Skeptical Magick

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Let the Games Begin!

Well, Thistle and I have popped my magicakal cherry last week on Mabon with a rain spell. So here is how this one goes. Now granted, weather is a funny thing, particularly here in Houston where we have an expression. It goes something like this: “Welcome to Houston! Don’t like the weather? Wait…” In simple…

Let the Games Begin! was originally published on Skeptical Magick

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Ellen Dugan Moolti-post

Sometimes I do what I refer to as multi-posts. It’s a habit I’ve gotten into on my other blogs when I have stuff to say, but not enough to be a complete post. This is one of those situations. Sure, it’s annoying and, if I weren’t lazy, I could flesh each of these into full…

Ellen Dugan Moolti-post was originally published on Skeptical Magick

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A Preview

So it’s 3:00 AM and I’m up. Why? Work, I think. The deranged billionaire that owns my company announced yesterday that, in yet another effort to cut cost in order to remain profitable while the price of oil is down, he will no longer be contributing to our 401K plans. This isn’t a self-righteous rant…

A Preview was originally published on Skeptical Magick

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Full Disclosure

So in the interest of full disclosure, I’m not exactly a stranger to paganism, Wicca or Magick. When I was young, prior to an incarnation as a Christian, I considered myself Wiccan. And yes, I, practiced Magick. So, shouldn’t that disqualify my participation in this experiment? Yeah, probably. But hear me out. I was young…

Full Disclosure was originally published on Skeptical Magick

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Hexfest

Yeah, so it’s been a while. Sorry about that. This summer has been one giant hassle after another and I just haven’t had the time to devote to this I had originally intended. But my Sweetie and I are back and dedicated to making this site happen. We figured we’d restart with Hexfest. On a…

Hexfest was originally published on Skeptical Magick

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The Destroyer Comes

Nature tends to itself. If you ask a Wiccan, most will tell you theirs is a nature based spiritual path, but I must admit that I see little evidence of such things among the pagan “laity”. For me, being an outsider, looking in, I see a whole lot of denial about what “nature” actually means and it’s something I really want to explore. As previously stated, I’m a Deist, obsessed with the Laws of Nature and the Nature of Things. For me, I see many contradictions and if someone could enlighten me, I’d be grateful. An example would be what we humans call “kindness”, specifically in regards to the random acts thereof.

Nature isn’t kind, it isn’t nice. Nature is cold. Nature is unfeeling. Nature doesn’t think and it’s not an entity. Animals don’t live together in peaceful harmony, hugging and doing nice things for each other. That’s Disney, not Nature. In Nature’s defense, it isn’t really an asshole either. Nature is just a system where everything exists according to the specific characteristics that define it. Nature is ambivalent because it does not acknowledge the “specialness” of one species over another. Better predators eat lesser creatures until the lesser creatures evolve to avoid being eaten. It’s the way of things.

I have often joked (inaccurately, I might add) that Nature hates you. You being humans in general.  As a species, humans are ill equipped to be dropped naked into the woods to go head to head with Nature and survive. We don’t have razor sharp teeth and nasty claws and for the most part, aren’t terribly strong for our size. We don’t even have a covering of hair to protect us from the elements or random pokey things. What we do have is this magnificent brain which allows us to overcome those obstacles and protect ourselves from Nature.

Nature doesn’t actually hate man; to hate, Nature would have to have an intellect and choose to do so. Life isn’t “Nature versus Man”, it just seems that way because we have evolved to think like that. Each species has its evolved advantages to deal with its specific environment. A grizzly bear doesn’t have much to help it survive if dropped naked into Times Square. Sure, it’s going to do a bunch of damage until Man stops it with his big, scary brain, but the point is the bear is as ill equipped to survive in our natural habitat as we are in its. It not that man is fundamentally anti-bear when building our cities, we just don’t do anything to ensure the bear’s survival because the bear’s survival isn’t all that relevant to us. It’s not personal. And so it is with Nature. No one species is more relevant to Nature than any other.

Humans have evolved to circumvent Nature in order to survive, but we don’t really give much thought as to when we should or shouldn’t. It’s an automatic thing. When we do interfere, we often call that interference “kindness”, with the implication being that Nature is unkind. This isn’t actually true. While it is true that Nature is not kind, it’s not unkind, either. Again, it just is. This seems to be a modern notion prevalent in all things. If you are “pro-something”, you must therefore be “anti-something.” This is a human fallacy, like the notion of fairness. In truth, no one is obligated to take a side, other than their own, but this is an issue for another day. I’d rather talk about the human proclivity to subvert Nature and a good example of that proclivity, is that of a cat stuck up a tree.

If someone in suburbia sees a cat stuck in a tree, they immediately have the urge to interfere and get the cat down. They either attempt to extricate the cat themselves or call other humans with better tools for tree based cat extrication. It never occurs to a human that they’ve never seen a dead cat sitting in a tree.

