I'm not a Satanist!

Woohoo! This blog will be two years old in slightly less than a week. Seems about time for a bit of self-indulgent navel-gazing reflection.

Actually I'm going to look again at one of my favourite topics: our need for labels - in particular magickal-religious ones in the Pagan world.

"What? No sex?" I hear you cry!

Hail Satin!
The inspiration for this little bit of soul searching has come primarily from a young man in America. My FB friend, the inimitable Steve Ash (the names have not been changed because only the innocent need protection!) has created a group called Satinism (sic).
For those who don't know, most wannabe Satanists are dumb kids who can't spell for toffee. The group's a mickey-take. Let's worship the great god Satin, revere the saints Silk and Rayon, and down with that heretic false god 70% PolyCotton mix!

I'm sure you're getting the gist of it. Anyway, I joined because I thought the idea was hilarious. Unfortunately I was spotted by a wannabe Satanist. I suppose it's partly my own fault for having a profile picture of a naked demon playing a flute made from a thigh bone, but dammit, give the bugger glasses and he'd look just like me!
Anyway, I was contacted by a somewhat incoherent young man in Arizona. Let's call him Conner (for that is his name). Conner wanted to start a Satanist group with me involved. Regardless of my making jokes about his spelling and suggesting Silk and Nylon as alternatives he didn't get the message, so I ended up writing back in clear bold capitals, "I AM NOT A SATANIST!"

It's not the first time this has happened, and not just with Satanism. To be fair, most folk who have thought me a Satanist were born-again fundamentalist Christians - to them the Pope is a Satanist. Actually, they may have a point there!

I'm not a Satanist, honest!
Funnily enough, I often get mistaken for other types of Occultist within the Pagan world. It's pretty obvious to most that I'm not a Wiccan, Druid or Heathen. Primarily people guess at Thelemite or Chaos Magickian rather than Satanist, which are interesting but also wrong. So I'm using this blog to consider why. Well, I did say "self-indulgent navel-gazing" didn't I?

Satan
I keep saying I'm not a Satanist. Does anybody believe me yet?
From my own simple point of view the character Satan is just the Christian god of Evil, to match their Father God and his Demi-God Saviour Son. Now, I'll happily acknowledge all the gods, but I won't consider any of them as the only, all-powerful god (which is a discussion for another time), therefore I couldn't follow a Christian path. I also couldn't follow a deliberately anti-Christian path either. Satanism, from this viewpoint is a twisted version of Christianity.
Satanism is based in a Judaeo-Christian framework, and it's a framework I'm not comfortable in. It chafes like an ill-fitting suit.
There's another viewpoint of Satanism brought out by those colourful West-Coast characters, Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino who created respectively the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set (g'wan, look 'em up, give yourself a giggle). Both of these are really based on Humanist doctrines which use Satan as symbol of rebellion from repressive church-based morality. This I can understand, but in reference to Satan they automatically reference straight back to the church they hate so much. It feels like a teenager shouting "I hate you!" at mum but still expecting to be fed and have his washing done.
The Church of Satan also has it's own Satanic Bible, with commandments too! Which is, of course, something that rubs me up entirely the wrong way. I'm a grown-up. I can make my own moral decisions, thank you.
So - I am not a bloody Satanist! Right?

The other two philosophies - Thelema and Chaos Magick - are things I've got a lot more time and respect for. They're not for me personally, but then neither is marmite.

Thelema
I don't think I've ever met a mediocre Thelemite. Many of the people I like best in the world - people who I have real, abiding affection and respect for (and serious lust for in a few cases) - are self-defined Thelemites. A few other people who I think are dangerous nutters and should be avoided at all costs are also Thelemites. It's an interesting bunch!
Put very simply Thelema is the name for a "religion" (for want of a better word) started by the famous occultist Aleister Crowley - although based on earlier ideas and philosophies - after a revelation by an angel in 1904. The basic dictum goes, "Do What Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law, Love under Will" Thelema encourages people to find their "True Will", which in so doing will put them entirely in concert with the will of the universe. That sounds pretty good to me.

