#( since they are their own individuals and not associated with any mythological figures unlike all of my other muses )

[astrogone]

I have ( had? ) two original characters who I had created for one of my novels that I never really got to work on, but been wanting to now since I had just stumbled across them in my very old storage server, and, uh, I really be wondering how many people would want to see more of / interact with these two dumbasses who are the past and future counterparts of each other, Jax and Jay Rosenberg.

The only reason they’re relevant to the theme of astrotechne, aka this blog, is because after Jax saw a shooting star, he sarcastically made a wish of wanting to have hope again after he had lived in despair for a while. This shooting star was actually an entity who came from a celestial race known as the Wishwrights, which are akin to Angel / Jinni hybrid creations who would make themselves fall from the heavenly realm as to sacrifice their bodies so it can create a certain energy that would allow the wishes made by those seeing them be granted. Their lore is pretty sad, but that��s a different post to be made in another day.

Anyway, this “hope” was actually Jax’s past self, nicknamed Jay ( as Jay would call himself “Jax Junior” or “JJ” ), and at the end of the novel, for their heroic acts ( I haven’t really decided what they had to do throughout the plotline, but, something about saving time from collapsing, maybe ), they were given a wish by the same Wishwright who Jax saw falling in the beginning, and they both made a wish of wanting to have each other in their life. Although they had to be immortals so their timelines could be retracted / merged in order to maintain the order in the Universe, and they both used the immorality to help people, especially children, by giving them wishes, essentially making themselves Wishwrights.

Below the cut is a bit more info about Jax and Jay since, again, I do want to know if anyone would like to see more of them / write with them! Lemme know with a heart and / or comment! <3

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓

In every ways, he truly does represent the bright side of a human. He is best known to be extremely energetic, opening, and optimistic. Often times he can be absentminded and clumsy, though he still at least attempts to put some amount of effort in cleaning after himself. He usually doesn’t take life seriously, which often gets him into trouble for being constantly immature and not seeing life in a darker perspective for his sake. He does not believe in the idea of people being too good, but not too bad either, so he is always accepting and opening to everyone he encounters while he wants to make new friends everyday and hope them the best of their futures. He is careless to what people think of him, so he can sometimes come across as blunt and nonchalant in his words, depending on a situation. He is always optimistic about everything and dislikes when people tries to make him see otherwise. Though he sees life in a more positive nihilistic manner, seeing nothing truly matters in the end, but to him, he believes there is always a chance for him to make his own meanings out of what his life gives to him. That’s what make his life beautiful.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄

Unlike Jay, he represents the dark side of a human. Alway, is he resentful and angry and harsh to the world around him. He had lost his faith in the better futures of himself and the world after he had been constantly used on and reminded of his flaws, so he does not find any worth in doing about anything but killing horrible people so those who were harmed by them could have the futures he never had ( though they would be done mainly for his own selfish reasons of wanting to take his rage out and place himself in the victims’ position of being saved ). He is tensed and serious over nearly everything, and is easy to be flustered when treated kindly. He is rude so he can protect himself as he fears of creating new bonds only to be hurt once more. He have always been a loner, and though he would think to himself he didn’t need anyone, the loneliness would always get the best of him. Because of the agony and traumas he had to go through for so long, he holds a negative nihilistic view towards life and is pessimistic about everything. He believes the world has always been a cruel one, so why waste the energy in trying to change what is permanent to the core. Save the rest to die well instead.

Bonus content because these are too good not to share

[ellynneversweet]

How did you decide on the daemons you did for the Bennet sisters?

Oh that’s something that takes some answering, thank you :D. I tend to pick and choose between religious and heraldic symbolism, cultural associations, puns, but I’ve got a bunch of loose ground rules that narrow things down based on age, social standing, gender, etc — it depends on the character. Starting with broad strokes:

Aristocrats and their families really pride themselves on big-cat daemons, which neatly ties up:  Darcy and his cheetah daemon; Lord Asriel and Stelmaria; and the long and storied history of British monarchs representing themselves /the state with lion symbolism.

Following from that, the more important you (think) you are, the larger and more baroque your daemon tends to be. In Mr Bennet’s case, his bear daemon is so large as to be practically disabling, since the accomodations necessarily required to manage his lifestyle are barely within budget (story of Mr Bennet’s life), but he’s also someone who has social power and doesn’t use it.

The enlightenment arguments about concepts of the self as an individual distinct from the society it springs from, and the interest in the scientific community in exploration in classification that were happening at about this time should clash in the public imagination with more old-fashioned heraldic concepts of what it means to have your inner self on display. And, while I had a lot of issues with The Secret Commonwealth, I did think it was interesting that Pullman suggested people mostly knew what animal their daemon looked like, and that’s something take into account at a time when your average person would not be expected to be widely informed on the fauna outside their own home region. So some people are very traditional and conformist (the Fitzwilliams), some people try to game the system on their or their children’s behalf (Jane, to an extent), some would prefer to see the whole thing stripped of artifice or otherwise romanticise the idea of more instinctive and naturalistic (Darcy very much, Elizabeth slightly less so), some don’t think too much about it and  just go with the flow  (Charlotte).

Witches and magicians (almost) always have bird daemons, per HDM and also because of the consistent association of birds with magic in JS&MN, particularly ravens. So Jonathan Strange has a blue jay daemon, because blue jays are corvids but they don’t look it, and Strange is a very good magician but tends not to look it on on introduction.On the other end of the size scale, Mrs Bennet’s dalmatian pelican daemon is springs from catholic imagery in which pelicans are symbolic of self-sacrificing motherhood, based on a medieval belief that pelicans pecked their chests bloody to feed their chicks with their own blood. Since this is absolutely not true of pelican behaviour, and since pelicans in life (enormous, smelly, loud) are much less romantic and attractive than that imagery suggests , I figure it works both with what Mrs Bennet would like to believe about herself and how she actually is.

Which necessarily leads to the Bennet girls all having bird daemons, conveniently narrowing the field of possibilities.

For Jane, whose daemon is a hyacinth macaw, I wanted a tension between outward conformity to the role of perfect daughter and gentlewoman, and someone who has hidden depths. Bright bird daemons are very much in vogue for ladies — think parrots and birds of paradise — so she fits that mould, with an elegant and beautiful daemon; but on the other hand hyacinth macaws are much bigger, cleverer and more powerful than your average parrot, they’re less immediately eye-catching and surprisingly good at camouflaging themselves. They’re also (by parrot standards) relatively patient, even-tempered and shy, and they pair-bond quite strongly in addition to being generally social, but they can be destructive when they’re unhappy, and Jane, I think, quietly excels at self-destruction. The backstory that may or may not make it into the fic itself was that Jane spent a lot of time in her mid-teens being dragged around town to every menagerie and museum Mrs Bennet could manage to get tickets to, mostly without Elizabeth, feeling miserably shy and self-conscious because people kept staring at her. She saw a very lonely macaw (via a Portuguese trader Uncle Gardiner knew) trying unsuccessfully to hide from massive crowds in a showy display, and felt a sort of immediate empathy with it which, erm, stuck.

For Elizabeth, whose daemon is a gyrfalcon and, unlike Jane, a complete accident, I riffed a bit off Darcy. So, something fast (and, importantly, faster than a cheetah), independent and aggressive, but also beautiful, playful and charming — archness and sweetness, you know? Gyrfalcons are beautiful and quite acrobatic, and (pun incoming) their scientific name (falco rusticolus) means countryside dweller. They’re endemic to both England and the arctic areas that the witches are associated with, suiting Elizabeth and her interest in her foreign grandmother. They’ve also got a long association with the uppermost echelons of society, being the valued possession of kings and generally a mark of high honour to associate with in any capacity. (Darcy, whose family still regard themselves basically as vassals of the Raven King, absolutely knows what a gyrfalcon looks like and what it implies, but unfortunately rushed to judgement too soon. He’s in for a hard time sorrynotsorry)

For Mary, (short-eared owl), an owl was the obvious choice, given the association with seeking wisdom, if not necessarily finding it — I admit to a bit of petty amusement at the way owls are not, in fact, particularly bright birds, despite their reputations. Barn owls and snowy owls, while lovely, are just super over-done, and for Mary I wanted something little bit silly, too big and too drab in his colouring to be fashionable, but not fierce enough to command admiration. I figured by this point in their parenting career Mr&Mrs Bennet had moved on from dragging the girls around town, and what encouragement they got to consider the wonders of the natural world consisted of being pointed at the door and told not to come inside until dinner, maybe a  new book of illustrated plates if Mr Bennet thought it was interesting enough to buy. Short-eared owls are pretty commonplace in huge parts of the world, including the UK, so it’s quite likely that Mary would have come across them even with limited resources.

For Kitty, I admit that I don’t have a sub-species quite nailed — he’s a pink hummingbird, but that’s colouration rather than a specific type (possibly a bronze-tailed comet or a red-tailed comet). He’s pretty, tiny, silly and annoying, (‘for heaven’s sake stop buzzing about at breakfast! My poor nerves, etc etc’), which seemed a natural fit for Kitty. However, hummingbirds are also associated with the souls of dead warriors in Aztec mythology (although admittedly my knowledge in that field is woefully thin), and as Kitty has a fair bit of fight in her and absolutely no ability to pick her battles, her daemon would naturally be the sort of animal that starts fights they have absolutely no ability to win.

As for Lydia, well — she’s still working it out, in her own special way. 

[adalheidismimisbrunnr]

Magickal Beings

Elves & Other Spirits

The world of ancient Paganism was hardly limited to the worship of the Gods.  There are various other beings who were honored, and. Elf worship. was often the hardest part of Paganism for Christians to destroy.  It was easy enough to substitute one God for another, but it was quite another to tell the common people that the elves which brought fertility to the land were not real!

In the various folktales and sagas, we find very little which would lead us to a concrete system of what spirit was responsible for exactly what.  We are sure of the place of the Valkyries, who were responsible for bringing the slain to Valhalla, and for choosing who in battle would die.  They seem, judging by their actions, to be supernatural beings of some type.  However, Valkyries appear in various places as very human figures and their exact nature is difficult to determine.  Sigrdrifa was a Valkyrie who was cursed by Odin because she refused to bring victory in battle to those whom he had chosen.  Her punishment was to be married to a mortal, and the implication is clear that this would end her days as a Valkyrie.  It’s equally clear that she has great knowledge of the runes as she tutors Sigurd after he awakens her.  In most respects she seems to be a normal human woman, although a very wise and independent one with great powers.  Elsewhere, Voland and his brothers are said to have found three Valkyries sunning themselves without their swan-coats. When the brothers steal their feather-coats and hide them, the Valkyries again appear as otherwise normal women.  This does not seem entirely in keeping with a supernatural origin, and it’s possible that some kind of magickal order of Priestesses has become confused over time with the supernatural beings we know as Valkyries.  The swan-coat seems very similar in description to Freya’s falcon-coat and the entire issue may be something related to the practice of seidhr.  As far as we know, the Valkyrie were not worshipped as such, but were considered more the messengers of Odin.  They also serve the mead at Valhalla, and because of this whoever pours the mead into the Horn at Blot or Sumbel is today known as. the Valkyrie.

The other spirits whose place seems fairly clear are the Disir.  These are spirits who are intimately linked with a family.  There is also some indication that they are linked with the land, but this would be in keeping with the old ways.  We forget sometimes that many landowners in Europe have been living in the same place since before this continent was discovered. The land becomes an intimate part of the family and its identity, so it is natural that family spirits would also oversee the family land.  Disir inevitably are seen as women who appear at times of great trouble or change. They are somehow linked to the family bloodline and seem most closely linked to the clan chief.  There is one scene in one saga where a spirit, apparently a Dis, is passed on from one person to another who are not blood relations. However, these two friends are closer than brothers, so while the link is apparently not genetic, it is definitely familial.  We know the family Disir were honored with blots at the Winter Nights and that they have great power to aid their family.  As far as their origin, it’s possible that they are ancestral in origin. They may be ancestors whose power was so great that they were able to continue to see to their clan.  Or it’s possible that the Disir are the collective spirit of the family ancestors. Freya is called the great Dis and there may be some linkage here to her position as a seidhr woman.  We know from the sagas that Seidhr was involved with talking to various spirits (including the dead) and its possible that this is the source of Freya’s name.  It is also possible that she performed much the same function as a Dis to her tribe the Vanir.

Closely linked to the idea of the Disir is the Fylgia.  These spirits are attached to an individual person in much the same way that the Disir are associated with a family.  Fylgia usually appear either as animals or as beautiful women.  They correspond to the. fetch, totem, or. power-animal. in other cultures.  Most of the time the fylgia remains hidden and absent, it is only with truly great or powerful persons that the fylgia becomes known.  They may have something to do with Seidhr as well, because many sagas offer evidence of spirit travel in the shape of animals.  This corresponds exactly to notions of shamanism found in other cultures.

The remaining spirits include Alvar or elves, Dokkalvar or dark elves or Dwarfs, kobolds, and landvaettir. While some have defined one being as doing one thing and another serving a different function, I’m not inclined to draw very sharp distinctions between these various creatures.  They all seem. elfish. in origin, and there seems to me to be no pattern of associating one name with a specific function.  We know that various landvaettir or land spirits were honored with blots. We also know that Frey is the lord of Alfheim, one of the nine worlds where the alvar are said to live.

Of all the remaining spirits, the dwarfs are the most consistent in description.  We know that the dwarfs are cunning and misanthropic in character and incredible smiths, capable of creating magickal objects so valuable they are considered the greatest treasures of Asgard. Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, Freya’s necklace Brisingamen, and Sif’s golden hair are all creations of the dwarfs.  They live beneath the earth and have little to do with mankind or the Gods unless one seeks them out. What place they had in the religion we no longer know.  It would seem wise to invoke them as spirits of the forge, but I can think of little other reason to disturb them.

Elves are the most difficult magickal race to pin down.  Mythological sources tell us that the Alvar or light elves live in Alfheim where Frey is their Lord.  However, we also have the enduring belief in folklore of the elves as faery-folk: beings associated with the natural world.  These two conceptions of elves might still be linked, however, as Alfheim is known to be a place of incredible natural beauty, and Frey, their leader, is an agricultural deity.  To further confuse this issue, Norse folklore has a strong belief in the Landvaettir, or land spirits who may fit into either or both of these categories.  I’m inclined to lump them all together as similar beings that we simply don’t.t know enough about to tell apart.  What is important is that Asatru, like all Pagan religions, honors the natural world and the earth very deeply.  Whether one calls the spirits of the land as the elves, the faeries, or the landvaettir, or uses all of these terms interchangeably, respect is all important.  Asatru is known for being one of the most politically. conservative. of the modern Pagan religions, but you’ll find few of us who aren.t staunch environmentalists.

One of the most important spirits to honor is the house-spirit. Folklore is also filled with stories of various spirits variously called faeries, elves, kobolds, brownies, tom-tin, etc. who inhabit a house and see to its proper conduct.  In the usual form of the tale, they offer to perform some housekeeping functions, but eventually turn on the owners of the house when they are insulted by overpayment. We don’t.t have any concrete evidence for how our ancestors honored these beings, but this is not surprising because such a thing would not be a public observance and it’s unlikely it would be recorded in the sagas or Eddas.  Folklore indicates that such beings should be honored with a simple bowl of milk or perhaps beer, but no more.

