I'm delighted to announce that the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, one of the traditions preserved and passed onto me by John Gilbert, has now issued the Octagon Society lessons in book format. Here's the announcement from the Council of Guardians:
"The Council of Guardians for the Order of Spiritual Alchemy is delighted to announce the release of The Octagon Society Lessons in the form of a physical book.
For those who prefer to work with something in hand, the classic lessons have been reproduced with a new introduction by the President of the Council of Guardians, William Hunter Duncan. The book is spiral-bound so it will lie flat while journaling, and modestly priced to cover the expense of printing. The OSA takes no profit from its sale.
Special thanks to Wendy, who posts here as TemporaryReality, for her hard work in carefully preparing the written material and cover art for production. We couldn't have done it without her!
As always, the lessons can be found in free digital format on the OSA's website: https://octagonsociety.org/ ."
For those who haven't been following along, the Octagon Society lessons are a set of journaling exercises meant to help you unpack all your unfinished business, deal with it, and get a life. Yes, it's as challenging as this makes it sound, but if you want to deal with the burdens of the past and go on to have a life worth living, I know of no better way to do it. Please join me in congratulating the Council of Guardians and longtime poster TemporaryReality for making this resource available in a new and useful form.
I'm back from break! It was very refreshing and productive and looking forward to reading for you all.
I am happy to read your Ogham free of charge -- that's how I hone my divination skills. Please limit your reading request to four or fewer Ogham cards: though this can take many forms, here are some common ones (all of them are basically combos of 4 cards):
-a single three card reading for the week or month and a one-off, one card reading
-four questions about four separate items that require one answer (card) per item -a one card reading to answer a specific question and a three card for a more nuanced question -Two separate readings, two cards a piece exploring the positives and negatives of two different choices
I am happy to do Ogham readings confidentially via email -- just email me at k steele studio at gmail during the allotted time/before deadline. I cannot answer health questions. If you have a question about health or another sensitive, private matter, provide a bunch of non-identifying information and the Ogham will be able to figure it out even if I don't. I'm serious... the Ogham actually tend to "know" things without me being privy to what is going on.
Please note I take time off during Solstices and Equinoxes for Druid stuff and because sometimes I simply need a break.
My next planned break is from October 23 - November 6.
I take reading requests from whenever this post goes up on Friday night until 8pm US Central Time Saturday.
For a more in depth look into how I read and interpret the Ogham's symbols, please visit my website druidogham.wordpress.com.
I am currently trying to minimize my use of PayPal. If you'd like to make a donation, I would be grateful if you did it here:
Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.
Rule #1: this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc. I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.
Rule #2: this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.
Rule #3: please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about. Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.
Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.
Rule #5: don't post LLM ("AI") generated content, and don't bring up the subject unless you're running a homemade LLM program on your own homebuilt, steam-powered server farm.
With that said, have at it!
Current Mood:calm
Current Music:Will Ackerman, "The Townshend Shuffle"
After the grievous death of his daughter, it next happened to Menkaure that an oracle was sent to him from the city of Bouto, declaring that he had but six years to live and must die in the seventh. The king deemed this unjust, and sent back to the oracle a message of reproach, blaming the god: why must he die so soon who was pious, whereas his father and his uncle had lived long, who shut up the temples, and regarded not the gods, and destroyed men? But a second utterance from the place of divination declared to him that his good deeds were the very cause of shortening his life; for he had done what was contrary to fate; Egypt should have been afflicted for an hundred and fifty years, whereof the two kings before him had been aware, but not Menkaure. Hearing this, he knew that his doom was fixed.
(Herodotos, Histories II §133, as translated by A. D. Godley with minor edits by yours truly.)
Assuming Herodotos's story is trustworthy, this is a fantastic theological argument for something; I'm just not sure what...
Dead cats are taken away into sacred buildings, where they are embalmed and buried, in the city of Bubastis [...]. Field mice and falcons are taken away to Buto, ibises to the city of Hermes.
(Herodotos, Histories II §67, as translated by A. D. Godley with minor edits by yours truly.)
