is that the cost to the rightful owner are intangible. If you make a music album that is then pirated, the pirates haven’t taken something you own, they have reproduced something you own. This is an important distinction, which boils down to the reality that you don’t suffer a loss but a lesser gain.

Of course this isn’t strictly true. The “lesser gain” may not be a gain of any sort, and widely and crudely pirated books can and do impact an author’s income, however small the royalties from that sale could have been and has wider implications.

There are various authors who deliberately declare their work as out of copyright, either copywronged, copylefted, or describe a specific Creative Commons license which allows for reproduction of their works. For example, most of the works of Hakim Bey, the Principia Discordia, or authors whose works have come out of copyright due to the laws of their country.

Problems arise when liberties are taken with authors who have not elected to have their works distributed far and wide without compensation. As someone who’s been writing for the Internet for fourteen years, this includes me.

Most of what I publish online is freely available, however, it is not available for reproduction without my express permission. When I find my content has been reproduced without my permission I send nasty e-mails. I don’t make a living from this, but I do expect that my right to distribute my work how and where I Will should be respected.

I’m not blameless, but I am interested in exploring what it is we’re doing here. Why do we think it’s reasonable to reproduce things which do not belong to us?

Back to Digimob

Interestingly, only the first half of the Occult of Personality interview is available to general listeners – the second half of the interview is hidden behind a paywall, and only available to paid subscribers.

What kind of mixed message does this send? And how long until Greg’s podcasts are included in Digimob’s next release?

Update: I should probably note that my aim isn’t to rag on Khephra or Digimob, but these sorts of practices do make me uncomfortable, especially as someone who’s trying to make a living from my creative endeavours. I don’t expect everyone to agree, but I do feel that a copyright should mean something, and that an artist has a right to be paid for what they produce.

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Proper tea: some thoughts on piracy

Magick versus religion

Psyche — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:00:53 +0000

Over on The Great Tinines, Johnny Rapture asks “Who’s Pagan?“, inviting readers to post their definitions and lists of groups who qualify. I offered my definition, and in the course of discussion cartwheel asserted that:

No distinction between “magic” on the one hand and “religion” on the other has ever been made successfully.

This sounds like a challenge! The gauntlet has been thrown.

Back in 2008 we looked at various definitions of magick, but I still believe Crowley’s remains the most elegant:

Magick is the Art and Science of causing change in conformity with Will.

This simple statement was further clarified by an extract from Magick Without Tears:

Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one’s conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.

This firmly places the onus of on the magus hirself. Whatever model one is using: spiritual, energetic, psychological, cybernetic or meta – it is the responsibility of the magickian to effect change.

Religion, on the other hand, relies on a relationship between the individual and some form of external supernatural power (think Wicca, Sentianism, kaballah).

It’s true, magick can be practiced within a spiritual framework, often in tandem with religion, but it is by no means necessary and conflation of the two is in no way desirable.

cartwheel raised an interesting question. This distinction works for me, what are your thoughts on this?

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Magick versus religion

Uncertainty and Possession

Cole Tucker — Sat, 29 May 2010 17:08:00 +0000

The element of Uncertainty has played a significant role in several aspects of my magical development. Specifically regarding results magic, I’ve had great trouble with divination and possession. Reaching an appropriate state for the interpretive act and releasing personal boundaries in the context of invocation require such a light touch with the symbolic gestalt, it causes me nothing but trouble. With practice, I have progressed a great deal with the art of invocation – through the embrace of Uncertainty.

My first successes with invocation and atavistic resurgence occurred while experimenting with chemognosis. These experiments led to varying levels of possession, which I adopted as my gold standard for invocation. Yet, in other ritual contexts, I found I could not approach these states, leaving me with a problem. Excitatory techniques of gnosis, particularly dance and spinning, would bring on a light possession but required a good deal of room and were not appropriate to certain godforms or qualities I wished to work with. Dependence on them also left open-hand magic completely out of the question.

Further exploration with invocation finally made it clear that possession was not necessary, or even desirable most of the time, for the magic to work. In Visual Magic Jan Fries makes the penetrating point that dependence on extreme forms of gnosis leads to a poorly equipped magician, and postulates a root in overly rigid character structure. Still, I wanted to reliably access those states of possession, for I love when qualities external to the ego sweep it away. Perhaps I simply needed a softening.

