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September 29, 2018

skeleton asteroid is headed right for us!

It is September 29th, 2018, and maybe the worlds gone mad under Donald Trump.  While all this Supreme Court Nomination  is going on the Republicans have passed another tax cut for the rich and a skull shape commit is heading straight for us.



No shit, the asteroid that NASA has deemed as the Death Star will pass over us around November 11th.  It will first be close enough to us to draw on our energy on October 31, 2018.  Halloween. 


Getting back to the tax-cut, have you seen our national debt lately?

Oh, that's right, you're drinking the kool-aid.  Just as George Bush cut taxes and increased spending for an unfunded war, Donald Trump is cutting taxes and increasing spending while taking credit for the Obama recovery.   It's bonkers.  And only one conclusion:  they are trying to destroy the economy to one, break the system so they can rebuild it without any liberal programs such as welfare, social security, or two, the conspiracy guys and gals are right and they want a financial collapse so they can have a one-world government.  

I agree with the later people.  And I believe the one-world government is under the whitest country left:  Russia.  

God help us all.  They're are no more heroes, only greedy takers.  

Fortunately for me, I'm giving up on attachments and things, so it doesn't matter. 

Buddha said:  


Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
The mind is everything. What you think you become.
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
Ommmmmmmmmmmm.... 


September 26, 2018

Gorbachev

 On this day in 1989, the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev's passed a bill allowing publications of books, movies, and television news without censorship.  Within a year the country would collapse. 

The true death of communism. 

Too bad it didn't last and seems to be spreading to these here United States. 

In 1990, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the KGB (their CIA) were gave huge bonuses so they could buy up the new assets being up for sale, which was, everything.  Under Communism the state owned everything, and so, when communism did fail, everything was for sale, and who had money?  You guess it, the ex-KGB guys who includes none other than Donald Trumps pal, Vladimir Putin. 

No wonder all the foreign leaders other than Putin are laughing at Trump.



September 23, 2018

That Old Fashion Christian Love, from Benedict Arnold's Memoir.

Benedict Arnold

 It is well known that the Providence Plantations, and Rhode Island in particular, were known for a greater tolerance in religious matters than prevailed in the neighboring Plymouth colony, probably because they were of gentler blood, or if not that, more willing to follow the lead of gentlemen.  The intolerance of sectaries in Massachusetts was cause of the escape of many from that colony into ours, not always of the most desirable;  but as they were especially intolerant of attractive women, it is possible that we gained in the long run.  Many such of delicate nature were whipped at the cart-stair in hardly more than a shift from the town of Boston to the Providence line.  This same intolerance has been a cause of much of my trouble in later life, the Massachusetts Puritans being unable to recognize a gentleman when they saw one, or indeed to take a broad and catholic view of any communities or circumstances not straitened to the narrow range of their own understanding. 



Thus in 1724 Father Rallé, a Roman Catholic priest of saintly life and great learning, who had risked his life in missionary service to the Algonquin Indians in the Kennebec Valley (what was then a District of Massachusetts) suffered indeed no harm from them, but was killed and scalped by Massachusetts settlers, who left his mangled remains to be decently buried by the savages on the banks of the Dead River.  I found his grave, as shall be later related; and was at the pains of erecting a proper stone monument not un-moistened by my own tears.  

                                                        Benedict Arnold (My Story)

September 18, 2018

Where Did All the Pagans Go?


What is a pagan?  If you are like most Americans, you’re probably thinking witch on a broom, thief on a cross, or worse, Goth in the public bathroom.   Yikes, tell me it isn’t so.

It’s not.

Truth is, being a pagan isn’t all that different from being a Christian, Muslim, or jew; we drive cars, take vacations, and sometimes even vote for racist presidents, just as the other faiths do;  however, where we differ, is in our acceptance of others.  Another way of saying this is, we are a faith that builds bridges, not walls.  We are willing to hear the other side, and will even go so far as to pray with them to their god/gods.  For in the old days whenever a pagan traveled to another village, that’s what you did: you respected and honored the gods of that village, for you knew there were many gods.  Conversely, As a pagan, you also knew that there was only one ultimate divinity, and that the other “gods” were different manifestations, or stages if you will, of this single “unidentifiable” creator.  




No, the pagan wasn’t interested in denouncing your god, but in his/hers direct experience with the god.  Above the sanctuary at the Oracle of Delphi were inscribed the words “Know Your Self.”  And this is what pagans intend to do with their time in this existence.  For it is through this self-knowledge that we become the Oneness with god we seek.

