On Forgetting Our Notes-to-Self: The tragedy of forgotten ideas

I have a tendency that I'm sure a lot of magicians (and computer programmers, oddly) can identify with: Often, seemingly out of nowhere, an idea will flash into my mind, unrelated to anything I'm doing or thinking at the time. I'll latch on to this idea, spend a good while thinking about it and fleshing out all the details, congratulate myself on my awesomeness, go back to whatever else needs more immediate doing... and promptly forget about my great idea entirely.

You'd think that after a while I'd either learn to write stuff down (god knows I have as many digital devices as I do pens to store notes on), or conclude that my ideas weren't impressive enough or important enough to warrant remembering. But the scale on which this happens can be staggering; I've fleshed out rough drafts for entire term papers in my head while on the road, and sat staring at a blank word processor for hours when I got home; I've had wonderful, inspired-feeling ideas for blog posts that are gone by the time I drag my lazy ass to a computer. I'm sure everyone's been through this.

AKA the ubiquitous childhood experience.

But the absolute worst part of it is knowing that a single word could bring that entire idea back in a flash, fully-formed, if only I could remember what the word was. Every once in a while I'll get lucky and an offhand phrase from a friend or relative will bring it all flooding back, but the vast majority of the time whatever I've come up with is given up for lost. It's a bit like being a kid and building something very intricate out of a bin full of Legos, and searching desperately for that one goddamn piece that you've had plans for for ages, and seen every time you didn't need it.

What a douche.

Ironically, it was scraping my mind to remember a previous, now-long-forgotten blog post that made me remember something Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki said years ago about occult students needing to carry a small tape recorder or pocket notebook to record these sudden ideas (or flashes of insight, as the case may be). I always assumed that constantly stopping to flesh out and record your ideas in public would not only be hugely inconvenient, but would make you look like an absolute prat. It wasn't until today that I realized that writing down less than a sentence (e.g. "Blog post, spirit offerings, annoying neighbor") would be enough for me to remember pages of text I couldn't pull out of my ass now if I tried. Honestly, why haven't I tried this before now?

Pretty much.

I think it's a matter of ego. In my undergrad years, a good memory meant I could simply listen to lectures without ever taking notes, read the book once (and only once, often near exam-time) without taking notes, and make awesome grades. Yes, I was that asshole. I'm not sure why the same recall doesn't apply to internal dialogue the way it does to external, but I suppose the idea of needing memory aids seems somewhat... vulgar to my most conceited side.

But you know what? Fuck it. This blog is suposed to be about "practical magic and self-transformation", and the most practical thing I can do today kill two birds with one stone, swallow my pride, and start taking notes. I'm sure it seems like a tiny step to some, but I'm working through 20-odd years of being conditioned otherwise. I feel accomplished today.

Now where's that damn notebook?

On PR's "Potion Of Get-The-Fuck-Out"

(This was amusing enough that I thought I'd share. Sorry for my long-windedness.)

Normally, I'm never one to assign mystical causes to mundane events; in my teenage years I saw one too many fluffy-bunny (is that term not PC anymore? I can't keep up) running around blaming curses, evil spirits, "bad energy" and the like for their marital troubles, failing occult shop, general clumsiness, seasonal allergies (seriously), and whole hosts of other problems. I learned young that most of the shit that happens in your life is simply a product of you not having your shit together. Perhaps this is one of the reason's I'm so attracted to Jason's Strategic Sorcery approach.

The side-effect of growing up in this frame of mind is that for a long time I completely overlooked the benefits of cleansing and blessing my living spaces on a regular basis, particularly those practices that required my lazy ass to actually get on my hands and knees and scrub down the floor/baseboards (Here I'd normally link to a host of bloggers who would berate me for this, but fuck if I can find the links I want when I need them). This was all well and good for me until recently, when I found myself in an emotionally compromised state, when, as they say, it all came crashing down around my ears.

First, I fell ill with the worst viral infection I've ever had in my life. Now, I'm very good with pain, I have a relatively strong immune system, and I can usually self-medicate rough illnesses into submission (I would hope so, being in a pharmacy Ph.D. program). So to say that for two weeks I was repeatedly brought down to crying in bed like a little girl and literally crawling my way to the kitchen to feed myself honestly hurts my pride a bit. I had enough blood-tests done to make my arms look like those of an addict, with no definitive results.