My current techniques of practice came from my work with the t’ai chi form. The ideal form allows each movement to arise, without force, while the practitioner remains completely present. It takes quite a balancing act, to avoid “doing” without thoughts drifting all over the place. Practicing in this manner, the state of possession that develops feels quite clear to me.

Generalizing this experience, I developed a new procedure for practicing possession. First, I choose the principle to work with and evoke it. Then I go out for a jaunt and use the Right Way of Walking to enter gnosis. With just a light focus on the quality, possession builds easily and progressively. The results have fascinated me. Resistances to the invocation appear as tension within my body and relaxing into it provides the only way deeper. I generally work with polarities, and the most difficult pairs always involve some identification one way or the other. By freeing up these identifications and relaxing the tensions that sustain them, the appearance of novel behavior or information reliably arises. The magic happens.

These experiments have revealed to me a more effective standard for success in invocation and possession. When I “knew” where the process should arrive at, I increasingly limited the breadth and depth of results. Adopting the expression of novelty as a measure opens new avenues, both for growth and for the manifestation of results. Uncertainty appears, everywhere I look.

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Uncertainty and Possession

The element of Uncertainty

Cole Tucker — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:22:36 +0000

Uncertainty has come to play a huge role in my life as of late. The whole process entered my awareness during the Plutonica book-club reading of Quantum Psychology. Together we explored many of the exercises that Robert Anton Wilson collected to help us think, “Maybe…” My meditations and personal work have revolved around the issue of uncertainty, as well as our personal and collective strategies for dealing with it, ever since.

Honestly, I feel uncertain whether I can communicate any of this effectively. The territory began with magic and t’ai chi, leading into my mystical practice. I came to consider the bridge between individual and history, the symbiotic relationship of humanity and the institutions we have created to mediate uncertainty, as a fundamental issue to address for my own growth. Each encounter seems less discrete the closer I listen, yet the overall theme appears in the negative space between them.

Practicing push hands with the Long River School of T’ai Chi Chuan, everyone hears the injunction to only work with individuals whom you feel comfortable with. The practice teaches us to relax and listen, completely receptive to the energetic statements around us, guided by the partner as the system of focus. Done this way, push hands can place people into a very intimate relationship, dissolving normal interpersonal boundaries. This dissolution feels, to me, one of the true jewels of the practice yet it requires a safe space to relax into, where you can trust the person you work with.

With Uncertainty as our focal point, I’d like to share some of these thoughts with you. The territory may seem overly Thelemic, as Liber Al Vel Legis played a huge role in my explorations of sex magick and avoiding the Lust of Result. I have put a lot of thought into the Blue Equinox O.T.O. model as defining a structure for trust-nets, in a sense establishing a safe space for True Will to emerge, and would like to critique its structure in these terms. Going further with t’ai chi, and using it to practice the art of Possession. I hope that all of the pieces will begin discussions and lead to further investigation with the element of Uncertainty.

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

The element of Uncertainty

Pessoa and Crowley

Psyche — Fri, 14 May 2010 01:35:18 +0000

I can’t seem to escape Crowley. He’s everywhere and in everything. Like q-ball.

I’ve been reading Paul Muldoon‘s excellent book, The End of the Poem, which collects a series of lectures he delivered over five years at Oxford under this title. I’m only about two thirds of the way through The End of the Poem, but I’ve immensely enjoyed what I’ve read so far.

Each lecture focuses on a specific poem, and Crowley features quite prominently in Muldoon’s reading of “Autopsychography” by Fernando Pessoa.

Pessoa first came to my attention when I heard that letters between himself and Crowley were to be auctioned off. But after reading this poem, and Muldoon’s extrapolations I really want to read more of his work, especially The Book of Disquiet, several poems of which seem to have been written shortly after Crowley’s Book of Lies first came out, and which may have been directly influenced by it.