The Pagan philosophers of the past taught that everything is a part of the interconnected whole.  All things are subsumed within the supreme Oneness that is God.  God is the mind of the universe and his/hers creation is the body.  God is “Apollo” meaning “Not-Many” and also “Pan” meaning “All.” 

Sounds like a bunch of philosophy mumble jumbo, now doesn’t it?

Perhaps.

But consider this:

The word “Philosopher” means “lover of Sophia, the goddess of wisdom.”  And out of wisdom, we pagans discover the god within.  That is to say: the Higher Self that lies behind the ego-self.  The old Pagan sages recognized this wise inner teacher as their identity and so saw themselves as immortal gods, not transitory bodies destined to dirt, as some would have you believe.  




The Pagan philosophers of old taught us that by cultivating goodness, we can purify ourselves from selfishness.  By cultivating goodness, we break the chains that bind us to our illusionary ego-self, freeing us to experience our true divine nature.  Central to the Pagan path is accepting whatever life brings us as our divinely decreed fate:  surrendering the illusion of personal power and recognizing ourselves as “puppets of God.”  This is not a passive resignation, but an actively engaging one accepting things as they are by being a willing vehicle of God’s unfolding purpose in the universe.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

So then, where did all the pagans go?

In a nutshell, pagans of old were much like the small town businesses of today who meet the needs of the people of the town with food supplies, hardware goods, pharmacy prescriptions, animal feed, etc., until, that is,  the Walmart, Super Store, comes to town and puts them out-of-business with its one-size fits all merchandising; this is what the major monolithic faiths did when they came to town and replaced the local religions with a One-God-Fits-All religion, which, unlike they want you to belief, didn’t start from the bottom up, but from the top down.  The town leaders backed by the landowners and warlords brought the monolithic faiths to town through edicts.  The town’s people had no choice but convert, or die.  The old rites became capital offenses, and those who still supported the previous pagan emperors, executed.  A few people, a previous life of mine if you must know, kept the truth they knew in their hearts to themselves, they pretended to go along with the new faith, but kept the pagan practices alive when safely alone.  Others, hid in the woods and trees, some became solitary practitioners, midwifes, others herbalist, hermits, and all would soon be defined as witches, ogres, and devils by the new bullies of faith, who until this very day are still threatened by the very word Pagan…  






Why’s that?

What are they afraid of?

Join me next time when we talk about Donald Trumps wall:  is it to keep them out, or keep you in?

Think about it.

Mote it be, brothers and sisters, mote it be. 


September 16, 2018

madden curse

Are you ready for some football? 

The NFL Madden Curse made more timely by the recent shooting at this year’s Madden Gaming Convention in Jacksonville Florida, you know the story:  some nut with a gun shot two guys because they out-shinned him in the game he thought he was king of.  I'm not sure if this shooting has anything to do with "the curse," but it definitely seems to be part of the Fool's Journey.  

Suspect David Katz in 2017 when he won tournament.

Getting back to "the curse": over the last twenty years, 16 players who have appeared on the cover of the popular game have been plagued with dismal seasons or suffered serious injuries during the year the game came out wearing their images.  

In 1999, the popular game stopped putting the ex-old Oakland Raiders couch, John Madden on it -- in case you don't know who about John Madden, he was the overweight coach who would walked up and down the sidelines with his hands in the air talking to himself like one of our many homeless of today.  


Last Cover With Madden On It

In 2000 the cover of the popular game changed from Madden to a football star.   The first person to obtain the honor, Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders who had just gotten off a 1000 yard rushing year.  So what did Sanders do that first year?  Nothing.  He retired.  Maybe he knew something.  He never stepped on the field as a player again. 

Sanders Cover

From there, the list goes on from Minnesota Vikings QB DAunte Culpepper's 2002 appearance, where he went from a perfect season in 2001 to a dismal season where he was injured six games, fumbled 16 times, and went 4 and 7 in his starts.   


Culpepper Cover

Other examples:

2007: Seattle Seahawks RB Shaun Alexander

Like Faulk, he entered his cover year with five straight 1,000-yard seasons under his belt. And his dominance also came to a halt. In 2006, his rushing total dropped from 1,880 to 896, and two years later, he was out of the NFL, a Washington Redskins washout.


2008: Tennessee Titans QB Vince Young

He was Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2006. For his cover year, though, Young threw just nine touchdowns compared to 17 interceptions, missed a game and earned a seat on the bench for 2008, never fully regaining Jeff Fisher's trust.


