Hermetics used to be a principally solitary magic. At many times, you could be killed by the state for it. Ostracism was also an option. You used to have to just “know” who was working, give them a sign, they would leave an unsigned manuscript under a barrel, you would go get it and copy it, then put it back. Those were the instructions, and the local geist world helped you figure it out. Yes, there were secret societies — there always are. Sometimes you joined, and sometimes you just did a lot of cool stuff and they took care of it.

Some people are just better off seemingly alone, though all kinds of workers were involved.

Until quite recently, we used to kind of dabble and work alone and work in clubs and do whatever we wanted. The strict high Angel magic with ghosts was not in to dictate every aspect of everyone’s life. Telepathic communication was a small local thing among lodge mates.

Compare it to money. A solitary magician has, say, $20 of astral money. If you get about ten people together, they have $200. When the fundamental magic costs $200, then you need to band together.

In our opinion, we don’t like to have everything the same and all be banded together, so we are cheaper.

I am in a lot of clubs. I show up, pay $5 in astral money, and get some work of the club. The rest of my astral money I do with as I please. Folks who do this stuff for many years end up magically wealthy and well-connected in second hand clothes.

THE GAME is of necessity a magic of laboratory drugs. Ease of entry for non-magicians is part of why we are so badly outnumbered.

The old magic didn’t have these. Yes, there were entheogens. You could set aside some of your barley and rot it into an argot instead of into a beer or a bread. But there was never so much barley that everyone could be stoned enough to have this kind of an astral magic.

Furthermore, most of the old entheogens involve diarrhea and vomiting. I have involved myself in diarrhea and vomiting because I don’t think the body should fly so high that it cannot FUND in witches, who were poor. Most people lived in multi-generational housing with one outhouse, and if you are spewing poop, how is that going to work out?

The magic had to be more of ritual, cheap spells, cantrips over dolls, walking to the cemetery, going to normal religious services and praying with the group. Even the upper middle class, who had domestic servants doing the grunt work, had a lifestyle that involved much fairly sober socializing. You paid or received two to three calls a day in addition to all of your mundane responsibility, and there was much of it.

You had to participate in a social whirl that was pretty much nonstop with many rules, much focus on appearance, many secret handshakes! To be on opium enough for this kind of magic was not reasonable.

People, even rich people, had to walk a lot and did magic while walking, hence the requirement of foot track magic. How will you walk stoned?

About fifteen years ago I witnessed a pedestrian hit by the car right in front of mine. That poor jaywalker went flying up and over, as if he were a rag doll thrown by a child. He landed in the path of another car just so. We all got up and ran to him. He was scuffed a bit, but essentially unhurt. Another inch and his brains would have been smushed.

GEDULAH WINS.

I was working in three lodges at the time, doing 15 hours a week of solitary magic, working two doors down from a synagogue, have much family who attend MAR-MON religious services all the time and perform healing magic, and no doubt in a job with THE GAME a few blocks away. The power was there to roar up and telekinetically save that fellow, but you have to work physically to be able to do this. GAME circuits not only can’t always power through the big muscles but the rich may not choose to help the poor like this fellow. Just noticing stuff around me.

SILENCE!

It is better that the $20 in astral magic that we possess be used at our own discretion. Yes, the solitaries appear low, weak and stupid in certain ways to THE GAME, but I fear that no one, especially no female, will ever be able to develop the power of ritual magic now that this new overmagic(k) is demanding ALL HANDS ON DECK and anyone with any astral money has to join a cult and give their entire astral money into the kitty. They do not even comprehend that magic(k) can be DIY.

They are taken into drugs and sex before they ever get this far. Could my magical career be replicated today? I think not.

Women are often juiced because females were mostly involved in reproduction and do not have the egregore of worldly endeavor that males do, and a lot of undesirable practices are available to get at all that lovely power. GIMPIES FOR THE LADIES, and I will discuss the technical reasons why it works, and why PASSOVER is very important for anyone in this new magic.

Dr. Jeremy Weiss is a very sly worker in this vein, and his stuff is effective for me: https://templeofmiriam.com

I will not say WHY I think these particular spells were chosen, but they are important, as is the physical work of witchcraft. My experience is that when GAME is about, the candles bore through the center. We have to do three times the work to support the new magicians THREE TIMES THREE! I am willing to do a lot of it, but there has to be a sense of how far to take it. It hurts us. My own body has been taken down a peg and not just that lovely art endeavor.

Now, to resolve a serious magic(k)al issue here at the boat yard, and that is, what are my intentions/expectations about the boat?

Here is where we must take a peek at John Michael Greer’s magic, and that is, part of it is Druidry ENVIRONMENTALISM.

I may not Druid — I may never Druid because the weltanshauung doesn’t suit me and because I do the Germanic pagan stuff. IT IS FEAR! The Norse and the Celts always used to kill each other. That is in the energy of the demons. But I have noticed over the years that the fundamental strike of just being better at earth forms itself in their magic. I buy almost all of my clothes, furniture, and personal items second hand and don’t let go of them until they fall apart. So some of my stuff is plain ugly! SCUFFED. I try to buy food at the farmer’s market and ferment it. Local meat and eggs are easier on the land than all kinds of processed food from far away. Local milk that is not homogenized is the best base for any type of cheese. Yogurt can be made. Cheese can be made. Not the best cheese, but good enough. Good enough cheese is usually called yogurt. After retirement, or when I can have more time — and in health care that doesn’t usually happen! — it is likely that the kitchen garden will come in, along with a properly fitted and electric bicycle, more solar, and knitting sweaters from local wool, which has happened. The whole situation of the boat is about living in a smaller space and having mostly sustainable power.

This boat is a nice old bucket. There are no blisters in the hull — it has been sitting on the hard for, from what I can tell, twenty years. The bilge is not rotting. There is a minor amount of wood decay that can be worked around. The problems are mostly cosmetic and some DC electrical. I have swapped services with a lodge mate who happens to be an electrical engineer and will be able to help design and install some DC electrical with about five college degrees in science coming at it. No problem with electrocution or fires.

The problem with sailboat refit is that it is too high and everything looks the same.

That is not the case in van build, where you can buy an old school bus and tinker away to your heart’s content. Heck, you can refit a working van for $500 if you know how to use power tools and a sewing machine, and a lot of it can come from the second hand store. It is not the sleekest and most high end situation of life, but it can be safe, sane, and appropriate for a theatre artist.

So what we have with the boat is a low-end van build to use until it is time for it to go away, then I plan to hand the keys of a WORKING SOLAR-POWERED HOME to someone who needs a home and is able to learn enough about the minor gadgetry to keep it together.

If I sell now, some bottom dweller will come pick up this hull and let it sit in the front yard until it finally seeps four thousand pounds of lead into the topsoil and is not fun.

So let’s just be on the same page about GENGHIS KHAN. The magicians knew what they were going to have to do and did it.

Let me apologize for anything not very fine in this post. I got the sense that ambient workers like MORE posts when there is a lot to say, and not just the finest art.

And that bit about mandatory group vs. solitary was essential and I have more to say in terms of the techniques of John Michael Greer’s Golden Dawn magic, because that is SO MARKETED.