Rant alert: Bandy Gnostics ;)
I’ve been feeling a little blah today. A flat-liner day, reflected in the grim winter weather that has robbed the world of colour, encasing the sky in grey, sapping vigour from anyone and anything.
I have several occult books on the go at the moment – a case of double-dipping multiplied by factor χ. The foreword in one book is a concatenation of obfuscating terminology … just like that sentence. It makes me want to shake her and demand why she has to veil the simplest of things in sentences that wrap themselves around and strangulate your left temporal lobe (governing language and comprehension). I attended a talk by this woman, and she’s no better in person. I listened for about fifteen minutes and then whispered to my friend, “Are you understanding any of this? I think my brain must have died after I left university…” But no, my friend looked up from a doodle on her pad and scribbled, “She’s talking rubbish!” Who knows if she was or wasn’t? She seems innately incapable of clear and simple communication, and yet she is published and called on for talks. Hey-ho. Horses for courses. Maybe my brain is just not hardwired to understand her. Like sexual chemistry, our lobe chemistry is so radically different we could never indulge in pleasurable intercourse.
Thankfully I’m not having the same issue with other books … in spite of some abysmal editing and poor translations. My proofreader and editor head just won’t switch off. When I think of the number of editing and proofreading runs a translation would go through in my job, I wonder if some of these occult books get barely a cursory read-through before being approved for print. Why oh why can’t there be quality writing with good information in all occult books, instead of in just a cherished few? Sometimes it feels like any old magickian/witch can publish any old shit. Oh AND, it’s doing my head in that so many seem to be jumping on the back of David Beth’s Voudon Gnosis and are flinging around the word gnosis like it gives them kudos just to bandy the word around. I have followed several writers for years, and it is only since the success of David’s books that certain people have started to define themselves as Gnostics and use the word gnosis. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Sad, sad to be the ducks following in the wake of a sailing ship.
Ooh, I’m being a bit of a bitch today, hey? Must be hormones removing the censors of bland pleasantries. That’s the benefit of being independent and “unaffiliated”, I can just say it how I see – personal opinion. Never take my word for it. Read and draw your own conclusions.
A slightly peeved
Seshat
©Starofseshat 2011
Rant alert: being darker than the darkiest dark-darkness is like so orgasmic
I get so fed up of people play-acting a persona or bigging themselves up to be something they only aspire to be. Yes, my cynic may be coming into play here and also my natural English propensity for understatement, but still…!
I hit against a similar frustration when I was on that dating website and I meet it again and again in the pagan/occult world. Perhaps it’s a lack of humour on their part, or an excess of humour on mine… or a lack of humour on mine…
Seshat: Hello, who are you?
Other: I’m a man who walks the paths that others fear to tread.
Seshat: Oh. Really? Sounds lovely. And what do you do when you’re not walking the paths that others fear to tread?
Other: I’m breaking the rules, pushing the boundaries, living life on the edge.
Seshat: Sounds a bit samey to me.
Such stupid, empty statements are the greatest shield against intimacy. So when does a man (or woman) practising detachment become just a man (or woman) with intimacy issues??!
The cooler the man, the sexier he believes himself to be, the more the empty-headed women flock around and believe the myth of stud-ness he weaves around himself, the more I laugh and can’t take him seriously in any respect.
Other: You’re laughing… at least you’re pleased to see me.
Seshat: Trust me, it’s only my top half that’s pleased to see you.
It is impossible to have any kind of meaningful conversation with someone who is more interested in their own appeal than in being appealing to you:
Seshat: I like your accent.
Other: Yes, I do have a nice voice, don’t I? Nice and deep. Sexy, isn’t it?
Seshat: Um. Yes.
Other: I saw you looking at my arse. I have a good arse, don’t I? Loads of people have said that.
Seshat (who had actually been looking at a squirrel): Um. Yes.
Sure, confidence is attractive. Even confidence verging on a quiet arrogance can be sexy. Maybe that’s the key word – quiet. I just wish some of these people would shut up! Yes, I know you are amazing, handsome, sexy, desirable to all of female flesh; I know you are the darkest, darker-of-the-darkest-darkier-dark-darkness I will ever have the pleasure to meet… So cut the crap and get real.
I thought walking the Left-Hand Path was about a brutal self-honesty and a desire to cut through the egotistical bullshit, to pare away the excess and get to the pure white bones of Self. So why does it have to come with the LHP™ commercialised pantomime pony-arsed prancing of a bunch of teenagers high on their first sip of absinthe? But that’s unfair to teenagers, especially as most of the people are older and should know better.
