A Fokawolf Spell

Combining my themes of magic and spirit of place in this one because this post is about two installations by local hero, artist and national treasure (as well as *major* crush for the Hound), Fokawolf. You can find him all over social media but of course I've had to include his picture so any readers who don't know can see how dishy he is. 🥰 Plus he's been known to do his paste-ups wearing Birmingham City Council hi-vis which absolutely tickles me. 🥵

He's possibly best known for his permission work of the Birmingham Screw Driver Company sign in Digbeth, demonstrating that he definitely knows what a Birmingham screw driver is.

However many of his works also draw on magical themes, whether explicitly and implicitly, in the case of these works, the long magical tradition of using images to effe change in the subject depicted, by sympathetic magic.

In the case of his installation at Glastonbury Festival he's put the images of Netanyahu with a target in the urinal and if I wasn't already in love I would be humping his leg like any dog.

He's done a similar installation in a Digbeth pub, unfortunately closed at the moment but which will be reopening in the Autumn.

Anyone want to cross swords?

Urban Grimoire: The Review Spell Revisited

Magic has been described as the art and science of causing change in accordance with will, and all acts have been defined as magical acts. I have posted here before about the remarkable magical strength of leaving reviews on the internet. Whether good or bad, your review does have real power online. Now I'm aware that businesses often manipulate their image by posting fake reviews. However, I'm also of the opinion that the public are far more clued up on identifying fake reviews, false information, and what have you, than we used to be. The problem with filling the internet with false information is that people get wise to it. For example, bot comments on social media are now met with a chorus calling them a bot. 

Actually, I quite like to call commenters bots when they're obviously not. If they've left a particularly cruel, inflammatory, or hate-filled comment, the explosion which follows calling them a bot is bound to be good.

But to the subject of the post. It was about the management company of the leasehold flats I live in. The utterly incompetent directors don't involve the other leaseholders and have, for the ten years I have lived here, used the same individuals to do the day to day management, but they've moved through several companies in that time.

Clearly, there's something wrong there, and if I was hugely rich they would be in the tribunal, but there is no hope of creating a mass action out of the 460 flats and there's legally a limit to the power leaseholders can do.

But under the last management company there was a peak of dissatisfaction among the residents of several buildings they manage and people used the power they had, by leaving bad reviews.

And they were absolutely atrocious. If I say that mine was one of the more restrained ones, it should give an idea of how dozens of people were not holding back. They left comments which really can only be described as libellous if they're not true, such as accusing them of running off with people's money and other crimes. My own contribution was to comment on how to take them to the tribunal.

And I'm delighted to say that my efforts mean the company's Google reviews are now headed up by the picture which illustrates this post. 🐴 As I commented in my last post, laughing and ridicule is a really good way of moving power around, and that is pure witchcraft.

Of course I knew the company was rubbish, but this was confirmed by the way they dealt with this barrage of critical comments. They didn't even know or care, that what you do when your professional reputation is assaulted like that is to be pink and fluffy in public and leave sympathetic replies asking the commenter to contact you (see, I could work in comms), but be hard as nails with threatening solicitors' letters behind the scenes. 

What they actually did was leave obviously fictional comments which were even funnier. One of them described two of the staff as the Mulder and Scully of house hunting. I personally edited my review wondering which of the two was so spooky that nobody would work with them and which has been impregnated by aliens.

Their online presence is ruined, and it's hilarious. They've even stopped posting on their social media because of the comments they're getting.

Last week, to nobody's surprise, the leaseholders got letters to say they've sold the property management part of their business to someone else and that's who will be looking after the building from now on. Job done.

Urban Grimoire: A Spell to Reverse the Current Upended State of the World

Obviously, I'm all for a bit of chaos to shake things up but the sheer speed at which the world situation is upending at the moment may itself require some shaking out so that it can be put back in an order where the several world Hitlers aren't getting what they want.

To do this: put yourself in a calm or sacred place and frame of mind and see the world being a calm and peaceful place in your mind. See Putin and Trump out of power, Ukraine and Palestine restored to sovereignty, and so on. Even a Green government in UK because why limit yourself. And say these words:

When Magritte died

The stones fell to the ground

The birds divorced their leaves

The night and day agreed to differ

The breasts became blind

The cunt was struck dumb

The tubas extnguished their flames

The pipe remembered its role

The words looked up what they meant in the dictionary

The clouds turned acstract

The ham closed its eye for ever

When Magritte died.

When Magritte died

The toes hid modestly in their shoes

The mountains no longer envied their eagles

The apple shrunk to the size of an apple

Or did the room grow to the size of a room?

The bowler hat lost its ability to astonish

The old healer

Returned from a dip in the sea

Put on his trousers

his boots

his cloak

his hat

Picked up his stick

his sack

his cage of doves (clanging its door to)

And set off on his banal journey

When Magritte died.

(George Kelly: Homage to Magritte)

So mote it be!

Ritualising It Out

The phrase of ritualising something out of your system is a direct quote from Anton LaVey but then I'm nothing if not ecumenical.

All the textbooks of practical magic, without exception, say that when working magic you must attain a point where the desire has left you. The 'itch' you are working on has to leave you completely, in other words, to manifest on the material plane, where you want it. The theory is that if you keep thinking about the matter, or chewing it over in any way, the spell comes back to you and won't manifest.

I have always found this incredibly difficult, because I tend to chew things over and find it very difficult just to leave things. For this reason I have always tended towards magics where you can keep coming back and scratching the itch until it does actually leave you. I would not dispute the need for the desire to leave you, just need to make sure it actually does go. 