In general folklore does not paint the various elves and spirits as particularly benevolent figures. With the exception of house spirits, who as spirits of a manmade object are bound to us on some level, they seem most interested in staying out of the dealings of mankind.  There are numerous stories of people who spy upon elf women and force them to become their brides.  Inevitably the women are unhappy and eventually escape, leaving their husbands devastated.  There are also numerous stories of spirits who haunt the woods and who will drag wayward travelers into rivers to drown or to some other untimely death.  When people do have dealings with the elves these beings seem to operate on an entirely different set of expectations than we do. Most of us would be gratified by the gift of a. bonus. from our employer, yet time and time again in folklore this is the easiest way to anger a house spirit.  We know that elves were honored with blots, but it’s just as possible that these ceremonies were made in propitiation to them rather than in kinship as are our blots made with the Gods.  We suggest caution in dealing with beings with a set of values so foreign from our own. They should be approached in the same way one would approach a person from a country whose ways are very different.

In general, we.re also very reticent to make decisions about classifying the various. other peoples. It would be very easy to draw lines and place certain spirits into little boxes which label their function, but that seems overly mechanical and of little utility. Elves and other. wights. are not human, and it might be too much to try to classify them in other than subjective terms.  It’s probably best to simply make your intent clear, experiment, and use the terms which work for you, remembering only to be true to the sources.

Demi-Gods

There is a whole classification of Gods which are not truly part of the Aesir, Vanir, or even the Jotunn. Wayland the Smith is the best example of this that we can offer.  Wayland, called Volund in the Norse version, is the greatest of smiths, but it’s clear in the mythology that he was more or less a human man.  The myth tells of how he lost his wife and was enslaved by a human King.  While his powers allow him to outwit and take vengeance on the king, it’s clear throughout that he’s not on the level of a Thor or an Odin.  What one does about these demi-Gods or local Gods is a good question.  I see nothing wrong with pouring a blot in their honor and dealing with them as you would any other God or Goddess.  On the other hand, they are not part of the Aesir, and I think it might be disrespectful to honor them with the Aesir or as part of a ceremony dedicated to the Aesir as they seem of a different nature.

Ancestor Worship:

Honoring one’s ancestors was one of the most sacred duties of the Norsemen.  One of the most important parts of greeting new people was the exchanging of personal lineages at sumbel.  The worship of the Disir is closely linked to ancestor worship. However, it is difficult for modern day Pagans to seriously engage in ancestor worship.  We are for the most part without a strong connection to our heritage, and even if we feel motivated, we would probably need to skip at least a thousand years back to find ancestors who would not have been appalled by our Heathen beliefs.  One substitution for ancestor worship in the modern Asatru movement has been the veneration of heroes from the Sagas and legends of our people.

The manner of how we honor ancestors is also somewhat troubling.  I reserve the blot ritual to Gods and other powers, and I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to pour a blot to an ancestor, no matter how important he was. It’s touchy when you are honoring someone that you knew was a mortal.  I think the most important part of ancestor worship is remembering, and the sumbel seems the most important part of that.

While we discuss ancestry, I must mention that some modern Asatru groups, in part because of holdovers from 19th century cultural movements, have placed a great deal of emphasis on ancestry in terms of race.  Many have held that Asatru was a religion for whites or Northern Europeans only. In my not particularly humble opinion, this is pure idiocy.  The basic argument for this is that people of other cultures do not share the same background and values.  This is certainly true, but the key word in my opinion is culture, and all Americans by definition share a culture.  Also, while I admit I would think it doubtful that people from outside of our own cultural heritage would be attracted greatly to Asatru, if they are it is for a reason and they should be welcomed and not shunned.  It proves the worth of our religion and way of life that it is so strong that one would leave his own cultural path behind to take up ours.

As far as culture is concerned, the ancestry of the ancient North is alive and well in modern America. A thousand years ago settlers sailed to Iceland to avoid the growing influence of powerful kings and centralized government.  This centralization of power was one of the things which Roman Christianity brought with it.  Two hundred years ago we in America rebelled against our king for much the same reasons. Our culture is much more profoundly influenced by the Vikings than most would care to admit.  Our law is based on English common law, which in turn has roots in Norman and Saxon law. (Both the Saxons and Normans were descended from Germanic tribes.) Our culture is based on many of the same ideas which the Northmen held dear: the importance of the individual and the belief that individual rights outweighed collective rights.  Thus, it is my assertion that we are all descended, at least in part, spiritually from the ancient Norse.

The Jotunn

The Jotunn or giants are the sworn enemies of the Gods. While the Aesir represent order and the Vanir represent the supportive powers of nature, the Jotunn represent chaos and the power of nature to destroy man and act independent of humankind.  In the end, it is the Jotunn who will fight the Gods at Ragnarök and bring about the destruction of the world.

In essence despite being called Giants or Ogres, the Jotunn are Gods just as much as the Aesir or Vanir. In many cases they correspond very closely to the Fomoire in Celtic mythology.  Most simply put, the Jotunn are the Gods of all those things which man has no control over.

The Vanir are the Gods of the growing crops, the Jotunn are the Gods of the river which floods and washes away those crops or the tornado which destroys your entire farm.  This is why they are frightening, and this is why we hold them to be evil.

The Jotunn are not worshipped in modern Asatru, but there is some evidence that sacrifices were made to them in olden times.  In this case, sacrifices were probably made .to them. rather than shared. with them. as was the case with the Vanir and Aesir.  It would be inappropriate to embrace them as friends and brothers in the way we embrace our Gods.  One doesn.t embrace the hurricane or the wildfire; it is insanity to do so. However, we must also remember that fact that we see their actions as bad, they are not inherently evil.  The storm destroys the crops, but it also brings cleansing and renewal. We humans are only one species on this planet and in the end, we are both expendable and irrelevant to nature.  This is the manner in which the Jotunn act, and it is not surprising that we see this as evil.

However, one must also take into account the premonitions of Ragnarök recorded in the Edda’s.  If the Jotunn are merely amoral, why are they the sworn enemy of the Aesir and why will they bring about the end of the world? It’s possible that Jotunn was more of a catch-all term for dangerous Gods rather than a reference to a specific family.  (It is the case in many languages that there is one word for people that speak the language, usually translating as people, and another term for those persons of other cultures and tribes.) The dangerous forces of nature are. Jotunn. because we cannot control them, but there are other forces, principally those of chaos, that are considered. Jotunn. as well.

There is abundant evidence for this in the Eddas.  Various Jotunn are seen to marry into the Aesir without a great deal of trouble from the Gods, but at other times the mere sight of one throw Thor into a rage.  The obvious conclusion is that they are more than one specific race of deities.  The destructive powers of nature were tolerated to some extent, and often married into the Aesir bringing them more under control.  However, other. outlander. Gods were completely destructive to the Aesir (and thus mankind) and the Gods only thought for them was death.

[spamzineglasgow]

PART ONE: Glitching the Collective Mind (Dan Power)

Figures 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4

“I am not a nihilist, but a mood of grim, jolly absurdism comes over me often, as it seems to come over many of my young peers. To visit millennial comedy… is to spend time in a dream world where ideas twist and suddenly vanish; where loops of self-referential quips warp and distort with each iteration, tweaked by another user embellishing on someone else’s joke, until nothing coherent is left…”

> This quote comes from ‘Why is millennial humor so weird?’, in which journalist Elizabeth Bruenig (2017) taps into the vein of gleeful absurdity which is emerging in online creative spaces. This insight seems to have struck a chord with creators and consumers of online content, as in response, the article itself has become widely memed. Above there are four examples of this, with each taking a meme that existed independently and reframing it with the ‘millennial humor’ headline. There is a degree of self-awareness to this reframing, as if the content creators have taken the label ‘weird’ as a challenge to rise to. The absurdity of the source material is heightened by recontextualising it as formal journalism. By prefacing this image with a frame that draws attention to the image’s weirdness, these anonymous content creators are wilfully resisting interpretation, revealing their intent to baffle, bemuse, or maybe even unnerve internet users.

> Bruenig observes a tendency in some memes to celebrate meaninglessness with comic sincerity. By responding to the article in the way they did, these content creators have proved Bruenig’s point. The theory is put into practice: a meme has entered circulation where the intention is to be deliberately and playful obscure, and where the individual memes are linked only by their deployment of the same frame. Importantly, for all the incoherence of the memes themselves, there is a coherence to the methods producing them.

> What sparks these acts of coordinated communal nonsense – are the motivations personal, political, or is it a celebration of weirdness for its own sake? By exploring the dark absurdism creeping into post-internet artwork, particularly in video content, this series seeks to examine the latent ideology underpinning the dark surrealism of internet humour, and how its rising popularity changes the ways we think about ourselves and our realities.

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“...that which was intended to enlighten the world in practice darkens it. The abundance of information and the plurality of worldviews now accessible to us through the internet are not producing a coherent consensus reality... It is on this contradiction that the idea of a new dark age turns: an age in which the value we have placed on knowledge is destroyed by the abundance of that valuable commodity, and in which we look about ourselves in search of new ways to understand the world.”

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In New Dark Age (2018), his examination of the internet’s infiltration of our daily lives, James Bridle only just stops short of declaring that the internet will be the death of humanity. As well as the environmental cost of constant streaming and downloading, Bridle argues that the internet poses an existential threat in a more epistemological sense, by attempting the impossible task of collating and networking humanity’s collective knowledge, history, and culture.

> This cataloguing is conducted through the use of databases, which media theorist Lev Manovich argues are becoming (if they aren’t already) the new dominant media (2010, p.70). The database is distinguished from a physical collection of items and information by its flexibility, and the user’s ability to manipulate the structure of the content by searching for key words. Here there is a paradox: because it is so meticulously structured, the experience of using a database is one apparently devoid of structure. Manovich notes that the database is “distinct from reading a narrative or watching a film or navigating an architectural site” since these experiences are all linear, and so are experienced by readers or viewers in the same way, with point b always following point a, and so on (p.65). In a database users navigate the information however they choose, in effect creating their own narratives, with no guarantee that any two users’ experience of a database may be the same.

> This same notion is put forward by Henry Jenkins in Convergence Culture (2006), where he says “each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives”. The narratives we forge through our online experiences become part of our understanding of the world – and they seem to be creating more confusion than clarity. These narratives are arbitrarily structured, and may contain false information or information devoid of meaning. Also, thanks to the volume and speed of online messaging, language is evolving faster than it ever has before (Press Association, 2015). Information may be conveyed to us in unfamiliar terms, and so be open to misinterpretation.

> Internet users are bombarded with information, little of which has any meaningful or memorable content. Exposing people to a transparent mapped network of humanity’s knowledge, history, and culture has irrevocably warped our perception of ourselves, and our relationship to the world. As Bridle later notes, “the more obsessively we attempt to compute the world, the more unknowably complex it appears”. At best the database makes the sum of all the world’s content feel overwhelming, and at worst having it all laid out makes it feel mundane. Either way, the damage done is to expose internet users to too much information, and this can lead to an existential crisis.

> Spending too long online (or rather, too long outside of the real world) must saturate the mind. This oversaturation of meaning gives way to feelings of melancholic or manic absurdity, or as Bruenig puts it, a “creeping suspicion that the world just doesn’t make sense”. From this suspicion arises a new wave of disillusioned artists, who we will refer to as the post-internet surrealists. Unlike other meme creators (whose work arguably is surrealist in its Dada-like remixing of disparate elements), the post-internet surrealists are surrealists with intent, who respond to one another’s work, and whose videos consistently evoke alienation and absurd bemusement within digitally-rendered worlds. Videos such as BagelBoy’s pront (2017) engage with infinity as a source of existential confusion, and others like surreal entertainment’s What Kanye really showed Trump in the white house (2018) abstract real-life events to the point of absurdity (or make their inherent absurdity more apparent) by transporting them to a digital non-setting.

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Manovich argues that the database is a distinct cultural form, like a novel or film or building, in that it presents its own distinct model of how the world should be experienced. Unlike narrative, the database is non-linear. Unlike architectural structure, the database is non-spatial. It appears to us as information without structure and without context – in short, information divorced from the reality in which it takes meaning.

> This creates a tension, which grows stronger the more we rely on the online world to conduct business in the real one. It is resolved, or at least eased, by the digital world bleeding into the physical. The world becomes what Bridle calls ‘code/space’, which he defines as “the interweaving of computation with the built environment”. This term isn’t internet-specific, and covers anything which requires users to think computationally in order to interact, such as self-service checkouts, or traffic light buttons. However, its impact is most significantly felt in the prevalence of internet-connected devices such as the mobile phone, which turn the whole world into potential code/space.

> The internet is omnipresent. It is so vast in size that popular indicators of space and size fail to adequately describe it. It’s a hyper-object, to borrow a term from philosopher Timothy Morton, so large and far-reaching that it surpasses the boundaries of location, so and complex that it cannot be entirely comprehended at once.

> Morton is an ecologist, and develops his idea in relation to climate change. In the blog Ecology Without Nature, he describes the hyper-object global warming as being so “massively distributed in time and space” that we can consider it “nonlocal”, not existing wholly in any one place. He writes that when you experience rain you are “in some sense” experiencing climate, but “you are never directly experiencing global warming” (2010). Global warming is too big an object to meaningfully encounter, but to dismiss its existence on these grounds would be ridiculous. We may be unable to comprehend its existence entirely, but still we know it exists through the traces it leaves across the globe.

> Like global warming, the internet is a hyper-object, and the data we glean from it is just a fragment of the whole. When we consider the internet as one hyper-object, rather than a collection of individual data objects, then all internet-connected devices become components in a single global network, one global code/space.

> To meaningfully discuss the surrealism emerging online we will consider the internet not as a collection of individual texts, images and videos, but as one networked whole. Matthew Smith argues that, since digital media work by translating data into “universally exchangeable” bits, “all digital media are therefore identical in structure; like Campbell’s soup cans” (2007). The content of two memes may be worlds apart, but fundamentally they are both the same thing. Furthermore, if they both exist online, they are equally tiny composite parts of a larger total structure. This is not the same as, for example, claiming that all paintings in a gallery are part of the same work because they share a building. With physical objects, there is always the possibility of them leaving the gallery or entering a new one. This does not work digitally; you can’t have objects within the internet because the internet itself is an object of which digital artworks form a part.

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Briefly, we’ll consider a post-internet artwork which isn’t a meme. Crispin Best’s ‘pleaseliveforever’ is an eight-line poem which regenerates every few seconds under a new, randomly generated title (2017). By making the content arbitrary and fleeting, the poem draws attention to its medium, and flaunts its ability to do things pre-internet poetry never could. Musing on this, SPAM’s own Denise Bonetti asks “what is the poem, then? The structure? The algorithm?” (2019), and indeed, if the content of the poem is continually being remixed then the only constant by which we can define it is its invisible network of underlying code. Because it exists digitally, the poem’s structure and algorithm are indistinguishable – the algorithm is the structure. And it’s not a structure in its own right, but one small part embedded within the hypertext of the internet as a networked whole.