Now, this struck me, since Bubastis (hence the cat) was the holy place of Bastet (Artemis/Hekate), while Buto (hence the mouse and falcon) was the holy place of Horos (Apollon), being his birthplace. Now, we're very familiar with cats, but the Greeks weren't; they kept weasels to hunt mice, and while we tell silly stories about cats and mice, they told the same sorts of stories about weasels and mice. Here's a dopey example I ran across back when I was studying Teiresias:
[Teiresias] dined at the wedding of Thetis and Peleus. A beauty contest between Aphrodite and the Graces, named Pasithea ["the goddess of all," wife of Sleep, hence refreshment], Kale ["beauty"], and Euphrosune ["happiness"], was held there. He was made judge and judged Kale the most beautiful, and she married Hephaistos, which so galled Aphrodite that she turned Teiresias into an old spinster, but Kale made her very beautiful and brought her to Crete, where Arakhnos ["spider"] fell in love with her and, having had sex with her, bragged that he lain with Aphrodite herself. This so infuriated the goddess that she turned Arakhnos into a weasel and Teiresias into a mouse, which is why they say a mouse eats so little (because it is an old woman) and why they say it can tell the future (because it is Teiresias). That it can tell the future is clear because its squeakings are a timely sign of a storm, and that it flees a house in danger of collapse.
(Eustathios of Thessolonike on the Odyssey 1665.48 ff., following Sostratos, Teiresias, as very hastily translated by yours truly—please consider it a mere paraphrase.)
Both of these—the association of Horos with mice and the association of the hero Teiresias with a mouse—of course calls to mind how Khruses, the high priest of Apollon, calls to Apollon Smintheus ("Apollon of the Mouse") to visit a plague upon the Akhaians at the beginning of the Iliad:
O Smintheus! sprung from fair Latona's line,
Thou guardian Power of Cilla the divine,
Thou source of light! whom Tenedos adores,
And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores;
If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane,
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain;
God of the silver bow! thy shafts employ,
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy.
(Homer, Iliad I 37–42, as translated by Alexander Pope.)
Evidently the ancients thought this very strange and spent a lot of ink trying to make sense of it. One example, concerning not only Apollon and mice but also weasels, runs like this:
People make fun of the Egyptians for regarding different kinds of animals as gods and worshipping them, but I hear that the Thebaians, despite being Hellenes, worship a weasel, since they say that it was the nurse of Herakles himself when he was born, or if it wasn't his nurse, that when Alkmene was in labor and wasn't able to give birth, it ran by and the bind on her labor was released, and Herakles was born and began to crawl right away.
And those who live in Hamaxitos in the Troad worship a mouse, and they say that for that reason they call Apollon, who they worship, by the name "Smintheus," because even today the Aioleans and the Troadians call the mouse sminthos, just like Aiskulos in his Sisyphus:
But what's so special about a field mouse?
And in the Smintheon they keep tame mice by a tax on the people's food, and white ones live in a hole under the altar, and a mouse stands beside the tripod of Apollon.
And those same people tell me a further story, that many myriads of mice came upon the yet unripe field crops of the Aioleans and the Troadians and cut them from beneath, causing the summer harvest to fail early. Accordingly they asked the god at Delphi and he answered that they must sacrifice to Apollon Smintheus, and they obeyed and were delivered from the treachery of the mice and their wheat attained a normal harvest.
And they also tell me another story on that topic, that a group of Cretans who had met with some bad luck were dispatched to found a colony and asked the Puthia to show them some good place where it would be advantageous to resettle, and the oracle answered that they should stop and raise a city where the "earth-born" attack them. So they came to where Hamaxitos now is and camped to rest for the night, but an uncountable multitude of mice snuck up and, scattering everywhere, ate their shield straps and bowstrings. They made the connection between these mice and the "earth-born," and anyway, now being without a means of protecting themselves [on the road], built a city and a temple to Apollon Smintheus.
Well, the mention of mice led us into some theology, but perhaps we are none the worse for hearing such stories.
But Aelien apparently misses the crucial point that Herakles's weasel was a human originally, and was transformed into a weasel by Hera as punishment for supporting Alkmene. Here is Antoninus Liberalis's account of the story:
At Thebes Proetus had a daughter Galinthias. This maiden was playmate and companion of Alcmene, daughter of Electryon. As the birth throes for Heracles were pressing on Alcmene, the Fates and Eileithyia, as a favour to Hera, kept Alcmene in continuous birth pangs. They remained seated, each keeping their arms crossed. Galinthias, fearing that the pains of her labour would drive Alcmene mad, ran to the Fates and Eileithyia and announced that by desire of Zeus a boy had been born to Alcmene and that their prerogatives had been abolished. At all this, consternation of course overcame the Fates and they immediately let go their arms. Alcmene's pangs ceased at once and Heracles was born. The Fates were aggrieved at this and took away the womanly parts of Galinthias since, being but a mortal, she had deceived the gods. They turned her into a deceitful weasel, making her live in crannies and gave her a grotesque way of mating. She is mounted through the ears and gives birth by bringing forth her young through the throat. Hecate felt sorry for this transformation of her appearance and appointed her a sacred servant to herself. Heracles, when he grew up, remembered the favour she had done for him and made an image of her to set by his house and offered her sacrifices. The Thebans even now maintain these rites and, before the festival of Heracles, sacrifice to Galinthias first.