Including the account of Pessoa’s role in assisting in the charade of Crowley’s false suicide:

In September of 1930 Crowley came to Lisbon with a girlfriend, who quarrelled with him at a certain point, and abruptly left Portugal. Crowley, with Pessoa’s help, committed a dramatic pseudo-suicide, writing a jilted lover’s note left at the Mouth of Hell, a cavernous rock formation on the seacoast west of Lisbon, where Crowley had ostensibly taken a flying mortal leap. He had in fact left Portugal by way of Spain, but Pessoa, who explained to the Lisbon papers the significance of the astrological signs and mystical words that graced the suicide note, also reporting seeing Crowley, “or Crowley’s ghost,” the day after his disappearance.

Muldoon’s take on Crowley is, well, about what one would expect – a little sensationalist, but not out of line. A brief biography is recounted, his fight with Yates and the Golden dawn – he even quotes a few lines from White Stains.

More interesting is the analysis of Crowley’s influence on Pessoa, as he sounds like a fascinating character – or series of characters – in his own right. He wrote under a variety of heteronyms (including at least two which bear the initials A.C.), and seems to have had an unusual sense of identity and disassociation:

Each of us is several, is many, is a profusion of selves. So that the self who disdains his surroundings is not the same self who suffers or takes joy in them. In the vast colony of our being there are many species of people who think and feel in different ways.

I certainly didn’t expect to find Crowley in a – well, proper book about poetry. Outside of “occult circles” (as Muldoon puts it – with the quotation marks), and perhaps a few die-hard metal fans, Crowley rarely warrants a mention. I often forget that he has an impact that reverberates outside these boundaries.

Has Crowley ever turned up unexpectedly in your literary (or otherwise non-occult) wanderings?

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Pessoa and Crowley

Model this

Psyche — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:00:16 +0000

Jack Faust brought to my attention the plethora of posts on magickal models lately surfacing. It seems to have cheesed him a bit.

After writing an earlier post for Rending the Veil, I was asked to explain about how a someone could possibly be both a magickian and an atheist and so wrote this piece in the fall of 2009, intending it for the Yule issue. I understand it got lost for a bit somehow over at RtV HQ, but it’s up now.

Frater U.:D.:’s “Models of Magic” essay has been floating around online for a long time, and was further expanded in his 2005 occult primer High Magic: Theory & Practice. It seemed a straightforward place to start, coupled with another book I’ve been delving into off and on for the past two years, Jordan Peterson’s superb Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.

It was intended as a short and sweet recap for those who were unfamiliar with other ways of modelling magick. I thought it would be especially useful to those magickians who insisted that gods must play a part as, from the feedback I received, the theists seem to be under the impression that without gods and spirits, one cannot have magick. (Weird, I know.)

Frater U.:D.:’s Five Models theory has held for the past two decades simply because it’s the first and – as far as I know – only theory that encompasses all kinds of magickal practice, regardless of aim. Almost no-one subscribes to a single model to the exclusion of all others, most flip between them as required. As I state in my brief essay, it’s not important which model is “correct”, only that one has a framework with which to practice.

In “What is it with models?” Jason Miller seems upset at the very idea of magickians modelling their belief systems, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. A later post, “Models – It’s not the models, it’s how you handle them” clarifies things a little, but he still seems to be conflating maps and territory and to not quite get why one ought to bother in the first place.

It is not enough to simply have experiences and be done with it. If there’s no purpose, no greater aim than “oh, that was kinda nifty”, then why bother? As Socrates is supposed to have said, “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Modelling is an attempt to place experiences within a framework one can understand, to contextualize experience, and learn from it.

In his second post, Miller writes:

One of the reasons that models are less valuable in magic than they are in science is that we are dealing with things that:

A: Cannot be measured as objectively as the phenomena that science measures

B: Often, belief or our own mental activity plays a larger role in the art.

But…that’s exactly why it’s important to frame one’s understanding of what’s going on.

Let’s tackle A first: Of course magickal results can be measured. That’s what a magickal diary is for. If you’re still homeless, living in your mother’s basement at 48, unloved and fat – then your magick isn’t working. If you’re enchanting clearly defined results, if you’re going to the gym, if you’re happy with your friends and who you are – and you’ve been documenting it for years – I’d call that success.

Now for B. It’s a bit ambiguous, but I’m going to take the more difficult “what if I’m wrong?” or “what if it’s all in my head?”. Again, clearly documenting intention and result will clear this up and allow for a certain measure of objectivity. If what you’re doing isn’t working…try something else. Take a different approach. You know, the kind of thing any scientist might do.