> The internet is a database of databases, one giant non-spatial structure too large to pigeonhole, but within which we can observe trends. It will be useful to conceptualise the internet as one giant work of art, a hyper-artwork with an uncountable number of authors and viewers. This artwork is mutable, and continually evolving. Since the internet is a network of information relating to the real world, it might be considered a reconstruction of reality. The internet then is a constantly changing map of the world, and if we consume its content on a daily basis, and if we never distance ourselves from its code/space, it throws our understanding of the world into a constant state of flux.

> This uncertainty, and the anxiety or absurdity arising from it, is key to understanding the work of the post-internet surrealists. BagelBoy’s icced (2017) might be set in the real world, but there’s no way to be certain. The plot is simply that a man goes to a store, buys a cola, then goes home to drink it, but through means of information saturation and a post-internet aesthetic these events are abstracted beyond relatability and almost beyond recognition. The film’s world is constructed out of PNG images, stock photos and text boxes – spoken words appear as text, characters glide across the screen at will, and at the end the film’s entire diegesis is hijacked by an advert. Either the video is deconstructing real-world events by moving them to a digital setting, or it’s physically depicting a virtual interaction (typing replaces speech online, people navigate between internet sites without physically moving, and adverts can materialise from anywhere at any moment with no prior warning). Like the explicitly surreal memes we’ll encounter in future instalments, icced presents an absurd but coherent depiction of code/space, a version of reality infused with internet logic.

> But before we examine these surreal memes in detail we’ll go briefly to the very beginnings of cinema, a period of experimentation and genre consolidation similar to that occurring in online spaces today. By examining the developments of early cinema and viral video in tandem, we’ll see that giving consumers the power to create and share their own work makes profit a less important factor in filmmaking, and that this fundamentally changes the kind of video content which gets produced and distributed.

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The prototype digital cinema emerging today may seem worlds apart from the first few years of cinema itself, but in fact the two share many common features. One scholar notes how “Both films of early cinema and online video clips are short films, mostly staying well under ten minutes in length” (Broeren, 2009). These short films were exhibited collectively in cinema’s early days (Gunning, 1990), keeping audiences supplied with a steady stream of novel content. Today they are exhibited side-by-side on databases like YouTube, where viewers can view as many as they desire in a single sitting, and sustain their own engagement by varying the content they consume at whim.

> In the early days of cinema, exhibitionists would often “re-edit” the films they purchased, and personalise their own exhibitions with offscreen supplements. This, too, occurs in online film. The media theorist Limor Shifman (2013) notes how “user-driven imitation and remix” as a mode of content production is integral to internet culture, and with video meme creators often accompanying their edits of other videos with captions, active comment sections, and links to other media, the off-screen supplements of old are today integrated into the on-screen experience.

> These similarities are not just superficial – they arise from the same factors. The birth of cinema saw large masses of people consuming and participating in the products of newly available commercial technologies, and the emergence of a distinct online cinema is, essentially, an accelerated replay of this process. Sharing in the same global code/space makes internet users a bigger potential audience than has ever previously existed, and the quantity and style of content produced by and for internet users is determined by the activity of this networked mass.

> Early cinema was concerned with newly-formed masses of people resulting from twentieth century modernity, not just for audiences but also as subject matter. According to Gunning (2004), the ‘local films’ of Mitchell and Kenyon would document crowds of people moving through public spaces, and when doing so they were tuned in to the growing public discourse around newly-visible congregations of people in developing urban areas. One particular style of film they produced, which we will take as out main focus, is the ‘factory gate’ film. These would document workers streaming out of a factory at the end of the day, almost universally consisting of single (occasionally sped up or spliced short) static long shots (LS) or extreme long shots (XLS). While the single take, duration and static camera are the result of practical limitations, the choice to employ LS or XLS is an artistic one. Greater distance allowed the frame to fill with a greater number of subjects, creating a visual cacophony and increasing the spectacle. The framing was often loose, meaning there were no focal points to direct attention. Viewer’s eyes would rapidly scan over the moving crowd, heightening any sense of the crowd being overwhelmingly large.

> As well as directly engaging with large masses of people, the demands of large audiences to see films made specifically for their local area meant Mitchell and Kenyon had to develop a way of turning out new films efficiently and affordably. In order to exploit the collective spending power of the masses, the form and content of these local pictures are wrapped around the desires of the masses to recognise themselves and their towns on-screen. The masses were not only the subject of the films, but also determined their mode of production, and by extension their formal properties.

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The factory gate picture is a genre, and films in this genre are produced by following the Mitchell and Kenyon template: set up a camera by a factory gate at closing time, framing the exit in LS to capture as many moving people as possible. Templatability allows for films to effectively be cloned, so it’s necessary in commercial filmmaking, allowing things to be produced and reproduced at more profitable rates. By following templates to easily reproduce a standardised kind of content, the early genre films of Mitchell and Kenyon reproduce similarly to online memes. Sean Rintel (2013) argues that “templatability lies at the heart of online memes”, and explains that “memetic process is a product of the human capability to separate ideas into two levels – content and structure – and then contextually manipulate that relationship”. A meme, fundamentally, is the deployment of a familiar template to reframe and alter our perception of otherwise familiar or unfamiliar content. It is almost mathematical in its generation of novel content, since there are as many potential remixes of movies and songs as there are unique combinations.

Figures 2.1 and 2.2

> Take these memes as an example. Their origin is the YouTube video Gordon Ramsay cannot locate the lamb sauce (2016), a remixed clip of gameshow Hell’s Kitchen (2005-) in which Gordon shouts at contestants who have not made lamb sauce in time. The video cuts out anything other than Gordon’s shouting, and accentuates the moment’s absurdity by elongating and pitch-shifting the word ‘sauce’.Figures 2.1 and 2.2 combine elements of the remix with existing meme formats (figures 2.3 and 2.4) by adding a picture of Gordon and key words ‘lamb sauce’ and ‘located’, either in reference to the video, or to other memes derived from it. These memes were created by reshaping the source material to fit another meme template.

> The prominence of the remix in post-internet art produces huge amounts content which can only be fully understood in relation to other content. Memes function like in-jokes, and in this way they are participatory. The collaboration and participation between an unknowable number of anonymous contributors is part of the enjoyment not just of post-internet surrealism, but of all memes. It’s like shouting into the abyss and waiting to see what echoes back. The communication is rapid and blind, and sublime.

> In commercial cinema templates are used to maximize profits, so it might seem contradictory that they have been embraced by meme makers. But, in online spaces, the use and misuse of templates is what makes the art form participatory. Just as the viewers of local films would attend screenings to see themselves projected, thus participating in the production of the product they consume, so internet users riff off each other’s jokes and meme formats as a way of contributing to the continual evolution of a meme they enjoy.

> It has been argued by film historian Charles Musser (1990) that “modern” cinema begins with the birth of the nickelodeon, the implication of this being that modern cinema is necessarily commercial, whereas pre-cinema films were not. This distinction might be crude, since films were being produced for profit before the nickelodeon came into fashion, but it’s a helpful distinction to make. What makes the form, content, and distribution of pre-cinema and post-internet film resemble each other so closely is the same thing that makes them dissimilar to industrial filmmaking: they’re not driven by profit, but by novelty for its own sake; they are not produced by companies of people, but by small teams or individual auteurs; they experiment with newly-accessible technologies to see what effects can be created; and importantly, since they do not rely upon the systems of capitalism to support their growth and distribution, these films can afford to scrutinise these systems rather than reinforce their ideology.

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> Today’s advances in affordable camera technology, internet access, and free video editing software have shifted the power of content creation away from industry and into the hands of consumers. Anyone with a smartphone can be an auteur, and anyone with a wifi password can become a distributor. Creating and sharing content is easier than it’s ever been before, and developments within the medium now occur at a rate too fast to thoroughly document. The continual crossing of templates and content items produces countless proliferations and variations of existing memes each day. These memes are characterised by hyper-intertextuality, each new remix a thread that further thickens the intertextual tapestry.

> In his seminal essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin (1982) observes that as reproduction of artworks becomes more common, artworks are increasingly “designed for reproducibility”. With the emergence of templatability and ease of creating and sharing content in online spaces, this process is now more efficient than ever.

> Any image or video online can be downloaded in seconds, and a number of user-friendly picture and video editing programmes come pre-installed on most commercial computers. Mechanical reproduction allowed for films to be copied with ease and re-shaped at will, spawning a number of variants which today is unknowable, since many will not have been preserved. Online however everything is preserved, and this coupled with more efficient and accessible methods of reproducing and adapting works means that videos can be adapted, and their adaptations adapted, at such great volume and speed that they can quickly bear no resemblance to their origins. Cataloguing all the varieties of meme is an unfeasibly large task, but by examining trends within meme-making we can observe how the nature of an artwork changes, becoming more amorphous and apparently meaningless, in an age of digital reproduction.

~

Tune in later this week when we’ll be looking at ~ v a p o r w a v e ~, and navigating the maze of digital non-places and non-times which is rapidly becoming less distinguishable from the world we live in today.

Full list of works cited plus bonus discography are available here. 

This is part one of a three part series. Part two is available here and part three available here. 

~

Text: Dan Power

Published 5/10/19

[k00233706]

Reflective Analysis of Work

Now that my concept has been embodied by physical objects which were created intuitively and by relating to the materials, I wish to understand what my work is telling me so that I may take these materialised sketches and potentialy transform them into a story to which others can relate. Presently the objects are of a symbolic nature and as such are possibly only meaningful to me. Unconscious content of the psyche is made known to the individual through symbols which appear often in dreams, through synchronous events or through an intuitive and imaginative process such as active imagining or art making. This means taking a phenomenological approach which is, in essence, to allow the process its autonomous unfoldment through non interference, obervation and subsequent analysis of the facts of those observations.

On Wednesday I organised my work and space in the manner of an exhibition or installation. In doing so I have enabled the objects to speak to each other and as I observe them as a collective I began to understand them. The symbolic content has a transcendent quality speaking above the personal to tribal culture. In this instance tribal culture does not denote nationalism but a universal archetypal expression of our spiritual relationship to the cosmos. Creating a clean and naturalistic exhibition space allowed the pieces to converse with each other and with me. The story they speak of is one of transformation and the unity.

I refer to Jungian philosophy because it is the one overarching perspective which enables me to make sense of my psychic life and how it relates ro rhe universal and also because it affords me a coherent narrative by which I can make myself understood. Like Jung, my interests have been in the areas of symbolism anthropology, mythology, healing, spiritual phenomena, psychology and art, although I must add I am by no means such a dedicated scholar.

Those unfamiliar with his work may be apt to consider him solely a mystic but his work is a phenomenological approach based in empirical fact. "All my ideas are names, models and hypotheses for a better understanding of observable facts” (Jung, 2003, p. 270).  His work has influenced artists such as Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) who referenced myth and primal symbols in his work. Jung’s concepts also inspired numerous writers, musicians, filmmakers, theologians, and mythologists: dancer and choerographer Martha Graham (1894–1991), filmmaker Federico Fellini (1920–1993), author Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), and mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987).https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/red-book-of-carl-jung/jungs-cultural-legacy.html

The Internally Primitive and Archetypes

Looking at my present work it is clear that something new is happening. It is unlike any work I have made to date. This strongly marks a transformation and implicit in this is the process of transition. What is the nature of that transition? The answer to that is an ongoing enquiry. But I guess it would be fair to suggest that the ultimate transition is our transition from this physical world into whatever may or may not be. In the meantime there is the journey.

I bumped into de Koonings painting Interchange in the early hours of Saturday morning while I was partying with myself and wondered what light he might throw on my quest. This painting surfaced as I contemplated the notion of the seed in relation to the teasel as an autonomous self fertilizing organism and the seed as it relates to emergence theory and the notion of collective transformation when we as individuals operate within a unifying field.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange

Reading about de Koonings painting Interchange on Widewalls.com, I learned that it marked the artists move from figurative to abstract expression and explores what is referred to as the "internally primitive". This is a concept of psychologist Melanie Klein which explains how external objects are internalised. In the instance of de Koonings painting the object is woman and the painting expresses how he has internalised her.

http://www.willem-de-kooning.org/images/paintings/marilyn-monroe.jpg

His painting Marlyn Monroe is more accesible with regard to this notion where he takes a collective ideal of woman and through the painting expresses his deeply complex and contradictory feelings towards women while also making conscious the unconscious attitude of a society and a capitalistic machinery that creates an illusionary image of woman which ultimately rips woman apart as is expressed in the gestures of the painting.

In Jungian terms de Kooning is dealing with Anima which is an archetype of the masculine psyche, the feminine in man and his Soul. It is deeply sad then, to see from this perspective what is happening to the feminine, in both the personal and universal sphere (our planet). However, this is where my story interjects. In relation to the feminine, the seed of life and the collective I look around me at college and see everywhere the manifesting relationship to the feminine in the archetypal symbols such as spiders and ants, of projects concerned with relating to the matrilineal, of a concern for the planet, of artistic expressions of connectivity and of empathy with Otherness. I now begin to see why I have made chicken wire seed pods.

I had been conflicted by the fact that this material implied both a caging and protection of the seed and its information. When looking at the teasel it is clear that although the seed is protected by sharp bracts, those bracts are also designed to release the seed in an easy manner, a little gust of wind being sufficient. However, a Jungian perspective may acknowledge the teasels hermaphroditic nature and suggest then that my seed pod and feather are an expression of the union of masculine qualities and feminine qualties. Or it may point out the relationship to feathers and writing, since writing like a seed is about the transference of information. Jung also suggests that in order for the feminine creative to unfold there must exist a strong masculine container. This is understood better when we look to nature and see how the male birds build nests. In terms of the psychic life of the individual though it means that for individualtion to occur the woman must have properly intergrated her Animus, which is her soul and associated with Logos.

I will amplify the meaning of the feather by refering to the teased out twine hanging in midair in which there is also a feather. I have posted beside it the silk of an insect cocoon. The suggestion here is that transformation has taken place and the winged creature has left the cocoon. I will return to the significance of the cocoon in a later post. But now to return to the nature of the creature who owns those black feathers, which began their life in the work as a found object.

In Jungian psychology there is a method for analysing a symbol or artwork called circuambulating the centre which is essentially to walk around the object and view it from different perspectives and with various associations. Reference to mythology is such a perspective. Because the seed is suspended in air, this denotes its liminal nature, it is in between the spiritual and physical, or heaven and earth. In much the same way the black feather which denotes a crow or raven suggests that liminal place of in between worlds which birds occupy. In mythology ravens and crows often feature in creation myths and are also seen as psychopomp messengers. Like many liminal creatures, they are also associated with trickster and this implies playfulness and mischief. Essentially though they are messengers and associated with the Shadow and the Visionary.

[realityhelixcreates]

Lasabrjotr Chaper 16: First Steps

Chapters: 16/? Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Teen And Up Warnings: Mentions of war, mentions of past death Relationships: Loki x Reader (But not yet) Characters: Loki (Marvel), Reader Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending (Canon-Divergent), Art Thou Ready For More Worldbuilding, Here Have Some Headcanons, Loki Is Still Keeping Some Secrets, What Else Is New, Loki Might Be Inflating His Accomplishments, Just A Bit, And Loki’s Like: Hey I Like You, Have A Knife As A Sign Of My Affection, Reader Likes To MUNCH, Reader Needs To Pay Attention. Summary:  Loki may prefer words over action, but some things can only be conveyed by deeds.