2009: Green Bay Packers/New York Jets QB Brett Favre

EA began by making Favre the cover athlete as a tribute to his Packers career, which had just ended. But then Favre forced his way out and into New York. All he did there was throw an NFL-high 22 INTs and hurt his shoulder before moving to Minnesota.


2010: Arizona Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald, Pittsburgh Steelers SS Troy Polamalu

Fitz had one of his standard Pro Bowl seasons with more than 1,000 yards, but Polamalu missed a career-high 11 games in 2009 thanks to an MCL injury, recording a career-low 20 tackles before sticking to the sidelines.


2011: New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees

Throwing 33 TDs and earning another Pro Bowl selection is good stuff, but Brees had what constitutes as an off year the season he graced the cover, throwing a career-high and franchise-record 22 picks. His Saints also lost to the 7-9 Seahawks in the playoffs.


2012: Cleveland Browns RB Peyton Hillis

You forgot about him, didn't you? Hillis grunted his way to 1,000 yards as a surprise lead back in 2010, but during his cover year, he missed a half-dozen games with an injury, averaged just 3.6 yards per carry and ran his way into a journeyman backup career.


2014: Minnesota Vikings RB Adrian Peterson

If Johnson shattered the curse, Peterson may have reignited it in 2013. Fresh off his sixth 1,000-yard season and two years removed from a historic 2,000-yard campaign, he missed all but one game after being indicted on child abuse charges.

2017: New England Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski

The five-time Pro Bowler was coming off another double-digit touchdown season in 2016, but he missed virtually all of the Patriots' first four games with a hamstring injury, then finished with just six starts due to a herniated disk and other injury issues.
Verdict: Cursed


So you see, there is something happening here and it ain't pretty.  So, what about this year?  




 Pittsburgh wide receiver Antonio Brown gets the honor.  Let's revisit this after the season, but so far, it's not looking good: how about this headline:


Antonio Brown Clearly Not Right Physically Or Mentally To Start 2018 Season

 




September 15, 2018

Witchworks: Shakespeare's Macbeth Curse


William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a grisly tale of murder and ambition, a dark drama in which the treacherous protagonist and his wife murder their king in order to assume his crown.  It is a play greatly respected by theater folk—but never loved.  For 400 years, stage lore has held that disaster dogs the trail of everything associated with Macbeth.  So firm is the superstition’s grip that many thespians will not even say the name of the work, referring to it instead as That Play, the Scottish Play, or the Unmentionable.

Legend has it that the curse of Macbeth begins with the three spell-brewing witches whose deceitful prophecies give rise to the title character’s fatal ambitions.  Shakespeare, it is said, based their dialogue on a real witches’ spell, thus rendering the work ill-starred for all time.

On a less mystical note, the play was misbegotten politically.  The first production reportedly so offended James I, monarch when Macbeth premiered around 1605 at Hampton Court, that he banned all performances of it for five years.  James, the first of England’s Stuart kings, was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been executed for treason at the command of Elizabeth I.  James was a squeamish soul, and among his chief dreads were assassination, witchcraft, and madness—three themes central to the plot of Macbeth.

The first known performance after the ban was in 1610 at Shakespeare’s famed Globe Theatre in London.  The Globe burned down in 1613, and all the props, scenery, and costumes of Macbeth were lost in the fire.  






Shakespeare died three years later, and the Scottish tragedy vanished from the stage for about half a century. It then resurfaced as a light opera.  Music apparently discouraged the curse, which seemed to remain dormant until early in the eighteenth century. 

In 1703, Macbeth was ;dying at London’s Covent Garden when England was strafed by one of the worst storms in its history.  Rains and hurricane-strength winds killed hundreds of seamen, caused extensive damage in London, and nearly destroyed the port town of Bristol.  A number of theater-hating moralists of the day proclaimed that the storm expressed God’s displeasure with Macbeth, whose witchy goings-on were deemed to be particularly objectionable. 

During a performance of the play at London’s Portugal Street Theatre in 1731, an argument in the audience go so out of hand that a riot erupted and the theater was nearly burned down.  In 1808, Covent Garden opened its fall season with a production of Macbeth.  Within a month, the theater burned to the ground, killing twenty-three people and destroying irreplaceable manuscripts and sheet music. 




