I’m working on several blog posts about various things, although I have to admit that I am not so sure how interested people are in the Kabbalah stuff I have been writing about lately. It is interesting to me, but perhaps people want to read about plants when they come here. I just know that for me, writing about Kabbalah here seems to clarify points for me, so I hope it does interest at least some of my readers.
That said, I have to admit that I have been a little discouraged lately about the magical world. A couple weeks ago, some blogger announced he was now a Christian, like this was a big surprise, and among other things, people who don’t like being wished Merry Christmas should just DEAL WITH IT, his words. Frankly, since so many readers of blogs about magic are in fact NOT Christians, it seemed pretty arrogant to me that someone would take this attitude. But worse to me was the hypocrisy of being the keynote speaker at NYC’s Pagan Pride Day and being a Christian at the same time. And then in subsequent posts he backed down. He wasn’t really a Christian or just a Christian. He is also a Bon priest and a Buddhist. Sure, and I am a Jesuit because I studied Latin in high school.
Then I find there is some buffoon in Florida who does a lot of spellwork for hire and has his own radio show. He decided that burning a rooster alive on a grave was a great way to cure some woman who’d hired him (he usually charges about $2000). He took pictures of the rooster on fire and posted them on his Facebook page and boasted about what he’d done, I guess to show the woman she’d gotten her money’s worth and also to demonstrate what a badass sorcerer he is. Because you know, if you can tape a rooster’s legs together and set it on fire, you must be one hell of sorcerer. When people thought he was a first-rate skeev for doing this and pointed out that it’s a felony to commit animal cruelty in Florida, which includes burning an animal alive, he backtracked and took down the photos and started talking about how his Facebook page was hacked. This is the honesty of this particular buffoon in action, who is in other ways damned laughable. When the family of the guy buried in the grave the buffoon burned the rooster on found out about it, they were hurt and upset. The buffoon’s reaction? “This is my religion.” I think he meant to say, “This is my income stream.”
Then to put icing on that little cake, someone styling herself a Haitian Vodou mambo comes rushing to his defense and screams about how we are pillorying this poor buffoon and he is our brother and we should all stand behind him and protect him from the authorities and the mean Evangelicals out there, who are always looking for an excuse to pick on some poor magical buffoon. I go to look up this mambo, and she is a white woman from Massachusetts. She runs a “charity” for helping poor starving Haitian children, a “trust fund,” as she calls it, apparently believing that the word “trust” in “trust fund” indicates that the charity is honest and trustworthy, the poor benighted fool. She also runs spiritual tours to Haiti where for a mere $3500, you too can become a certified honky fool mambo.
Then it turns out that this mambo has been pursued all over the internet since the nineties by someone who has done things like photoshop her picture onto black/white SM pr0n. This someone I would normally think of as at least not a loose cannon in the world of magic, although he is yet another white American who styles himself a practitioner of Haitian Vodou, although he has not referred to himself as a bokor, but I haven’t paid that close attention. I had thought of him as at least having something to say that was not complete shit on the topic of Vodou. Now? What a fricking joke.
I should point out for the sake of clarity that I have nothing against people who do spells for hire. How could I? I do it myself. But I do have something against people who are so focused on the money that they no longer care or even realize how cruel or predatory or hypocritical or just plain ludicrous they are.
I have to say that right now I feel discouraged about the state of magic or maybe just the amount of pure, unadulterated bullshit and meanness out there in occulture. Maybe it is just the time of year or something. Normally I enjoy winter a lot. And I have been enjoying the company of my friends, my customers, my readers, and my cats. I’m not saying the world is all evil and nasty. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just I am for the first time feeling like perhaps this particular bit of occulture, with all the bullshit that normally I just find humorous, is not for me.
For my part, two points. One is this, please continue clarifying things by references to Kabbalah and your Jewish heritage: I really enjoy it and learn from it. Two is, sadly, me recalling Sturgeon’s Law: %90 of everything is crap.
Shibboletta
I like that Sturgeon’s Law. Very true.:) Thanks!
Geez, all of this makes me very sad to hear. I hope the fellow who burned the turkey alive is reported to the authorities. All cultures (pagan, christian, muslim) have their wacky, abusive leaders that claim divine knowledge or some other nonsense. This kind of thing is especially hard as pagans because so many paths in paganism are very secretive or mystery traditions (including my own), and its our tendency to protect and keep secret, not be out and open about someone else’s practices.
However, I think we have a responsibility to speak our truths about these people when (notice I DIDN”T say spread rumors!) and not let them hide in the shadows. Witchcraft is powerful and that power and be corrupted and abused very easily.
Thanks for bringing this to light! I know its depressing but like I said, speaking the truth and outing these folks is sacred work all on its own.
He has been reported to the authorities, but they are saying that since they basically didn’t have a film of him setting fire to the chicken, they won’t do anything. We’ll see. At least he knows now that he cannot put this kind of thing up on the web and thereby make it more “acceptable.”
You aren’t the only one feeling that way. It may be the time of year, but I doubt it. The year of 2011 seems filled with madness. However, on to important things… I am always interested in learning about Kabbalah!
