Month: August 2004

If you haven’t noticed already, K-Punk is in raging good form right now. It’s rapidly mutated from being “just a blog” to, not so much a forum as an endlessly uncoiling serpent of clashing incantaory voices. It’s been called “the new ILM” by Simon, but it’s stranger and more beautiful than that. Get in there now; it won’t last forever.

Latest up is a cracking analysis of Burroughs — tough subject, artfully dissected (by K-Kollective member John Effay, though I hesitate to undermine the unauthorship of the scene by naming names).

Four whole days without net access. I felt naked.

Latest message from the museum:

By Friday the Museum should be accessible and the first priority is to move the library to a safer location, as the damp will be damaging the paper. Levannah & Adrian are appealing for volunteers with vans to move the library on Friday; if you can help please contact Levannah on

levannah@aol.com

Please spread this appeal to any other groups or individuals.

I am told that the flood washed up to the ceiling on the ground floor and then subsided down to about three foot, and I am also told, by someone else, that a fireman working there yesterday digging cars out of the harbour said that the Witchcraft Museum was covered in mud. These conditions will ruin the library very quickly, so please help if you possibly can.

ENDS

Quick one back on Glueboot to save copying and pasting in the comments boxes:

>However, happiness doesn’t >particularly open up a space for >thought.

No way! Yes necessity is the mother of invention. But I just don’t recognise unhappiness being as much of a motor of insight as it’s sometimes made out to be. Yes, “the first taste of hope is fear” as a recent industrial mix I put up was titled — well, SOME hopes, anyway. But from where I’m sitting, pain restricts the mind’s ability to reflect as much as it goads it.

Carrot and stick innit :-).

> If one is happy there is no reason > for one to find out why there is
> happiness.

You’re joshing me! Sounds like (I could be wrong) there’s an assumption somewhere here about “normality” being suffering, and momentary happiness being a relief therefrom, unquestioned. That’s not how most of the people I know think — admittedly the people who read a lot of philosophy tend to be a bit down on things 🙂 but a lot of people seem to me to be figuring out ways to make themselves feel happier. Even my 3 year old!

> But to posit a world and a
> philosophy of pure happiness is
> the absolute heights of naivety.

Yeah probably. Have to check back with Leary on that one :-). But who’s positing that? Not me!

Nice one bruv…

URGENT APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE MUSEUM OF WITCHCRAFT

On 16th August 20004 the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall, UK, which holds one of the most significant Pagan and Witchcraft collections in the world, was seriously damaged by flash floods which have devasted Boscastle.

Graham King and all the Museum staff are safe. The building is still standing, but there is serious damage to the collection. We will not know the extent of this for a while yet.

The Museum is appealing for help from the Pagan community. They would like to assure all their friends and supporters that the Museum will be back.

The friends Of The Museum and the Pagan Federation Devon and Cornwall are co-ordinating the appeal for help. Two kinds of help are needed:

Donations; If you are able to send donations, please make them payable to:Pagan Federation Devon and Cornwall and send them to: PO Box 314, Exeter, EX4 6YR, UK. Please send cheques, postal orders or IMOs (not cash) and mark the envelope “Museum Of Witchcraft”. All donations will be acknowledged (eventually!).

Practical help: All kinds of volunteer help will be needed to clean up, save the collection and re-build the Museum. This help will not be needed for a few days yet, but if you can help, please email your details to either: thecrowman@houseof the oldways.fsworld.co.uk or: levannah@aol.com.

Someone will contact you when we know what is needed. We will also email updates as we get them.

Many thanks and Goddess Bless to everyone who has already been in touch to offer help and support. The Museum will not be beaten by this.

Please circulate this information as widely as you can.

Blessings of the Old Ones

Levannah Morgan and Adrian Bryn-Evans
(Friends of the Museum Of Witchcraft and Pagan Federation Devon and Cornwall).

From one of the staff at the museum:
All the people that we know are safe and well – although some homeless for a while.

The Museum has suffered extensive damage and all the downstairs exhibits have been ruined. The front window has been blown out, but the upstairs, including the library seems to have escaped the worse of the damage.

No-one is allowed entry to Boscastle until all buildings have been declared safe to enter. This could take some days and the whole village is cut off as part of the road has been washed away.

Many, many thanks to all who worked magically last night. Although there are 15 people unaccounted for at the moment, there appears to be no loss of life… so far.

Graham is very tired after all his Coastguard work yesterday and through the night. He sends his grattitude to all and will definitely be needing help soon in a clear-up operation, but this can’t happen for a few days at least.

ENDS

Out there in the forums, people have been asking for “beginner stuff”. In particular, a lot of people are scared of the prospect of going into magic too fast, and are being advised they need to read an enormous amount of books before they can do anything safely. Well, obviously you need a certain amount of common sense and humility. But I’ve been doing magick for more than 20 years, and looking back, especially at the early days, I just didn’t get into trouble by getting on with it. Quite the reverse. I’m not saying, throw caution to the winds — quite the reverse. I would however draw an analogy with yoga. If you try to force yourself into full lotus when you’re a couch potato, you are likely to strain muscles and may need professional attention to feel comfortable again. If however you start with simple exercises, don’t push too hard, but practice regularly, you will rapidly, if not immediately, feel the benefits. And you won’t hurt yourself. Same with magic. Do it often, do it within your capabilities, do it safe, and you’ll be fine.

So get in there. Listen to your gut, be humble, and get used to distinguishing between feeling excitement, feeling a bit of fear, and KNOWING this is WRONG and I got to GET OUT OF HERE. (The latter is a particularly important feeling to be able to identify when working with others.) And bear in minf that magic doesn’t have to be about “getting something”. Magic’s an end in itself. Like meditation, or sex, or food. Or football.

Now, some suggestions of stuff to do to just start feeling it — I won’t comment too much, just take a look and see what grabs you:

1. the Auric egg meditation (terrible title, pr0bably deliberately so, but better than it sounds! Dead simple and safe)
2. Sensory enhancement exercises — good for anyone to do.
3. Genius loci stuff — for a better sense of place.

In addition, a lot of people like Grant Morrison’s pop magic. Even though it’s pretty results-oriented, rather than “stretch out and enjoy it” in style, it’s got solid advice and techniques in it. And I for one enjoy magickal materials written up as if they were a third-rate sales primer.

Just remember, be nice to yourself, don’t give yourself a hard time, and don’t take it too seriously. It’ll get freaky in its own time. You don’t have to objectively, definitively believe in any of it on a 24 hour a day, 52 weeks of the year basis — in fact it’s probably a very good idea if you don’t. Magick defends itself.

You’ll notice I haven’t listed any books to read. That can come later. Important though knowledge is, it’s more important to get on and do something, try something, and (without trying to do too much) find out something about yourself and the world around you. Try it, you’ll like it. And you don’t have to give up any materialist principles.

What ARE tenterhooks?

Whatever they are, I’m on them.

Baby’s due today. Was. Possibly is. Could be days more — conceivably two weeks more, which would be a pain.

I haven’t done this before. When Felix was born, my wife got pre-eclampsia a few days early, and was induced, so we didn’t have to do the waiting thing. That panic was worse, but this interminable waiting is horrible.

Come soon. Please.

And may the powers within me and without me make everything OK.