For the past couple of months, I've been thinking a lot about David Icke.  David Icke is a man with a lot of really unusual ideas.   He was originally an English soccer player, then became a sportscaster, then was a spokesman for the British Green Party.  In 1991 the Party dumped him after he revealed to the world that he was the Son of God and a "channel for the Christ spirit" on national television.  The consensus around Great Britain was that he'd lost his marbles.

I started watching this series of films taken from a talk he gave about the Illuminati.  Mind-bogglingly weird stuff but very entertaining and informative, especially the details about history and occult symbolism.  But the aspect about it that really struck me the most was what was talked about at the beginning of this film clip.  There is a lot of other stuff on these films that really stretches the bounds of believabilty, such as the reptilian bloodlines story, but the beginning deals in a very interesting way with the issues of fear and control.

The idea of how you can use fear to control people's minds.  If there are fewer of "you" than there are of "them", how do you get "them" to conduct themselves the way you want them to?  The answer would be:  get them to make each other do it!

The whole world seems to be ruled by "that's not the way we do things around here!" and Icke talks very convincingly of the idea of people being ruled by the fear of what other people think.

So I've been thinking about these things, and it seems to go together with some other things that I've been looking at on teh interwebs about how leaders of some groups use fear and control to separate you from yourself in a sense.  This woman, if you look at her website, has a rather bizarre tale to tell, almost beyond belief, but if you google the name Kay Griggs, or do a search for it on YouTube, there are some startling parallels (and I also don't have a problem with the idea that an asshole like Reagan could make himself beholden to an American Nazi cell group.)

Now she tells some very far-fetched tales about people being forced to drink urine, but if we think about it, certain organizations sometimes try to get you to "drink the kool-aid", in a manner of speaking, and doing this can be almost as degrading, since it separates you from yourself, in a way.

Things can happen in our lives, either through abuse or trauma of some kind, that can destroy our ability to access our natural compassion, as in the case of Richard Ramirez, who as a child had an older cousin that was a mentor figure, a Vietnam vet, the cousin was also a sexual sadist and showed Richard pictures of how he had raped and murdered a Vietnamese woman.  The cousin later murdered his wife in front of Richard, and committed suicide.

One of the things that amazes us about people who commit the type of crimes Richard Ramirez is guilty of, is the fact that they are able to do so without the least bit of feeling for the suffering of their victims.  This is because they have been separated from their natural compassion, a process that is sometimes referred to by psychiatric workers as a "cognitave split" or, "switching".  Essentially, there is something inside that is being shut down.

Compassion, if you look at Merriam-Webster Online, is defined one way as " the capacity for feeling for another's unhappiness or misfortune <had a great deal of compassion for his situation> -- see HEART."
And heart is a very good word to apply here, because the Heart is the very seat of our compassion. 

Some will understand that I speak of the Heart Chakra, that which may be termed, the Lover of Our Soul.  It is here that we access our self-love, also, through meditation and other such work I believe it is where we can actually meet our Holy Guardian Angel on our own. 

Certain organizations will try to tell you that only they have the means to help one get in touch with their HGA,  but in the words of the woman at the Reflections in the Night website,  "You are of no use to the cult if you love yourself."  It is this bloggers opinion that even far-fetched Xian propaganda-style stories of urine drinking and figurative kool-aid drinking can draw some paralells.

I don't quite know how I got from talking about David Icke to Richard Ramirez, but I think this was just an exploration of the contents of my brain that wanted to get written the way it was written.

Just some stream of consciousness thoughts.

Bill Clinton's words on Coretta Scott King: Something about how she believed in the promise in the Book of Isaiah, and that maybe we should too...

On the Majority Report on Air America: a study that says Americans are extremely dependent on sleeping pills...

I think, "What has gone wrong with the American Experiment?"

The road to Hermworld lies open, Her towers shining in the distance...

*          *          *          *          *

A couple weeks ago, I'm cleaning the kitchen like a bastard. I'm emptying old stuff out of the fridge--I found condiments in there from before 9/11!!!

So, naturally, the father isn't happy with this, and we have a shouting match over it. In the middle of it, he says something to the effect of, "You wouldn't last ten minutes in the Marine Corps. You'd get your ass kicked. Then what would you do?"

I wrinkle my nose at him and smile. "Remember what they said in that movie we watched the other night?" We had watched Animal House. "We have a saying: Don't get mad, get even."

He thinks this is funny, then a little more screaming, then I yell at him to get in the fuckin' front room and watch football. He does.

A little later I go in the front room and he is in his chair looking very small, and he (begrudgingly) says, "Thanks for cleaning the fridge out."

*          *          *          *          *

This morning at around 3:20, I was trying to get back to sleep for another hour and a half, and I started thinking about the Loma Prieta Earthquake (which was back in '89.) Well, ok, I was thinking about the guy I was in love with back then, then I started thinking about what I was doing when the earthquake hit: I was writing a poem about God (this was back in the Christian days.) Not a very good poem, more like a song-poem (song-poems are always things you think are great when you're writing them, then you read them later and they kind of suck.)