But even apart from the LHP “I’m so dark my own mother couldn’t find me in a coal shed” crew, there are still those, for example, amongst the pagan crowd for whom every floorboard creak is a ghost trying to communicate, and every poorly developed photo is a sign from the other side. I recently had to bite my tongue while I was shown a “ghost photo” which was actually just a “crap photo”. As my friends know, I am not a “social” person. I don’t do airs and graces very well. I once had a very well-heeled boyfriend (son of wealthy family, royal associations) who was just about to embark on a political career in London working for Lord S. We broke up when he moved to London because he couldn’t trust me not to leap on the tables and talk about the redistribution of wealth to his cronies … and yes, he actually said that to me. Prat… although he does have a point.
Oh, I’m just sick of all the bullshitting. I’ve seen women acting the “I’m a sultry whore” who use the adjective “orgasmic” like teenagers use the word “awesome” – and both sound like idiots to me. And I’ve seen men acting the “I’m a dark stud machine”. They are welcome to each other. At a Year 2000 party I attended in Israel, I saw a couple dancing: she stood on the spot twiddling her hands and wiggling her hips looking abashedly at the floor; he circled her making enormous thrusting gestures with his hips. It’s easy to fall into stereotypes, to hide behind the image of being whatever you happen to think is safest… because I do think that this insistence on image is about staying safe and not showing who you really are. As such you do yourself the biggest disservice IF you are actually serious about internal spiritual progress as opposed to group acceptance, getting laid and being cool.
Anyway, that’s some of my rant-urge exorcised tonight. My sub-conscious is bubbling with a restless fury, even though consciously I am feeling quite chilled and amicable (believe it or not!). Might as well end in the vein that I started:
©StarofSeshat 2010
Maggots Part II: A sense of the ridiculous
Ok, ok, so know your maggots but for goddess’ sake don’t go around dissecting everything that just LOOKS like a maggot … some things just are, some things are not in your control, some things do not respond to the rationalist analysis.
I’m sitting on a chair. Why am I sitting on this chair? It’s a bit uncomfortable. Ah, I must be punishing myself and this stems from my Catholic upbringing and the inherent guilt. It wasn’t my fault. I was brought up Catholic it was my mother’s fault. Ergo. It is my mother’s fault I am sitting on this chair.
I’m eating breakfast in the kitchen and not in the living room. Why is this? A living room is for relaxing in, therefore I am not giving myself permission often enough in my life to relax. This is because of the work ethic I was brought up with. It wasn’t my fault. My mother is German. Ergo. It’s my mother’s fault that I sit in the kitchen to eat breakfast.
It’s raining today. The weather report yesterday said it would be sunny. I feel disappointed that it’s raining. Why is this? I thought it would be sunny but it is raining; the meteorologist lied. This supports my belief that everybody lies to me. It’s not my fault. My mother never warned me that life is unpredictable. Ergo. It’s my mother’s fault that it’s raining.
Do you see what I mean?? And do NOT come back and congratulate me for this blinding psychological discovery that it’s all my mother’s fault! I am J.O.K.I.N.G. Geddit?
I can be as intense as the next person, but I sprinkle it with humour and the ability to laugh at myself. While writing this I am giggling away. The RH came into the office and said, “Are you laughing at yourself again?” He says that I find myself the most amusing subject matter, more so than anybody or anything else. It is true. I see the ridiculous in myself and it makes me laugh. My humour helps me climb mountains, and even when my feet are bleeding I am chuckling because I have wide feet that look like duck’s feet and my mind will start to envisage a duck quacking up a mountainside. When my ex turned up on the scene recently I was terrified, but I could still laugh about it at moments because it felt like I was Penelope Pitstock legging it in thigh-high pink boots from my adversary who loped behind me in a black cloak while twiddling his moustache …
Life is ridiculous. It is not always (or ever!) to be controlled. Other people cannot be controlled … So another person needs therapy and they won’t go for it? So what? Let them stew in their own complexes and when their life self-combusts maybe they will reconsider. Harsh? Pragmatic. If someone is ill and then refuses to take care of him-/herself but expects copious amounts of sympathy and emotional balm; leave them crippled. How else will they learn the simple lesson of cause and effect if you keep leaping in like some divine abrogator who deflects the consequences of their actions, sooths, calms and sacrifices your self on the altar of their ego (this does not preclude helping people with everything you have when they truly want to be helped – but believe me, not everyone does want help – some people actually like their life a bit shitty – apparent victims often hold all the power!).