Personally I think I just sometimes need to keep working on things until it goes. You know when it's left you because it just doesn't bother you any more (bearing in mind that the chief target of magic is always the magician himself, really). If you will pardon my unsubtle way of putting it, it can feel like a cat does when they've used the litter tray and run round the house because they feel much lighter.

These thoughts are occasioned by a matter leaving me today, although it's been evident that things have been moving for some time. Things have seemed to come to a head the past couple of weeks and after events today I am sitting here surprised that I really don't care about it any more. This is how I know that what I want is going to happen.

Of course since someone with an actual legal responsibility for this situation has asked me to let them posted on what is happening on the day I have ceased to care about it, I'm still going to have to do that. But I think that's more along the lines of acting in accord with the spell. The person, who is the hopeless building manager of the building I live in, should have been more interesting in this situation all along, and the fact he has now taken an interest is what shows me something will happen.

I'm sure he wouldn't like me to happen to him!

Urban Grimoire: Sabotage

Sabotage is among my favourite magical acts. 'Magical act?', you may say, but its nature as magic is shown by two things. The opposite of sabotage is compliance to external authority rather than a personally-defined authority, and also the frisson of horror that the word sabotage brings out in the compliant. What could be more magical than that?

There are three specific (and completely legal) examples of sabotage I want to consider. All are designed to stop the powers that be getting what they want. Perhaps I should say that these powers are what the New Testament would call the powers of this world: the powers militating against the world that we want, in witchy terms, or the world that ignores the Kingdom, in Christian terms. (Don't worry, if I haven't offended you yet, I'll get to you shortly).

1. The first, which is my favourite, is malicious compliance. The powers of this world want us to comply, but because they're self-centred can never judge the full consequences of this. There are few pleasures to compare with fully complying to the letter of a policy or law where this compliance has the opposite effect intended.

2. The second is exercising choice. This will sound like a funny one but the Achilles heel of capitalism is that it has to have the appearance of consumer choice built in while actually only a few individuals profit. In the past I've compared this to a game of Monopoly where to 'win' you build up streets and properties in particular colours. You sabotage this by buying streets in different colours which prevents everyone from getting a monopoly so that nobody can win. Out here in the real world people tend to moan that a few people are as rich as Croesus (or even defend them for their 'industry' lol) but still prop up this monopoly by shopping at their site. So the way to sabotage this is to put your purchasing power into alternatives, shopping elsewhere, using different software, and so on. Another example would be to shop in different shops if you can rather than stick to one. There is a reason retailers use tricks to get you coming back and call this 'loyalty': loyalty is Capitalist for subservience.

3. The final one is a way to sabotage our First Past the Post voting system which was designed to create a two-party system where political power only swings between two parties and nobody else can get the necessary majority to form the government, hence why successive governments have refused to reform the system. The way to sabotage this is never to vote for the first or second most popular parties in your constituency (you can judge what these are by looking at successive election results, and of course the exception to this is the Green Party which you should absolutely vote for because it fucking terrifies the main parties). Instead you would stubbornly vote for a minority party which is acceptable to you and continue to do so. At this point people will try to shame you into compliance by telling you that nobody votes for minority parties and you're wasting your vote. However there is a strange thing about human voting behaviour that people tend to vote for what their neighbours vote for, so by sabotaging the system you stand both to change your neighbours' behaviour without them realising you're doing it and horrify the major parties.

And what could be more magical than that?

Crying Wolf Too Often

Surely we are all familiar with the story of the boy who kept crying 'Wolf!' when there wasn't one with the result that eventually nobody believed him and then one day there was an actual wolf. Of course everyone ignored his cries that there was a wolf with predictable results.

I realize that I have been thinking quite a lot over the past couple of years of how, like falsely saying there's a wolf, many of the principles of our society are not strategies intended for long term use and in fact cry wolf. I've referred to the way capitalism negates itself when carried to its natural conclusion, for example. Specifically the mythology of capitalism is that it encourages competition and anyone can get in on the act if they want. And so we have endless copies of the same businesses making the same products. But it also includes its downfall, because if there is actual competition there is nothing to stop the consumer choosing where to shop and putting some of the businesses out of business.

And so this is why the competition aspect easily flips into a monopoly (Amazon, anyone?) before progressing into fascism and force. The choice supposedly built into capitalism is an illusion, or rather a lie.

Perhaps the best example of this is the UK's privatised water companies, where in fact nobody gets any choice and can't not use them.

The theme of entities lying is built into religious and spiritual traditions across the board. For example Christians call their Satan the father of lies. And this idea of an untrue threat or promise can be found in hero myths.

It's most present to us moderns in social media, which is perhaps the best example of why lying and building systems on illusions doesn't work. You would have to be incredibly naive in 2024 not to be at least aware that accounts on social media may not be telling the truth and may not even be real people. It's so prevalent that I don't think there can be anyone unaware that media and social media manipulates things now. The almost laughably bad AI has also added to this.

This is exactly the same phenomenon as the boy crying wolf: you just can't keep on lying because people notice.

In this General Election year there's a lot of scare mongering going on about how the Tories are going to use disinformation in their campaign. I honestly can't understand why: beyond the +/- 25% who are so stupid, bigoted or blinded that they would vote for them anyway, in Britain the words Tory and liar are now synonymous. And this purely because of their prolific lies. 

The reality is that lying does not gain any cause or business a huge following alone (of course motivation is always more complex than I'm painting it here because I'm focusing on fibbing, monopolies and the way our institutions are not built on sustainable foundations).