Mishaps and mayhem continued to haunt the play through the years: Cast members suffered accidents or sickened or died, productions went awry, and even audiences sometimes seemed afflicted by the presumed curse.  It was an 1849 production of Macbeth at New York’s Astor Place Opera House that ignited a tragic climax to a long-running feud between two actors, England’s William Charles Macready and the American Edwin Forrest.  At the play’s farewell performance, Forrest partisans congealed into a mob outside the opera house.  They stoned the theater and smashed windows.  The militia, called to quell the riot, fired on the crowd.  In the end, at least twenty people were killed and many more injured.

A 1937 production at London’s Old Vic theater starred Sir Laurence Olivier and won wide praise, but at considerable cost.  Lillian Baylis, manager of the Old Vic, died during rehearsals.  Director Michel Saint-Denis and actress Vera Lindsey were injured in an accident.  Olivier first lost his voice, then nearly lost his life when a falling stage weight just missed hitting him. 


Lillian Baylis

During a production in Oldham, England, ten years later, British actor Harold Norman practiced bits of his title role in his dressing room, careless of the superstition holding that the play must be recited only onstage.  In the play’s final battle scene, Norman was accidentally stabbed by the actor playing Macbeth’s antagonist, Macduff.  The wound was fairly slight, but an infection set in, and a month later, Norman died.  Shortly thereafter, his infant daughter was accidentally suffocated, and his widow, also a performer, suffered a mental breakdown.

One of the most bizarre misfortunes in Macbeth’s long and blighted history involved a 1935 New York staging at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem, featuring an all-black cast.  It was produced by John Houseman and directed by Orson Welles, and the gifted pair decided to give it a distinctly voodoo flavor, setting it in Haiti and importing some genuine voodoo practitioners to conduct their exotic rites onstage.  The production was a huge critical success, with one notable dissenter:  Conservative critic Percy Hammond of the Herald Tribune called the opening performance a boondoggle and worse.  Grim-faced voodooists stayed in the theater overnight, chanting and drumming.  The next day, Hammond fell ill.  He died soon afterward from pneumonia.

At times, the Macbeth curse turns more puckish than malign, as it did for Charlton Heston one evening during an open-air performance in Bermuda.  Lady Macbeth was to die by throwing herself over a rampart into the sea below here high-walled castle.  The dummy representing the unfortunate lady was hurled to its fate—only to be flopped back onto the stage by an uncooperative wind.  The grave moment turned farcical; the audience roared with laughter as a hapless messenger announced to Macbeth, “The Queen is death, my Lord.”











September 12, 2018



Being raised a Christian I remember the first time I heard about reincarnation; every week the parents sent me and my cousins to the Saturday matinee to watch whatever movie was playing.  There weren't a lot of theaters back then and so we saw what was playing.  This one Saturday it was about an boy from India who was walking a cow talking about how he thought his uncle was one of the flies on its back. It was the first I ever heard of reincarnation and stuck with me.  For several weeks after that I looked at pets and insects differently.  

As I grew older, the reincarnation thing -- along with bigotry, hypocrisy, and downright ugliness towards other faiths -- pulled me away from the Christian faith.  Based on a book I recently read by a Christian writer, maybe it shouldn't have been.  The book is Jesus the Wicked Priest, and in this book Marvin Vinning introduces some interesting facts about reincarnation which I will describe now.  


Origen

First, Christianity is the only religion that outright denies reincarnation.  That's right, the ONLY religion.  But it didn't always.  The early Christians and the Essenes from whom they sprang taught reincarnation.  Of course that work was destroyed with most of the other non-christian writing that were deemed heretical by the church of the day, and if it wasn't for the Gnosis who left us the dead sea scrolls, would we really know this.  Before I get into these examples, there is the golden oldie of biblical passages that scream reincarnation, and so I'll jump to it now:  Nearly every Jewish family still pays homage to the tradition that the literal, bodily return of Elijah is expected before the Messiah can come.  Jesus's disciples knew this too, which is why they asked of him, "Why do the scribes say that Elijah must first come?"  Jesus answered that the expected guest had already come in the person of John the Baptist:  "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John: and if yo are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.  he who has ears to hear, let him hear."  This is the passage I have quoted in the past here on EstoericDaily.com to suggest that even Christians know in there heart-of-hearts, that we've all been here before.  Vinning goes further: of all the Christian early fathers, none dealt more rigorously with the complicated question of reincarnation that Origen of Alexandria.  Origen held a complex doctine of the preexistence of souls.  He said that souls "emanated" or "cooled" into this world by prior workings of their free will.  Origen beleived that before the creation of man (and woman, to set the record straight), God was creating worlds for the wayward soul to cycle throught en route to salvation, a process that Origen termed apocostasis.  To you and me, reincarnation. 

