Confessions of an American Witch

Here is the suggested opening reading list for those taking part in the upcoming study program for both Outer and Inner Order of Bast Temple Fall 2025 Golden Dawn course. The Egyptian Book of the Dead--or Coming Into the Light. Our preferred edition is the 1890 facsimile edition . . . the secret RC Mathers version. Consider this book as a correspondence course for Outer Order members. If we have to consult one of the Hermetic rituals, here is our Holy Bible of GD texts. But let us not forget our origin story . . . our real birth story . . . down to the studs. The Holy Cipher--could you read a secret love message sent to you? No? Bad GDer! Your classmate Anubis says that he is not going to do any of the reading. Yeah, some people have memorized this like a Wiccan magical script--horrors!!! It is a good news, bad news situation.  What do you want to hear first? Good news? Or bad? Well, given that they are the same . . . . on Day C, it was with great sadness that Past Hierophant Morga...

Some people are born farmer's sons in America; some are the nephew of Gardnerian Wiccans--and imagine that in 1965 Nebraska . . . yeah, I was born demonic. My witchy aunt represented America to me. My aunt, Victoria Josephine Ramalia, declared me, a reincarninated witch, just like herself. She hated children--yet loved me. This mystified my mother. I loved my aunt.  One of my prize possessions, the first thing I made sure to recover the one time I returned home for Christmas after my military escape, was my Red Piggy Bank that she gave me. A ruling question of my childhood was "Why can the Christians have their Ten Commandments at the county courthouse; and not us, our Horned God?"  At age thirteen, I consciously chose the religion of witchcraft . . . in part to be like Vickie. Then in my freshman semester of high school, my aunt got murdered.  And my family, in their grief, blamed it on her religion. I got broom closeted. Satanist. That is what my religion became. And my...

A core concept that is hard baked into the magick systems of Golden Dawn (whatever the flavor), Thelema, and ceremonial witchcraft is the idea that our rituals happen not only here on Earth, but also on other planes of existence as we perform to empower them. The so-called astral planes.  This idea can be found in our Theosophy ancestor (gag), the Cipher Manuscript, the work of Mathers and Westcott, Crowley and Regardie, as well as modern writers like Cicero and Zalewski. Hence one of my teachers claiming exclusive rights to the idea is CRAZY.  Yeah, I was kicked out of Hermetic Golden Dawn publicly by a Third Order blessed teacher on Facebook in 2016, for not sending ALL MY STUDENTS to Mister Golden Native for his Special Training in Godform Laying and Other Blessed by Secret Chief Teachings. Can I just say that as an actual Third Order member of a Thelemic AA system from the 80s and 90s, I find his claims of being a Hermetic Third Order contact to be insulting? No? Damn. I h...

Some of my more judgemental readers will wonder why I would allow a daughter to be raised by Mormons. After all, I am pretty liberal. I am addicted to soda; use THC, due to pain issues (twenty years, restaurant--blew out my back). Oh, and I am an American Witch. A sworn initiate of both Thelemic AA and Hermetic Golden Dawn. Freedom. So why would I allow my baby girl be raised by savages?!? Maybe, I should explain that joke. Or not. Oh, hell--I am a blogger.  Thanks to my Baby Momma.  Yeah--there's a story.  But first, a garden update: I might be having Anger Management Issues since returning from the Underworld. Just saying. I was moving dirt. Working on the "Hell Hole." Or the "Fairy Offering Hole." Or the "Cheap grave that Khari going to dump my body in." What?! Anyways, while the neighbors were preparing for a party, I might have went from singing a song about Pirate Jenny to whaling on a tree stump like it was a zombie, or vampire, returning from t...