The moral of the story is that sometimes if a situation feels like it can't be changed the thing to do is just let it progress as it is. Our overlords are not geniuses and it's very unlikely they'll have thought out the consequences of their actions.

And then have a good laugh at them. This is very important because it's an important banishing ritual in chaos magic.

Happiness is Rebellion

Let's start with a tale Snopes says is an urban legend:

Lunching with English friends at the time of her husband's retirement, Madame de Gaulle was asked what she was looking forward to in the years ahead. "A penis," she replied without hesitation. The embarrassed silence that followed was finally broken by the former president. "My dear," he murmured, "I think the English don't pronounce the word quite like that. It's 'appiness.'"

We all know one of them, one of those annoyingly superior people who know best and act as if the world is their oyster. I'm not talking about becoming quite one of them, but about the attitude. They're ok and always will be. In the UK they tend to shop in Waitrose.

We have many of them in the government and nobody else's views impinge on them in any way.

What if we take the attitude and rebel by being happy? In a stressful, conflicted world it would be natural to be depressed and stressed beyond belief. I'm also not talking about minimising any of the shit that's going on in the world.

I'm talking about doing things that make us happy as a rebellion against the nonsense. An act of self care in the face of everything, if you like. A way of changing the script slightly.

Because when you make small changes they tend to have knock on effects elsewhere, like all magical acts.

It is also my firm conviction that the world is increasingly dividing into two factions. In true Hound fashion I call the factions the people who are cunts, and the ones who aren't cunts. The cunts want everyone except themselves to be miserable, and the non-cunts want everyone to be happy. This means that being happy, making sure you can be happy by doing things which make you happy, is actually an act of rebellion against the people who want everyone else to be miserable.

And this isn't just a positive behaviour. It is actually witchcraft. If you think about the bit in the Gospel of the Witches about the feast, it says, you will dance, sing, feast, make music and love, all in my praise... and this will continue until every last one of the oppressors is dead.

That sounds very much like the sort of thing I'm getting at. Like sticking your fingers up. And strangely enough I have a soundtrack for this!

Finally if you'd like something quieter I've just recently discovered there are people (all men, apparently) who are made happy by racing washing machines! AND they even get people in the comments requesting particular cycles. 😂

Urban Grimoire: Candle Magic Made Uncomplicated

If you want to join in my streak of cursing politicians but aren't sure what to do here is candle magic made easy.

It is not an ancient magic because candles only came in to common use in the nineteenth century, but does utilise ancient magical techniques: identifying one thing with another and effecting change, the use of the elements, and so on.

You will need:

A candle of your choice (it helps if it reminds you of the target in some way but the candle's colour and shape really don't matter).

Somewhere safe to burn it. Best to use a candlestick and never leave it unattended.

Optional: 

A knife or pen to write or carve your purpose onto the candle before or after stage 2 below.

What to do:

1. Take your candle in your hands and form your intention in your mind. Tell your candle what it means and what is going to happen. Say it as a statement of fact, out loud if you wish.

Eg 'Donald John Trump is in prison' or 'Joe Bloggs recovers from cancer'.

2. Next you dress the candle. You will read a lot of complex stuff in the books about doing this but IMHO the simplest way to get your purpose into the candle is to dress it with the oil produced by your own skin. Simply rub your fingers on the side of your nose and then rub them onto the candle, knowing that this is identifying the candle with your desire. I like to dress down from the wick for things I want to decline and upwards for things I want to grow.

Keep dressing the candle until it feels right. By this I mean that you will feel the intention leave you. If you're doing the head bit right here, you will either feel relieved, tired, or like you've had enough of it.

3. Burn the candle in a safe place. You can either do it as quickly as you want or a little bit each day. As you do this see your desired outcome in your mind's eye. If you need a picture to look at of course it's fine.

I think it's fine to blow it out at the end of each session.

4. Burn it until it goes out on its own and dispose of any remaining wax in a symbolic way. I simply scrape the bits into the bin but if the spell is for something you want you could keep them as a charm.

5. Try not to think about it. Difficult, obviously. If you know you're going to keep scratching the itch add an intent to start off with that that will strengthen the spell.

Caution about the side effects of magic: magic does not return threefold as some people claim and frankly as adults we need to be responsible for our actions rather than running round paralyzed by fear of retribution like Christians. However there is a great tradition that magic primarily acts on the magician, so if you've cursed a politician, for example, you might suddenly find yourself becoming very politically active for their opposition. In history I think most practitioners of this sort of practical magic have tended to be driven to it by fear and powerlessness so there's an irony in the way it affects you and changes you, including making you feel empowered.

Happy witching!

The Witch Mediates Fate

'If Miss Treason gave judgement against you, it was really not a good idea (everyone said) to ask for your present back, as being turned into something small and sticky often offends.' Terry Pratchett

I posted in June about how Birmingham City Council had the temerity to have a run in with me after not paying their staff right for years and how I just knew something big was coming. Obviously I'm not responsible for the complete financial collapse which followed (they are) but the point was witches tend to get placed in turning points in life and history and oversee people either fucking themselves up or sorting things out.

Then in July I reflected on how Boris Johnson was flailing around like someone cursed by me. Of course he was - I cursed him last year. 

Of course there was only one way my magical signature was going to play out with Birmingham Shitty Council, and I noted that the council were claiming that they would not be putting in a Section 114 notice. This is the declaration required by law to say that a council cannot meet its spending obligations (full details here). I, of course, said that they would be making this declaration.

Bab, I'm not even going to bother telling you what happened next. You already know.