Loki entered your room to find you pacing back and forth, frazzled and anxious. He noticed the knife bundle sitting on the desk, and the tear tracks on your cheeks as you turned to confront him.

“Your Highness, I might have been out of line before, but you just keep-“

“Sh-sh.” He interrupted, pressing a long finger to your lips. You pulled away with an irritated growl. “I have come to make up for Surtr.” He explained, and handed you a plate of bread, slathered with your favorite jams. So, he had finally recognized your fixation on food, and thought he could bribe you with it.

Well…he might be right. You accepted the plate, but said nothing.

“There are some things I would like to discuss with you. Sit. Rest. You’ll wear a rut in the floor.”

He sat you down on the bed, and took a place next to you, rubbing your back lightly. Why did he think that was okay? Why did you never have the courage to tell him otherwise?

“This is a Frost Giant.” He said, and the image of a tall, long limbed person with powder blue skin and bright red eyes sprung into being, next to an image of himself, for comparison. The giant would easily be around ten feet tall in life, somewhere between his previous images of Gerd and Ran. It had raised markings on its skin, a little like cracks in ice, and its features were sharp and chiseled.

“They live on a planet that is entirely frozen over. It has deep oceans, and no actual land, just ice all over the surface. I believe there is a moon in your planetary system that is extremely similar to Jotunheim, and it is speculated that the planet may have once been a moon itself, torn from its former orbit, and flung out into a new one. Jotunheim is as small as a moon, and rotates retrograde. That is, backwards, compared to all the other planets in its system. It’s also situated in a part of the system where no other terrestrial planets formed, held in place by the orbital resonances of two gas giants.”

A wave of his hand brought forth a beautiful blue-white orb, crossed with blue cracks. There was a terrible blackened scar partway around the equator, like an enormous canyon.

“What happened there?”

He paused, appearing to be thinking his words over carefully.

“There are some tremendous destructive forces in the universe. Jotunheim was unfortunate enough to find itself in the path of such a thing.”

Your astronomy book had mentioned things like solar flares and gamma ray bursts. And even Earth hadn’t been spared from things like giant meteor strikes.

“As you may already know, Jotnar like to colonize worlds just as much as Asgard did, and we encountered many kinds in many places. Some were hostile, some were not, often within the same group. However, the Frost Giants were entirely hostile to us, and we’ve never known anything but war with them. My father…” He shifted next to you. “My father thought to broker peace with them, but his plans…backfired.”

The illusory Frost Giant returned, as Loki continued on about the ecology of Jotunheim, but you found yourself wondering if this individual, with his sharp, craggy features, actually represented a real person.

“Does he have a name?” You wondered aloud.

“What?” Loki asked. You hadn’t actually meant to interrupt him, but so many of his little illusions represented real people: Freyr, Ran, Surtr.

“Is this a real person? Does he have a name?”

Loki paused. “He…was a real person. His name was Laufey. He was the king of Jotunheim.”

“The whole planet? How does one guy rule a whole planet?”

“Ruthlessly.”

“Sounds like he’s maybe not around anymore.” He’d said ‘was’ quite a few times.

“He is not. He attempted to murder the Allfather in his sleep, and I…I slew him.”

“Oh.” It was hard to think of. You knew, of course, that Loki had killed people. He’d done so on Earth, so naturally, he’d surely done so on other planets. Asgard had influenced the old Norse cultures for eons, and those cultures had become famous for their great warriors. As a warrior himself, it only made sense that Loki would have seen battle.

But with the tender way he handled you, it was just hard to think of. Like the Loki who came to Earth those years ago was a different person. Like the Loki in your mythology book was a different person. How many different people could exist inside the same man?

“Just as I slew Surtr. I dislike threats to Asgard.”

“What? That fire giant? He must’ve been as big as a mountain, how did you even begin to go about killing that?”

“Surtr was extremely full of himself and the importance of fulfilling his ‘destiny’. He didn’t seem to realize that his supposed destiny would end his life. Or perhaps he didn’t care. I simply set into motion the series of events that would lead to his death. You see, not every confrontation can be solved by a hammer to the face. Sometimes, finesse is the only real weapon you have. Sometimes the right word at the right time is far more effective than a frontal assault. And sometimes it is best to let your enemy destroy himself.”

Loki left your side briefly, to retrieve the little bundle from the desk. A gift? He’d said before that he wanted to present it properly, but you hadn’t thought much about it since, moments later, he had summoned a fire monster to wreck up the room.

So this was how Loki apologized. Not with words, but with capitulation. Every time he had done something that he later realized had wronged you, he then gave you something he thought you wanted or needed.

After kidnapping you, he gave you a room within his own quarters. How many Asgardians might jump for such an honor? After inflicting you with a magical bond that made you weak and sick, he gave you his own living energy. You had no idea if it was draining him, or if it was uncomfortable; he never once complained about it. After interrupting your lesson on Svartalfheim in the library, and arguing with you he gave you a private lesson on the subject, and after unleashing an illusory monster upon your room, he was giving you the information on the Frost Giants that you had originally wanted.

Now he had a gift for you, which he unwrapped and lay down in your lap. On the cloth was a knife in a black sheath. A weapon. He was actually giving you a weapon?

The book was wrong. It had to be.

But what if it wasn’t?

You drew the knife from its sheath. The leather that made it up was worn, and seemed a little mismatched, but the blade itself was shiny and clean, as if it were new. It felt a little big for you, a little heavy in your hand.

“This is the blade that failed to slay you. It is a cultural treasure, so I expect you to care for it well. It’s yours now, and I will teach you how to use it.”

This was the same knife? If it was a treasure, should you even have it?

“I shouldn’t keep something if it’s precious. And do you even have time to teach me anything else?”

You hadn’t had a lesson in magic for a while now. How could he tutor you in two subjects when he didn’t even have time for one?

“I will make time. Things keep coming up, but I will make time. Are you feeling well enough to accompany me to another meeting?”

“I don’t know.” He made it sound like a date or some kind of formal occasion. “It’s so boring that it hurts.”

“Oh yes, sometimes. That is one of the many burdens of my job. What if I promised a nice dinner afterwards? Something a little fancy?”

“What kind of fancy?” Everything you had eaten so far had been delicious, and, while simple, it was still miles above the ramen, processed cheese sandwiches, and condensed soup that made up your usual diet. What was fancier than that?

You hoped it wasn’t anything too weird. There were some foods associated with the rich that simply sounded unappetizing, like caviar or foie gras.

“Lamb is common here, and the first harvest of laukas should be served up tonight as well. Want to be the first Midgardian ever to taste an Asgardian vegetable? I’m sure you will like them.”

Yes, he had you figured out all right. Food had always been a weakness of yours; even moreso after the Event.

“Okay…” He was giving you choices, which would have been a good sign, except that he only seemed to give you choices that he knew you would agree too. He was obviously trying to make it easier for you to say ‘yes’ to him, than ‘no’.

Loki is a master manipulator, seeing everyone and everything as a game to be played. So clever is he, that he can maneuver anyone into the position he wants them to be in, and many might just thank him for the opportunity to be used. Or so the book said.

“Then come along. Here.” He helped you fasten the knife to your braided belt, then offered his arm to lead you out into the hallway. “Your interest in the other races of the universe is commendable, _____. You seem to have such an easy time accepting it all. But I want a promise from you. In the unlikely event that you ever cross paths with a Jotun of any kind, I want you to stay away from them and hide. At least until someone can confirm that they are safe. It’s true that many Jotnar are non-hostile or even friendly to Asgardians, but you are not Asgardian. And if you know what differences to look for, your humanity is obvious, no matter how much like us you may appear. Will you promise me this? You don’t have to hate anybody, just show proper caution. A Jotun might crush you without even knowing you were there.”

“I…I guess that sounds reasonable.” You conceded. “I mean, when am I ever going to meet one? They probably don’t even know Earth exists.”

“Would that that were true.” He said, leading you into a slightly different meeting room than the one you’d been in before. This one seemed prepared for large groups or presentations, with a horseshoe-shaped table setup, and an old projector, like the ones used when you were in school. You glanced up at him, waiting for an explanation. He sighed.

“You’re probably not going to like this. You’ve made your opinions on colonization rather clear, and I’m inclined to agree with you to a certain extent, however…”

“Oh. Oh, were we…?”

“No. But we did try. And we weren’t the only ones. All the nine realms know of Midgard, and most of them have tried to colonize this world at some point. It is a most tempting realm. And yet, all have failed. Humans are so numerous, and reproduce so quickly. You go to war eagerly, for any reason. And you adapt to nearly any situation, even though you are weak and fragile compared to all of the rest of the peoples of the Nine Realms. Eight. Eight Realms.”

“The way you describe us sometimes…Are we scary to the rest of you?”

He scoffed. “I have no fear of you, if that’s what you’re asking. But it rather depends on how you look at things, doesn’t it? Longer lived races have fewer numbers, by necessity. But humans come in hordes, always. The sheer number of you is nearly unfathomable. You progress quickly. A mere eight thousand years from copper tools to space travel? Unheard of. That’s barely three Asgardian generations. It would be like you learning how to flake obsidian into blades with no idea what a planet even is…and then your grandchildren are sending robots to Mars.

“I sometimes think Odin claimed this place as one of the Realms, just to keep you contained. You might take this amiss, but if I try to think from his point of view, the notion of humans colonizing other worlds would be terrifying. You move so quickly. You adapt to so many living conditions. You would spread so fast. You know, the Frost Giants were the last to try to colonize this place?”

He pulled a chair out for you, right at the head of the table, next to him. Were you going to be involved in something here? You didn’t belong in that chair.

You sat down.

“They used a very powerful device to alter the landscape around them into ice. Didn’t slow the humans down at all. Multiple human civilizations continue to live in frozen lands. Your entire species developed and spread during a glacial period. Humans caused the Frost Giants so much difficulty that it allowed the Asgardian armies to not only drive them back, but to invade Jotunheim itself. They stole some important things from the Frost Giants, including the device, and that allowed us to force a peace with them, as well as declare Midgard as off limits. And so the races of the Eight Realms just sort of ignored the place. Until now, of course.”

He took his seat next to you, riffling through a small stack of papers on the table in front of him.

“Were you there?”

He paused. “…Yes…Barely. I was no more than an infant at the time. I have no recollection.”

“Oh. Um, should I do anything while I’m sitting here? I shouldn’t talk to anyone, should I?”

“You just watch and perhaps learn something. Our first guest won’t cause you any real trouble.”

The first guest turned out to be Beli, the old skaldic teacher you had seen a few days ago. He hailed you both with an elegant bow, and launched into speech. To your surprise, Loki began to translate for you.

“There’s an Asgardian holiday coming up soon; Buridag, held in honor of my great-grandfather, who built Asgard. Normally, the royal family throws a celebration for it, but we are going to have to do things a little differently this decade. Beli here is suggesting that Thor and I align ourselves to that cause, since we too, are building Asgard. I think it’s a good idea. The people need pride, and a reason to celebrate the future, as well as the past. What do you think?”

He was asking you? You had no idea. You had just now heard of this holiday; you couldn’t really understand its cultural significance.

“That sounds like a good idea, to start with.” You said. “I’m assuming you can’t throw the customary celebration because of the costs?”

“Unfortunately.” Loki said. “Our finances are limited for now. We aren’t suffering on a day-to-day basis or anything, but supporting a nation-wide holiday is a bit beyond us currently.”

“Right. So maybe everybody has to pitch in, right? You could…you could make a special kind of participation event. It’s building Asgard right? So pick a building that needs to get finished. Everybody works on it. Everyone puts up one board, or lays one tile, or one shingle, or something. The whole community builds one building, and that’s the main holiday event.”

Loki stared at you like he’d never seen you before, subdued delight spreading across his features.

“You…treasure! I am never letting you go!” You flinched back from the words, but he was already relaying your idea to Beli, who took it up with enthusiasm.

“Yes, of course, with the supervision of the engineers.” Loki was saying. “Even someone with no building experience should be able to put a nail in a board with their oversight. My brother and I can do the foundations, yes that seems appropriate…”

You were never going home. You would never, ever get to leave this place again. Had he even planned to let you leave in the first place, or had he decided, somewhere along the way, that he wouldn’t allow you to go?

The flow of excited planning faded away as you drew further into yourself.   Could you really be sure he hadn’t put this mark on you on purpose? How could you possibly know that he hadn’t lied about everything? You didn’t feel as though you had a handle on anything in your life right now; it was all just him leading you along. He had never meant for you to go back to your home, your own life. He’d taken it all.

“-Would that be alright?” He was asking. You jerked your head to look at him, seeing his expectant expression. You hadn’t heard a word he had said.

“Uh, yeah. That would be fine.” Well, you had to say something!

“Excellent!” The delight remained on his face, suffused with pride. In you? In himself, most likely. “We will arrange something proper for you, something spectacular, don’t you worry.”

Crap, what had you just agreed to?

Beli tried once again to schedule his class appointment, but was interrupted by a stern Einherjar. He said something in a quiet, terse manner, staring directly at you.

Loki sat up very straight. “Unfortunately, esteemed teacher, this will have to wait a little longer. Our guest’s attacker may have just been found.”

[sigilseer]

A Weirdling Bestiary: Part 1- Beasts of City and Suburbia

Some notes to start off with-

This is all a part of my personal UPG and world-view, which is a culmination of my individual experiences, upbringing, influences, and research. Although much of this personal mythology is based off of the biology and behaviors of the creatures in question, you may have different associations and feelings about these animals, and that’s totally ok. 

There are some animals commonly found in cities and suburban areas which have been left out of this section (like foxes, bats, deer, rabbits, snakes, toads, and all insects) because I’ll be covering them later in other chapters.   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Birds~

Blue Jay- Blue jays are fierce, clever and have complex social lives. They have deep ties with oak trees, which are regarded in several cultures as the Tree of Life, the king of trees, and sacred to many gods of thunder, lightning, and sky. They are excellent communicators, both vocally and physically, and can imitate the calls of other birds. 

Even though they’re quite common, blue jay behavior remains a bit of a mystery to those who study them. The beautiful blue color for which they are known is not a true pigment, but in fact an optical effect of light scattering within the cell structure of their feathers. They are birds of magic, illusion, mystery, and complex familial ties, and are emblematic of the element air and the realm of the sky as well as bright, lively daytime energy. For offerings, give them acorns. 

Canada Goose- Geese are the mortal enemies of business people and all Suits. They travel in formation and are loyal to their mates and comrades. As such, they are good animal guides for anyone who identifies strongly as part of a group or community and those who function as a team. Goose magic is great for sticking it to The Man. As they migrate in spring and fall, they also represent transitions and cycles. Admire them from afar and stay the fuck away from their babies if you don’t want to die a very painful death.

Crow- If you are outside, it is unlikely you are out of sight of a crow. Fittingly, insight and observation are among their primary associations. Crows are smart, mischievous, and extremely common. Because they’re ubiquitous pretty much everywhere, they’re a reminder of the constant presence of magic in the world. 