It sure does feel like a crazy time. Ever since this summer, really.
I am glad you are interested in learning about Kabbalah. I am very much interested and keep finding all this neat stuff.
Please, write about whatever interests you including Kaballah. Certainly Kaballah is very much a part of Western Occultism and your take on it is worthwhile.
Thank you!
I must say I enjoy all of your essays, be it gardening, kabbala, magic in general, canning, dreams… whatever; don’t close yourself off, I cry selfishly from the interwebs! we need all the thoughtful, reasoned, sane and insightful discourse we can get. Thank you for your writings, I look forward to more in the future.
Thank you so much. Believe me, there will be canning posts as well.:)
Greetings Esteemed Harold,
Please don’t change, and don’t give in to dismay over the “Fear Me” occult
power grabbers.
My theory is that we are in a time when much more is being disclosed, and that honesty can be painful to digest, but necessary to know of.
Your blogs are thoughtful, insightful, informative as all get out, and compassionate….
no matter what topic you cover.
The planet is a better place because you share your gifts.
Ok, my two cents.
Blessings,
Alephestra {and Fat Zorro}
Thanks for your kind encouragement!
I was fascinated by your posts on Kabbalah and in fact went back and looked up notes and I made some years ago on Gershom Sholem, Walter Benjamin and the Lurianic Kabbalah. I’d like to hear more.
For about three years now I’ve been reading pagan and occult blogs on the Internet and have learned not to take many blogs at face value. There are some genuine and dedicated practitioners and ‘seekers’ out there and there are people who are chasing money or notoriety. Because I have had the opportunity to spend time with Angolan voudoun communities around Luanda, I am wary of Eurocentric appropriations and outlandish claims. Too much self-aggrandising and depoliticised wishful thinking.
That must be incredible to be seeing voudoun from the perspective of Luanda! You said it about the Eurocentric appropriations. Many white Americans just glom onto the cultural products of others without even bothering to learn the language, much less anything else.
I enjoy reading your posts on Kabbalah as much as I enjoy the ones on gardening, please do continue.
Sadly you get idiots in all walks, but don’t let them put you off doing things!
Thanks!
Well, definitely continue on with your Kabbalah blog. Its very enlightening and put a lot of that stuff in perspective. As for these charlatans, they’ve always been a part of “Occuculture” going way back to the days of Spirit Photography in the 1890′s when they took photos of people with cotton wadding in their mouths. Some people have a little success selling their Art and it goes to their head and then you have someone doing a two thousand dollar barbecued chicken on Facebook. That is rather pathetic to see, but it doesnt really change what we do and what we believe.
I know you are right. It just has gotten to me lately.
Write whatever you want! I find it all very precious!
I, also, find your posts interesting, no matter the topic. As for the loopiness going around the blogsphere…the first one i caught (as you say, no surprise. this one does have some interesting things to say on occasion), the others….well, interestingly enough, most ‘occult’ blogs i follow are overseas.
There are definitely some good ones overseas. I like Jacobus Swartz’s blog on Kabbalah–he’s in South Africa, I believe.
Totally keep up the QBL, man. I dig it, and I’m often somewhat hostile to the subject due to its problematic tendencies in CM circles. Your stuff has none of that B.S. and is highly enjoyable to read.
The first person you discuss, however, is everything he claims. He has issues with labeling and explaining his personal divergences, and how he’s really a Jack-of-All-Occult-Trades, though. That said, your feelings on his comments may not be off the mark. I just think most folks can’t comprehend the massive amount of time he’s spent with multiple systems.
Don’t let the crazies get you down. They aren’t worth the worry.
Thanks for the encouragement, guy. Re becoming an expert on other cultural practices, my feeling as someone who spent a lot of time studying other languages is that unless you know the language, you don’t really know the culture. I had this experience with Russian, which I studied during the Cold War period when there were gobs of professional anti-communists out there making pronouncements about the Soviets when they did not know any Russian. For us involved in magic, how can we master magical practices that are part of a culture where we don’t know the language? I am finding this very strongly with Kabbalah. My knowledge of Hebrew is basically slightly above the level of so-called prayer Hebrew. I can follow along and I can puzzle out what sentences mean in prayers if I am presented with a side-by-side translation, and I can do the same with the Torah, the five books of which are not that hard. The major works of Kabbalah and Kabbalistic magic are written in Hebrew or Rabbinic Aramaic or some dodgy combination. I can see that unless I come to be truly fluent in both languages, I am not going to know Kabbalah on a level much above that of an outsider. That’s not sufficient for me to feel free to use many of its techniques, IMO, much less call myself an expert no matter how many books in English on Kabbalah I read, etc.
I’m not even remotely interested in QBL – but I like reading your takes on it. I see similarities, and interesting parallels that make me realize there was probably a lot more cross-pollination between Jewish Mystics and oldworld Witches than most people prefer to talk about.