There is a very powerful magic spell which in Muggle terms is called an audit. What happened next was they got audited and I think we can truthfully say that while we all expected it to be bad, even I wasn't prepared for the full extent of utter incompetence that was revealed. And I mean even to the extent that their electronic accounts were so insecure that just anyone could literally alter them. Utter shambles.

This is exactly the sort of turning point my magic revolves around although I've been little more than an interested observer in this one.

I can also tell them what's coming next, and since the council are still claiming that central government will not need to get involved, obviously that's what will happen. This isn't even really a prediction, apparently it nearly always happens when a council collapses.

Fools, utter fools.

Urban Grimoire: The Benefits of Blocking

I have written here before about the similarities of many acts we perform in social media with some of the classical magical acts. This post is inspired by my complete conversion to the satisfying act of blocking other accounts on social media.

You'll note of course that I say 'accounts' rather than 'people', and the sad fact is that many of the most annoying accounts on social media aren't people at all, they're computers pretending to be people and this is only going to get worse as Artificial Intelligence improves.

That said, judging by the conversational ability of some people I would rather communicate with AI but that's a whole different subject.

In fact sometimes I wonder whether troll accounts' relentless parroting of stupid things means the person behind them even is technically a person. You have to wonder whether the lack of empathy or conscience of these people actually means they're lacking some essential human characteristics.

Be that as it may, you don't want to deal with them and my message of hope for the world is that you don't have to.

Block them.

Go on, don't even say anything to them, just block them.

Now, if you're thinking that they're saying stupid dangerous things on the internet and someone has to challenge their nonsense because other people might be affected by it, you're just proving that you do have a conscience and empathy for other people, which it is important to remember that internet trolls don't. In fact I used to think that they should be combatted but have abandoned that idea. I think the reality in 2023 is that the world has divided between the nice people who live in reality and the idiots who don't. Yes, I know I'm being horrible, but we live in a shitty world populated by cunts and I'm not going to waste my remaining years arguing with them.

So I have changed position on this and honestly it's glorious.

I've gone from regretfully blocking the most annoying accounts occasionally to full scale block fests. While I was still on Twitter I once blocked 367 accounts in one sitting. I've even started leaving a passive aggressive ending on comments that I'll just block you if you reply stupidly. I block people because I don't like their profile picture. I block them because their dog is over groomed. I block them because I don't like their house. The slightest mention of bitcoin and you're blocked. I even block people because I've taken one of my famous dislikes to them; all these as well as the more obvious reasons that their politics, racial views and anything else about them are loathsome.

The magical act which I think this is most like is either binding (although specific to me, not stopping them harming generally, which would be more like reporting them) or one of those spells where you just fade into the background so the target doesn't notice you. It actually does have a magical power because it's not allowing the account to have access to you. I just don't think it's true when people say people only have the power over you that you allow them, because, hello, what about rape. But in social media terms it is actually possible to stop someone having access to you at the press of a button.

I've actually started setting out to block people: yes I know I'm a misanthropist but I have found that blocking a lot of people has the effect of quietening down the conversation on a lot of posts. The best way to do this is to find one of sort of posts which are like a magnet to gammons and MAGATs: usually ones of youngsters misbehaving, of poverty in the US, of people suffering some terrible misfortune, or pictures of groups such as Jews or People of Colour. I honestly don't know what sort of a cunt you have to be to make abusive comments on a video of a mentally ill person, drug addict or asylum seeker, but I know that I don't want them around me and just block them all.

The reader will of course also recognise that a power analysis of this means I'm not giving them power. It took me a long time to get this but not engaging does actually not give them what they want, and might actually make them piss off if they're a real person. And this is absolutely doing the Great Work.

I only have one exception to this which is that I make a point of insulting brexiteers, adding that I'll give them time to read it before blocking them and then block them when they get enraged. Because pointing out their error to Leave voters is a national pleasure and sport just like cricket and cheese rolling, and I have to do that and then block them.

When I started thinking about this post I was thinking that I should probably include a potential downside of blocking loads of accounts, and was thinking that I would probably identify that it would be losing an opportunity to influence the audience to an interaction. However on further reflection I think that in 2023 social media users have no excuse not to have an understanding of how disinformation is used online and will not be easily deflected from vile opinions. If at this stage you're easily influenced by anti-vaxxers, Brexiteers, Donald Trump, the Cuntservative Party and other liars, you are never going to learn except the hard way. I don't have to inflict you on me.

And treating yourself well is the ultimate act of rebellion in our society.

Let's end with Mark calling in to LBC and demonstrating why this country will never have another bloody revolution and ably demonstrating the reason laughing at things is a banishing ritual in chaos magic:

Urban Grimoire: A Spell to Break Capitalism

This one is inspired by a comment I saw that capitalism does, indeed, function like a game of Monopoly. The end is that one person is as rich as Croesus and the other people are broke and starve to death in a gutter. At this time in history we are part way through the game so nobody starts off the same and gross inequalities are built in.

But what if people don't play the game? Monopoly depends on people moving around the board and paying rent, buying streets, etc. What if they stop - at least as much as they can? 

The game can't come to its end if you don't buy anything.

That's it, that's the spell.

We don't all have the dedication to become the Moneyless Man, but we can sabotage capitalism by spending less and directing our money where we want it to go rather than one of the half dozen richest gazillionaires on the planet.

Alternatives are things like Freecycle, repair co-operatives.... The list is actually endless and they're definitely going on near you, it's just social media tends to loud pedal commerce.

Pictured below: a working class Tory Voter.

Urban Grimoire: A Spell if Your Relatives are Wrong About Zelenskyy

Holy shit, what kind of utter cunts get upset because my hero and crush President Zelenskyy didn't wear a suit in the Capitol and don't want to give aid to Ukraine?