If a model proves flawed, or no longer viable for whatever reason, new models are postulated and tested. As Uncle Al says, “the method of science; the aim of religion”.

For more see Gordon White’s “Sorcery’s Next Top Model” on Rune Soup, a couple of posts by Frater Barrabbas on Talking About Ritual Magick, and Scott Michael Stenwick’s post “It’s only a model…” on his blog Augoeides.

Edit: Also found this one, titled “I’ve arrived“, by Patrick Dunn on Postmodern Magic.

Do you consciously model when you approach a new subject? When you reflect back on what you’ve read and are about to perform, do you think about what’s “really” happening (whatever that means)? How does modelling influence your practice?

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Model this

Sexism revisited

Psyche — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:04:05 +0000

The comments section for “Sexism in contemporary occulture” and “Gender and the elements” have recently flared up again, and it’s clear that the larger conversation is far from over. If you haven’t read these posts yet, please do and share your thoughts in the comments.

Two new essays have appeared recently on this theme, and they bear a closer look.

In a recent essay on Enfolding.org titled ”Occult gender regimes: Polarity and Tradition“, Phil Hine gets to the heart of what makes so many uneasy broaching the subject in the first place. He writes,

the very act of questioning the inevitability of gender polarity is a radical step – and one which potentially shatters the foundations of the occult implicit-order – itself a reification of the wider gender-order of Western Culture. Gender polarity is often reified in occult texts as an earthly reflection of cosmic or otherwise essential principles – which are held to be inevitable and juridicial (“Laws”). Frequently it is asserted that gender polarity is inevitable because it occurrs on the “higher planes” or is a reflection of essential qualities of deities, archetypes, etc – it is universal and timeless – part of an unchanging/unbroken tradition which has only been challenged very recently…

Hine traces the origin sexual poliarty to Aristotle via Plato, and the absurdity of enshrining these views in “tradition”, further shattering the idea that these ideas represent some “unbroken” mystic tradition. It’s good stuff.

The latest issue of Rending the Veil features an essay by Leni Hester titled “Further Thoughts After the Women’s Voices in Magick Panel at Pantheacon 2010“. In it, Hester discusses her experiences and those of her fellow panelists:

All of us have had to deal with criticisms that our hobbies, interests and life’s work, were not “natural” for women. These are not the attitudes of conservative family members, but rather those of our contemporaries and magical peers. We were told that there was something exotic, unusual, or just flat wrong about a woman Thelemite or Chaote. In those circles, we were either tokens or dupes. We’ve been told that we were doing our magick “incorrectly.”

Uncomfortable as it may be to hear, these are the realities many (most?) women face in contemporary “western” occulture. What this seems to break down to for these “peers” is that women should remain socially and sexually subservient to men. The excuse? When not bowing down to rencently invented traditions, it’s the oft-repeated, never validated ”because that’s ‘how it is in nature.’” Yeah, that old chestnut.

She writes:

It is one of the more demoralizing tricks of the dominator paradigm to take the entire range of human enterprise, experience and emotional potential, divide it in half, give half to one gender and half to the other, and then expect whole, integrated adults to emerge. The most ancient, and truest, magical injunction remains: Know thyself. We cannot be fully human if we accept the limitations of dominator gender roles without question or complaint. As women magicians, we all had felt at some time pressured to abandon our magick in order to conform to someone else’s vision of what a woman should be. Rejecting those values is part of our commitment to our magical work.

It is so important that we continue to challenge these notions of gender, what it means for ourselves, our partners, peers and how it determins our relationships and inte.

Occulture remains mired in dated and ultimately meaningless sex and gender references dating from less enlightened times. Again I must ask, why do so many insist on pretending they’re relevant today?

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Sexism revisited

Room service

Psyche — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:30:13 +0000

I recently began reading The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. It’s been on my shelf for years, but I’ve only just picked it up in preparation for reviewing Ten Years of Triumph of the Moon.

Edited by Dave Evans and Dave Green, Ten Years is a collection of academic essays inspired by Hutton’s groundbreaking work. Hidden Publishing provided me with a copy for review, but of course this necessitates first reading Triumph. And so here we are.