(Antoninos Liberalis, Metamorphoses XXIX, as translated by Francis Celoria.)
The mention of Hekate here is very interesting, and this leads me to my own conclusion concerning Apollon Smintheus, which ties into a theory I expressed before.
Now, one the one hand, Apollon and Hekate have a sort of connection: Hekate means "from afar," and is the feminine form of a common epithet of Apollon (e.g. as a marksman); on the other hand, the two couldn't be more opposite: Apollon is the lord of light, while Hekate is the lady of darkness; Apollon is heavenly, while Hekate is chthonic; Apollon is associated with unity (indeed, the Neopythagoreans derived his name from ἁ-πολλόν "not many"), while Hekate is associated with multiplicity (always appearing triform). From a Neoplatonistic view, one gets the sense of Apollon guiding upwards and Hekate dragging downwards.
I think all these stories give us another angle on the same thing: Apollon is the god of mice, Hekate the goddess of weasels, and weasels eat mice. Since Apollon is the god of the mysteries, we might consider mice as his initiates; similarly, since Hekate is the goddess of magic, we might consider weasels to be magicians. Thus from these symbols it is very little wonder that most of the philosophers warned their students away from magic so vociferously: at that early stage, fired with enthusiasm for things spiritual, they could very easily be consumed by it and drawn to use spiritual means for material ends. As Lucius found out in the Golden Ass, of course, this leads nowhere.
On the other hand, Homer tells us that Apollon is also the god of falcons, which isn't a surprise to anyone who's been following my Horos series:
As he was saying so a bird flew towards him on the right,
a falcon, the swift messenger of Apollon; and with its feet
it plucked a pigeon it was holding, and feathers fell to the ground
between Telemakhos and his ship.
(Homer, Odyssey XV 525–8, as translated by yours truly.)
If the association of mice with initiates and weasels with magicians is correct, then falcons are surely heroes: those who have mastered the mysteries and soar on the wings so given.
I should also note, of course, that falcons eat weasels.
I was down the other day, and whenever I'm down I tend to think about angels, and that got me poking into the textual history of the Works and Days. It turns out that many variants of Hesiod were current even in antiquity, and that seems to be reflected in what we have access to, today.
The description of the daimons that I was familiar with is the scholarly accepted version of a century ago:
First of all, a golden race of humans with divided voice
the deathless ones having homes on Olumpus made.
[...]
They are called holy, righteous daimons on the earth,
warding off evil, guardians of mortal men,
so they tirelessly police laws and works
wearing air and going to and fro over all the land,
and are givers of wealth (for they have this royal privilege also).
(The translation is my own, hopefully not too bad!)
As it turns out, lines 122–3 are those given by Platon in the Kratulos; the problem with this is that it disagrees with a different version given by Platon in the Republic, the version given by Ploutarkhos in his commentary on the poem, and the version given by Proklos in his commentary. (It seems that all of the manuscripts of the poem that we have adhere pretty closely to Proklos's version, so it was a wilful choice to favor Platon over it, and to favor the Kratulos over the Republic!) It seems Platon bowdlerized the lines in order to fit the purposes of his dialogues (both literary—these are lines recalled from memory by Socrates—and philosophical—as he uses the descriptions to argue for theological points).
On top of that, lines 124–5 are copied from elsewhere in the poem and appear to be either a gloss or an error in the mainline branch of the manuscripts, and are apparently not duplicated elsewhere (e.g. in Proklos); M. L. West notes that a "police force administering legal justice" is quite different from the Providential givers of all good things described by the rest of the lines; and the grammatical context changes from line to line, too, which seems suspicious (though maybe I'm just not familiar enough with Hesiod's Greek, which always feels rather crabbed to me, at least by comparison with Homer).
At any rate, the current scholarly text, by M. L. West, gives the same section as follows:
First of all, a golden race of humans with divided voice
the deathless ones having homes on Olumpus made.