The country that is overrun by a dictator intent on killing his own people as well as war crimes in Ukraine.

What the actual fuck?

If you are unfortunate enough to have these people and be stuck with them over the holidays you have my complete sympathy. This is a spell to deal with them. If they don't get it you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you've made a fool of them, and if they do... well, lucky you, they'll hopefully never speak to you again.

It's very simple. Just play them this, er, 'Polish Christmas carol'. Beautiful, isn't it?

If that doesn't work, show your MAGAT relatives this picture:

If they still haven't had a stroke, show them how we do it in Britain.

Слава Україні!

Urban Grimoire: A Simple Yet Powerful Spell

I have previously blogged about the practice of creating magical entities to do things for you. It's great, you forget about the spell and the bit of yourself you've broken off gets on with it and it happens.

Today an even simpler and more powerful technique, to make a word or phrase itself into a spell so you get everyone saying or thinking it joining in the spell.*

It's very simple, using whatever techniques you use, you just see the action of using that word equating to what you want. An example that's been going round the internet is the idea of cursing your deadname if you're trans. It's brilliant because the haters screw themselves up.

Now because this blog requires participation as well as theory you have to say one word before leaving. All together now,

'Brexit.'

There. Now another lifelong Tory voter has made up their mind to vote tactically at the next election to get them out. I don't actually want a Christmas present: what I'm angling for is having these bad boys in my wallet before I die, because just paying for stuff would kill the gammons.

*Like every magical technique here you won't find this in the fluffy publications because they think it's not ethical to do this without people's consent. All I can say is they're lucky to be in a position not to have to fight and they'll be furious when they find what I've done to the word 'Llewellyn'.

Madame Tussauds and Kanye West's Waxwork

So Madame Tussauds have removed their waxwork of Kanye West from display after his antisemitic comments.

That's terrible. What a waste. The waxwork really should be put to use. WHAT A WASTE.

What the hell are they playing at? Don't get me wrong, I'm ferociously keen on cancel culture and obviously antisemitic people and other Nazis should be cancelled, deplatformed, diversity trained until they scream and prosecuted to the full extent they can. Not killed, obviously, we don't want to get like them.

But when it comes to hiding a waxwork because it depicts an antisemitic scumbag, that's just wrong. They're sitting on the world's biggest wax poppit which already has the collective thoughts of its makers and everyone who has seen it, making a connection to the scumbag. It would be wicked to waste that.

They could get a witch to do it, but that waxwork is so ready that anyone could do it. You wouldn't even need to cast a circle, and even this blessing (from Starhawk) would be a formality:

"Blessed be, thou creature made by art. By art made, by art changed. Thou art not wax but flesh and blood. I name thee Kanye Omari West. Thou art he, between the worlds, in all the worlds, So mote it be."

And then you just set to, seeing in your mind every kind of misfortune happening to him until he admits he's a shit.

Magic and Social Media

Well that went well. It was lovely to see people on Twitter picking up the authentic Birmingham spirit in the welcome we gave the Conservative Party.

Meanwhile the battle for justice continues on social media and I have to say I find many aspects of social media fascinating from a magical point of view.

Glamours

The first is the one that people aren't necessarily who they present themselves as on social media. I mean, you didn't really think I was a dog did you?

Magically the new persona created to give someone a different impression is called a glamour. It's not that different from what actors do on a daily basis, or even from dressing the right way for an interview. It is also exactly what we do on social media when we create a profile and a persona.

The wise magical person will of course be wary of who they're talking to, be aware that people may not be who they present themselves as, and use discernment.

Disinformation

Where online glamoury differs from acting or preparing for an interview is that a LOT of the information on the internet is disinformation designed to manipulate other people. For example as the Tories drop even further in the polls Twitter fills with disinformation about Keir Starmer, etc.

The trick is to identify what the information is designed to do. To stay with the same example this disinformation is intended to stop people voting Labour. In our first past the post system, that would help a Conservative win and so attempts to stop voting Labour should be considered propaganda by the 'Let the bodies pile high' party and treated as such. Possibly it's people who don't understand FPTP but most likely to be Tory lies.

Magically you shouldn't engage with it. What should be done is a statement indicating what they are doing and then block them.

Thoughts are Things

This way people influence other people's behaviour on social media is nothing else than an embodiment of the occult principle that thoughts are things and have a reality. 'Influencers' are doing just that by influencing the way people think because that's where change starts.

I'm not a great one for loads of actual wards and shit. I think bad thoughts coming your way are far better grabbed hold of and used in whatever way you want.

The important thing about thinking on social media, though, is to be aware of what is bullshit and just recognize it immediately. The classic examples are the people who say vaccines cause autism. They don't, and anyone saying that should automatically be treated with suspicion.

Servitors

Blocking people before pointing out what they are doing may seem counterproductive but it isn't for two reasons. A real dyed in the wool Tory will not change their mind, and the main reason is the profile you're engaging with is quite likely not to be a real person.

The magical entities created to do things for the magician are called servitors and they are exactly the same as the 'bots' responsible for so much shit online. There are whole farms of these things so the best thing to do is a simple comment pointing out what they're doing and the truth, then block block blockety block.

An example of some bot posts illustrates this post.

Banishing

Blocking, of course, is the equivalent of banishing. 

Personally I have thousands of accounts blocked on my Twitter and only follow something like 12. It's more like antisocial media, the way I go at it.

There is a very easy banishing technique which comes out of chaos magic, which is just to laugh at something. Much better to leave a humorous comment pointing out some facts (to reduce their power and help strengthen other people) then banish, or rather block, the account, than try to engage with them in any way. They don't want a debate, trust me.