When I finally crawled my way back into the light of the outside world, I found myself in the odd position of what I can only describe as carrying a bubble of irrationality with me. Perfectly happy, chatty, rational, long-time friends would turn into testy, illogical minefields when I'd stay in a room with them for any length of time. Trying to get school paperwork done, in an office of what are usually very helpful and understanding people, became a nightmare of red tape and being brushed off outright. Professors only accommodated my makeup work because I pushed them up against university rules. Etc, etc.

While I was still trying to figure out what the fuck was going on, spiders. I'm not shitting you. Tiny newborn spiders invaded my apartment by the hundreds.

Which made falling ill for a second time, only a week or so after recovering from the first, awkward. You try spraying your ceiling and sleeping on the couch while running a fever. So, in the grandest of student traditions, I retreated to good 'ol mom's house (the feverish hundred-mile interstate drive was... interesting). And wouldn't you know, not 24 hours later, I felt better. Better, I realized, than I had in months. The kind of better I sometimes felt in small doses when I left my place to...

Fucking lightbulb.

Maybe, just maybe, I let myself think, there was something more than a string of coincidences at work here. I had to clean my infested apartment out anyway, I figured, so why not come back guns-blazing with an all-out magical cleansing as well? Couldn't hurt, at any rate.

So I concocted what I've dubbed "Pallas Renatus' Potion Of Get-The-Fuck-Out". In hindsight, it's clearly overkill, as I think it also removed some of whatever it was that made the place feel "homey". It's like I've just moved into the apartment again. Better than the alternative, though. So with that in mind, here's what I made, in case anyone else finds themselves in need of the materia-magic equivalent of a nuclear warhead:

Yes, that says "For research purposes". Story for a later date.

Find yourself a tin of chewing tobacco. I suggest some sort of mint flavor, to offset the ungodly smell of what you're about to do next, but it doesn't really matter.

Smells as bad as it looks, trust me

Throw the whole tin of it in a pot with about two cups of water and bring it to a boil, then turn down and let simmer for half an hour or so. Opening windows is suggested. Spiders hate this shit; besides poisoning the ones that are directly exposed to it, even a tiny amount of residue will keep them from coming back.

Thrifty magicians have no shame about reusing old sauce jars.

Strain into something reusable. I didn't realize it at the time, but so little of this stuff is needed that one concoction will last you for years... or divide nicely into tiny bottles to sell :-)

I prefer lemon. Just don't use anything labeled "soapy".

Add a splash of ammonia. A tablespoon or so is all that's necessary for spiritual purposes, but if I had been smart, I would have done a room-temperature extraction of the tobacco overnight in a cup or so of straight household ammonia, then diluted it by half with water, if only to avoid the smell. Lesson learned.

I found this lovely cubed form in the "ethnic hair products"
section of my local pharmacy. Go figure.

While the solution is still hot, add some powdered camphor. Save a bit of it to burn later. The camphor won't dissolve completely, but give it a good stir to get it dispersed evenly. I advise against closing the bottle of hot liquid and shaking. Try it and find out why.










Open all your windows, light up a bit of the camphor you saved, invoke whatever kick-ass guardian/warrior spirit you like (I used Michael), belt out a general license to depart, and get to work scrubbing down every floorboard, door-frame, and window-frame in the house, as well as where the ceiling meets the walls. A few drops on a wet sponge is all you will need if you don't want to stain your woodwork green or have to go over everything a second time with a clean sponge.

Take some time when you're done to invoke a few choice higher beings and generally bless the living space. I'd wait a good day or so before re-inviting any familiars, land-spirits, or other spirits on the more visceral end of the scale in, as the camphor will be unpleasant at best for them.

As I mentioned before, all this was probably a bit overkill. The "familiar" feeling of my home of two years was suddenly gone, and took several weeks to reestablish itself. But on the other hand, everything I mentioned above disappeared or resolved almost overnight. Even a lot of the paperwork I mentioned above got pushed through the next day without my intervention.

Moral of the story? Banish your shit.


