Happy Aleister Crowley Day!

As Christopher Columbus is generally determined to be a genocidal colonialist prat, I've reserved October 12 to commemorate the birthday of Aleister Crowley, who was a poet and Satanist who probably wasn't as much of a genocidal colonialist prat but is no less absurd a person to ascribe a day to, being a European who stumbled onto various territories of spiritual space already previously discovered by other people, who then went on to profit from them, except he didn't, because he spent the money on heroin, because no magician is perfect, am I right? But his face got on the Sgt. Pepper album of the Beatles, and the Scientology of Hubbard and the witchcraft of Gardner would probably alike be poorer if not nonexistent without his enquiry.

Which isn't to call him a prophet or anything. Only he "Columbused" so many pagan/syncretic faiths and practices that you can't hardly have an alternative pagan faitheism without at least a shout out to the guy who yoinked out so much esoterica that any regular Joe or Josephine could be a lifetime trying to figure out what he was about.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love, and do what thou wilt. (Yeah--he basically tried to bogart the Golden Rule like he owned it. Basic.)

So I am going to go eat a small child and probably have some still wines unto the Beast, or something like that. You also, go have yourself a good time. He would have wanted it that way, I think. Bloody hard to tell.

The 2014 Strangely Blogged Roundup

This is a traditional thing I do where I recap the year that was by finding 5 posts of mine that summed-up whatever I was on about. This year was difficult. This blog became harder to write even though I think I posted more this year, just because I confronted harder themes. I also strived to make my blog more inclusive and confront some of my assumptions more directly--a thing I will try to make a habit of.

So, to kick things off,  I will point out that as of January, I was clear about where I stood on the War on Women, insofar as I opposed posers who didn't even know what it is like to get, be, suspect oneself of being pregnant.

As of March, I was utterly enjoying the Seth MacFarlane/Neil Degrasse Tyson Cosmos reboot.

I addressed misogyny in the form of mass-killer Elliot Rogers with a lament on how society blinds itself to the violence inherent in the hatred directed at 50% of the population.

This was the year I saw young men die--I am still heartbroken over the deaths of Mike Brown, Kajime Powell, Akai Gurley, and Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and a hell of a lot more names I have been introduced to. I also know young women die because of brutality. And I will come back to these tragedies again so long as they happen.

Also, my blog took some philosophical turns as I covered interesting questions with regular commenter, Formerly Amherst. This blog is about getting to the truth of things, and sometimes, it can take an esoteric turn.

I also covered the rise of ISIS and my hope that it falls, my opinions about torture, and my ever-present concern about the class war between rich and poor. I also tried to keep up with posting about global warming.

All in all, it wasn't a great year for news, what with the missing Asian airliners, the rise of ISIS,  the deaths of some great comedians I absolutely admired, and other missteps of fate. But I realize I don't like anything better than my rapport with my readers. You give me reason to keep going.

Of Bogeymen and Babes in the Wood

When I was an adolescent, I liked horror movies. The more disgusting, the better. I liked slasher movies like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th movies that blended the sick with occasional flashes of surreal humor. I was mildly fascinated by real-life stories of mass murderers like John Wayne Gacy or lesser-known local weirdos like Gary Heidnik. I listened to the kind of satanic metal that sounded vaguely like it was already being played backwards and pretty much openly mentioned Satan. (The PMRC was the one thing that really messed me up with regards to supporting Al Gore...) I thought about executing grisly revenge on the daily as a nerdy-ass bullied teen.

In other words, I was a completely normal, wholesome American teenager. That's why the story about two Wisconsin girls stabbing their friend because they wanted to become "proxies" of a fictional bogeyman didn't actually surprise me. Exactly. But some of the implications are actually horrifying. Let me get one thing out of the way--I am not scared of the bogeyman, but adolescents are pretty scary.