I’m finding it a fascinating read, and certainly as important as the hype that surrounds it has suggested. At the moment I’m still in the pre-Pagan stages of its history, covering the Golden Dawn and high magick, and this particular quip from Hutton seems a rather accurate summation of how magick is often approached:

Traditional scholarly magic was at basis an elaborate way of ringing for room service.

The reference is in regards to the Holy Guardian Angel, commanding spirits and demons, and much of the ritual work that was reintroduced in the occult revival at the turn of the last century.

It struck me that work with the Goetia hasn’t change substantially since that time, and, for good or ill, certainly many people seem to treat their HGA experiences this way.

How relevant is this observation today? In seeking experiences with entities outside ourselves, are we only “ringing for room service”?

Room service

Occult Profiling: Where it comes from and why it’s worth fighting

Beth Winegarner — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:03:58 +0000

Beth Winegarner is an author, journalist and sociologist who is working on a guidebook for parents about teen culture. For more on her work, visit bethwinegarner.com.

For the past couple of years, I’ve had a Google Alert set for the word “Satanic.”

I created it because I wanted to study how media use the word. Every day, news stories and links containing the word “Satanic” wend their way to my inbox. They range from articles about Salman Rushdie (all of which mention The Satanic Verses) to pieces about Toyota recalls, calling sticky gas pedals “Satanic.”

However, many are articles about crime. Big, gory, violent crime, and petty graffiti depicting pentagrams and other symbols.

A few weeks ago, a news article from the Agence France-Presse news wire described how nine Chilean men in black robes were detained for slitting the throats of several cats in a supposed Satanic ceremony. But the article doesn’t describe the crime in enough detail – nor does it clarify how this instance of animal abuse is connected to Satanism.

In early February, a Brooklyn arsonist was called “Satanic” by local press because he said Satan told him to set the fire that killed five people. Reporters failed to explain (and perhaps comprehend) the difference between Satanism and schizophrenia.

Seventeen years after three teens from West Memphis, Arkansas, were convicted of murdering three young boys in a “Satanic” ritual – despite the fact that there was no sign of actual occult activity — newspapers are still using that adjective to describe the crime. Many believe the former teens were wrongfully convicted because, in a small Southern town, wearing black clothes and listening to Metallica is enough to make locals think you’re capable of murder.

In all three cases, readers are left with the impression that Satanists are violent people, or that Satanists are people who commit violence in the name of their spiritual pursuits. In fact, Satanists and occultists rarely commit crimes, and those that do are generally motivated by their mental condition – not their spirituality.

Some Satanists are happy to explain. But reporters rarely, if ever, think to consult them while covering so-called “Satanic” crimes.

“Distortions that circulate about occult groups [include] the ‘Exorcist-Rosemary’s Baby’ view put forth by much of the press and by fundamentalist Christian groups. Witchcraft or occultism are engaged in something fearful, pernicious, illegal and immoral. This image has a long history. It is nourished by the media because it sells,” wrote journalist Margot Adler in Drawing Down the Moon.

In general, occultists know this. However, the general public doesn’t. In part, that misconception comes from television and newspapers. The more the media play up this connection between the occult and violent crime, the stronger the cultural association becomes.

After a while, it becomes a kind of profiling. Unfortunately, it’s a kind of profiling I have seen many occultists embrace. While racial minorities fight similar stereotyping that pegs them as criminals, a significant number of occultists prefer to be viewed as scary or dangerous. Some were guided into their spirituality out of a desire to stand apart from the mainstream. A reputation for trouble only seals that separation.

In Cop’s Guide to Occult Investigations, Tony Kail describes a boy who isn’t even involved with the occult, but who uses the “dangerous” stereotype to his advantage by carrying a copy of Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible: “’I don’t even know what it is about. I just know that it scares people. I used to get beat up by these guys in my class, but ever since I started carrying that book around, nobody messes with me!’ Using the occult as a security blanket is very popular. I have had teachers, parents and even police officers tell me that they were scared to deal with juvenile occultists.”

Kail is one of at least two police officers who have written books debunking the idea that occultists are criminals, and to help police understand what they’re seeing when they enter a crime scene littered with pagan paraphernalia.

In In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the Occult, Robert Hicks describes how news reporters get their misinformation about so-called occult crimes from police. Police, in turn, learn what they know from seminars – and the information disseminated at those seminars comes from conservative Christian sources.