Edit: If anyone wants a little 1/2 oz. vial of this stuff, you know, for those "just in case" moments that crop up a little too often, shoot me an email (link in my profile) and I'll mail some out to you for free. Lord knows I have more than I'll ever need or use.

On Addictive Personalities

Oh my, it's been awhile. Which is sort of the inspiration for this post, I suppose.

As magicians, we often spend an inordinate amount of time pondering cause-and-effect relationships. How will the stars effect my work? How did my work effect my life? Why didn't my work, well, work? It's sort of comes with the territory.

One of the things I rarely see, however, is people questioning why they're attracted to certain areas or types of work. If one takes a sudden interest in Voodoo, for instance, odds are you'll be so wrapped up in studying the subject that you won't stop to think about why you're suddenly energized and nearly completely focused on this one subject, perhaps only to lose interest a few days/weeks/months later. Or perhaps we find a new terribly interesting subject, and simply bound off to study it, without considering what we're leaving behind.

I could easily say that the reason I haven't posted for so long (in the meantime completely neglecting my occult studies and practices) is because my long-term relationship recently ended, or because I've been busy preparing for graduation, or because I've spent a lot of time (re)applying to pharmacy schools. But to be perfectly honest with you, and with myself, the real answer is that a lot of new shiny objects (in the way of friends, booze, video games, a new job, and school opportunities) got dangled in front of me all at once, and for all my boundless interest, the things I considered important got left behind.

So why did this happen? The fuck if I know, but at least I'm thinking about it. And if it's on my mind, there's hope that when it happens again (and it will, I'm sure), I'll recognize it, and perhaps handle things with a bit more balance and grace the second time around.

For now, though, the champagne's popped (literally), and it's time to leave a few hundred blog comments. Let's do this.

On Omens and Wishful Thinking

[Please excuse my long absence. I meant to post this around Christmas and never got the chance.]

I thought Christmas might be an appropriate time to post these particular musings.

A few weeks ago after reading one of Gordon's excellent posts, I fired off some sigils to St. Nicholas on his feast day. The day after, I mailed the cards they were written on to the North Pole (seriously, read the address and tell me it's not perfect) and dropped the remains of the candles that had burnt down over them into a storm grate at a three-way crossroads. I felt it was a unique, but mostly silly endeavor.

The next day, I happened to be in a mall with my ladyfriend. Being rather tired, I was completely oblivious to everything except for whichever clothing rack happened to be directly in front of me at the moment. It was loud enough that my ladyfriend, only feet away, was struggling to hear me over the general din of the customers around us (and I'm not exactly a quiet dude). Very suddenly, though, my ears pricked up, and the hubbub seemed to die away very suddenly as I heard a blip of the music that the store had been playing. "Santa Claus is coming..." and the noise jumped up just as suddenly, drowning out the rest of the song.

Now, I thought this was funny and ironic, but not particularly revelatory. Still, it did make me pause for a moment with a stupid grin on my face (note to dudes: standing with a stupid grin on your face while holding a lady's scarf and skirt may earn you some odd looks). We moved along to the next store.

And wouldn't you know, it happened again. Same song, different store, exact same four words seeming to jump out of nowhere before disappearing. Bigger, stupider smile (at least this time I was holding something with an appropriately witty statement on it). Of course, this set me to thinking.

I've never been one for Omens; I rarely have moments where I know something Significant has happened, and it's even less often that I know what that moment means. Part of me would love to pass this off as Priming and wishful thinking; to say that my attention pricked up so readily simply because I'd gone to sleep thinking about my experiment. And yet somehow the suddenness of that shift of attention makes the moment seem almost external, as if it were a message being purposefully conveyed.

A lot of occultists will mention in passing having a particular "zing" that separates an omen from a funny or ironic coincidence (and since my life is pretty much an exercise in irony, I've got plenty of the latter). I'm not sure if a sudden shift in the acuity of my hearing counts, but it's gotten my interested in what exactly people mean when they talk about their "omen zing". Try to qualify it for me; what does it feel/sound/look/taste like? Leave a comment, for science!

On Where Not To Find Spirits

The past few weeks have been a flurry of caffeine- and fear-fueled activity for me. Normally I'd like to use that as an excuse for my recent spiritual inertia, but to be honest it's a recurring problem in my life and I'd be lying to myself if I did.