This song-poem sounded in my head like a snarky Ian Hunter lyric, or maybe a misanthropic, Roger Waters from Pink Floyd "Jesus is great but the rest of humanity sucks!" kind of lyric.

I think when I was a Christian, there was a part of me that wanted to effect a kind of Roger Waters misanthropy, and that little part of me will always be kind of bitter because I didn't achieve it.

You might be a fatwa target if:

• You were spotted hanging out with Salman Rushdie during the Nineties (this list of folks includes Bono, different people are gonna feel different ways about that one.)
• Despite the advice of the local Mullah, you opt to take in that nice young Christian missionary couple for the weekend...
• They find that Osama dart board you've been playing with in the rumpus room.
• Three words: Mohammed mud flaps.

Tarot In the News: From Vineland, New Jersey--Invasion suspect is collared. It seems there is no end to the connection between Tarot and shady characters, I wonder why?

Practices: Scientific Illuminism, or Something! Well, I've adapted this daily practice to Tarot, rather than gaming dice, utilizing only the Ace through Tens of the Minor Arcana. One of the tools I've used for interpreting the results is "Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia". Been doing this for about a month now, and I've gotta say, I feel like I'm getting cabalistically in tune with my cards. I also recommend getting comfortable with your one to ten cards--it seems that much emphasis is placed on the Majors and the court cards, when the pips are certainly as important tarotistically, and also the numbers one to ten extremely important if you're getting to know the qabalah. I think I owe someone a quarter.

Podcasting: Through the Gate into Tarot is the name of a guided imagery, nlp sort of meditational hypnosis podcast, done by a guy named Brian David Phillips, a hypnosis expert, with several different "hypnocasts" that seem worth looking into.

I have done the meditation and will share my results and impressions with you now, note that this is not a divinatory interpretation, but more of a free-flowing, meditational experience.

The idea is to draw three cards that form the basis for your meditational imagery:

1. The Mentor card--a guide to the experience. I drew the Eight of Swords.
2. The Context or Grounding card. I drew the Wheel of Fortune.
3. The Catalyst card--what puts the Mentor and Context in motion. I drew the Three of Cups.

I saw the Mentor as a sort of Jacob Marley figure--the imagery of the 8 of swords really going along with this, with the figure swathed in some kind of winding sheet-looking tape.

I turned over the Wheel of Fortune. Expect the unexpected! Ok.

The Catalyst card was rightfully named, because I truly didn't feel this meditation experience really taking off til I turned it over to discover the ladies of the Three of Cups dancing away. I noticed that in the Rider Waite Smith deck, the woman in the 8 of swords seems to be wearing the same frock as one of the women in the 3 of cups--surely this is no accident!

As I allowed the two cards to frame the Context of the Wheel, I saw in my minds eye a party like that of the 3 of cups, one of the centerpieces of which was a large Maypole, with people dancing, creating a giant wheel in the middle of the festivities, and had a feeling of the turning earth and the changing seasons that a Maypole signifies.

There were also other, smaller wheels at this party. I saw a table, with folks in lovely RenWear standing around drinking and talking, watching a roulette wheel spin. I even heard Tina Turner shouting, "Bust a deal, face the Wheel!" I saw one of those kind of wheels.

Throughout, I was reminded of my Guide and my Catalyst. The eight of swords woman was there in a corner, silently conveying (it is hard for me to imagine her as speaking) that the power to overcome any bondage is within us, and that our participation in the "Party" of Life is what determines our Fortune.

EDDIE: Daddy, did ya see that?

JOE: What?

EDDIE: Guy got me on the ground, tried to fuck me.

VIC: You fuckin wish.

EDDIE: You tried to fuck me in my father's office, you sick bastard. Look, Vic, whatever you wanna do in the privacy of your own home, go do it. But don't try to fuck me. I don't think of you that way. I mean, I like you a lot--

VIC: Eddie, if I was a pirate, I wouldn't throw you to the crew.

EDDIE: No, you'd keep me for yourself. Four years fuckin punks in the ass made you appreciate prime rib when you get it.

--From Resevoir Dogs

(Well, I wrote it last night, anyway.)

After a long hiatus, the Hoedown is finally back.

Recommendations:  I found a couple of nice things at Barnes & Noble, the first is a very cute little Deck/Book set.  "The Tarot Box", with a book written by Juliet Sharman-Burke and a beautiful deck designed by Giovanni Caselli (the link is to the larger Sharman-Burke/Caselli set, which is also a recommendation), the cards being about 2" x 3.5", and the box includes a puzzle that has two spread layouts on it.  A nice little gift or treat for yourself.