The reason I'm not a Thelemite is that there are a few things within Thelema which go against my personal grain. One of these is the Book of the Law. As you may have noticed, I'm not good at being told what to do by a book - which is one point - but really, I find reading this "holy book" to be a lot like archaeology. The treasures are there but you've got to dig through an awful lot of shit before you find them.
Another problem is that I don't really like Crowley. He was a nasty man. He used people and he hurt people, and with every evidence of enjoying it. I find it very difficult to respect that.
In the end though what I really find difficult in Thelema are its organised rituals. Maybe there are independent Thelemites out there who aren't involved in groups like the OTO, but they're few and far between. Such groups use pre-defined and pre-written rituals and formulae. There's nothing wrong with that, and the one ritual I've experienced had some very enjoyable moments. I just prefer a more free-form style. Plus there's the heavy emphasis on Ancient Egyptian mythology (which isn't a particular area of interest for me) and on a Judaeo-Christian framework as the basis for Thelemite practices (primarily dealing with angels and such).
It works well for some and that's great, just not for me.
So, I'm not a Thelemite. Am I a Chaos Magickian?

Chaos
I couldn't possibly be a Chaos Magickian. My hair's too nice!
Actually people who think I'm a Chaos-type are pretty well justified in their opinions. Chaos does not follow a pre-set system or philosophy, and neither do I. I'm very happy to cherry-pick bits and bobs of belief, deity, ritual, philosophy etc from all over the place, squish them together and see what comes out. I love that indefinable individuality which marks the concept of Chaos Magick.
Yet at the same time Chaos is a system (of sorts), which is in danger of becoming defined, like "Eclectic Paganism" did once upon a time. In the end though, there is one method within Chaos Magick which throws the whole thing away for me. That's the use of belief itself as a tool.
A Chaos Magickian will, as an exercise, choose to believe something he knows to be untrue. There's an awful lot I could write here about the nature of objective and subjective truth, belief and how the one affects the other, but that's going to take all day. Suffice it to say that in spiritual terms,while I'm willing to redefine my beliefs to fit convincing evidence, I'm not willing to deliberately choose a contradictory belief. It's dishonest! And having lived with someone who did just that, I can honestly say that the practice makes you a complete pain in the arse!

Not a Chaos Magickian either eh? What label should I have then?

Pagan
Human, Pagan, Seán. Those are all the labels I need, thanks.
That's what I put on my MySpace page. I'll happily define myself as Pagan because the label is so huge it's almost one-size-fits-all. Paganism, for me anyway, is a belief in many gods combined with a celebration of seasonal festivals. I believe in all the gods (although what I believe they actually are is a different question entirely) and I celebrate seasonal festivals in a manner relevant to what's happening at that season. That makes me a Pagan, I'd have said.

BUT, on my FB profile I've written, "I'll also accept Dionysian, Discordian or Taoist - if you really must define it"
Why did I do that? Do I have a subconscious need to be defined and delimited by a label? I certainly hope not.
I could also have put Subgenius on there, because I'm a fully paid-up Reverend.

Okay, so why?
Well, a Taoist is a lovely thing to be be because, in Western eyes, it's a religion which is the antithesis of a religion. No ethics, no dogma, no nothing! Taoism by it's very nature is essentially indefinable, with it's emphasis on contact with that which cannot be labelled or defined. The writings of Taoist masters have advice in them, but that advice usually boils down to, "Stop being so rigid and rule-bound and relax!"

The other two definitions, Discordian (or Erisian if you prefer Greek to Latin) and Subgenius are great fun. I'm not going to explain them here, I'm just going to suggest that you look them up, dear reader. All I'd like to say here is "Praze Bob!" and to tell Eris that not only do I not eat hot dog buns on a Friday, I don't eat hot dogs at all - so there! Mwah!