Seeing that the worst of my situation is over, though, I thought tonight would be a good time to celebrate with my invisible friends. Now, I wouldn't say I'm a particularly gifted psychic or scryer, but as I was watching threads of incense curl around the water glass and over the candle flame, a few thoughts on the subject occurred to me.

The first was an exercise I read years ago on a now-defunct website, whose content eventually became Kabbalah, Magic & the Great Work of Self Transformation. Basically, the exercise entailed spending a full week trying to perceive "hollow" objects (cups, doorways, etc) in terms of space rather than form. For example, you'd see the space in a room, the space in a doorway, and the space in the next room as one continuous medium, rather than see "the door" as a discrete object. How mind-bending (and/or fun) this was depended on how deeply you threw yourself into the exercise.

But as I recalled this seemingly random memory, I suddenly understood why so many people have trouble with scrying, especially in incense smoke or another 3-D medium. They're looking at the smoke, instead of at the space itself. Although I hadn't been trying to summon any spirits into physical appearance (I'm not in the habit of coercing my guests into performing party tricks), or even trying to scry anything, I started looking at the space between the threads of incense. And wouldn't you know, there were forms there, dragging small threads along their frames like wisps of... well, smoke.

Maybe you really do need the blood of a dove and a half-pound of incense to properly see a spirit. Or maybe we're just looking in the wrong place. I don't pretend to know, but I sure as hell plan to experiment with this more.

On Fearing the Self (and dealing with it)

Balthazar's recent post on Divinatory Literacy has gotten my mind reeling for a number of reasons, not the least effect of which is pondering the enormously varied ways in which people purposefully delude themselves.

Most Magicians make no secret of the fact that we are often our own worst enemy. This is true tenfold where self-exploration (even when not sought after) is concerned, because we have to bypass the human tendency to reinforce our own mental map of the universe and take a blind leap into the uncertain... which is understandably terrifying. Hell, for all we know, we'll come out the other end insane (or worse, ridiculed).

What is weird to me is that people usually set out on a magical path for one or both of two reasons: power over their situation, and betterment of the self (discovering Truth, etc). Whichever your goal, you're obviously not currently in a position to be getting what you want, which is why you pick up magic to begin with. In any case, a sudden shift in viewpoint is exactly what you want and most likely need. You've been pining for that "So THAT'S why it didn't work!" moment when everything makes sense and the larger picture helps you understand what to do next.

And yet every day we see people clinging to a single (often inane) idea they've found in a book, or a broken "system" they've picked up on a message board, or their cosmology, or any number of other personal maps, and just as often it is blatantly clear that these things are not helping them in their above-stated goals. So why hold on to them?

For the same reason we hold on to every other piece of junk in our lives. Read Gordon's post. Do a ruthless physical purge of your possessions. Then turn the lens inward and go through your beliefs and practices, singling out each one and asking yourself what would happen if the possibility arose that your belief was completely and utterly false? What if that practice was quite clearly useless? What would you want to hold onto, justifying and rationalizing, instead of dropping it instantly? Why? Is the comfort you have in the sureness of your beliefs worth hamstringing your magic?

Just food for thought. If I could find the proper post to link to, I'd reference Frater R.O.'s wonderful "Oh Shit" moment where he let go of his long-held views on Goetic magic and adopted something that works much better for him. He could have just as easily (if not much more easily) stuck to his guns and have dealt with the fallout, but instead he adapted and came out better for it.

Perhaps it's the explorer instinct, or perhaps I'm just a little unhinged, but I'd much rather be jumping headlong into a world that doesn't make sense (yet) than be the skeptic in Balthazar's post, paying people and hoping that they're wrong so that I can prove I'm already (and have always been) right.

What are you holding on to?

On Free Stuff (which surprisingly doesn't suck)

I've spent more time this October posting comments on blog-based giveaways than I care to admit to. Some of the stuff was cool, some of it sucked; all of it was free marketing for people who really need more people to visit their shops.

Leave it to Gordon to create a giveaway so awesome that I actually break my rule of not posting about giveaways. But you all should be following his blog already anyway, so uh, sorry for filling your feed reader with crap? Not really. Word is there's some sweet schwag in it for me.