I am right royally sick of it. And there I was yesterday saying I would control my urge to use the blog as an outlet for my vitriol. Oh no. Did you believe me? Do you feel betrayed and hurt? Have I just confirmed the ‘fact’ in your life that everyone lets you down? Glad to be of service.
Have you heard the one about the Jew who every time he dropped his buttered toast it fell on the buttered side. One day it fell butter side up. He was elated. Was this to be a change of fortune for him? He ran to the rabbi and said, “Rabbi, whenever I drop my buttered toast it always lands on the buttered side, but this morning I dropped it and it landed butter side up. Is this a sign from G-d that my fortunes are changing?” The rabbi pondered, and hummed and ha-ed and consulted various Talmudic reference books. Finally he came back to the man and said, “You buttered the wrong side of the bread.” Oy vey!
©StarofSeshat 2009
Anyone lived in a pretty how town…
I am a snake shedding her skin leaving black scales in her wake.
I rose to the sun seeping over the hill, orange and pink at the horizon slipping into blue and black with a few brazen stars shining their light.
A candle was lit to Meretseger. It sputtered and hissed and extinguished. Only a new, virgin candle is good enough for Her, to sit before the cobra’s head, to honour the desert silence She brings.
I am minded of secrets told to me this year. Three people sharing secrets from secret teachers at secret organisations; the papers passed to me in a hush with reverence. My stomach tight in anticipation … the deflation of a balloon with a hidden hole, not quite >pop< more >hiss< and >sigh< when I realise that I have read these secrets before and nothing is new to me. I wonder if the secret ministers of the hush-hush organisations have heard of the internet …
Then mundane life hits me round the head like a frozen trout. I am angry and reeling at the potential financial insecurity this heralds. Whose job is safe in these rocky times? Like a minor tremor on the other side of the globe, a customer has a applied price pressure and the pressure is passed on in industrial Chinese Whispers, building and growing, until it crashes over me in a tidal wave of existential anxiety.
Such is life. Such is a Monday morning that feels like a Friday because I have worked through the weekend again. When I lived in Israel, the weekend was Friday afternoon and Saturday. No lazy Sunday mornings, instead I had awkward outings on Saturday juggling Shabbat public transport and eating at Goy restaurants that were the only jabbering waterholes open in the dusty echoing streets of a Shabbat day. Beit She’an: the flirtatious French archaeologist who showed me how to chip away at a marble column and marvel at mosaic tiles … my schoolgirl French going a long way to fill in the gaps of the blown kiss, the beckoning hand of communication.
So, now I must turn to the melting trout in my lap and see if I can turn it into some kind of meal. To be fed or to starve? Tomorrow at least, when I am fed by TGW, I shall be satiated on multiple levels… To be filled for others to suck me dry? Just try. I am wearing the reverse head of Sekhmet today …
©starofseshat 2008
Pagen prufreeder wontid …
I know that most pagan writers are self-published or working through small publishing houses where budgets are tight. But why, oh why, oh why can’t they at least run a basic spell-check if they can’t afford a decent proofreader? Are people so arrogant that they don’t get a friend or colleague to read through their manuscript before going to print? Or are their friends so sycophantic, all they can say is marvellous, rather than, bloody hell, where did you learn to speak English?
I have read pagan books by Worthies in the past and really struggled with their phraseology and ‘typos’. This is a trend in publishing in general; the standard of proofreading has slipped considerably since the 1960s. Am I betraying an academic snobbery by thinking that people who are published should take pride in every aspect of their writing? I know when I worked at the bookshop that the same slovenliness applies to mainstream writers too. I received a proof copy of a novel by someone like Maeve Binchy or Patricia Cornwell (a woman writer at any rate). This proof had not passed the editorial bench yet, so I was reading it in the raw. I only managed 2 pages before throwing it on the pile to be pulped because the standard of writing was appalling. This writer MAY have come up with the original idea, but based on the writing, the future kudos for her work most definitely lay with the editor…
Last night I cracked open a new tome on witchcraft. I’m not going to mention names because his writing is typical of many. Apart from the spelling mistakes … and I really don’t believe they were all slips of the finger on a keyboard … his phraseology was so obtuse that I had to virtually do the ‘magic eye’ trick by unfocusing my brain and allowing my subconscious to filter the main words in a sentence and try and make sense of it that way. This book is a modern-day grimoire. It is a book leading the reader into some very dark aspects of magick. The writer warns the reader that he takes no responsibility for what happens to the practitioner working with this book. If he is so bloody concerned, shouldn’t he have at least done a spell check on his demon names and invocations??!! At best nothing will happen, at worst the practitioner will summon a demon as pernickety as me who will want to know why his sigil is wrong and his name mispronounced!! I am (as usual) writing with tongue firmly in cheek, BUT this is a serious point.