Although each crow is very much an individual, they live in family groups and cooperate with and look out for those within their groups. At the same time, they regularly engage in bitter rivalries and battles with crows from other families. In spite of that, multiple families will come together and roost at night outside of the breeding season to socialize, network, and learn. Theirs is an entire society that exists alongside our own- both Other and familiar.

Do not take the presence of crows for granted. They are the little bits of the Other-realm that fly about by day. They are wonderful sources of magic, wisdom, and humor, and should be treated with respect. They’ll remember if you wrong them. They’ll remember those who were good to them. They are always watching. Crows are favored familiars among practitioners of the occult and any who seek to understand and manipulate reality at a higher level, as well as any interested in death magic or hedge witchery. 

Duck- Although their primary elemental association is water, ducks unite the elemental realms of water, earth, and air due to their ability to move through each. Ducks represent family (particularly parent/child relationships), adaptability, cheerfulness, emotional connections with others and at times- obliviousness. 

If you are having difficulty adapting to change and embracing new circumstances, or if you’re having trouble with family, ducks are helpful guides. They spend much of their time floating along on streams, totally comfortable half-submerged in that state of continuous change and renewal. They can help you learn to go with the flow.

If you wish to give offerings to ducks, choose cut up grapes, corn, peas, seeds, and oats- bread is bad for them and their environment and therefor bad for you and your workings.

House Sparrow- Although wild animals, these are birds whose natural habitat is outside of, on, and around man-made environments. They are ever-present wherever there are people, and tend to be quite tame. Their energy is significant because it’s so closely tied to our own, these birds having spread with us and our civilization as we’ve advanced across the world. 

If you wish to gain a connection to nature by feeding a wild bird from your hands, this species is a good place to start. Due to their intrinsic and obvious ties to the home, they can be regarded as home-guardians and fitting familiars to hearth and cottage witches. House sparrows are social, enjoy singing to one another, and will flock with other types of birds, and so embody a spirit of friendship, acceptance and joy.

Hummingbird- Hummingbirds are largely solitary and territorial little creatures. They’re highly intelligent and have exceptional memories, and the largest brain-to-body ratio of any bird. They are insanely fast and are able to hover in place and  maneuver almost instantaneously in any direction. They groom themselves meticulously, build exquisite, tiny nests of lichen and moss, and feed mostly on sugary nectar. They come in a dizzying array of beautiful and jewel-like colors and will  fearlessly defend what’s theirs. 

Hummingbird energy is fiery, valiant, joyous, vibrant, individualistic, and creative. As an autistic witch, I relate strongly to hummingbirds. They make great animal guides for creative people, introverts, bold individualists, a range of people on the spectrum of neurodiversity, and anyone who wants to bring some flash and vibrancy to their lives. 

Mourning Dove- Mourning doves are fairy birds. With their muted pastel and iridescent feathers, melancholy calls, and lifelong partnerships, they embody magic, romance and devotion. They have strong ties with Aphrodite and love goddess archetypes in general, and their feathers are excellent for use in love and beauty spells. You may be blessed in love if a pair nests close to your home. If you wish to bring their energies into your life, offer them seeds, soft words, and safe places to build their nests.  

Pigeon- Pigeons are place guardians, observers, and navigators. Pigeons Know The Way. Seek out locations where pigeons gather (those which are not obvious sources of food), for you can be assured there’s magic to those places. The gratitude of pigeons is a wellspring of magical power to be drawn from, so be both respectful and wary of Pigeon People. Pigeon magic is of finding things, of home, love, and attuning with the spirits of places. If you wish to bond with the spirit of your city or town, carry pigeon offerings like seeds or other morsels, and be especially kind to any one-footed pigeons, should you spot them.

Seagull- Gulls are bold, opportunistic, and equally comfortable in sky, sea, or urban sprawl.They’ll snatch food from the mouths of larger animals, grab it from the hands of humans, and are even known to steal milk from lactating seals. In spite of many unflattering nicknames, they’re graceful and adaptive creatures. They are most iconic when pictured in the liminal space of the horizon- between sea and sky. 

From gulls, one can learn to make the most of what they have and to take nothing for granted. They can teach us to soar above all limitations and to fly along the currents of life’s events and emotions with ease, transcending all worldly concerns. They make good animal guides for beach bums, dreamy sea witches, and cerebral literary folk.  

Starling- Starlings are gregarious, social, communicative, and can imitate human speech and a variety of other sounds. They live in huge flocks and defend their nests fiercely. They represent the power of social ties and group identities and the safety in numbers. 

Interestingly, starlings wouldn’t even exist in North America if it weren’t for a group of Shakespeare enthusiasts who released a flock of a hundred in New York, with the desire for America to have every species of bird ever mentioned by their beloved playwright. In a way, they can be seen as representations of the power of dreams and fantasy to reshape the real world. Their feathers have a multicolored sheen and their eggs are a vivid, beautiful blue. Starlings are fitting animal guides for outgoing, sociable, extroverted, and theatrical types.  

Tufted titmouse- These cute, inquisitive little mohawked birds are known to remain in their territory in pairs and small family groups throughout the year, hoard food to prepare for the harsher seasons, and to curiously look in on human habitations through windows. They make comfortable homes for themselves in tree holes, and often line their soft nests with the hair and fur of other animals. They’re another excellent bird familiar for those focused on the keeping of their hearth. Their energy can assist in making one’s house truly feel like a home, and in making sure you never lose interest in what’s going on in the world around you. 

~Mammals~

Coyote- Coyotes are monogamous and tend to mate for life. Originally from plains and deserts, they’ve since spread and are now thriving in many urban areas across North and Central America. They’re omnivorous and opportunistic feeders that eat everything from carrion to bugs to berries. Coyote has figured prominently in the mythologies of many cultures across North America, in a vast array of roles. From savior of humanity, to teacher and trickster, to coward, to inventor of death, it’s hard to find an archetypal role which coyote has not, at some point, embodied. As such, their element seems to be chaos- both harmonious and discordant. 

The prevailing essence of coyote within the collective unconscious is that of humor, intelligence, carnality, and expression. They have a broad array of vocalizations, many of which sound eery, otherworldly, and almost fae-like. They are ideal animal guides for waste witches, desert druids, and punks. 

Opossum-  Possums are the ultimate survivors. They’re omnivorous, so they can live off a broad range of foods. They have opposable thumbs and prehensile tails, and are equally at home in trees, on the ground, in burrows, and in man-made and man-altered environments. They are highly resistant to a variety of poisons and toxins as well as rabies, and manage to rid themselves of most ticks and parasites. When threatened, they play dead and exude disgusting scents, repelling threats with minimal effort. Females have bifurcated vaginas, and males have dual-pronged penises, making them interesting symbols of duality and taking different paths in life. 

As they are nocturnal and often nomadic, they make good animal guides for people who travel off the beaten path in life. Mystics, drifters, and anyone living off the grid or involved in nightlife would do well to consider possum their kin. Honor opossums by spreading knowledge of how wonderful they are, as they are often the targets of human cruelty.

Raccoon- Raccoons are portal masters, the roamers in the night whose clever hands can open gateways, pick locks and catch that which lurks out of sight. They are highly tactile, mostly nocturnal, and very smart. With their masked faces, dexterous paws, tenacity, and nocturnal tendencies, they are the ideal animal guides for thieves, foragers, craftspeople, and anyone who makes use of obscurity. 

A racoon’s hook-shaped penis bone makes a powerful magical charm, especially useful for protection, potency, and invisibility. Raccoons also have ties to liminal and magical spaces. It’s easy to imagine them disappearing into a trash can on one side of town, only to emerge from a dumpster on the other side. Follow raccoons at your own risk, you might find yourself lost somewhere just sideways of here. 

Rat- Rats are fantastic animal guides and companions for the misunderstood and the underestimated. Although they can and do act as vectors of disease in some environments, they are still themselves smart, adaptable, social, and caring creatures who watch out for their own, sometimes even at their own expense. They are wizards when it comes to getting into and out of tight and difficult situations, and in the lab and home are known for their ability to navigate mazes and learn tricks. Domesticated rats are often very clean and sweet animals that “laugh” when tickled. 

Wild rats are enterprising survivors. Rat energy is powerful when it comes to overcoming adversity, hatred, and poverty and making the most of limited resources. They love to nest and hoard, so they’re another good familiar for the homey witch, as well as the grungy witch and the standard witchy witch. Really, you can’t go wrong with rats- just never have only one. 

In spite of being wonderful creatures, the negative perception of rats and the darker side of their nature makes them conceptually very useful in dark magic. One could, for instance, imagine a rat carrying one’s curse to a target like it would a parasite or disease, or use the image of a rat as a servitor in hexwork. 

Skunk- Skunks are masters of alchemy and pacifist defense. They do not have to fear, nor must they take violent action to protect themselves. Look to skunks for unconventional solutions, self-assurance, calm in the face of adversity, or as animal guides if you’re a chemist or alchemist. Skunk magic is also great for use in spells meant to repel others or keep them at bay.

Squirrel- Squirrels are creatures of balance and resourcefulness. Not only do they balance themselves expertly as they run along branches and leap from tree to tree, but they balance their time between play and planning, activity and rest. Even though much of that activity is spent burying nuts they’ll never find, those same nuts will grow into trees which will one day house and feed the squirrel’s numerous decedents. Ultimately, none of their time is wasted. Squirrels are the animal guides of people who both work and play hard, and squirrel energy is useful to anyone who’s trying to adjust their work/life balance or just learn to have more fun and enjoy themselves.

[theunofficialchurchofsatan]

Pretenders to the Throne: Regarding the Temple of Set. (Essay by High Preist Peter H Gilmore)

Throughout the forty years of its existence, the Church of Satan has continued to expand while its character has undergone a number of carefully-planned developmental phases. In the process, we have at times found it necessary to eject individuals who have acted in ways that were not in keeping with our high standards for social behavior. We have also had a small number of individuals freely depart from us, finding our means too challenging to their false images of personal superiority. Neither types are missed, as the true elite of talented, highly-motivated, productive, creative, and above all independent individuals still find their way to us. They work to move the world, using Satanism as the fulcrum for their efforts.

There have been those who would attempt to imitate us, but they usually discover that our shoes are far too big to fill. Short-lived spinoffs have included The Church of Satanic Brotherhood, Ordo Templi Satanas, Order of the Black Ram, Church of Lucifer, Thee Orthodox Satanic Church and so on. None of these has prospered or even affected the course of Satanism, as they have quickly collapsed due to the lack of energy or direction. Since the death of our High Priest and Founder, even more imitators have emerged, trying to make their way to the center ring. These sorry clowns are banished by their own lack of competence to the side rings, quickly passed over as the discerning look towards us for the genuine star performers. See our Bunco Sheet for tips on how to identify these wannabes.

… those who attempt to imitate us, usually discover that our shoes

are far too big to fill.”

One group formed by ex-members of the Church of Satan which has continued to exist, albeit as a small and fairly clandestine vanity organization riding on the funds provided by its founder, is the Temple of Set. This bunch is significant only in that they have continued to try to ride upon the coattails of the Church of Satan, and indeed have even publicly claimed to be the successor to and custodian of the Church of Satan. You might have come across some advertisements or writing influenced by these Setians. Don’t be fooled (unlike some “hackademics” who falsely claim an understanding of contemporary Satanism); they are not in any way associated with the Church of Satan and their tales of schism are convenient diversions. Let us examine from whence this group appeared and clear away their false claims.

In 1974 C.E. the Church of Satan instituted its fourth phase of development. The thrust of this phase was to reorient the members at all levels to proceed on a far more independent course. Previously we had issued charters for formal Grottos which were small congregations comprised of Satanists in specific geographical regions. It had been discovered that these formal Grottos led certain members to confine their efforts at personal advancement to the realm of the Grotto alone, rather than towards the success in the outside world—which is of paramount importance to Satanism. Certain members were far more interested in trying to gain elevated rank yet were merely competing in the Grotto’s social arena. They neglected to develop their talents and forge ahead. Many other members were strong-willed individualists who did not mix well with other Satanists. Rather than functioning as bases for the development of Satanic strategies, these groups often became shields against true advancement, filled with huddlers who were solely interested in internecine strife. Not everyone involved fit this picture, but there were enough to make it obsolete as a system of growth.

The new phase stressed independent functioning, keeping individuals separated to pursue their own goals. If Satanists used their initiative to find their fellows and wished to informally create groups for socialization and ritual, that was most acceptable. But the momentum for the existence of these informal groups had to come from the social compatability of the constituent members, not geographical proximity.

LaVey was determined that the status of Church members should reflect their standing in the world outside of the organization.”

This phase of isolation, which laid the groundwork for a much broader base for Satanism as a movement (seen in the established commercial acceptance of Satanic imagery in the popular Heavy Metal music business), was upsetting to the pen-pal and “coffee klatsch conclave” members, whom it was basically designed to ease out of the way. Michael A. Aquino, at that time the editor of The Cloven Hoof, had attained the IV° and was injecting a strongly supernaturalist bent to the Hoof’s articles. Mr. Aquino had a history of creating documents which he claimed to have transcribed from superhuman entities. These include the Diabolicon (1970 C.E.), a series of statements from Satan, Beelzebub, Azazel, Abaddon, Asmodeus, Astaroth, Belial, and Leviathan, as well as the Ninth Solstice Message (1974 C.E.) which declared Anton LaVey a daimon.

Dr. LaVey then began to implement the phase which had slowly been evolving over the previous two years. Additionally, he was losing his tolerance for the mysticism that some members had adopted. LaVey had even outlined the basic concepts for this formal phase during the summer of 1972 C.E. in a letter to Aquino, stating that the social Satanists and their limelight-loving priests contribute nothing to Satanism as a movement, and that they would fall by the wayside when they didn’t receive the attention they sought by starting their own churches. LaVey wrote that he had far more respect for his underground clergy who were very productive in the real world. Aquino did not accept this, especially Dr. LaVey’s awarding of priesthoods to non-esoteric, non-public achievers and thus LaVey determined that Aquino would no longer be privy to even the limited amount of information regarding underground activities that had previously been given to him. LaVey was determined that the status of Church members should reflect their standing in the world outside of the organization. Degrees are not reflective of simple book learning and esoteric knowledge, but the actual application of Satanic principles towards personal advancement. To this end, the Church would honor values given to it in kind with degree recognition as would be deemed appropriate by Dr. LaVey. The achievement of degrees via written tests was not to be abandoned at this time, but this additional means of advancement was now open to the above-ground members. This approach was formalized by the new phase in 1974 C.E. and outlined to Aquino in May, during one of his rare personal meetings with Dr. LaVey.

Aquino did not protest this policy at the meeting and later claimed this alternate route to advancement as a public reason to announce a break with the Church of Satan, accusing Dr. LaVey of selling degrees. He wrote letters to his handful of pen-pal cronies, fellow mystics who had also mourned the new phase, and they too resigned to go off with Aquino and form their own group. Aquino had wanted to start a Second Church of Satan but was thwarted by copyright/trademark laws. Instead, recalling his readings of Egyptian history and mythology, he claimed to have invoked Satan (in whom he literally believed as an entity) and to have been answered instead by Set, the “actual Prince of Darkness” who, through a series of realizations in Aquino’s mind, caused him to record as Set’s answer a document which he titled the Book of Coming Forth by Night. This supernatural revelation supposedly gives him the right to supercede the Church of Satan. Doesn’t that tale sound familiar?