Finally, consider this, the word reincarnation is a term which didn't come into being until those wonderful French intellects gave it to us around the seventeenth century.  So there was no word for reincarnation before then, even in the Buddhist text!  The Buddhist said "rebirth" but knew it meant what we now consider "reincarnation."  Isn't it funny that a big part of the Christian faith is around being born-again? 


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September 10, 2018

Spell Casting 101


So you want to cast a spell.  Okay,  it's easy.  Just four basic skills: 

Entering an Alpha State of Consciousness, Casting a Circle, Charging Tools and Materials, and Shapeshifting. 

Before we get started, however, please not that this is a crash-course in ritual magic and remember that whatever you cast, can come back to you in three folds, this is the basic Three-Folds law of witchcraft, also, that, this is white-magic and does not interfere with free will, so, casting a spell on Donald Trump to be decent to woman is not going to happen.  Having said that, let's go! 

Alpha Consciousness, for most of us, this is meditating, but there are others: drumming, chanting, dancing, music, and holding the body in a specific posture.  In her book: Love Magic, Laurie Cabot, suggest the “Crystal Countdown” method: Close you eyes, take a few deep breaths, and picture either a red seven or the number seven against a red background.  Hold it for a few seconds, and then picture an orange six.  Proceed downward through a yellow five, green four, blue three, purple two, orchid one.  When your attention settles into orchid, say to yourself, “I am now in alpha, and everything I do will be accurate and correct, and this is so.”  Deepen the state even more by counting down from ten to one without any color component, if necessary.  Once done, cast your spell, do a projection, chart an object, or perform whatever magical work you have planned. 




Casting a Circle is fun!  Really, be careful though, I once forgot to close it up afterwards and found snakes in my living room, really!  Now they may have climbed up from the abyss, but I’m thinking the cat brought one up from the creek to play with.  Anyway, because spells work with cosmic energy and because we view that energy as divine, we create sacred space by casting a circle around ourselves before casting a spell.  In this way we put ourselves physically into a ring of magic, an environment filled with the very energy we work with.  

To begin with, locate the four directions:  east, south, west, and north.  Stand facing north, go into alpha.  With a wand, athame, or your index finger, draw a circle around yourself sunrise (clock-wise, saying, “I cast this circle to protect me and to draw in only the energies and forces that are right for me and the most correct for my work.”  Then face each direction and invoke the spirits, elements, and powers of that direction as you know and honor them, beginning in the east. Say, for example, “I invoke the East, the spirits (or deities) or air/wind/sky/sound, etc.  I invoke the South, the spirits (or deities) of fire/forge/hearth/light, etc.  I involve the West…water/oceans/rivers/wells, etc.  I invoke the North…earth/field/forest/mountain/cavern, etc.”   Note, you can invoke spirits, Gods, or Goddesses if you prefer.  (Consult your spirit-guide regarding this if you haven’t yet.)

Charging an Object or magical tool is a method of transferring energy from you (or from the universe through you) into an article to be used for magical purposes.  Hold the object in your hand, go into alpha, and see in your mind’s eye the aura already around the object.  Auras appear differently to different people.  They may look like light, color, radiation, mist, a shimmering field, or some combination of these.  Wipe away any chaotic, harmful, or unwanted energy in the object with a sweeping motion of one hand a few inches above the object, saying, “I neutralize any incorrect energy in this (name the object).”  Then visualize your aura and/or cosmic energy entering the cleared energy field of the object.  Notice its aura becoming brighter, sharper, denser, more intense.  Say, “I charge this (name it) to be a source of power and energy for (state its purpose: love, healing, protection, happiness, etc.).  I ask that this be correct and for the good of all.  And so it is.”




Shapeshifting can occur on the level of consciousness, at the level of the aura, and in more advanced stages, on the physical level.  The spells I have done only required consciousness shapeshifting, so I can’t speak to the physical possibility; I do, however, know it is not something one speaks of after having done it, so, it might not be as rare as it seems, but for the most part, it is the understanding that everything is alive and responsive, so we expect everything, even rocks, fire, water, and wind, to have a state of consciousness.  Shapeshifting techniques allow the energy patterns of our consciousness to merge with the energy patterns of something else.  

Love magic sometimes requires shifting our consciousness so that it aligns with that of another person.  In so doing, energy is shared and exchanged, and by met of your will, you can direct and guide the other toward you desired end.  


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 I'm taking a war break: Remember, which ever side you're on, sides suck.  ~~ Eso Terry 

Thanks For Being!

Thanks For Being!