Finally, there's Dionysian. Okay, I'm kind of serious about this one, but not at all in a serious way. In short - if Apollo represents all that is strict and static, harsh and dogmatic, pre-defined and rule-bound then he needs balance. Dionysos is that balance. He's my bestest, favouritest god ever, has the most fun and has never yet told me what to do. He's even given us the gift of wine! What a guy!

I didn't intend this to be a particularly profound post and I hope it's not come across that way. All I want to say before finishing is that, in the end, labels are for jam jars not people. The only truly useful labels for people must be so big as to be almost meaningless or so specific as to apply to them for a tiny portion of their lives.
Some people like to label and limit themselves with definitions like plumber, Feri witch, football fan, cyclist and so on. That's their business and good luck to them, but deep down I feel that they're doing themselves a disservice.

Love and religious awe,
Seán

A Immigration Argument

I have a friend on Facebook (yep, that again) with whom I sometimes have political disagreements. I consider him a nice guy if misguided, and I'm sure he thinks the same about me. This friend recently posted a quotation which brought on a discussion completely outside the realms of comment boxes so, eventually, I promised to answer in the form of a blog post. Here it is.


The Statement
The statement my friend posted was this:

Current immigration levels combined with the birth rates of Third World
immigrants already resident in Britain mean that we have about 20 years to avoid
being completely colonised

Interesting isn't it?
My first reaction was, obviously, "Rubbish!" because it was clearly some right-wing media-fed scaremongering, but he assured me it was true. He stated that it was a quote from a government foreign affairs advisor. Now, why I should actually believe such a person isn't entirely clear - he's obviously playing to the crowd like anyone else trying to keep his job. What is this guy's personal political stance and how does it colour his statements?


The statement does have a certain, seemingly deliberate, impact. That's what annoyed me in the first place and that psychological manipulation is something I'd like to look at first.
To me the whole sentence is a huge flashing Fnord (if you don't know what a Fnord is, please look here). Let's look at it in more detail:


1. "Current immigration levels". What exactly are the current immigration levels. I don't know, but I'm going to look them up later. Do you know? The average Daily Mail reader would immediately say "Too bloody high, mate!" This phrase immediately connects on a subconscious level us to the assumption that immigration levels are high, whether they are or not.


2. "birth rates". This phrase is exactly the same as the last one. It assumes that birth rates, just like immigration levels are high. Are they?


3. "birth rates of Third World immigrants" What do you think of when you hear the term , "Third World"? That's right Africa and Asia. Or if you're a BNP supporter, "Niggers and pakis. And, oh my god! the bastards are breeding!" This phrase quite deliberately conjures up images of millions of brown children with funny accents demanding to be fed by the state - as my friend put it, "Where are the jobs & houses coming from? And where is the extra money to pay for social services, NHS & pensions?" That's exactly the expected reaction, but is it even a valid question?

4. "we have about 20 years". Armageddon is coming folks! All such phrases which give a limited time-frame well within a human lifespan have the immediate effect of causing slight panic in the reader. It's a very commonly used brainwashing method. People who panic aren't thinking straight.


5. "to avoid being completely colonised". What the hell does that mean? This phrase is the most deliberately emotive, and completely irrational of the whole bunch. It rips into our deepest, darkest fears of being totally ruled over by a foreign country who, at this very moment, is breeding itself into power through sheer fecundity.
According to the dictionary on my lap, to colonise means to found a colony and a colony is simply a group of people who all live together according to their own rules (like a farmstead, say, or the Amish in America). We've been "colonised", by those terms, for thousands of years. In other words, that phrase is totally meaningless where the argument for or against immigration is concerned.


It's interesting that I've found five Fnords. I wonder if Eris is having a little laugh at our expense. I also wonder if it's relevant that the word "colonise" begins with "colon"!