Aquino attempted to make interested parties believe that the entire Priesthood of the Church of Satan followed him in departing. That was untrue, especially as there were many underground members, including priests and higher, of whom he had no knowledge. His own claims for numbers of departed Church of Satan members fluctuates in his own writings. The Church of Satan was at that time, and still continues to be, a large and highly stratified organization with many discreet individuals placed in positions of power. As Orwell had envisioned in his classic 1984, it is not an organization in the usual sense as it is held together by an idea whose time has come, which is indestructible. The departure of less than thirty members can hardly be called a schism. This was in reality a welcome housecleaning of an element that had become less than desirable when considering the future development of the Church of Satan. And thus the fourth phase functioned as planned and Aquino became one of those who, as predicted in 1972 C.E., would fall by the wayside.

The ex-Satanists who formed the Temple of Set follow a path quite different from that of the Church of Satan, which has never veered from its dedication to rational self-interest, indulgence, and a glorification of the carnal and material. Their belief in Set as an actual entity with whom followers, particularly their priesthood, may commune is in marked contrast to our disbelief in any external deity figures. The essence of Setian doctrine asserts that Set caused the intelligence of the human species to manifest, and that this conscious act is counter to the “inertia”of Nature. Set is thus the God of the “non-natural,” who promotes individual consciousness in opposition to the collective blending that in their perspective is thought to be the mechanism of Nature. The followers of Set are named his “elect” and are considered to be special among the human species. Through the process of “Xeper” (pronounced “kheffer”—an Egyptian word meaning “to become”) Setian initiates attempt to willfully evolve into a God-like state. This is not expected by them to occur in a single lifetime, and so the “isolated consciousness” of the individual Setian attempts to “Remanifest,” essentially to reincarnate, to continue the process of evolution towards a Set-like final state.

Clearly these beliefs are fundamentally at odds with the philosophy of the Church of Satan. Satanists view themselves as animals who are part of Nature (7th Satanic Statement: “Satan represents man as just another animal,...” ), and see any concept positing something existing outside of nature as being a spiritual delusion. We Satanists don’t believe in reincarnation, and as skeptical materialists, reject the idea of evolving into some kind of deity as so much theistic faith. We already see ourselves as the gods of our own subjective universes. From personal observation and reading their literature, it would seem that the Setians have a consuming preoccupation with rank and status within their organization, thus titles and medallions indicating degree level are eagerly sought by members to affirm their position in the pecking order of the Temple’s internal world (particularly evident at their conclaves). This is not surprising considering Aquino’s background—a boyhood steeped in military academies and in pursuit of Boy Scout merit badges. The Church of Satan grants degrees, but these are still based on an individual’s achievements in the outside world and his level of freedom from herd conformity and independence from forced interaction with the masses. They are recognitions of outstanding achievments, not indicators of a ladder that all must climb. Striving for fancy titles and rankings is not a part of Satanism. The literature of the Church of Satan is published and distributed worldwide to any interested individuals. The Temple of Set generally prints private literature available only to members, and some of it is limited to those of the correct rank. To further learn about these Setians, you might choose to contact them for information, but be forewarned that real Satanism is not hiding underneath their academic pose. A worthwhile and informative study by an anthropologist who joined the Temple of Set is The Magicians, by Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D. (New World Books, 308 Spruce St., San Francisco, CA 94118). This will give you insights into their beliefs, practices, and social interactions.

[The Temple of Set's] beliefs are fundamentally at odds with the philosophy of the Church of Satan.”

Interestingly enough, with the stepping down (for the second time) of Michael Aquino as High Priest of the Temple of Set and the accession of Don Webb, a change in emphasis seemed to be emerging. Webb stated in an article entitled “Concerning Satanism” that, “The Temple of Set has begun the process of distancing from the term ‘Satanism,’ a cultural fad of the latter part of the Twentieth Century of the Common Era.” We think that was finally an evolution towards honesty in their presentation of their philosophy, as Setianism is not Satanism.

Under the aegis of Michael Aquino, Webb and his supporters were later supplanted by Zeena and Nikolas Schreck, whose own checkered past is well-documented. After attaining the position of High Priestess of the Temple of Set, Zeena along with her consort Nikolas fomented a schism and departed to found a more orthodox, and even more stringently theistic, “Sethian” organization called “The Storm.” Rumor has it that the Schrecks took a significant percentage of the European membership of the Temple of Set along with them. If Anton LaVey were still around, we know he would have been amused.

We have dealt here at length with the Temple of Set to lay to rest their propaganda. They are not associated with the Church of Satan in any manner. We do not see them as being in any way significant to the present or future of Satanism, particularly as they are not, by definition, Satanists. Dr. LaVey’s successors proudly guide the Church of Satan, the flagship of the movement launched in 1966 C.E., and continue to oversee the forces which he put into motion. The Church of Satan is the foundry, forging the Iron Will that moves the minds and hearts of humanity’s “alien elite,” who claim the present and the future as their domain. They shall be the inheritors of our legacy as well as the writers of our history for the new millenium, and far beyond.

[thesohirydestiny]

Worldbuilding 101 : Science or Paganism

Okay, this article is basically a study I’m working on while I put together my own world for NaNoWriMo--assuming that I get everything together in time.

There’s going to be at least three articles for this--Part One is for Deities, Part Two is for building Fantasy Races, and Part Three is for the World itself. I’m going to work on having them all finished by November, but if you know me...articles take a while.

Worldbuilding 101 : Science or Paganism

One of the most important things to decide when you begin your story is where everything comes from. Where did your planet come from? Did some cosmic entity sneeze the planet into existence, or was it a matter of ice and dust clumping together via gravity?

I usually pick paganism for my world’s origin because it’s highly unlikely that all sentient races on any world will be atheists. And since there are going to be gods involved in any case, I tend to bring them in early. But really, it’s up to you.

If you decide that your fantasy world was created through divine intervention, the next thing to decide is what was there before the gods. Was the non-world a black void, or was it a dream? Or perhaps your gods were on their home plane and decided to make your world as a sort of science project.

As an example, in the world I’m currently working on, the Overdeity was traveling through different planes of existence for a long time before despair led him to give up and create other gods for company. At some point, those other gods rose up against their creator, and the Overdeity’s corpse became the world.

(Fun Fact: I told my brother my world’s origin story. He was reminded of both Norse and Greek mythology. However, the actual inspiration was from Moana, when Te Fiti lies down to become Mother Island.)

Once you’ve decided where your world comes from, the next step is to nail down specifics. How many gods do you have, how many worshipers would you say they have, what kind of gods are they, etc.

There are many different methods of picking all of these out, and there is no right answer. If you think your world has multiple pantheons, decide if that is according to race or nationality, or both. Do those pantheons share an Overdeity, or do they each have their own?

Note that Overdeities are generally defined as the God of Gods, which means that in most cases, your made-up deities will worship the Overdeity. And in virtually all cases, your sentient races will not even know that the Overdeity exists (and even if they do know, the Overdeity is highly unlikely to hear any of their prayers).

Now, you can either figure out the answers to these questions on your own, or you can follow my example, which is to keep a deck of playing cards handy at all times. (Or dice. Or a coin. I’ve done it all.) Playing cards will give you a range from 0-4 (suits + joker), 0-13 (face + joker), or even 0-52 (all cards)--in which case, I salute you and go about my merry way. Because that is a lot of gods. What you can get from dice is dependent upon how many sides they have. Flipping coins is time consuming, but workable. Also, you might lose all of your loose change.

My personal preference is playing cards on the 0-13 scale, but a d12 would have virtually the same results. If you have a full set of dice, you might decide to do something fun, like use d4 to determine the number of Overdeities you have, d6 for Greater Deities, d8 for Intermediate Deities, d10 for Lesser Deities, d12 for Demigods, and d20 for Quasi-Deities, or Heroes. Note that you can achieve the same result with a deck of playing cards.

If you want there to be more chance involved (or you want more than 6 Greater Deities, for example), you can simply decide how many gods you get, and then run a scale for ranking. The default scale for Dungeons & Dragons is 0 for Quasi-Deities or Heroes, 1-5 for Demigods, 6-10 for Lesser Deities, 11-15 for Intermediate Deities, 16-20 for Greater Deities, and 21+ for Overdeities, which you can achieve with four d6.

In my case, I ended up with one Overdeity, three Greater Deities, eight Intermediate Deities, and one Lesser Deity using the second method, for a total of thirteen gods and goddesses.

At this point, you might decide to gender your deities. Or you might not. They can be genderless, dual sexed, gender fluid, or transgender. They can be male or female or a different gender entirely, depending on your worldbuilding.

As an example, in my story Ties of Fate, my goddess of creation (called The Radiance) was actually genderless, but was routinely misgendered because of how beautiful “she” was.

You can randomize the gods’ genders if you like. Just build a scale on how common you want to make it, and then place them how you’d like. Example: 0-2 Nonbinary, 3-5 Transgender Female, 6-8 Female, 9-11 Intersex, 12-14 Male, 15-17 Transgender Male, 18+ Gender Fluid. You can achieve this with two d10.

On this scale, I have five cis gods, one trans god, two intersex deities (one uses they/them pronouns, the other prefers he/him), two trans goddesses, and three cis goddesses.

Now that you have some idea for your deities, the next (and arguably most fun) step is to assign them powers. There are several methods you can use to do this. You can look up Dungeons & Dragons cleric domains (you can probably find these online if you don’t have a book handy), or look up powers on the TV Tropes site, or you can find a random generator online to roll up gods for you (I recommend Seventh Sanctum, or Chaotic Shiny).

I personally prefer to empower deities with my deck of Clow Cards, but if you don’t have your own, it is possible to “fake it” with a deck of playing cards by giving each individual playing card a corresponding Clow Card. You can find these lists online.

Feel free to mix and match each of these methods if you like. It will only give more facets to your deities.

Once you have assigned your deities their own realms of influence, you can give them names. However, I am going to be very unhelpful here: I find naming deities highly offensive. There is a reason people say “don’t take the Good Lord’s name in vain.” Give a group of worshipers access to a deity’s true name, and they will be constantly yelling in his ear over inconsequentials. Treat them with respect, for goodness sake!

That isn’t to say that you can’t name your deities (given the sheer number of pagan deities in fiction, you’ll find that a lot of people do), but you don’t need me to help you there. You have a language and an alphabet? Knock yourself out.

My personal method is a bit more colorful. I give my deities appellations. I give them descriptions that their people will recognize them by. My moon goddess is called The Guide because she created the moon and stars to show people the way. My goddess of time is called the Painter because she’s responsible for the changing seasons.

There is a reason you save creating appellations until after you’ve given your deities power. And sometimes even hold off until you’ve given them an alignment. (“The Big Evil” should never be attached to a Lawful Good deity. It shouldn’t be used, period, unless you’re writing satire. It’s kind of tacky.)

I would suggest holding off on assigning your deities a specific appearance until after you create your races, unless it’s a very basic one, such as general height (tall/short/average), general appearance (beautiful/ugly/plain), or associated feelings (happy/awed/fearful). This is primarily because deities often create races in their own image.

If this is not the case, and your deities actually look like giant gumballs, whereas the sentient race are centipedes, then go ahead and knock yourself out. If your deities are portrayed like the Egyptian gods with animal heads, then go ahead and note it as an animal head, but save specifics until you actually populate your world. They might not even have orangutans there.

Please note that this obviously doesn’t cover everything involved in creating your deities. I haven’t covered alignments, or even forms of worship. I think that worship can probably wait until after you have races to do so, and alignments aren’t all that complicated. Just build a scale and have at it.

As for me, I have

Examples from A History

01 God: The Fallen (Overdeity). Male. The Voice: repose, spell, suffering

The god of death. He Who Waits at the End is neutral evil. He is the one that created the gods, and when he was slain, his body became the world. He waits to welcome the dead into the afterlife. He hears the prayers of those lonely and suffering.

02 Goddess: The Guide (Greater Deity). Transgender. The Glow: darkness, moon, travel

The moon goddess. She Who Guides the Lost is neutral good. She is the one that created the moon and stars in the night sky. She guides the steps of those who travel to safety. She hears the prayers of those lost or traveling.

03 God: The Laughter (Greater Deity). Male. The Light: fire, healing, sun

The sun god. He Who Laughs in the Sun is lawful good. He is the one that created the sun. He brings hope and healing to the injured. He hears the prayers of healers and patients alike.

04 Goddess: The Planner (Greater Deity). Transgender. The Silence: knowledge, planning, runes

The goddess of wisdom. She Who Watches in Silence is lawful neutral. She is the one who orchestrated the creation of the world. She created the written word. She hears the prayers of those who seek guidance.

05 Goddess: The Painter (Intermediate Deity). Female. The Change: fate, luck, time, winter

The goddess of time. She Who Paints the World is lawful good. She is the one who created the ever-changing seasons, the magnetic pole, and associated climates. She perceives the fate of all. She hears the prayers of all those who take risks.

06 Deity: The Harvester (Intermediate Deity). Dual Sexed. The Wood: plants, renewal, water

The green deity. One Who Grows in Bounty is neutral good. They are the one who created the trees and plantlife. They grow the plants and give aid to the farmers. They hear the prayers of those who grow, and those who harvest.

07 God: The Lover (Intermediate Deity). Male. The Twin: animal, charm, family

The god of family. He Who Joins in Hand is chaotic good. He is the one who created animals. He causes mates to recognize one another. He hears the prayers of expectant mothers.

08 Goddess: The Guardian (Intermediate Deity). Female. The Sand: destruction, earth, strength

The earth goddess. She Who Walks in Ruin is neutral. She is the one who created the sand and soil. She causes earthquakes and landslides. She hears the prayers of those who travel through the desert.

09 God: The Shaper (Intermediate Deity). Male. The Lock: craft, metal, trade

The god of craftsmen. He Who Shapes the Bridge is neutral good. He is the one who created the people. He guides the hands of those who create. He hears the prayers of craftsmen and merchants.

10 God: The Hidden (Intermediate Deity). Transgender. The Illusion: illusion, ocean, trickery

The trickster god. He Who Hides in the Mist is neutral evil. He is the one who created the oceans and rivers. He watches over those who traverse the seas. He hears the prayer of the hidden and the fearful.

11 God: The Crowned (Intermediate Deity). Dual Sexed. The Fight: death, hatred, war

The war god. He Who Rises in Challenge is chaotic evil. He is the one who created the hills and mountains. He gives courage to the fearful and oppressed and leads those who fight to victory. He hears the prayers of warriors and slaves alike.

12 God: The Singer (Intermediate Deity). Male. The Song: magic, nobility, protection

The god of magic. He Who Sings in Many Voices is neutral. He created the shimmering pools where magic flows. He gives inspiration to both singers and artists. He hears the prayers of those who hear the music of the world.

13 Goddess: The Dancer (Lesser Deity). Female. The Windy: air, destruction, storm

The storm goddess. She Who Dances in the Wind is chaotic evil. She is the one who created the weather. She carries the storms the world over. She hears the prayers of those who find beauty in the sky.

Currently about a third way through with the next part. (It’s even longer than this one.) Here’s hoping that I get the opportunity to post it tomorrow?