I have often felt compelled to offer my proofreading services to certain pagan authors. I am a qualified proofreader, and I would even do it for free as a matter of principle to raise the dross standard of pagan writing. How on earth can we expect to be taken seriously, if our literature – the very books we base so much of our learning on – is full of errors that even a mundane-minded 15-year old would spot. If writers are so lackadaisical as to allow basic grammar and spelling mistakes to pass (bear in mind, their readers are paying for this substandard shite), then I start to question the seriousness of their research and the magickal gnosis that they say they are imparting to me.
I identified one basic error of Egyptian mythology within the first couple of pages of the book I started last night, and now I feel that all the other information I am being fed, I will have to strain through a filter of research and double-checking. I am not a knowledgeable person, so if I can spot an error, how many others are stuck between the pages. And this is NOT about deliberate blinds, smoke-and-shadows, hiding the true gnosis from the initiated; this is about slovenly research and poor writing skills.
And don’t even get me started on books that contain statements like,
“[The author] … is (like me [the person writing the preface]) constantly in the company of beautiful women as any true Magister should be. What more proof of power need there be? Genuine power is sexy. Crap magicians do not get laid.”
Oh, puhleease pass me a barf-bag. Really.
© starofseshat 2008
Pagan Dude – Pagan Dud
“Thanks, I’ll take these please.”
I place the book and crystal pyramid on the glass counter, and turn my head as a young man enters the shop. He stares intently at me with an openness I usually only see in the mentally impaired. Normally people steal a glance, lock eyes momentarily with a non-committal expression before looking away. He greets the assistant and looks at my purchases.
“A crystal pyramid. Awesome”.
“Er, yes.”
Oh, I get it. He’s The-Man-Who-Walks-Up-To-You-In-The-Pub. The stranger, perhaps seeing something too open in my expression, seizes the opportunity to connect.
“I just got back from a mad Summer Solstice festival, yeah, down in Breinton. Course, Covent Garden is the business. That’s where you can get all the proper pagan clothes. You see I’m a pagan and I HAVE to celebrate the solstice.”
“Oh, right.”
“Yeah, Celtic gods, An’allthat.”
Ah, An’allthat, that’s a new Celtic god to me, but I bow before his enthusiastic knowledge.
His assumptions prickle, and I can’t help but say, “We did our ritual this morning.” My goodness, am I really thumbing my metaphorical nose at him? Who is the youngster here?
“Awesome.”
At which point he starts groping inside his shirt and pulls out an ankh, nodding and grinning at my chest.
“Oh, yes.” I wear an ankh as well.
“Yeah, mine’s got a garnet in. My birthstone. So, yeah. This festival, it was so …”
Don’t tell me, awesome.
“… cool.”
“I hadn’t heard of a pagan festival nearby.”
“Oh, yeah, an’ then we’ve got The Big Chill coming up.”
I think the organisers of The Big Chill would be surprised to hear they are a pagan festival. Suddenly I wonder if the Summer Solstice festival he attended wasn’t actually a music festival. And my suspicions are confirmed as he reels off more known music events, that are about as pagan as the Pope.
“So,” say I. “Will you be going to the Ludlow Esoteric Fair?”
“Eastnor Castle?”
“No Ludlow Esoteric Fair.”
“Is that at the castle.”
“No.”
I explain where it will be, and mention the main aims of the conference. I mention Madeleine Montalban and The Regency Group.
“Oh, yeah,” he interrupts. “I went to the Conservationist Group thing in London. Thousands of people there. Well cool.”
I pause mid-breath and feel very old. Is this the generation gap that is yawning before my feet giving me vertigo?
He looks at me blankly. I start shoving my purchases into my bag. This conversation is going nowhere fast. He flips out a phone, and dials MD for Major Distraction, as I wave and smile at the assistant. He studiously avoids my gaze and pretends not to see me leave.
I walk away and wonder when it became so “awesome” to be pagan and so easy. Buy the clothes, go to the festivals, wear an ankh (that archetypal symbol of all things … Celtic?) and proudly tell whoever will listen, “Cos I’m pagan, yeah.”
© starofseshat 2008