“Cult officers employ fundamentalist rhetoric, distribute literature that emanates from fundamentalist authorities, and sometimes offer bibliographies giving many fundamentalist publications,” Hicks writes. “Further, cult cops sometimes team up with clergy to give Satanism seminars.”

At the same time, police are discouraged from studying primary sources on the occult, according to Kail. “One law enforcement guide warns: ‘Intense study of resource books and materials by occult sources is hazardous. Preferred is studying overviews and synopses by credible authors who have studied the occult traditions. The unknown realm of the occult beckons with many lures. Study and/or experimentation are to be avoided. There are safer ways to test for poisonous chemicals than by tasting them.’”

In other words, those tasked with enforcing the law, arresting citizens suspected of crimes, and seeing them convicted of those crimes in court, are learning what they know by listening to fundamentalist Christian “experts” – without any balancing perspectives.

That means if a murder happens in a small town, on a full moon, and the police can’t find anyone to pin it on, they may go for the nearest black-clad person wearing a pentagram or carrying a copy of a book by Aleister Crowley. That’s likely what happened to the West Memphis Three, who have spent nearly half their lives in jail (one of them on Death Row) despite new DNA evidence that absolves them of any association with the crimes.

Some occultists might think it’s fun to “freak the normals,” but such stereotypes can harm those who just want to practice their spirituality quietly, without facing backlash. It can also harm those trying to find work, trying to get into the school of their choice, or trying to avoid problems with the police.

If this were happening to another group – say, African Americans or women — someone would take the situation to the American Civil Liberties Union or another group that protects the public from prejudice. The consequences of profiling, especially police profiling, can be devastating. So why aren’t occult groups, Satanists in particular, doing more to fight back?

Most occultists can’t serve as expert witnesses during trials, or provide consulting to local newspapers or police departments. But they can write letters to news outlets when we see the occult being misrepresented, and they can help fill in the gaps in conversation when they hear any aspect of the occult being explained poorly. They can talk to reporters when vandals paint a pentagram on a church door or a preschool.

There’s a massive amount of public misunderstanding to overcome, and that can seem insurmountable. But doing nothing – or, worse, encouraging the public to associate occultists with danger – risks livelihoods. And freedoms.

Occult Profiling: Where it comes from and why it’s worth fighting

Gender and the elements

Psyche — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:00:06 +0000

This is a subject I’ve been frustrated by for some time now, and I’d like to air my thoughts and see what you think about it.

The basic gender assignment which are still frequently in use today date back to the 5th century BCE. The fragmentary writings that survive from Empedocles, among other things, establish the four roots (later elements) as Earth, Air, Fire and Water, and that further, these are associated with specific gods: Hera, Zeus, Hades, and Nestis (Persephone).

These associations had complex geographical and mythical attributes which are rarely (if ever) taken into consideration. They don’t specify mystic sexual or gender-based properties inherent in the elements themselves, but rather describe mystic attributes relevant to these specific divine couples.

Taken out of context, the elements often get (mis)classed as: Earth/female, Air/male, Fire/male, Water/female. This tradition has become entrenched in modern occultism, and it is patently absurd.

If we take a surface reading of gender stereotypes as presented, they make little sense. Is the person the fiery temper represented by nurturing Earth or deep water simply because she’s female? Must the practical labourer who’s held the same job for so many decades be viewed as intellectual air or fiery inspiration, simply because he has a penis? It simply doesn’t hold up, and perhaps it never really has.

We can still make use of the elemental associations in light of what they represent, for example:

Earth – fertile, steadfast, practical
Air – intellectual, remote, changeable
Fire – passion, inspiration, transformation
Water – emotional, nurturing, hidden

and various esoteric attributes, but we need not pretend these associations must be attributed to binary gender conventions.

Objects are no more imbued with mystical power than abstract concepts. The sword or wand ought not represent “male energy” (whatever that is) due to a faint phallic resemblances; there are no physical resemblances between a chalice or pentacle that suggest “femininity”. There are more relevant – and more potent – concerns inherent in the symbolism without forcing genders upon them.

Do we lose anything by dropping these arbitrary gender distinctions? What do we gain?

Gender and the elements