[...]
They are righteous daimons by the will of great Zeus,
on the earth, guardians of mortal men,
and givers of wealth (for they have this royal privilege also).
χρύσεον "golden:" incorruptible, hence never contaminated by material life. (This stands to reason; if material beings are granted guardians [#6, below] by Providence [#3, below] so that we have the potential for purification, then the guardians must themselves have never been material, since if they were, they would need their own guardians, who would need their own guardians, etc., which would be an infinite regress, which is absurd. So the guardians themselves must have never been material at any time.)
πρώτιστα "first of all:" that is, the race of not-gods that is closest to the gods.
τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες εἰσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλάς "they are daimons by the will of great Zeus:" Providence, being good, always ensures that there is a pathway to good for all. Each soul's daimon (from δαίομαι "to distribute"), therefore, is the means by which Providence acts (e.g. is distributed to mortals).
ἐσθλοί "righteous:" morally good, virtuous, faithful; does not have the capacity for bad, because they act out the will of Zeus.
ἐπιχθόνιοι "on the earth:" as opposed to in heaven (where the gods live) or below the earth in Tartarus (where the dead live—that is, us), indicating their middle status.
φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων "guardians of mortal men:" daimons protect mortals because mortals don't have the perceptive capacity or wisdom to protect themselves.
πλουτοδόται: καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον "givers of wealth (for they have this royal privilege also):" in archaic Greece, social status was not determined by how much you owned (as it is today), but how much and how freely you gave to others. Kings were kings because they had the greatest capacity to give. This same thread is taken up by Plotinos, who assigns higher position to those who are able give more freely of themselves (e.g. gods are gods because they can give without diminishment, and Zeus is king of the gods because Zeus is pre-eminent in doing so). Daimons are the agents by which the gods give: while the gods give universally, daimons give individually, mortals receive individually, once again demonstrating the middle rank of daimons.
We are now approaching the end of the fourth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary all these years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health are anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; public health authorities government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; and the story continues to unfold.
So it's time for another open post. The rules have been slightly expanded due to a recent discussion here:
1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.
2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its wholly owned politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here.
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue.
4. If you plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.
5. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.
6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.
7. Please don't post LLM ("AI") generated content. This is a place for human beings to talk to other human beings, not for the regurgitation of machine-generated text. Also, please don't discuss large language models (the technology popularly and inaccurately called "artificial intelligence" these days) except as they bear directly on the Covid phenomenon. Here again, my finger is hovering over the delete button.
Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.
It's almost midnight, and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note:Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will not be put through. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.
Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.
(The image? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share.)
I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.
I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.
And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.
With that said, have at it!
***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no more comments will be put through. See you next week!***
I hate it when I am taken advantage of for my natural gullibility. I have always had two warring sides housed within me: the blackhearted nihilist who wields freakishly bleak humor as a self-defense mechanism and my better, positive half. My lighter side is a gregarious, positive-biased sprite who believes in the inherent goodness within. She’s Pollyanna. She is also desperately naive. She does not see the writing on the wall until well after her dark counterpart.
I fell for the hope/change narrative when it got applied to Trump 2.0. Having lived through the Reagan years, I thought we would be repeating some key aspects of them, including a strong economy. That economy has yet to happen… depending on your class status. For the upper twenty percent stockholder class, everything is fine. They continue to enjoy spring ski vacations and international destination summers, all built on stock dividend money that has essentially been provided for them by Blackrock and other private equity firms. In other words, their comforts originate from the stolen, cannibalized, unearned wealth of the lower eighty percent. For the lower eighty percent, it’s a much different picture. We scramble to hold on in an environment that is financially, emotionally, and spiritually crushing and worsening all the time. We are in the Second Great Depression, where the jobs on Indeed and the like are imaginary, where kids are addicted to little handheld electrified boxes by the age of two, where breaking a leg or having a heart attack means becoming homeless/living out of your car even if you have insurance, and the game of musical chairs to stay afloat becomes faster and scarier every minute of every day. It’s both a wonderful and terrible time to be alive.