In Nature, the cat will get itself down when its nature dictates it ought to.  And that’s what I mean when I say there is a fundamental denial of the Nature of Things in people who claim to adhere to Nature based religions. Typically, at least in this country, those are the first humans to try to work out the cat extrication problem posed by Schrödinger’s tree. Why? Typically it’s the whole “random acts of kindness” thing. It’s not actually a kind thing for the cat over the long term. What it does is teach the cat to rely on Man instead of itself, subverting its nature. As a Deist, I think its arrogant meddling and that’s probably why I’m not terribly popular at parties. Don’t get me wrong, I like animals in general, but I think it’s morally wrong to make them dependent on man. Nature will tend to itself, it doesn’t need me and I’m cool with that.

There is an axiom often quoted by people without thinking. It goes “Nature abhors a vacuum.” Again, this is an anthropomorphized view of Nature. Nature doesn’t abhor anything.

With the exception of Space, vacuums are not naturally occurring. One could argue that even Space itself is not a vacuum, rather it is an area not yet occupied by much. Sure, there’s no air and gravity is limited, but it’s not empty. It’s full of stars, planets, nebulae, dust and whatnot but none of these things are very close together. Humans have named the distance between stuff “Space” in order to ascribe a Nature to it. It’s what we do.

Again, nature doesn’t abhor anything. Rather it is a closed system in constant “motion” for lack of a better term and the nature of Nature is such that it automatically maintains a balance within itself called homeostasis. As part of its nature, residents of Nature, that is, everything that exists, occasionally disrupt the local natural homeostasis as part of their nature and Nature moves in to rebalance itself. Entropy isn’t so much a slowing down of Nature as it is a force for regaining homeostasis utilizing the least amount of energy. Eventually, over the eons, this will lead to a homeostatic nothingness, a zero balance of Nature that can no longer be disrupted because nothing exists. I’m fairly certain we will never have to deal with this eventuality, if real, so I’ll skip it and recap instead.

Nature tends to itself, that is, maintains a balance called homeostasis. It is necessary for Nature to do this when anything that exists temporarily disrupts the homeostasis of its local environment. Everything that exists, not just biological entities, has this potential.

Volcanoes, for example, erupt and fill the atmosphere with ash and gasses. As such, they disrupt the local homeostasis and Nature begins immediately to restore the lost balance. It’s not a quick process, but from the perspective of the Universe, it doesn’t take a long time. It’s just a blip, a matter of scale.

Small scale disruptions are most often the province of biological residents of reality. Humans are really good at this, because we have evolved to do so in order to ensure our survival as a species. Consider our homes. We build them to keep Nature at bay and for the most part, they do a good job. However from the moment construction begins, Nature immediately begins restoring the balance of the local disruption by sending in ants and termites and mold spores and the elements themselves. Without constant maintenance by man, the disruption will be completely erased in a few decades and the balance will be restored. The destruction of the disruption, which could actually be considered a creative force, depending on the perspective, is the heart of this matter. Life kills. Creation destroys. Homeostasis prevails. The opposites are also true. Death encourages life. Destruction creates. Disruption yields homeostatic balance. This is the denial of Nature I’m writing about today.

My wife, sweet and wonderful lady she is, feeds the squirrels and birds in our yard. This is not to be interpreted as a criticism of her. I rather enjoy that she does these things and it endears her to me greatly. What can I say, I enjoy her happiness? Anyway, this isn’t the point. I use this as an illustration of the results of natural disruption and homeostasis.

The squirrels and birds in my neighborhood existed long before we moved in and they will continue to exist long after we are gone. They don’t require my sweetie’s intervention in order to survive, but they have become accustomed to it. As such, they have grown quite fat and plentiful in our yard and our neighbor’s yards. They also have become quite adept at avoiding being squashed under the wheels of cars going up and down our streets as evidenced by the lack of squirrel shaped smudges on our streets. They even seem to be living longer and reproducing more because of the plentiful food she supplies.

There is one squirrel we’ve named Stumpy that we’ve been watching over the past couple of years. Something happened to Stumpy’s tail when she was young and yet she has survived as a ground dwelling squirrel with limited access to the acrobatics typical of squirrels with full tails. I wanted to name her Darwin based on her ability to survive despite the handicap, but Stumpy stuck and here we are. Anyway, I’m relatively certain she does survive in no small part due to my wife’s intervention and that’s fine. But there’s a dark side.

We are overrun with squirrels and Nature is stepping in to restore the balance. Last Winter my son and I observed one squirrel with what appeared to be a huge growth on the side of its head, extending under its throat. We haven’t seen that one in a while, so I assume its disease took it. Homeostasis happens. We’ve also become home to a red tailed hawk also known as avian homeostasis. I’m sure if the squirrels could speak, they would call it winged death from the skies.