Secondly, A very good book for beginners, or anybody who just likes tarot books and wants to see a good one, is back in print, "Super Tarot" by Sasha Fenton.

Tarot in the News:  From the UK--Palmist in the dock over false statements claim  When are we gonna clear junk like this up, people?

From Dover, MD--Dover Store Embroiled in Religious Freedom Controversy  It is this Tarologist's opinion that when we start clearing up unscrupulous practitioners such as the one in the first story, we'll have less resistence to our ideas, as in the second story.

A Tarot Reading:  And lastly, a demonstration of the Joey Tribiani spread, which I'm not sure if I've given a demo of, but a full explanation of this spread will soon be up on the website.

For this spread, you simply lay four cards out from left to right. A brief explanation of the four positions:

1. What's in the past, recent or otherwise.
2. Where you are today.
3. The issue you are facing.
4. Probable outcome on the road you are traveling on.
   

And the draw went thusly:

1. Five of cups, rev--There has been some depression in the past, even though there needn't be.  I think I have been lately been troubled by the unemployment factor.
2. Eight of swords, rev--I have a chance to beat this depression through hard work (I'm back in vocational school, studying accounting software at ROP!)  Although it bears saying here, since some of us have been discussing depression lately, there are many different types of depression, not all of them can be "worked through", and if you are experiencing it, the best thing is to talk with someone about it.
3. Eight of wands, rev--Look before I leap!  In my career planning endeavors (and I'm seeing that this reading is about my feelings about my career) it will behoove me to do my homework.
4. The Hermit--Through all of this I can gain wisdom that I can share with others.

I think it is interesting to note that, qabalistically speaking, we have the numbers eight and five, which are represented on the left side of the Tree as Hod (Splendor), Geburah (Severity), and the the nine of the Hermit is a multiple of three, which is Binah (Understanding).

I'm not gonna do "Statements of Will" like I did last year, it was pretentious of me and placed too much pressure on myself to be even more spectacular than I already was, so getting fancy like that is out.

Did I do the things I resolved last year?

Did I "stir more meat" into my literary pot with this blog?  Um, not really.  I got some stuff written, but I still have to edit it into a coherent body of stuff.

Did I become a "raging health machine"?  I didn't become Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 like I wanted to, but I was going to a gym for a while, and I stopped hitting the chocolate quite so hard.

Did I keep a magickal diary?  I did, but mostly not online.  I have a notebook where I check off everytime I remember to do LBRP and one where I keep my Tarot readings.

Did I become a digital camera expert?  Well, I got a new camera that works a lot better, and will be learning more about how to use it.

And now, a list of things I would like to do in 2006:

Clean up the Grotto and put up a couple more articles there.

Mo Tarot! Mo Tarot! Mo Tarot!  I need to get back to my pathworking and qablalistic studies, one of the ways I am going get qabalistically in tune is by using a method outlined by a friend, using the 1 - 10 pips in my tarot deck, and a combination of Duquette's Chicken Qabala, Godwin's Qabalistic Encyclopedia, Regardie's Garden of Pomegranates, Crowley's 777 and Bk of Thoth, and anything else that seems good that I can get my hot little hands on.

I would like to either get a job down at Petco, or continue dogwalking and supplement it by starting a small Ebay business.

And finally, I have decided to go vegan!!!  You heard it here first, folks.  I may have a transitional period where I am lacto-ovo, but I just watched "Meet Your Meat" with Alec Baldwin, and had a good cry, and I can't in good conscience touch anything made by the butchers anymore.  I am an animal lover.

Go here, buddies!

A new marketing ploy has been launched upon the masses.  In the wake of recent tragedies in the headlines like Katrina, the London bombing, AIDS in Africa, etc., humankind is naturally looking for answers, help, something.

Along come people with a tv show, (which will likely be riddled with interesting commercials!) to tell us about a wonderful secret, which great people throughout history knew.  And they are going to share it with us!

They are already gearing up with banner ads interested folk can use, ipod tie-ins, etc.  The mind boggles at what future media bonanza will await the creators of this television event.

The most interesting part of the Secret's blog are the comments, complete with some seminar wonk, salivating at future marketing opportunities, sending the same comment over and over again.  This could be bigger than the Kabbalah--what WILL Madonna do?

I hardly ever remember my dreams, but when I do, they are usually interesting.

This one had creepy trenchcoat Vince Vaughn in it.  Everyone in the dream was a creepy goth trenchcoat type person, and it was kind of like a movie.  Vince Vaughn was a detective or something, and we were looking around this weird skinnny house with many floors that had six or eight siblings living there, most of whom wore glasses.  I think one of them was James Woods.  

Anyway, there were these two rats helping us find a person and we would look in each room and the rats would go through it.  One time a rat ripped the corner off a woman's purse and took it outside.

Was there a movie with Vince Vaughn about rats that I saw and forgot about?