Let's Magick Our Way Out Of This
It worked for Doug Henning
I’ve been reading a lot about black magick.
With a k.
I feel like the world is so messed up, screw it. Let's see if we can alchemicalize our way out of this one.
My friend Ed Ackerson used to say, referring to an unappealing fella who would often come around, “Don’t say his name. He can be conjured.”
Conjuration magic. Restoration magic. Destruction magic. Alteration magic.
If you’ve played Skyrim or other RPGs, you’re picking up what I’m throwing down.
I’ve seen all the movies about magic rituals and witchcraft.
I know this doesn’t end well.
But screw it. Let’s see if we can’t get into some trouble.
Alex Kazemi writes, in “Pop Magick,” amid more name dropping than even I can muster, about harnessing Intention, Will and Desire.
Famed comic book malcontent Alan Moore just published The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, a giant, sprawling illustrated catalogue of magic in its many forms.
I’ve got various other magickal tomes here, all shrouded in black covers, all paperback, on cheap paper, of questionable provenance, from Amazon.
If you’re going to disrupt society through nefarious means, best buy it from Amazon.
You know Kazemi’s book is serious because Rose McGowan writes the intro.
Kazemi and Moore, more than the rest, talk about making magic from the things you have in your home, whether you’re creating Moore’s warlock props of an altar, disc, wand, sword and cup, or Kazemi’s hand crafted sigils and colored candles.
I made my wand out of a Dyson vacuum cleaner attachment.
At the core, though, these books talk about harnessing the energy that you possess and that you put into the world into hard focused stuff, and utilizing it to affect change.
This doesn’t seem so different than pushing yourself through life by power of personality; I’ve seen far dumber people than I achieve huge things just by mowing down anything in their way with their wheat thresher of a temperament.
Intention, Will and Desire. Common energy en masse. Focused. Into hard power.
Could I use magick in its many forms to affect change? From change in myself to change in others to change in the world?
I need to start leaving the house more.
If you don’t (leave the house), a peculiar, comfortable kind of atrophy sets in.
It’s not like I don’t talk to people. And SXSW starts this week. Going to be interesting, navigating SXSW without a reliable beer in my hand.
My friend Bill Swan, who writes about his days in the band Beulah in a chronological history in the newsletter Off To See The Elephant, says that he figured, after a while of being sober and hiding, he needed to just jump back in the deep end.
Hold your nose and go for broke.
At the same time, this kind of extended working vacation has been good for my soul.
It’s not like I’m not productive.
I just don’t leave my house.
In business we talk about scalability. We talk about dry powder. We talk about runway.
Can this thing scale — is it set up to grow and will it do so without crumbling under its own weight?
Do you have enough dry powder, will you be able to weather the hard times?
How much runway do you have - can you keep everything going with the resources that you have or make?
I think about these ideas in my own life.
I have even written a piece, as of yet unpublished, about trying to use some business processes to make my life work.
Yet, everything is about luck and timing and just doing the work to be there when good luck and great timing align.
And I’m realizing that that can’t always happen from the relative safety of a used Aeron chair and an IKEA desk.
At the same time, I’ve traded a grand social life and nights spent in bars for a more reflective, illuminating period.
I’m not about to turn into the next Socrates.
If I’m lucky I’ll be the next Dave Barry.
(My dad always told me if I was going to write, I should find a shtick, like Dave Barry. Curses! Ahead of me again, Tangborn!)
I’m a bit all over the map these days, as you can probably tell.
My Goodreads and Storygraph profiles tell the tale.
Who needs two book accounts? I have the one because I’m connected to people on it, and the other because it seems the right thing to do, and yet I’m connected to, like, 3 people on it, and one of them is named CumHeist for some reason.
CumHeist has great taste in books!
But so yeah, I have too many half started books and they’re about Spotify and personal essay writing and two Raymond Chandler novels and the second Brandon Sanderson metallurgy space opera books that I can’t seem to finish and a book I’m supposed to read for a book club I have never finished the books for.
And a stack of books about Magick.
I have a whiteboard with my list of projects on it. Work on one side, personal on the other.
I don’t know if it’s the tumultuous state of the world, the meds I take to regulate being a 55 year old sack of bones, general malaise, anxiety, fear, or excitement that makes me unable to commandeer my meager personal time outside of work into something productive, grand, fun, positive, redeeming or entertaining.
During the day I’m up early and get what needs to get done, done. I have work commitments to honor. This is easy. And kind of fun!
But relaxing?
What a nightmare!
Someone I know just said that they missed January entirely, just woke up and it’s February. I feel that.
Oh hell, it’s March.
Wasn’t I talking about magick?
See, focus.
Pop Magick has instructions about how to create a sigil and burn it or pee on it or get some menstrual blood on it.
A little late for that for me I suppose.
I mean I can pee like the best of them.
It says I can use paper or some household item but that’s cheating for a real honest to Kabbalah sorcerer like myself.
For the wand I put some Godzilla stickers on my Dyson vacuum attachment.
I'm still making my altar. I have the base from a King Kong toy / action figure. I figure that's what I'll use to start.
These things are about names and signifiers.
Each of these blooks have their starting kits. Props, oils, herbs, runic symbols.
But to start it’s about understanding Intention, Will and Desire.
These are solid concepts. I get this. My therapist just last week told me to isolate my work asks into one job, one role, one thing I wanted.
Being all over the map is part of the problem.
And this book about magick is saying the same thing.
Whenever someone says we all have to do something en masse, like not spend money on big brands on a certain date or gather in a march, what if we all thought hard with will and intention and desire and exercised one of these magical rituals.
There is power in mass belief.
Intention, Will and Desire
Or is this just messing with the wrong end of the Dyson stick?
Thanks for reading Are You Experienced! I’m Nick Tangborn and I write about all sorts of stuff, from the perspective of a 55 year old dude who’s dabbled all over his entire career, from digital media, to peer to peer networks, to pancake batter.
As usual, if you want to buy me a cup of coffee, I always appreciate the support. This thing takes time and energy away from doing, like, real work! Or maybe this IS the real work! (Theremin music outro)
I have a book about Wiccan incantations and all I gleaned from it is that in certain circumstances, one must bury an egg. It has resulted in shorthand between my partner and I - many issues are met with that phrase. “Bury an egg!” I assume it would just add to our raccoon woes.
Super fun read “Wrong end of the Dyson stick!” Pictures if the magick alter please!