Confessions of an American Witch

The other day, I made the mistake of looking at the Great Gherkin's website. To see if he was alive. Because he accounts for a significant amount of my pageviews on my old Gleamings from the Dawn blog. Is he (and his model wife) still selling what I was complaining that they were hawking back in the day? No, the video title was about a mind virus. It seems that the Great Gherkin is selling sci fi in the second era of Trump. Probably with Democrats as the alien invaders. I didn't watch the video.  That wasn't my problem with his page. The Great Gherkin will be the Great Gherkin. No, speaking as a teacher that wrote a piece for the Hermetic Golden Dawn Flying Roll commentary book, my issue is the idea that for less than three hundred US dollars, a student can get access to all lessons of every Grade of the HGD system, just so the Pickle can include GD membership as a bonus material to his current scam. How did I get into this book?!? That the understanding of the Golden Dawn ...

Given my experience as a lodge officer and student of the Hermetic Golden Dawn and its offshoots, occasionally I need to explain (if only to remind myself) why I am not allowed to teach and lead in GD.  A who's who of the Golden Dawn community. I was not selected by a lodge to be a leader, or teacher. No, I accidentally declared myself one when attending my first Open Full Moon in fall 1996. Finding myself in the presence of a hundred-plus Denver witches, all who seemed to be experts in some esoteric field or another, I introduced myself with the only thing that I felt confident in discussing: Hermetic Golden Dawn, Thelema, and Aliester Crowley. It was either that, or talk about being an erotica author, right? Everyone who heard that initial introduction of mine, which included the mention that I was a published writer, no one ever allowed me to move past, or forget that intro. I got rewarded, or punished for it, depending upon the ego of the occultist. A couple of shop owners used...

In her attempts to get gold stars for her decision to nuke my Mormon wife out of my life, Khari made it clear that she thought I would be a bad father. Announcer, please . . .  How to produce an artistic genius--slide one   "Weighing in at six pounds, six ounces, we have the Riverside Shakespeare . Know the first line to that poem, or song, then this is the book for you--it has the indexes. Heavy, too. Raise a daughter hefting this once a month, and you build Supergirl , able to crush bricks." During my community college years (my 40s), me and another parent of a daughter got exposed to the idea that the way to keep Shakespeare (or any great author) alive in your memory was constant refreshment.  We had a professor who read a Shakespeare play a month. Toss in the Homer and the Milton from the class, and her daughter was sure  to have exposure to classic literature. I know that at least one kid grew up in a more enriched environment, thanks to that idea. I know becaus...

For those who care about such things, yes, I did indeed take part in the Global Bind Trump ritual this month. Used the Denver City Golf Course for my Scottish witchcraft. After months of preparation, which book got used? A planned part of my Global Bind Trump "if I have to do this every damn month while he's in the Oval Office" was to do at least one ritual on the public golf course. At this point in the blog post, I must say that I am sorry to my secret Mormon wife. She thought that my use of the public golf course as a power base for black magick and witch war activities to be wrong; she might had a golfer as a brother, given the attitude.  So before I did my ritual "in the dark of the night," I said a prayer at the Catholic Church. Virgin Mother, if it must be done, let it be done. Again, sorry Ginny, it was that Catholic Church that supports that school. That one which I threatened to send my own children to, if they misbehaved. Yes, that horrible place. I s...

When I was younger, I used to wonder how supervillains got away with being bad guys. Didn't I just scream Professional Menace in my younger days? Being older and more experienced, today I know it is because it's serves their interests for you to be a villain. It's not that they can't see how corrupt you are; it's that if they admit to it, then they would have to see their own darkness also. Better that they reflect their darkness onto you, giving you power to work their underground dealings, ruling luck.  I keep thinking that the day will come when Khari will take a look at the growing "Necronomicon" study book that I am creating for the Justice Forty-Two Project, and she will pull the plug. Scrub the shuttle launch at the last moment; save the school teacher's life; not go for the we must do this, or else we suffer detention as a nation option.  But then again, I understand everything that I am putting into my Book of Shadows. Or at least, the skeleto...

For those of you who cannot attend my Open Full Moon events because you live on the moon, or work for our Commander-in-Chief, or simply have common sense, here is what you missed . . . or didn't miss at the cancelled (or not) Open Full Moon in August. These choke cherries are ripe. And this choke cherry tree is in wrong place. If you would have showed up in person on the Friday, Saturday, or the Sunday of August (7, 8. or 9th), you might have been put to work. Unless you were Car Rat . . . sorry, I would not want her touching my babies. Because we were doing whole tree harvesting here. This was a year that I wished my kin was closer because I got a Harry Potter wand out of this. Maybe some runes--depends on how they carve, or burn after drying. In my head, I was discussing the hows and whys of what we were doing with an invisible grandson or granddaughter. Sad, but true. Someone of Harry Potter age. Because how hard it was to get these out, me and Khari might never any reach this s...