To be fair, Trump has made notable positive changes in his short time in office. He and Vance immediately provided real help and shelter for the victims of the Helene flood — a flood that was likely geoengineered by Blackrock to get at North Carolina’s lithium mines, but I digress — where Biden sat on his heels and let young families freeze to death in tents. Trump’s reversal of Woke/DEI initiatives has prevented the now and future transsing of many children and the irreversible mutilation of gender surgeries. Billions of American taxpayer dollars have been saved from being torched by USAID and its grist mill, though it is almost completely certain American taxpayers are not going to see any compensation for the staggering waste they were forced to fund. Illegal immigration has been curtailed for the most part and we are no longer hearing of marauding Venezuelans eating roasted cat on the balconies of commandeered buildings in Aurora, Colorado.
The looney Left’s pyrrhic victory is being broadcast for all to hear. “I told you so!” bellows the lib of TikTok, and her screech is almost glorious enough to raise the donkey/ass party from the dead. Almost, but not quite. Trump’s failure is not good for anyone, including them, because the hope that had begun to emerge out of the collective astral plane has turned to despair. They tend to be more easily victimized by the rampaging egregores and demons of depression, so we get to watch as those descend upon them without mercy. Any renewed faith will now die a quick death of continued gaslighting. “Nothing to see here” about medical malfeasance has morphed into the same about CIA/FBI/Mossad pedophilia. The collective astral was bad and now it gets worse. Nothing creates more collective astral pollution via unadulterated rage than gaslighting.
We are now being gaslighted (gaslit?) that Jeffrey Epstein was innocent as the driven snow. I guess Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison for no reason. I believe Jeffrey Epstein not only did not kill himself but is very much still alive. Trump sold my rantings to Palantir already so I might as well just be out with it. Jeffrey Epstein regularly hosted Hillary Frazzledrip Clinton at his 10,000 acre Zorro Ranch. I’m sure they did fun things there like play monopoly and roast s’mores and that is it.
With this most recent turn of events, the gates begin to yawn as Spenglerian caesars give way to other types of Spenglerian charismatic leaders who aren’t anywhere near as diplomatic or civilized as the ones we have known and loved. There has already been a groundswell of support for the idea of a bunch of disenfranchised manly men marching into to Haiti and taking the island by force. Trump’s failure and continued punishment and gaslighting of the middle class helped that world to materialize out of the more-Martial past. Ares will not be denied, and if soft leaders capitulate to pedophiles, it is only a matter of time before those leaders are swept away by barbarians who can and will sack Rome. Anyone who wishes for this catharsis because they have some limited gun training and a snarky attitude towards authority should probably stop obsessing over politics and get to the gun range when not learning to dry and store food, because not one of us are ready if it all goes to hell in fast mode. All that gold and silver you’ve stored in the walls is about to get your spouse and children brutally tortured and killed in front of your eyes if you get the Apocalypse you thought you wanted, so maybe take a cold shower the next time you get a hard on for it
Might as well relax because prepping is not easy when you are tired. The people are exhausted. So is the economy, trust, and morale. There will be no Morning in America. The fat lady has sung, and xe is a pedophile.
It’s a big club and you should thank heaven you ain’t in it
Pedophiles run the world. Maybe they always have. I spent a couple years in shock from about 2015-2017 when I began to understand that every last celebrity and politician was extremely likely to be embroiled in regular pedophilia and mutilation rituals of unimaginable depravity. I wrote an article about the subject that is behind a paywall, so please allow me to explain out here in the open.
The following is speculation for entertainment purposes only. It is hypothetical and not a bunch of allegations. I have gleaned this information from a talent that I have that is akin to remote viewing as well as deductive reasoning. As I always say, I could be wrong.
Anyone who reaches a certain level of fame, wealth, or influence is forced to assimilate into one or more pedophile elite cabals. Those who resist or who think they can stay at that level without joining have three choices:
Lose wealth and power and go back to being “average” (if you’re lucky)
Be physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually broken by elites via their rituals
Die
There are no additional choices. Someone like Trump, who had a great deal of money going in, still never had a chance. Ross Perot, the wildly popular independent who ran against unsuccessfully against Bill Clinton and then-incumbent George Bush in 1992, complained in a 60 Minutes interview that Republican operatives threatened to ruin his daughter’s wedding. I think they got to him, and I highly doubt the threats began or ended with his daughter’s nuptials.
Normie stuff does not satisfy a Wendigo
Actress and white monkey Jennifer Aniston has babbled on many occasions about pizza parties. Is she talking about Italian flatbreads or is she talking about something else entirely? Pizza is known pedophile code for little girls. Aniston’s wide eyed, unhinged stare combined with mostly-successful surgical attempts to look age twenty-eight in late middle age don’t exactly give her a trustworthy or sane vibe. Her constant rictus of a smile has a brittle edge. Perhaps she has become accustomed (addicted?) to certain elite practices. Does she patter on out of guilt or because she does truly enjoy pizza? Ick.