The other thing is that the intention of a lot of social media posts is to clog things up and discourage people. Blocking does clean things up and helps you take control.

Words of Power

There's no point being a witch if nobody knows, so it's as well to aim to influence the people trolls or bots are aimed at. The evidence is strongly that their audience will be influenced, and even if the troll is a real person they won't be.

The words should be aimed at performing a major witch action: giving people power and letting them disconnect from trolls' power. Ideally, funny.

For example I posted an unexpectedly popular comment that every time anyone says on Twitter that Labour is the nasty party, another lifelong Conservative voter makes their mind up to vote Labour.

I wonder if they realize it's also a spell?

Have a soundtrack: Soho Road Utte by Sardara Gill, a classic bhangra hit about a road in Birmingham. 

Urban Grimoire: Incantation to be Fabulous

One of the marvellous things about the modern witchcraft movement is that while we definitely do Right and have a very developed sense of duty, this sense doesn't bring with it the need to be miserable and isn't a grinding sense of duty. Your place in the world and tasks for this incarnation shouldn't make you miserable. You'll know you're on the right track if it feels right and leads you to the ecstasy of the Goddess. 

Which of course is not to say it's always rosy, so here is a spell for the times of doubt. These are magical words and are guaranteed to set things back on the right track.

So all together now:

Eurydice Colette Clytemnestra Dido Bathsheba Rabelais Patricia Cocteau Stone!

A Real Witch Talks Herbal or Home Abortion

Surely we all hoped this was a subject which had passed into history but it's come up on the internet after the Supreme Court's decision in the US. So here is the truth from a real witch about all abortifacient products or any home abortions:

The only person who should carry out an abortion under any circumstances is a doctor and it is dangerous, and may be fatal, to do it at home.

If you come away with nothing else from this, please let it be that. It is possible to give yourself an abortion but please don't try because you might end up dead.

So if you suspect you're pregnant here's what to do.

1. Don't panic - if you panic that's when you'll make bad choices. And so we come to the choices.

2. You can do nothing, and carry the baby to term if you are pregnant. I'm a witch so I'm pro choice: people who are for abortion don't want to force them on people. 

3. If you don't want a baby my advice would be to get medical help as soon as possible, ideally within 24 hours of sex. In the UK https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/contraception/where-can-i-get-emergency-contraception/ will tell you where to get emergency contraception. In the US this is how to get it (See below for avoiding a digital record of this).

4. Otherwise, in the UK you can have a medical abortion usually up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and in very limited circumstances after that. You can find out more at https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/abortion/. In the US I have heard good things about I Need an Abortion and Online Abortion Resources.

(Incidentally if you have been using a period tracking app in the US just delete it and all its data anyway because you may be breaking your state law if you terminate a pregnancy and you don't want to give the pigs evidence.)

5. Human life doesn't always work the way we want it to but I'm a witch so I try to live in an intentional way. Some people get very ashamed at the idea of planning to have sex but if it saves you from this trouble it's as well to get on contraception anyway. In the UK Your Contraception Guide will tell you all you need to know and in the US the relevant CDC guide is here.

The next bit might be a bit witchy or just plain difficult to stomach so feel free to exit here and the blessing of the Goddess go with you.

6. If you are unfortunate enough to live in a state where the conservatives carry out the next stage of their campaign and ban contraception, you're basically back in the past. I'm afraid I have to say that none of the things women used to do to try to avoid pregnancy is reliable. I am however reminded that years ago I had a red hot book from the second wave of feminism called A Lesbian Herbal. Obviously it had a particular agenda but it's words 'the only guaranteed way not to get pregnant is lesbian sex'* seared themselves across my mind. I don't think the conservative Christians and Catholics have put much thought into the reality that if they ban contraception it won't stop people having sex and we all know you don't get pregnant by oral and anal sex. Here is a sensible guide about getting ready for anal if you want to try. If you do, and you live in a red state please write your representative to tell them what their policies have driven you to.

Updated 8/7/22 with further information (Source) on avoiding criminalization in the US:

Leave no online footprint of searches or purchases. Digital Defense Fund’s abortion privacy guide is your go-to resource for this. Using private browsers, two-factor authentication, encrypted messaging, strong passwords, etc. is critical. Google searches have been presented as evidence in an SMA trial before. Do not leave a digital trail.

Use the medications properly to prevent interactions with healthcare providers. The pills are very effective, but they have to be used right. Carefully follow the instructions provided on the How to Use Abortion Pill website. Note that misoprostol tablets should always be taken by dissolving them under the tongue. Do NOT insert misoprostol vaginally if you are self-managing an abortion. While this is medically safe, it can leave incriminating pill remnants that can be detected in the vagina during a pelvic exam if you end up needing to seek medical care. 

If it’s not an emergency but you need expert health advice, use a free calling service like Google Voice to call or text the Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline at 1-833-246-2632. Medical complications are very uncommon with abortion pills, but they’re not impossible. The M+A Hotline is safe to use and is staffed by trustworthy clinicians who volunteer their time to help those who choose SMA. Do not use your own phone number to call as this will create a record that is visible to your cell service provider. 

Don’t disclose any information about SMA to emergency room staff if you do need to seek medical care. This is how most people who are arrested for SMA are reported. Healthcare providers are almost always who calls the police in cases of SMA criminalization. Contrary to popular belief, HIPAA does not protect your private health information from being shared with police if you are suspected of doing something that could be considered a crime. If you believe you need to seek urgent medical care, do not hesitate to go. Say “I think I’m having a miscarriage” and provide your symptoms. Do not mention any use of or purchase of abortion pills. There is no widely available test to detect misoprostol in your bloodstream. If you do not disclose it, there is no way for a medical provider to tell the difference between a medication abortion and a spontaneous miscarriage.