Truth?
Okay, the statement may be a massive giggling Fnord, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't still true. There are two basic questions to answer, plus one from the following FB discussion which probably ought to be addressed.
The two questions are: "What is the immigration rate?" and "What is the population growth rate?". If we can answer these two basic questions we should be able to tell if were likely to be "completely colonised" by anybody.


The Immigration Rate
Britain's immigration rate actually is quite high in comparison to other countries and according to most of what I've read we'll be heading for a population of about 70 million within 25 years - if rates remain at present levels.
But will they? According to a recent BBC news report immigration has slowed and during 2008 "The numbers of people arriving minus those leaving actually fell by 44%". Immigration levels are very difficult to predict and tend to come in waves. Present levels are very unlikely to continue because levels change all the time, at the last count they appeared to be falling.
To state that we WILL have specifically higher population because of immigration is impossible.
Here's a quote from Tim Finch, another government advisor:

It is now declining sharply - almost certainly because of a combination of the economic downturn, the short term nature of much migration from new EU
countries, and the impact of stronger controls put in place by the government.
There has been a lot of irresponsible scaremongering about immigration in recent years which was based on the false assumption that high migration was inevitable for years to come.

The Birth Rate
The British birth rate is indeed rising, and faster than immigration. We have just passed 61 million people, but just like immigration, birth rates come in waves. We are currently going through a boom period with 790,000 babies born in the UK last year. Roughly a quarter of those were born to mothers from other countries. A quarter that is - not a takeover, just a quarter. A significant number of these babies were born to Polish mothers - not just Third World mothers.
So, of the rising population 75% has nothing whatsoever to do with immigrants. It's different when you look at it that way, isn't it?
We had massive booms in birth rates in 1947, 1962, and 1993 with either slumps or steady settling in between. We must account for an aging population as well. We aren't living any longer as a species, but a lot more of us are reaching the upper limits of old age than previously. The current population of over-85's stands at more than 1.3 million. That's likely to rise too. There's the answer: kill your granny!

The Countryside
One very valid point was a query about what will happen to our countryside with an increasing population. The increasing population being placed squarely on the shoulders of immigrants doesn't actually work in this case though - it's another of those assumptions we tend to make.
We are losing countryside rapidly and have been for quite some time, but is this the fault of immigration?
Well, no! Immigrants tend to live in whatever they can get. The vast majority of immigrants live in areas of extremely high population, in poor housing close to or even within cities. Most of them haven't acquired the almost uniquely British idea of moving out to the suburbs, or better yet a place in the country. The destruction of the British countryside is not happening, and has never happened, to house immigrants - it happens purely because of our own selfish, short-sighted, acquisitive greed. Why do you think that Wimpey is such a huge company?
This is something you'll see regularly after the building of a housing estate outside a village. Regardless of the protests it immediately fills up with upper-middle class families who'll commute to work, for a better place in the countryside which they've just helped to destroy.

Finally
. . . because I'm getting tired now!
Right at the end of this piece I'm going to put a list of all the immigrants into Britain. See if you know anyone (including yourself) who isn't on that list somehow. We're all descended from immigrants in Britain, even Nick Griffin. A society is made of its people and this society's people are all immigrants. We won't lose our cultural heritage by allowing immigration because our cultural heritage has migrated with us and been adapted by and to where we live. Even the country's national religion is a foreign import.

Personally I prefer the philosophy of the No Borders movement, but perhaps that's a blog for another time. Meanwhile I'd like to ask a moral question - not answer it, just ask:

If someone sees a way of improving the lives of himself and his family
without knowingly causing harm to anyone else, does anyone have the right to
stop him?

Love and freedom,
Seán

Picts, Celts, more Celts, Romans, Afro-Roman Legionaries, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Danes, Normans, Jews, Huguenots, North African slaves, Indians, Chinese, Irish, Bengali Lascars, Polish, Italians, West Indians, Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Ugandan Asians, Australians, New Zealanders, white South Africans, Americans, South Asians.
We're all foreigners sooner or later!

Sex Work - a response.