As for the other stuff? I’ve gotten sick of the internet myself. Of “Occult Personalities” overwhelming their bad behavior, bad scholarship, bad information…etc. And woe betide those who go against them. Oh well. As my friends and I say “Bitches bein’ bitches” or (rough translation) “Low-class individuals, and those of less than sane countenance cannot be expected to rise to a higher level.”
I am glad that someone who is not into Kabbalah is getting something out of the stuff I have been posting about it, because I am seeing precisely what you are saying–all this cross-pollination. Not in the way it is usually presented in occulture: Jews ripped off Kabbalah from the ancient Egyptians, Lemuria, or it’s really all about Christianity, or it’s not Jewish at all, etc. I get fed up with that approach. But the more I learn about it, the more it seems that there can be respectful interaction between different spiritual practices while maintaining one’s own cultural integrity and peculiar ways. I certainly could see that in late antiquity with stuff in the Greek magical papyrus, where everyone is using everyone else’s stuff, at least in that little neck of the woods. And with that, I don’t get the feeling that “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine” that often seems to be the underlying thread of occulture nowadays, the whole cultural appropriation thing. At any rate, I do keep coming across all kinds of things that can work for various types of practitioners in their own cultural context.
I second Jack’s defense of “the individual” you mention early in your posting. The man walks the walk. He didn’t just pick up a book on tantra and start calling himself a guru. He paid his dues in the Himalaya. And he’s gone out of his way to find good teachers of other traditions. He’s really sincere. I’m also slowly understanding that I’m a “Christian”, but that what I understand under that term is a definition the majority of Western Christians wouldn’t accept. After going through my teenage atheist phase, and then my rebellious heathen phase, in my fifties I am getting to realize that I’m comfortable with some of the trappings of Catholic ritual and the saints I grew up with. But I also believe that Christianity is an extension of the Egyptian religion, and so are Judaism and Islam. I’m really cool with it all.
As for the garbage one has to put up with as a contemporary occultist, magician, witch, mystic, whatever wavelength gets you to the invisible dimensions of being — the mentor of my youth always warned me, “Occult literature is full of bullshit. You have to winnow an awful fucking lot of chaff to find precious little wheat. But there’s no choice. So get used to it.” So I guess that warning inoculated me at a young age (over thirty years ago). Ninety percent is a generous estimation. I’d guess at least 95% is chaff. And to somehow bring a chicken simile in here: I’ve gotten to be a wise old hen. I can spot wheat much faster than I used to. It’s all a matter of experience.
I’m also in my fifties, but I have found that the older I get, the less patience I have with jackasses. Maybe it’s just that they have lost their entertainment value, since most of them come in the same flavors over and over again. It’s like seeing nothing but reruns on TV until you are ready to smash the set.
I came to renewed interest in Judaism in the eighties because of reading feminist reinterpretations of rituals or Biblical stories. This showed me that there could be completely different practices and beliefs in Judaism; it wasn’t the way it had been presented to me as overwhelmingly patriarchal and highly rationalist. And Judaism has changed a lot in the past several decades too. Like your new appreciation for the saints and rituals, I came to see things like the pomegranates on the Torah crowns and hymns like Leha Dodi as having a very deep and rich significance, that such things are basically doors or hypertexts to other practices of Judaism, other approaches. I am sure I would still be considered a heretic by various Jews, but now that feels okay.
I’ll add my voice to the others — please post about all that interests you. I love it all! (As a home canner, I’m looking forward to the future canning posts.)
It can be intensely demoralizing to read and watch some of what’s going on. Hang in there.
I enjoy reading your blog not just for the beautiful images and writings you post about your garden, but also because I’m interested in learning about the unique spiritual path that Pagans other than myself treat, which, for you, includes Kabbalah – so I’m interested!
It’s also a topic I would not be likely to read about on my own, at least not at this point in my own journey, so I enjoy being exposed to a sliver of it via your blog.
I don’t care if someone wants to take on the labels of multiple religions, although I find it a little silly, but it does offend me that he thinks people should just “deal with it” when it comes to being wished a “Merry Christmas.” Not everyone is a Christian and I’m sure a lot of those Merry Christmas-centric folk out there would not be as magnanimous if they were wished a “Happy Hanukah” or a “Glad Yule;” it’s really just another form of intolerance.
Burning any animal alive is just inhuman in this day and age. If he’s the great practitioner of magic of any sort that he seems to believe he is, then he could have found a less atrocious way to achieve the same results for his patron.
Old post I know, but I enjoy your posts about Kabbalah. It’s something I’ve had an interest in learning about but as of yet have not made the time that I feel it deserves in order to delve into it.
First I’d like to say I love visiting your page. It’s good to hear about these fascinating topics, Kabbalah included, that pertain to my own spiritual path. I too get upset when people do stupid things to encourage the negative stereotypes that still seem to follow wiccan/pagan/new age beliefs. Also I know how Christians can be, my co-workers saw a book on witchcraft herbs in my pocket and told me I was going to hell and worship their devil.
What I’m trying to say is don’t let a few dumbasses get you down. It amazes me in this day and age that these things are still going on. Most of us know where to draw the line. Don’t change and stay strong!