Do not talk to the cops. Period. Do. Not. Talk. To. The. Cops. If you are questioned by police you should state, “I am exercising my right to remain silent, and I wish to speak with an attorney.” Do not speak again or nod in response to a question. Contact the Repro Legal Helpline as soon as possible for expert legal advice: 1-844-868-2812. Do not agree to questioning or speak to any law enforcement official without a lawyer present.

Finally before you leave this page please join in with this invocation of Hecate, ancient Greek Goddess of witchcraft, to end patriarchy:

Three faced Hekate, come to me beloved mistress. Graciously hear my sacred spells: image of night, youthful one, dawn-born lightbringer to mortals, who rides upon fierce eyed bulls. O Queen, you who drive your chariot on equal course with Helios, you dance with the triple forms of the triple Graces as you revel with the stars. You are Justice and the Thread of the Fates, Clotho Lachesis Atropos, O Three Headed one, you are Persephone Megaira and Allecto. O one of many shapes who arm your hands with terrible dark-glowing lamps, who shakes locks of fearsome serpents at your brow, whose mouths send forth the roar of bulls, whose womb is thick with reptile-scales, at whose shoulders are rows of venomous serpents, wound across your back beneath murderous chains. O night bellower, lover of servitude, bull faced and bull headed one, you have the eyes of bulls and the voice of dogs. Your forms are hidden in the legs of lions. Your ankle is wolf-shaped, and savage dogs are friendly to you, wherefore they call You Hekate, many named, Mene, cleaving the air like arrow-shooting Artemis. O Goddess of four faces, four names, four ways, Artemis, Persephone, deer shooter, night shiner, thrice resounding, triple voiced, three headed, thrice named selene, O trident bearing one of three faces, three necks, three ways, who holds undying flame in triple baskets. You frequent the three ways and are mistress of the three Decads. Be gracious unto me who is invoking you and hearken favorably. You are night, darkness, and broad chaos, for you are necessity, hard to escape, you are Fate, you are Erinyes and the torture, you are murderess and justice, you hold Cerberus in chains, you are steely blue with serpent scales, O serpent haired and serpent girdled one, blood drinker, death bringer who breeds corruption, feaster on hearts, flesh eater who devours those who died before their time, grave resounder, driver to the wanderings of madness, come to my sacrifices and fulfill this task for me!

I will pin this post at the top of the blog so it is prominent if anyone comes looking for a witchy abortion. Oh by the way - apart from the advice not to try a DIY abortion, which obviously is health advice, I'm not giving you health advice here and you really should make decisions with a health care provider not me because they'll help with your specific situation. x

Urban Grimoire: So Done

I am fascinated by the slang phrase where you are so done with something. Obviously it is US English and I'm fascinated that it means you are not simply finished with something or fed up with something but somewhere beyond having finished it or being fed up with it. Some examples (all taken from here):

1. So Done - When you reach a stage where you are completely and utterly done with life. You couldn't be more done if you tried. You are so done with absolutely everything and everyone.

'I am so done, you couldn't be more done than me'

'Siobhan spends her entire life being done.'

2. So Done

When you reach a stage in life where you are completely done with everything and everyone. You couldn't be more done if you tried because its reached a peak point.

'Karmin spends her entire life being 'so done''

3. So Done

Unable to handle any more of the current situation. Typically occurs during work. Employees will often refer to this state using the code "Sod one" if their employers are nearby.

Dude, I'm So Done I can't even handle this anymore. Do you think they would fired me if I just like, left?

4. i'm so done

to be so out of touch with the topic at hand that one calls out this phrase to switch the topic out of any of the following reasons: embarrassment, boredom, fear, or other indiferrence

Carmen: Sends picture of Robert as a princess

Robert: That picture is so non-heteronormative.

Carmen: I'm so Done, I'm so Done!!!

5. i'm so done with you

When you have nothing else to say because the topic made you either embarrassed, angry, or laugh too hard.

Tom: damn gurl you got the booty

Tina: OMG Tom I'm so done with you!

I have omitted the examples dealing with romantic relationships because I'm not dealing with them here, not because I'm so done with men. Although I am. 

I'm hearing this phrase (or ones which mean the same) used increasingly, particularly since 2020, because the Western world is concurrently faced with a pandemic, science denial, conspiracy theories, political corruption and, at this end, a war. Last week I counted six times different people either said in person or online that they just couldn't do with people any more. Oh, how I know. And I had an ambition to be a hikikomori even before the world nose dived.

There is an interesting parallel to this idea in the magical world. In the Charge of the Goddess she says, 'I am what is attained at the end of desire,' echoing the broader magical tradition that if you want it you won't get it. Most magical workings require you to forget what you want because this lets the thought form go and manifest the new reality. If you keep worrying it you keep the thought with you and stop it happening, rather like digging up seeds you have shown to see if they're growing.

This is what is meant by the difference between the magical will and wanting something. Do what thou wilt does not mean do whatever you want, in fact doing what you want gets in the way of the will. This is called lust of desire:

The term "lust of result" first appears in Crowley's writings in the First Chapter of The Book of the Law:

For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect. (AL I:44)

In his Commentaries on the Book of the Law, Crowley typically discusses the concept of "lust of result" along with that of "purpose."