[twosidestarot]

Making Friends with the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot

A new deck in town is always an exciting thing, and maybe I’m crazy, but the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot & Oracle Deck had me extra excited. If you’ve had a glimpse of this deck online, you’ll know that the production is lux and the art show-stopping. Not only that, but in addition to the standard 78-card tarot deck, it also includes a bonus 22-card oracle deck. Effectively, it’s two decks in one. A hard proposition to resist for those of us who like our cards a little… extra!

Shop the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot & Oracle Deck here!

 Cosmos is the second collaborative tarot project from the masterminds at Light Grey Art Lab (you can find the first Light Grey Tarot here). Like the first deck, each card in Cosmos is the work of a different artist, bringing together 100 artists from around the world to riff on tarot and astrology in this unique and beautiful deck.

I don’t know how they managed it, but like the original Light Grey Tarot, Cosmos is simultaneously diverse and cohesive, aesthetically speaking. It’s an amazing feat of fortune and coordination to have one hundred artists – not necessarily versed in tarot – create one hundred individual artworks that come together to make a singular working deck. Honestly, it’s kind of remarkable!

Oracle Cards from the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot & Oracle

The other feat of unification that the Light Grey Cosmos deck achieves is its parallel exploration of tarot, mythology and astrology. Each card has a celestial attribution, bringing together traditional tarot meanings and the symbolic and mythological significance of constellations, planets, and other astral phenomena. Although, to say the tarot associations are traditional is not strictly correct; some of the cards read like their Rider Waite Smith equivalents, but many have been taken in unique directions. Cosmos is definitely kind of deck that rewards study, so get those tarot journals out!

When I look at a new deck, I like to check out how it deals with sexuality and gender, usually by looking at the Ten of Cups, the Two of Cups, and the Ten of Pentacles, and The Lovers. Interestingly, each of these cards depicts a woman either alone or with an animal (The Lovers, which is associated in this deck with the sign of Cancer, shows a woman with an abstract, crab-like creature).

When it comes to racial diversity, there are cards that depict people of colour (to name a few, The Sun, The Star, and the Five of Earth). The art definitely errs on the side of fantastical, so there are also a lot of magical blue people, for example. Cosmos’ depiction of people of colour is not overly realistic, but then, there isn’t much realism at all in this strange, celestial deck.

Interestingly, a goodly proportion of the cards depict non-human figures, landscapes, or symbolic objects. For that reason, Cosmos will definitely appeal to readers who prefer their decks to place less emphasis on mundane human images, or who like their art well steeped in fantasy.

Since this deck very much marches to the beat of its own drum, it’s fortunate that it comes with a pretty detailed book. There are also keywords printed on each card, along with the card name and associated constellation, which you can utilize or ignore at will.

So, I’ve been taking my time getting to know this deck (a lot of which has been spent just oohing and ahhing over the lush gold foiled edges and the gorgeous imagery). After a while, though, it’s time to stop looking and start reading! For the purposes of this deck interview, I’ve excluded the oracle cards. I’ll give them their own review and interview at a later date.

1. TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF. WHAT IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTIC? Queen of Fire (Cassiopeia)

Keywords: Consequences of Arrogance. Vanity and Pride.

The Queen of Fire tells the story of Cassiopeia, and her daughter, Andromeda, women punished for their pride by the sea god, Poseidon. While the story of Cassiopeia warns of the potential pitfalls of pride (or perhaps of cranky gods who’d rather keep women in their places), the accompanying booklet says that really, this card is about Andromeda rising above her trials and breaking free.

Freedom is something the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot has in spades! Traditional tarot structures and elemental associations are all up for grabs here, and this deck makes no apologies for it. This deck captures all that dark stuff – pride, revenge, subjugation – but also brings a liberated spirit to the reading table.

2. WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS AS A DECK? XVIII The Moon (Pisces)

Keywords: Subconscious. Indecision. Critique. Sensitivity.

I’m not surprised to see The Moon come up, because this deck can be pretty weird! From the imagery to the keywords to the astral phenomena, Cosmos follows its own lead and resists any assumptions you might want to impose upon it (there’s that free thinking again!). Obviously, this uniqueness and weirdness is a great strength!

When it comes to working with The Moon, we know the best tools we have are intuition and creativity. It’s fair to assume that Cosmos is in its element when the reader approaches with these tools in hand.

3. WHAT ARE YOUR LIMITS AS A DECK? 10 of Water (Corona Borealis)

Keywords: Triumph After Sacrifice. New Beginnings.

Cosmos associates the Ten of Water with the story of Ariadne, who, after being abandoned by her lover, Theseus, finds redemption and a new beginning when she is wooed by Dionysus (it’s worth noting that while the artwork on this card depicts a woman with two leopard-like cats so is not overly heteronormative, the myth that the card is associated with obviously is, so your mileage in that regard may vary!).

So, what do we make of this as a limitation? It would seem Cosmos is not overly concerned with tidy endings, or clean-cut tales of redemption. Don’t expect any coddling here! This deck is complex, and maybe even a little cool, so until you’ve learned to speak its language, reading with it is not going to be a soothing experience. Who doesn’t love a challenge, though?

4. WHAT ARE YOU HERE TO TEACH ME? Three of Air (Hercules)

Keywords: Great Effort. Trial.

Personally, I love this take on the Three of Air. Unlike the traditional meaning of this card (pain, heartbreak), Cosmos makes the Three of Air about proving yourself through strength and endurance. The scene on the card depicts Hercules’ eleventh labour, and demonstrates that we often have to weather many storms in order to get to where we want to go.

Cosmos is obviously here to toughen us up! Or to remind us of how resilient we actually are. I’m already finding that the mixture of tarot, astrology, and mythology in this deck is forcing me to flex my reading muscles, and that’s evidently part of Cosmos’ design. This deck is here to push us as readers, which can only be a good thing!

5. HOW CAN I BEST LEARN FROM AND COLLABORATE WITH YOU? King of Water (Camelopardalis)

Keywords: Seeing the Big Picture. Gaining Perspective.

The King of Water is associated with Camelopardalis, the giraffe constellation, and is associated with the Qilin, giraffe-like creatures from Chinese mythology. This King is all about taking an aerial view of things, stepping back and seeing the big picture.

That definitely feels like a good strategy for reading with a deck that’s so ambitious in scope! The best way to work with Cosmos is to step away from narrow assumptions about traditional card meanings, and instead to allow elemental, mythological, and astrological associations to coalesce into something bigger and more complex.

6. WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL OUTCOME OF OUR WORKING RELATIONSHIP? Two of Fire (Fornax)

Keywords: Incubation. Pregnancy.

The Two of Fire tells the story of the Roman goddess of the hearth, Fornax, who was honoured with the festival of Fornicalia to ensure that the year’s grain would be properly baked. Buns in the oven, anyone? I hope we’re all using birth control!

It seems Cosmos is so slick it might even get you laid, but it’s probably more likely that working with this deck will lead to some cool creative breakthroughs. There’s so much richness to delve into here that fruitful inspirations are bound to bloom. Personally, I’m excited to delve into this deck’s depths and get those fiery, creative ideas incubating!

*

Phew! It's been a long one today, but there's just so much in this rich and beautiful deck. Cosmos is definitely a deck that rewards close study, so I'm looking forward to spending more time with it and discovering all of its quirks and secrets!

The Light Grey Cosmos Tarot & Oracle deck is, of course, in the shop now and ready to ship! You can pick up your own copy right here.

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[skarmorydraws]

Team FAWN: Fallow Coklat and Naja Hong

Over the past few months, I’ve been binge-watching and binge-rewatching the amazing web cartoon series known as RWBY, and I’d highly recommend checking it out - all the episodes are available on YouTube - for its wonderful worldbuilding and characterization. It seems that almost everyone in the FNDM has been making OC teams for the heck of it, so I figured I’d try the same, even though I plan to use mine for a pet project I’ve been planning for a little while and I'm trying to give thought to how it’s gonna go down (though IRL things aren’t making it easy...).

Team FAWN (I believe that falls under the color naming rule like the individual names do, since “fawn” is a color) is a combination of my own selfish desire to stick a self-insert into over half the fandoms I’m a part of and my desire to envision Remnant-verse AU versions of some of my OCs. Unlike Team RWBY but like the other team I’ll be featuring in the planned project, Team FAWN will have gender equality with two males and two females. I have one of the girls sketched but have yet to work on the other one, so I’ll post them both when I get her done. For now, I’ll just put the boys up because I had them floating in the drafts pile and couldn’t not reveal them publicly. Details under the cut!

Fallow is a combination of several things: as noted above he’s basically my shameless RWBY self-insert, though unlike far too many terrible wish fulfillment fanfic OCs to count, he isn’t in a romantic relationship with any of Team RWBY, nor does he even know they exist... okay, well, he does, but he’s never met any of them in person, so that kinda counts, too. He’s also based off two of my favorite fictional characters, Hiro Hamada from Big Hero 6 and Pit from Kid Icarus - I was debating whether to make RWBY characters based on either or both of them, because I have a Remnant-verse character based off Violet from The Incredibles as a planned PPC agent, but I later realized that since Hiro, Pit, and I have so much in common, Fallow fills that niche quite nicely already. Anyway, he’s a peregrine falcon Faunus and a dual shout-out to the Maltese Falcon (his wings are based off the Falco peregrinus brookei subspecies specifically) and Rama, the seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu and the protagonist of the Ramayana epic (Hinduism is a frequently practiced religion in Indonesia, my parents’ ancestral country, and the theme of Team FAWN’s members is multicultural folk heroes). Fallow wields a Ballistic Arbalest/Shield Hybrid called Narayanastra, named after the personal scatter-shot weapon of Vishnu, which is basically a shield that can open up to form a crossbow/pickaxe hybrid. I don’t think I’d like getting up close and personal with people in a fight and I’m more of a defensive sort of person in character, and I like shooting stuff from afar, so a shield/bow hybrid is what I’d carry as a weapon.

I like to think that like Blake, Fallow hails from Menagerie, although he never associated with the White Fang and once things went south for them he simply went to Beacon a year early (like how I went to college early). He struggles a bit with making friends due to his odd mannerisms and habit of self-seclusion, but is fiercely protective of those he has and, as Team FAWN’s leader, has the smarts and empathy to coordinate team efforts - if only he had the willpower! His Semblance is gravity manipulation, partly because it was the closest thing I could think of to outright flying (I like feeling lightweight) and partly because I most often like to imagine having mobility beyond the boundaries of physics and common sense like wall jumping or ceiling clinging - it’s my second most favored power after flight. (His wings, feathers, and accompanying anatomy, by the way, are derived from this lovely tutorial.)

Naja is based on Ne Zha, the Third Lotus Prince from Chinese mythology and one of my favorite mythological figures (who is planned to show up in one of my own original writing projects, btw), and minor changes aside, his design is ripped off almost completely from Fire Lord Ne Zha, my absolute favorite skin for the lil’ guy’s SMITE incarnation. The fact that the voice actor for that skin, Howard Wang, also voiced Whitley Schnee was a happy coincidence that I didn’t find out about until after I’d already drawn him! Naja’s personality is lifted directly from the voicelines of that skin, which I interpreted as a showy daredevil, though I also gave him a flirtatious streak to further the contrast with Fallow (I’ve sucked at every attempt at dating because I’m too introverted; I like to imagine Naja sucks at dating because he’s too extroverted, though! XD). His weapons are, of course, the Flaming Spear, a sniper rifle with an extra-long barrel that doubles as the shaft for a guandao (a Chinese blade on a stick), and the Universe Ring, a bladed hoop that can be thrown like a killer frisbee and also folds up to form a rifle stand (the Wind-Fire Wheels are his rollerblade boots here, and the Armillary Sash is his belt). Unlike SMITE’s Ne Zha, I see him as the long-range support gunner and drive-by flanker (though his guandao is no joke at close range either), and to this end his Semblance is called “Deadshot” - combining telescoping vision and invoked contrived coincidences, he literally cannot miss a shot, like the superhero of the same name from Suicide Squad.

Naja is the street-smart, wisecracking, womanizing adrenaline junkie of Team FAWN, and originally came from a small town in Vacuo, where he got into a widely scandalized two-man war with the Big Bad of the planned writing project, who I won’t name for now because spoilers ;). Though the escalating conflict forced him to leave the town and ultimately Vacuo altogether, all hasn’t been lost for him, since the ensuing journey gave him a lot of knowledge about how to survive in such a hazardous world as Remnant, at least until Ozpin found him. By the time the controversy he’d stirred up in his youth caught up with him again, he was already a student at Beacon, and he managed to divert the scandal into outright notoriety and forged quite a following around his outrageous tall tales of his death-defying adventures - for as the adage goes, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. Despite his blowhard nature, though, his capability is nowhere near unfounded, and in fact he was the first member of Team FAWN to decide to stick around to protect the evacuating citizens during the fall of Beacon, motivating the rest of them to do the same. For both his fans and his team, it was the moment when he finally lived up to his stories, and he’s been learning since then to value those who admire him and respect their strengths in return.

Stay tuned for the girls of Team FAWN - after I get them done, that is... hopefully this weekend I should have the last member sketched...

RWBY (c) RoosterTeeth

Team FAWN (c) me

[scrollofthoth]

A Brief History of Magick

Emergent Magick (EMK) views the practice of magick as an evolving art form starting from the very beginnings of the Homo genus. Archaeological evidence shows that even Neanderthal’s honored their dead.

In this view, magick progresses from era to era in different forms. However, even though the practice has evolved, it does not make older forms of magick less valid. While EMK provides the most useful philosophy of magick for modern magi in our current culture, there remains much to learn from older forms of magick. They continue to reveal their secrets through advances in archaeology and history. They also benefit from being practiced in a culture that universally believed in magick and having the best minds of their eras tasked to the magical arts. While EMK takes a progressive, postmodern approach to magick, it also seeks to learn from and in some ways emulate the shamanic magicians that practiced magick for tens of thousands of years of human pre-history.

Understanding what makes EMK unique requires a passing knowledge in the magical philosophies that have come before, especially its direct predecessor, Chaos Magick. Be forewarned, however, that the following history comes from an EMK perspective. Also, by virtue of its brevity, it omits large parts of magick’s history, which would take volumes to tell.

Pre-history

By the archaeological evidence, magick before civilization was practiced by tribal wise men who learned to talk with spirits, both alien spirits and spirits of the dead. The term shaman originally referred to the wise men of certain Siberian hunter-gatherer tribes, but it has been adopted to mean any wise person from a tribal culture who uses altered states of consciousness to travel to other realms and contact spirits.

They were the lynchpin of tribal society, responsible for maintaining the tribe’s social bonds. Since they could communicate with the ancestors, they served as their representative, passing on traditions and keeping the tribe’s history.

They also maintained the bonds by leading group ritual. The shaman talked the plant spirits and learned the properties of plants and the processes of turning them into a sacrament. The sacrament almost always consisted of a mixture of alcohol and psychedelics. The shaman used the sacrament in their own spirit quests, and distributed them to the entire tribe in times of celebration. Using ritual that contained dancing and drumming, the tribe would build a communal consciousness.

The shaman also provided healing and divination for the tribe through contact with the spirits.