I’ve seen it around for the last couple of weeks and wasn’t sure what it was. We were fortunately able to see it sitting on my front lawn the other day and determined it to indeed be a red tailed hawk. The next day my wife watched it eat a squirrel from our bedroom window. I’m fairly excited about the appearance of the hawk, one because it supports my beliefs in Natural Law and two, because we grow figs and I’m hoping the appearance of the hawk will frighten away the squirrels and robins and blue jays that eat my figs every year. A sort of natural deterrent instead of the plastic owl and inflatable snake I tried out last year.

My wife told a friend of hers, a lady into New Age beliefs, and self-appointed protector of all things cute and furry. She suggested we get rid of the hawk by providing hawk food so that it had an alternative to squirrel based snack foods. Now based on the long winded introduction, you should be able to see the fallacy she’s engaging in. Number one: Providing food for the hawk would not make it go away. It’s here for the fresh food. Number two: Squirrels are hawk food. See Number One. Number Three: We caused the hawk by disrupting the squirrel balance of our neighborhood. Even if we started thinning the number of squirrels by more accurate driving, that would just attract buzzards, which in turn, leads to Number Four: You can’t fix a natural disruption by disrupting further. All you are doing is stalling the inevitable.

Nature will tend to itself. Let it. Just relax and let it be.

The Destroyer Comes was originally published on Skeptical Magick

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Magical Thinking and Intellectual Property Rights

Ya’ll don’t really know me yet, but if we both stick with this blog long enough, you will. So I’m going to go ahead and rip off one of the Band-Aids and tell you straight up that I am Libertarian Extremist, so some of my political/philosophical beliefs will wind up making their way into my…

Magical Thinking and Intellectual Property Rights was originally published on Skeptical Magick

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Dorothy Morrison at the Witchery

Well, this being the inaugural post and all, I just want to say thanks for stopping by and ask how the hell you got here. That last bit is rhetorical, since you can’t actually answer me.

My sweetie and I spent Saturday and Sunday making the trek from our home to the Witchery in Galveston to attend a two different sessions with guest speaker, author and witch, Dorothy Morrison. If you’ve never been to the Witchery in Galveston, I highly recommend it. Clyde and Kim run a very nice occult shop on Post Office, which is very tastefully decorated with antique display cases that match very well to the period style of the building itself. You can take a look by visiting their web site, though the photos don’t really do it justice. Originally, no visit to Galveston was complete without a visit to the Witchery, now it is usually the purpose behind the trip.

So anyway, as stated we did two of Dorothy’s classes, one on the “Swifting of Energy” and the other on “Swamp Witchery”, which I think was shortcode for “Don’t get strung out about ceremony and use what you have on hand.” I would have called it the “Bat Utility Witch”, but that’s just me.

I thought the notion of the Swifting of Energy was quite interesting and Dorothy is good to listen to. She’s very down to Earth and being a native Texan, I found her accent and stories quite comforting; it’s all in the delivery, really. I also appreciate that she tends to punctuate her sentences with the word “fuck” as I often do, so I was at ease with her as a speaker. That’s not always the case for me at these sorts of things.

Anyway, the concept behind the swifting of energy is to convert any bad mojo thrown at the practitioner into energy that benefits that practitioner. The spell itself is outlined in her book, “Utterly Wicked: Curses, Hexes & Other Unsavory Notions”, which, really, is just a bitchin’ title, though I do wish she went over the mechanics of the spell a bit more. Again, if the approach of this site is to accept the notion of the reality of Magick, then understanding the Nature of how a given spell functions would be nice. I don’t think that is so much Dorothy’s happy place, though as she stated quite plainly at one point, “I don’t know how it works, it just does.” I think she also followed that with something like not knowing how a car works either and being totally comfortable with that. So I’m going to accept that. Maybe if all this stuff turns out to be real I can be a Magick Geek and try to define its Nature so it can be hacked, which is really what I’m all about.

Anyway, the spell she offered was pretty simple and doesn’t require the building of circle, calling of quarters, making certain the moon is right, so I think that’s going to make for a fairly decent first experiment. We shall see. Sweetie and I will have to come up with the plan: the desired outcome, a deadline for that outcome, and then determine repeatability, if possible. We’ll also have to allow for the “coincidence factor”, so I’m guessing we’ll have to do it at least twice. I’ve always been a fan of trying new things 3 times, just in case the first two times were flukes. Likewise, my Sweetie says Magick is supposed to look like it could have occurred naturally, so I think that will have to be factored in. Or out. I’m new at this and not certain.

I’ll keep ya’ll posted. Thanks for stopping by.

Oh, also, like any good blogger, I seldom proof read anything, so, if you see mistakes, do give me a holler.

Dorothy Morrison at the Witchery was originally published on Skeptical Magick