The Magus Speaks

The Fool of Tarot has been introduced as the Main Player upon the stage of The World, the One (or None) beneath the disguise that is every other human form of the Major Arcana. Travelling through the cards "in order," the first of these Masqueraders we meet is The Magus (or Magician, or Juggler.)

To properly understand this Trump, we will first need to investigate The Tree of Life (or Otz Chim) of Qabalah, which fully incorporates and organizes the subsets of symbols necessary to our aims. Next, language itself must be considered. Many occultists regard the spoken/written Word as one of only two forms of true magick available to human beings, the other being sexual energy, of course.

The Fool of the Abyss

When I walk by neon PSYCHIC READINGS signs, I think, "If the person opens the door and motions like they've been expecting me, then I'll go inside."

So, I've never seen a fortune teller.

Divination in general seems rather silly, whether derived from so-called astrology, numerology, palm reading, Tarot or whatever-else-have-you. Mind you, this isn't to say that these organizational systems are without merit, because some of them are quite useful when not profaned by cold reading con artists in the role of spiritual guide to the lonely and gullible of Earth.

Whether you believe Consciousness to be the primum mobile of existence or the culmination to-date of Evolutionary process, the inherent link between Mind and Matter seems stupefyingly obvious. Therefore, the notion of a Secret Language of Consciousness, or Logos, behind the veil of Maya, or buried in the genetic code of the species, is not so outrageous.

Adepts of Hermetic Qabalah and its countless bastard children propose to have stumbled upon The Lexicon of such a pictorial language in Tarot: that pre-Jungian blueprint of the House of Consciousness which incorporates the symbology of The Zodiac, numerology and the Tree of Life, built by a hand seemingly extraterrestrial/superhuman in skill, ostensibly with no greater purpose than to play a little game...

The Horror of Twin Peaks: Re-Visited

This photograph is capable of destroying me. It's of Laura Palmer, a character, played by actress Sheryl Lee, on the television show Twin Peaks. 

Perhaps you need to know the story of that show to be moved by that image or be interested in anything I'm going to say here. I'm not writing this for those of you unfamiliar with the show. This one is for everyone who already knows, or tried and couldn't make it through the first episode because you didn't know what to look for, or maybe this one's just for me. Let's call it posterity.

Laura Palmer is a tragic character. You can see it in the eyes, red-rimmed and a bump too glassy. Her life isn't her own, due to her age, the problems of her parents, drugs, sex and forces beyond her own, or anyone's, control. (There's a little bit of Laura Palmer in all of us, I always say.) Things definitely did not end well for Laura, 25 years ago today, but there probably wasn't ever much of a chance that they would, once she was born the daughter of a man named Leland... Or, Le Land...  Or, The World. And, when Leland was just a boy, he had this neighbor...

The Five Reasons Your Band Isn't Going to "Make It"

I live in Nashville, Tennessee. What actors are to Los Angeles, musicians are to Nashville. It's a total infestation. This, combined with many years as a touring musician, has afforded me the opportunity of seeing countless people make gigantic mistakes in their efforts to "Make It."

In this post, I'll tell you five things you're doing to sabotage your chances at The Big Time. And, no, Number One isn't that you suck. Statistically, it's safe to say your band sounds terrible. But that didn't stop all of the shitty bands currently on top of the radio charts, so there must be more to it than that, yeah? Assuming your band can all play the same song at once, let me give you some tips on how to drop the attitude, quit annoying the people you need, understand SEO, build your legacy and rise above the rest of the local scene.

[UPDATE: Since writing this article, I've been added to several lists of "music blogger emails" sold by scam artists. I'm not a music blogger and I almost never write about new music. I'm never going to listen to your band's music and I'm certainly not going to write about it. Honestly, this is probably doing you a favor because if I did it would almost definitely be a bad review. If that sounds harsh, allow me to offer you my sincere lack of apology. The same segment of this website where my email address can be found has a specific request to not send me promo materials for musical acts. To ignore this request is actually illegal but, perhaps even worse than that, makes you and your band (or your clients, if you're a "publicist") look like total assholes. Stop doing this and keep reading this post.]

Four Horrific Authors: Jeremy Robert Johnson, Stephen Graham Jones, John Farris & Dennis McKenna

Much as discussed in last week's article on caffeine/coffee, tolerance to a drug builds quickly. One needs a bigger hit and more concentrated a dose. When the addiction is to myth - this need to experience fiction as allegory for what lies beneath the veil of Maya - all roads lead to Horror. Whatever your preferred Cosmogony of Consciousness, existence as self-aware entity is not possible without a symbolic system to explain away those moments. You know the ones. The time your walk became a run towards your back against the other side of the front door, slammed shut before the realization struck - you hadn't even looked behind you to see if anything was there. The time you never really could remember that dream but the feeling - and whatever Thing(s) causing it - clung to your day, just under the surface.

Hey, it's okay. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want.