The Pollyanna in me refuses to believe celebrities or nouveau riche who get to a high level such as Aniston have any intention of becoming initiated as pedophiles. Most normal people do not know these clubs or practices exist, though there are plenty of normal enablers looking the other way when sketchy people are placed right in front of their eyes. As for the wannabe stars, sure, some may have been obliged to service Harvey Weinstein and his reeking mangina for a role, but that is as far as they suspected they would have to go. When they are inevitably drugged and wake up in a room full of ravenous Satanist sadists, it is not because they were informed that nightmare was part of the deal. The two main methods I believe elites use to capture populist upstarts, new captains of industry, rising entertainment stars, and illustrious influencers are:
Forcing them to witness and participate in the rape, murder, and cannibalization of children
Down-under mutilation branding
In order to “grab” the new kid on the block, they begin by drugging that person and/or a member of their family and forcing them to participate in the ritual violation of a child. They might drug the victim at a party as Sean Combs did on numerous occasion. They also might drug them at home. No place is safe and no person can be trusted. This ritual is repeated as many times as it takes: that is why it is called a ritual and not a one-off. Victims who see it enough times learn to associate and splinter into multiple personalities in order to deal with the trauma. Often the victim is raped and tortured alongside the baby or child or forced to inflict suffering. I believe Trump has been compromised in this way, alongside one or more of his children or grandchildren. I also believe something of this nature happened to Candace Owens, whose personality has now split in order to partition a collection of alters who perform functions of her ego. In other words, Trump, Owens, and other victims of this horrific practice may not be aware they have been tortured or forced to do hideous things to children. Disassociation is powerful and is often manipulated as a weapon, especially by shady governments.
The sadists-in-chief who orchestrate the vile levers of power always leave their mark. From what I can tell, they brand the private parts of their victims. They permanently mar parts of celebrities, politicians, and people of influence that nobody will ever see: labia, penises, the inside of the anus. They damage these parts as much as possible so the victim will always think of them when pooping, peeing, or having sex. They want to inflict pain that has been done to them — most of the ritual satanist types who do this were either born into incest/abuse cults or became abusers in the way I suspect Jennifer Aniston may have become an abuser. They want to spread their disease.
In a future essay, I will be discussing what I believe we should do about this predicament. There will be no Fall of the Cabal, in short. There will always be normies who want to believe in innocent celebrities and decent politicians, and no shortage to the power that faith will provide. We can, however, do something about it and as you probably already know, it is going to involve turning inward and shutting them out.
I look forward to your comments. I'm glad to be back.
I'm back from break! It was very refreshing and productive and looking forward to reading for you all.
I am happy to read your Ogham free of charge -- that's how I hone my divination skills. Please limit your reading request to four or fewer Ogham cards: though this can take many forms, here are some common ones (all of them are basically combos of 4 cards):
-a single three card reading for the week or month and a one-off, one card reading
-four questions about four separate items that require one answer (card) per item -a one card reading to answer a specific question and a three card for a more nuanced question -Two separate readings, two cards a piece exploring the positives and negatives of two different choices
I am happy to do Ogham readings confidentially via email -- just email me at k steele studio at gmail during the allotted time/before deadline. I cannot answer health questions. If you have a question about health or another sensitive, private matter, provide a bunch of non-identifying information and the Ogham will be able to figure it out even if I don't. I'm serious... the Ogham actually tend to "know" things without me being privy to what is going on.
Please note I take time off during Solstices and Equinoxes for Druid stuff and because sometimes I simply need a break.
My next planned break is from October 23 - November 6.
I take reading requests from whenever this post goes up on Friday night until 8pm US Central Time Saturday.
For a more in depth look into how I read and interpret the Ogham's symbols, please visit my website druidogham.wordpress.com.
I am currently trying to minimize my use of PayPal. If you'd like to make a donation, I would be grateful if you did it here:
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neonvincent
I'm delighted to announce that the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, one of the traditions preserved and passed onto me by John Gilbert, has now issued the Octagon Society lessons in book format. Here's the announcement from the Council of Guardians: 
Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.
We are now approaching the end of the fourth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary all these years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health are anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; 
It's almost midnight, and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will not be put through. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here. 
I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.