Antiquity

Throughout its history magick has been intertwined with religion. As civilizations developed the role of the shaman changed to that of the priest. Priests in ancient civilizations talked to the highest spirits—the gods—and learned from them the preferred social order. Their ever growing, sedentary populations required stricter forms of social control. The priesthood tried to maintain a monopoly on magick and those who continued the shamanic or “folk” ways were persecuted. In some parts of the world that persecution continues to this day.

Magick became as structured as the society. Priests maintained the star charts and calendars that told the best times to plant, when animals would breed, when the rivers would rise, and when the rainy season would come. They also maintained the strict rituals necessary to talk to the gods and their representative spirits. Magick became about saying the right words, with the right offerings, at the right time.  The communal aspect dissolved as the priests attempted to keep more power for themselves. The sacrament became a metaphorical shadow of the former tribal celebrations.

Middle Ages

At this time our history splits into the history of Western magick, as it is the forbearer of EMK. Later, Eastern magical traditions will have great influence on later Western practices. By the Middle Ages, the three religions of the Book dominate the West—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. All magick was shoehorned into a paradigm that had a single, all-powerful god. Former gods became demons or angels. The priesthood kept catalog of these gods and continued to use them in magick according to their altered form. What survives of magical writings of the time include a combination of folk magick spells and goetia—the art of summoning demons or angels to do your bidding. Unlike today where any willing contact with the demonic is considered an affront to God, the magicians in the Middle Ages saw evoking demons to do God’s work as perfectly natural. They were God’s creation and they should be made to work as punishment for their wicked nature.

Renaissance

Like everything else in the Renaissance, magic was influenced by the revival of literature from antiquity. A greater access to books (at least amongst the upper class) meant more practicing magicians and a great number of the new magicians came from outside the priesthood. The Renaissance gave rise to many more secular forms of magick like—hermeticism, alchemy, geomancy, Kabbalah, and astrology. Complex forms of divination like tarot also developed in this era.

However, for those outside the gentry, fear and persecution rained. While the rich could practice their more intellectual and more complex forms of magick without trouble, those who practiced folk magick suffered greatly from church inspired zealots.

To be sure, the “Burning Times” are a modern neo-pagan fantasy. There was no holocaust of true witches during the Renaissance. Most who were swept up in the hangings and burnings were simply women who for one reason or another angered men in power. Most likely by asserting themselves of actual human rights. But it would also be a mistake to believe that no true practitioners were put to the stake.

The Magical Revival

As the Renaissance progressed, Europeans developed increasingly dim views on magick. All forms of magick became associated with the Devil and thus anti-Christian. The persecution moved beyond just attacking peasant women. Witch trials became opportunities for rich landowners to accuse and steal land from other rich landowners. Soon, very few wanted to be associated with magick. For almost two hundred years magick stalled and went underground in the West.

The Revival started in France in the mid 19th century, where masonic groups like the Rosicrucians had kept the hermetic secrets alive. As the church lost power and society became more secular some wealthy scholars, like Eliphas Levi, were able to come out and produce books and gather with likeminded individuals. This spread across the channel to the English with their penchant for forming social clubs. Three English gentlemen, William Robert Woodman, William Wynn Westcott, and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, formed the most influential magical society of modern times--The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Around the same time, Helena Blavatsky formed the Theosophical Society, which studied religion, practiced its own forms of magick, like spiritualism, and was heavily influenced by Eastern mysticism. Once again, there was very little interest in folk magick, and those outside the upper and middle classes seldom participated in these societies.

Many people in these groups practiced highly-ritualized magick based on Hermeticism and bastardized forms of Jewish Kabbalah. That’s when they actual performed any magick at all. Eliphas Levi is famously quotes, "To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage." Left in the hands of the English gentry, magick became an intellectual exercise.

Thelema

Despite his numerous flaws, one can easily argue that one man broke the mold and brought magick kicking and screaming into the modern era. Aleister Crowley, born to parents who were members of the ultra-conservative Plymouth Brethren, was a member of the Golden Dawn and well known for his anti-establishment ways. Already an accomplished magician, in 1904 Crowley and his new bride, Rose, took a trip to Egypt. There, the couple channeled the spirit of an ancient Egyptian priest and wrote a book called Liber AL vel Legis, or The Book of the Law. Liber AL was the foundational document for a magical religion called Thelema.

Thelema means “will” in Greek and refers to a person’s true will, that which they were born to accomplish. The most important commandment of Thelema, called The Law by its adherents, Thelemites, is: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.

In 1915 Crowley co-opted a German masonic organization called the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) and turned it into his own religious organization based on Thelema. Crowley also wrote numerous books, and formed the purely magical organization, the A.˙.A.˙.. Crowley’s magical system contained a mixture of Eastern and Western magical techniques from yoga to Kabbalah. His mythology included obscure Egyptian deities and co-opted figures from the Book of Revelations. Crowley’s organizations continued to use masonic style initiations and grade systems.

While Crowley had a turbulent personal life and died practically a pauper, his writings lived on. His mixture of using Eastern and Western styles and using magick as a journey of self-discovery dominated magical practice in the English speaking world and beyond. His legend earned him the attention of the Beatles (most likely John Lennon) and he was included on the cover of their album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Crowley’s adherents would say this was the result of his magick and influence on the age. Crowley’s organizations grew after his death and are now more popular than when he was alive.

Neo-Paganism

In 1951, the United Kingdom repealed its witchcraft laws. A man named Gerald Gardner, a known associate of Crowley, took it as an opportunity to introduce a religion called Wicca to the world. Gardner claimed that Wicca came from an old tradition passed on from families that had kept their practice hidden for years. However, many of the Wiccan rituals he wrote of were obviously watered down versions of rituals created by Crowley and the Golden Dawn.

Gardner presented Wicca as a religion practiced by witches from ancient times and the religion centers on eight holidays based off, equinoxes, solstices, and traditional festivals. Wicca became the catalyst for the formation of other types of neo-pagan religions. Some tried to emulate the few known practices of the ancient Greeks and Celts. Others used a combination of folk traditions and records from witchcraft trials and other documents to develop a practice of “traditional” witchcraft. Most of these groups performed various forms of magick from the high rituals based on the Golden Dawn tradition to various traditional festivals still alive in England and other European countries. Some even incorporated magical practices from African diasporic religions, under the belief that these religions reflected true pagan practices from ancient times.

Today, many find magick through neo-paganism, and some move on to other forms of magick after discovering it through these religions.  

Chaos Magick

In 1976, two men from West Yorkshire, Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin, both interested in various forms of magick began meeting with a few others above Sherwin’s bookstore. They developed a new system of magick and later founded The Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros. Chaos magick was heavily influenced by the Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare, and the fantasy and science fiction authors of the time.

Chaos magick does not advocate for any one form of religion or belief. It is essentially a system of techniques. Those techniques mostly teach the magician to develop altered states of consciousness (called gnosis by chaos magicians), that are used to “empower” a practitioner’s magick. The central tenant of chaos magick is that belief itself is a tool. You can apply the techniques of magick to any belief system and get results.

Chaos magick measures success by achieving results, although it admits to only being able to change probable outcomes, with spectacular effects being few and far between, or some believe non-existent. Chaos magick advocates for changing one’s own belief system in its entirety if needed to achieve results. It also advocates for belief systems based on a magician’s personal likes and interests rather than traditional systems. This leads to chaos magicians basing their practice on pop culture, which they claim is more effective than unrelatable ancient deities.

Emergent Magick

On June the 21st, of the year 2010, a small group of magicians, including Frater Zentra El, wandered the late-night streets of Manhattan in a state of deep chemognosis. He spotted a book lying in the gutter, he at first mistook it for one of his own magical journals, which are kept in similar composition books. Zentra El took it with him and spent the rest of the night studying its contents which appeared to be the ravings of madman (see the Gutter Bible by Scroll of Thoth Press).

Zentra El used it as the foundation for his own magical practices and began teaching and performing rituals based on its contents around the world. He stuck to a strict code that all of the mythology and beliefs created for his new magical system would only come from acts of magick itself. Zentra El and his associates used magick to discover the entities and cosmology of their new “emergent” practice.

As Zentra El developed his own magical society (The Order of Emergent Magi), he taught the theory of Emergent Magick (EMK) to others and a new magical philosophy developed. Unlike its predecessors, EMK centers on group magick. Each member of the group is encouraged to develop their own central paradigm or belief system. Like chaos magick, a practitioner of EMK may switch paradigms from time to time, especially when participating in group rituals created by other members of their tribe. However, they also keep a single, personal paradigm that they develop through magical revelation. This devotion to their path, while it may change dramatically through continued revelation, remains the core of their magick and spirituality.

EMK focuses less on results and more on personal development and harmonious group dynamics. It intends to reintroduce the world to tribalism in a modern, accepting context. It allows people from disparate beliefs to come together and form cohesive, loving, personal connections through group ritual practice. It eschews the masonic grade system for group consensus and decentralized leadership. It also reintroduces the use of psychedelics in a shamanic context to bring back the initiatory experience lacking in materialist societies.

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Who’s Your Spirit Animal? The Truth Might Surprise You

Do you know who your spirit animal is?

Even more important, do you have a personal relationship with your Spirit Animal? You should. They can help you in so many ways, as you’ll see. If you don’t yet, I highly recommend finding out. Because it might not be who you think!  And you may be missing their important messages and guidance too.

First, do you know what a Spirit Animal actually is?

A spirit animal is characterized as a teacher or messenger that comes in the form of an animal and has a personal relationship with an individual. Other names might be animal guides, spirit helpers, spirit allies, power animals, spirit totems, or animal helpers.

WHO is your Spirit Animal?

I’ve been taught that each of us has 9 main ones, and others come along when it’s important to get our attention.

In advanced Animal Talk Coaching & Mastery Club Platinum member Masterclasses I host in The Heart School of Animal Communication, students are guided to discover their spirit animals. The student’s discoveries were mind blowing, and the experience changed their lives for the better on so many levels.

My first experience with this was extraordinary.  During an unforgettable shamanic underworld journey while in an advanced workshop hosted by Penelope Smith, I was guided to find and bring back my partner’s spirit animal. Her’s was a wonderful, mischievous, creative and highly intelligent Monkey.

The monkey spirit animal is a powerful symbol of good luck. This is because it represents a playful and lighthearted version of yourself. The meaning of the monkey seeks to awaken your youthful and cheerful spirit, and the inner child in you.

Monkey rocked her world, literally and figuratively!  But that’s a story for another time.

An unlikely match…?  Meeting my spirit animal shocked me.

So who do you think my partner found for me? I would never have guessed this one.

I can tell you I was absolutely shocked when she returned from her journey and revealed my spirit animal to me.

I’d been imagining all sorts of wonderful animal spirit totems, like Bear, Wolf, Hawk, Horse�� maybe the noble Mountain Lion, Eagle, or the nimble Rabbit!

I could barely wait to find out who my spirit animal was. But I never could have imagined the reality.

She said: “Your spirit animal… is a Snake”.

Facing my fears.

I could only gape at her with my mouth hanging open as I sat there, stunned. I couldn’t help but think there must have been a mistake.

It’s not that I don’t like reptiles, I love all creatures. But I’d never felt a strong affinity for snakes before, let alone considered them kindred spirits or a guiding Messenger.

I had a healthy respect for snakes, born out of several close encounters I’d had where I felt lucky to have escaped unharmed. Because of that snakes have always been a bit scary for me. They’re not warm or fuzzy or cuddly. In fact, they can kill people.

Surely she’d done the exercise wrong?

So I had to ask: “A snake? Really?” Honestly, I felt scared at first.

But, I took a few deep breaths, gathered my courage as best I could, and got ready to face my fears.

I tuned in to meet Snake.

In my vivid imagination and inner mental monitor, she was huge! She lay coiled around a large tree limb, calmly looking down at me.

Easily 200 pounds or more, she was a stunning iridescent green. She greeted me as I looked up at her.

I asked my spirit animal if she had a message for me?

She did. She talked to me about reclaiming my power and shedding toxic energy.

I was suffering in an abusive marriage. I knew exactly what she was talking about.

Then, she taught me about masks and identities. She told me that just like a snake sheds her skin as she grows, I would also drop away that which no longer served me.

She taught me about transmuting poison—changing and growing something that had been toxic into something beautiful.

I was suffering from advanced Lyme Disease at that time, and through Snake’s help, I began to recover.

She taught me so many things that I needed to learn in order to move forward from the period of life I was in and showed me the importance of boundaries, self-respect, and clarity. She also taught me to appreciate and use my own wisdom.

Are you ready to deepen your connection with animals and start really communicating? Look here to find out about all The Heart School of Animal Communication online courses, classes and Animal Talk Coaching & Mastery Club membership opportunities.  Get started today!

Your Spirit Animal is a Messenger for Clarity, Guidance, and Self Growth Dedicated to Your Highest Good.

Because of her insightful counseling that day I began making changes in my relationships and in my life. I learned how to defend myself better and began standing up for myself more.

It was a life-changing conversation. When I got back home from the workshop I did more research into the meaning of Snake as a Spirit Animal or Totem.

What I found out was so on target, I felt blessed and in awe of the Divine Gift I’d received.

The snake as a spirit animal is powerfully connected to life force and primal energy. In many cultures, the snake is revered as a powerful totem representing the source of life itself.

I found out that when the snake appears in your life, as spirit animal or otherwise, it likely means that healing opportunities, important transitions, and increased energy are manifesting.

Snake as a spirit animal is a symbol for healing

As I mentioned above, the snake represents life force. Being a reptile, it is very close to earth energies and is reminiscent of unconscious drives and primal instincts. When the snake appears to you as a spirit animal, pay attention to where you are drawing your energy and how you use it.

If you feel you have an affinity with the snake and think she might be your spirit animal, this could be a signal to be sensitive to your healing abilities, not only for others but for yourself as well.

Focus on cultivating sources of energy and support, especially as they relate to the earth and nature.

Snakes have been revered as symbols of healing powers and opportunities since ancient times. In Greek mythology, Aesclepius, the god of medicine, was depicted with two snakes climbing up a rod. This symbol, called the caduceus, remains today as a common association symbol associated with healing.

Snake as spirit animal—what does that mean for you?

When Snake shows up as your spirit animal, it usually means:

An element of healing in your life, either of healing others or being healed;

Transformation, life changes;

Lifeforce and primal energy is a factor in your life;

Spiritual guidance plays a large role in your life.

The snake as a spirit animal can provide guidance about any life changes and transitions in your life, whether they are happening on the physical, emotional, or spiritual level.

You just need to learn how to tune in and listen to the messages.

Tuning in, connecting with the animals and nature around me has been my path for most of my life.  Since I met Snake in 1996, I’ve developed my communication, healing and transformational abilities further and faster and deeper than I could have ever expected.

I feel humbled by that experience, and also in awe of the process of discovery that I have gone through.

Have you met your Spirit Animal yet?

If you’ve been feeling that it’s time to really start communicating with animals and/or you are ready to meet your spirit animals, begin your journey now. Start here at The Heart School of Animal Communication with your free ebook.

Once you have the basics down, you’ll be ready to join the Animal Talk Coaching & Mastery Club. Platinum members have all the Masterclasses including this one that will teach you how to find your own spirit animal.

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