Chymical Wedding

Americans and non-Americans alike, please read this! Thanks to for writing this, and to for bringing it to my attention.

The Blogalyser reveals…

Your blog/web page text has an overall readability index of 14.
This suggests that your writing style is conventional
(to communicate well you should aim for a figure between 10 and 20).
Your blog has 23 sentences per entry, which suggests your general message is distinguished by verbosity
(writing for the web should be concise).

CHARACTER MATRIX

male		female
self		world
past		future

Your text shows characteristics which are 55% male and 45% female
(for more information see the Gender Genie).
Looking at pronoun indicators, you write mainly about yourself, then the world in general and finally your social circle. Also, your writing focuses primarily on the present, next the future and lastly the past.

Find out what your blogging style is like!

So, hermeticalchemy, your LiveJournal reveals…

You are… 3% unique (blame, for example, your interest in consciousness changes) and 11% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy politics). When it comes to friends you are normal. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is intellectual.

Your overall weirdness is: 39

(The average level of weirdness is: 28.
You are weirder than 80% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

Keep organic food organic! Make a comment direct to the regulation proposal, not simply an online petition. With thanks to .

My good friend wants me to ask a question of all of you. The question, quoted from him, is: “If it is my Tao to punch you in the throat, is it your Tao to receive it?” Take it however you wish, but he desires a serious answer. Thanks, all!

Edit: The question may be profitably translated as: “If it is my True Will to punch you” etc., or alternatively “If it is my destiny” etc.

Fire the Grid is an international spiritual endeavour to try to bring humanity back into the universal grid of life. The event is 11:11 GMT on July 17, 2007, all participants the world over welcome! Spread the word!

I'm sure that at least will have some sort of thoughtful reply to this post, but I'd really like it if anybody on my friends list with a spiritual or occult bent would comment with their thoughts and opinions on the subject.

One of the reasons why I broke with chaos magic is the attitude toward paradigm shifting espoused by most schools of postmodern magical thought. While I still consider the technique to be useful to a certain extent, I think that it's limited to being a learning aid and nothing more.

One of the main issues I have with the modern Neopagan and occult movements is that nobody seems to ever train beyond a very basic level in any one system. Neopagans typically feed from the buffet of occult systems from whichever angle strikes their fancy at any given moment, while practitioners of magical systems which are not specifically Neopagan tend to never go beyond what they've learned in Kraig's Modern Magick or Carroll's Liber Null & Psychonaut. Even most experimental magicians' personal systems tend, from what I've seen, to be pretty basic and at around a beginner's level. Even those who do choose one system or other to focus on, such as students of the Golden Dawn system, or Carroll's extensive chaos magic training system (Liber Null, Liber KKK, and perhaps add in Wetzel's Liber LLL) almost never seem to finish it.

Magical traditions are important and useful for the very reason that they require focus and discipline. Paradigm shifting is a good way to explore other ideas and techniques, but I find that it's best to take those techniques and ideas and find ways of integrating them into whatever system you use. Even self-created systems (which are almost always based on techniques lifted from Carroll and Phil Hine, it seems) must follow a path of development and advancement, or they won't at all be effective in actually training the magician beyond the level of sigils and spells.

I'm not even saying that it's all bad that people aren't going beyond “the basics”. For a lot of people, that's as far as they want to go, and as far as they'll ever need to go, and that's just fine. Those who wish to go further, however, seem to get stuck on the discipline and getting bored parts. Sometimes magical development is a bit tedious for a stretch, but that's usually just when we're on a plateau. Instead of getting bored and going to another system, effectively starting from scratch, it will help a lot more if we just push on and see what's just over the horizon.

One of the main reasons for this is that a system of symbolism and certain modes of thought need to be assimilated fully before they can work most effectively. Kabbalah is a complex system, and only a cursory glance at a reference table will not allow a person to perform a fully functional kabbalistic ritual; similarly with Enochian magic, natural magic, and so forth. The postmodern approach of “take what looks pretty” has not borne much useful fruit, for as hip as the idea seems to be, and explains to me why so many occultists look askance at anybody who claims a powerful spiritual experience, or who place such hard and fast limitations on the possibilities of magic (and many do this without consciously realizing it, simply for lack of experience).

I'm far from saying that my way is the only way; rather, I think that whichever way a person is called needs to be explored to the utmost, instead of only serving as a weekend tourguide book to the realms of infinite experience. Otherwise, the practitioner risks a lopsided or entirely arrested magical/mystical development.

I love weird fiction. I don't read a whole lot of fiction, but when I do I like something unique. Fantasy, sci-fi and horror have mostly gone stale, but thank God there's a new breed of writers out there who are churning out some of the finest stuff to come out in decades.

The beautific part of the scenario is that these authors aren't just working from the same sci-fi and fantasy conventions that have been recycled for more than half a century. They're creating their own far-out cities, worlds, galaxies, universes that may be alien on the surface, but are always immediately and intimately familiar.

I think that the trend began, or at least gained its first notable proponent, with Mervyn Peake and his Gormenghast series. If you haven't read any, I urge any fans of dark fantasy and psychological horror to read Titus Groan, one of the most ghastly and disturbing, but homey, castles you'll ever traverse.

Today, we have such writers as Jeff VanderMeer, who's city of Ambergris houses crackpot scientists, mad artists, and the only fungi worth being terrified of, as well as China Mieville, who's New Crobuzon brings steampunk into a vivid new form. None of the neo-goth pretention or nihilist angst, none of the high adventures you've seen over and over and over again, these artists truly give the reader something new and something immediately special.

Many people probably do not know yet. Kasey and I are moving in late September or early October to Waynesville, North Carolina. It's a well-cultured mountain town in eastern NC surrounded by woods and water with tons of hippies, New Agers, occultists, Witches, Neopagans and assorted other magical and mystical types intermingling peacefully with conservative old folks. At first, we'll be staying with Sister Grace from my Coven and I'll be working for our friend David in his painting business until I find something more suited to me and am able to get an appartment or something. The cost of living is comparable to here in the Atlanta area, but the quality of life will be inestimably higher and definitely worth the humble sacrifice of moving and starting over. Of course, I'll share all pertinent details with my friends.

Presently, I have one book in print. The Four Powers: Magical Practice for Beginners of All Ages is available from Immanion Press/Megalithica Books. It can be purchased in the US from any bookseller, but most appreciatively from my friends and at The Green Wolf, where you can also purchase Lupa's first book (which contains my first published essay), Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic and many other books by Lupa, Taylor Ellwood, and other Megalithica/Immanion Press authors.

I am also proud to announce the recent publication of a book by my initiating High Priest and Elder, Disciple's Guide to Ritual Magick, also from Megalithica Books.

I have also written for, and will write for again, the occult e-zine Rending the Veil.

I will periodically have autographed copies of my book available for sale.