From the Old Comment (1913) on AL I:44:

Recommends "non-attachment". Students will understand how in meditation the mind which attaches itself to hope of success is just as bound as if it were to attach itself to some base material idea. It is a bond and the aim is freedom.

I recommend serious study of the word unassuaged which appears not very intelligible. (Magical and Philosophical Commentaries, p. 135)

From the New Comment (1920) on AL I:44:

This verse is best interpreted by defining 'pure will' as the true expression of the Nature, the proper or inherent motion of the matter, concerned. It is unnatural to aim at any goal. The student is referred to Liber LXV Chap. II, v. 24 [see below], and to the Tao Teh King. This becomes particularly important in high grades. One is not to do Yoga, etc., in order to get Samadhi, like a schoolboy or a shopkeeper; but for its own sake, like an artist.

"Unassuaged" means "its edge taken off by" or "dulled by". The pure student does not think of the result of the examination. (Magical and Philosophical Commentaries, p. 135)

EDITOR'S NOTE: The definition of "unassuaged" in the above commentary is incorrect from the viewpoint of Standard English usage. The definition of "assuage" is "To make (something burdensome or painful) less intense or severe; To satisfy or appease; To pacify or calm." Unassuaged would therefore be the opposite: to make something already burdensome or painful fully (or perhaps more) intense or severe; to deny satisfaction or appeasement, to disturb or agitate. This editor is unsure whether the divergence of the definition as presented in this commentary from that in common usage was intentional or in error. Source

So far I have been predicting how the current crises listed above would end in fairly mundane terms. But what if so many people's true will is safe and just world and they also all are so done or lose the lust of desire all together?

Urban Grimoire: Comfort in a Time of Strife

Goddess the western world is in a state isn't it. Therefore an uncharacteristically nice post about witchy self soothing.

I'm a great one for white noise. It's actually astounding what it can do for you up to and including fixing tinnitus and helping sleep.

But it's strange to listen to and it doesn't conjure up any emotions or happy places. For that I prefer the ambient sound - there's loads and loads on YouTube - that also brings up the association of an experience or place. For example I like being on a train, so if I want to go somewhere nice I quite often put on the sound of a train journey and go off into fantasy land. It sounds more like the lower-frequency brown noise.

I mentioned having a happy place and of course this is a technique used in mental health therapy. In a slightly different form this technique is also used in many traditions of witchcraft. Here it is often used to make a virtual temple where you can go to in your head. Mine is an altar in a forest clearing. In the virtual temple you also of course have access to virtual magic that you don't have on the earth plane.

I was introduced to this by the very first book I read on witchcraft which was by Laurie Cabot. Her tradition has a technique called counting down to alpha, and she encourages a visualisation aid to help with this. I'm not good at getting down to alpha waves but I discovered that I'm damn good at visualisations that attain their own reality. So I did practice counting down to alpha with a visualisation of a spiral staircase. So a simple technique for this is simply to picture a happy place or refuge in your head. Let it become real, wander round it and experience what is there with your senses.

Years ago I seriously considering applying to be a lighthouse keeper (when there were such things) and in fact lighthouses appear a lot in my visualisation of safety and refuge. I don't agree with the standard dream interpretation of the lighthouse that it's about being a beacon of hope to others, in my case my lighthouse thing is purely because I'm antisocial! My lighthouse thing will go away for a while and then grabs me again and I'll start watching films about them and stuff. And a dream lighthouse makes a perfect refuge.

I have been very conscious as I've been writing this post how Freudian the imagery all is - trains, spiral staircases and lighthouses - and am making a point of saying it before anyone says it!

Ukraine and Putin

Of course I don't need to tell you that I side with Ukraine.

As always all methods must be used against a cunt like Putin and I am delighted that the hackers group Anonymous are acting. These people are heroes of mine and legends.

If you would care to join in magically here is a simplified binding spell to prevent Putin harming (adapted from here). You don't need all the ingredients.

Take something which can be Putin in your head. The important thing is that it reminds you of him. An Action Man would be good. Or a potato, a bread roll, whatever. Write his name on it or stick his picture on it.

Now if you want to call on any energies or divinities of your choice, do so. If you don't that's also great.

Tie up the Putin object. You can use string, ribbon, duct tape or whatever. As you do so picture him prevented from harming Ukraine in your mind and say, 

Hear me, oh spirits

Of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air

Heavenly hosts

Demons of the infernal realms

And spirits of the ancestors

I call upon you

To bind

Vladimir Putin

So that he may fail utterly

That he may do no harm

To any human soul

Nor any tree

Animal

Rock

Stream

or Sea

Bind him so that he shall not break the Ukraine

Usurp their liberty

Or fill our minds with hate, confusion, fear, or despair

And bind, too,

All those who enable his wickedness

And those whose mouths speak his poisonous lies

I beseech thee, spirits, bind all of them

As with chains of iron

Bind their malicious tongues

Strike down their towers of vanity

I beseech thee in my name

(Say your full name)

In the name of all who walk

Crawl, swim, or fly

Of all the trees, the forests,

Streams, deserts,

Rivers and seas

In the name of Justice

And Liberty

And Love

And Equality

And Peace

Bind them in chains

Bind their tongues

Bind their works

Bind their wickedness

Keep the object in a dark, hidden place. Get it out now and then and see him prevented again as you say the verse.

Just in case you're thinking this is a bit subtle for me when I cursed our own Prime Minister, well the priority is the imminent danger. I'm nowhere near finished with him yet.

If you want to help in a non-magical way I recommend the Red Cross and have a very soft spot for the International Rescue Committee.

Oh alright I know you all want a song to sing to enchant the spell. Vladimir, sweetie, I've picked this one just for you.