Yesterday MJ Tallon, a friend on Facebook, posted a very interesting note about sex work and sex workers asking a variety of questions. The response was huge and I wanted to respond myself but couldn't fit it into a comments box, so I wrote a response as a note of my own.

Since I've been neglecting the blog - and in a fit of self-promotion of course - I'm going to bung it all on here too. I'm very pleased to say that most people who responded have been extremely positive, but I'd like whatever opinions you can give both about MJ's piece and my own.

First here's MJ's piece, without the comments because there are an awful lot. The original - comments and all - can be found here, assuming you're on Facebook.

Folks I’ve known on Facebook a while will recognize that this topic’s come up in
a couple of references before. Recently, it’s been resurfacing in a couple of
places and I’m hoping anyone with opinions, interest, suggestions of any kind
will contribute whether for the first time or again. I’m working these questions
through, and other people invariably offer such valuable perspectives…so please,
chime in if you have any thoughts!

Most people I know, given the types of acquaintances I tend to cultivate, feel that no one should be exploited. There is a particular disagreement, though, when it comes to how exploitation of sex workers should be addressed. Is sex work inherently exploitative? If so, why? What are the underlying conditions that tie it exclusively in any abstract circumstance to a power differential? Will that pertain in the absence of
patriarchy? How?

What is the evidence that legalized, legitimate sex work in society continues to require desperate, reluctant participants to operate? Since we are talking chiefly about women here, are women who live in societies with more legal sex work more exploited, more endangered, more dissatisfied than women in other jobs in those countries? Are they more at risk or exploited etc. than women involved in sex trades in other countries? What are the conditions that decide these factors?

There are two issues most predominant in my mind at the moment. One, the most pressing, is how we would work to make sex work safer. I feel strongly that the most immediate, most likely way to accomplish that is to make sex work legal. Operate businesses, license them, provide workers with services and recourses and employee safety legislation and benefits. The more open those transactions are, the less likely
workers are to be disappearing from dark streets in the middle of the night.

The second issue is the more abstract, simply: how can we envision sex “work” -- or, the experience of sharing sex at all, I suppose -- in an environment where little of the current prejudices and power imbalances were entrenched. “Come the revolution,” as it were, what will sex mean? And how can we aim for an ideal situation where it will mean everything it should, and nothing it shouldn’t?

It's a damn good piece, but too deep for simple comments boxes. So here's my bit:

My friend MJ Tallon posted this note yesterday:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=310669165606&ref=nf

I was going respond in a comments box but (firstly) I'm likely to write rather more than a box can take and (secondly) the response has been huge so far. So, I've decided to write a few opinions - that's all they are folks! - in the form of a note and tag anyone I reckon might be interested. Please read MJ's note first though, if you can.


I'm going to admit right at the start that I'm theorising wildly here. My experience of sex work and workers is very limited. I've never hired a prostitute because I've never felt the need and, frankly, I'd feel like some kind of failure if I ever did. I was offered a job when I was 17, stick thin, effeminate and wore PVC trousers but I ran for the hills.
I also don't like normal pornography. I find it cold, standardised and formulaic, and therefore boring.

I'm also generalising a great deal here. I hate to generalise because every generalised statement is untrue when applied to any individual - but short of looking at every single sex worker individually there's not much choice. So I'm going to assume the sex worker is female and the client (punter, porno-purchaser etc) is a heterosexual male unless I mention otherwise.

The first question MJ asked is probably the most important: Is sex work inherently exploitative?
As with all such questions the answer is yesnomaybe. The vast majority of it quite definitely is. It's exploitative both of the worker and the punter. I can't really speak for other countries because I've never lived in one, but in the UK it's pretty bad.
Here's an example:

I used to live in Cheetham Hill, just North of Manchester, which has a notorious red light district. It's rough. I used to see the "girls" working at all times of day and night and I used to see their customers. I was propositioned myself on several occasions, even once while I was taking my partner's kids to school.
The exploitation and corruption were rife here. The whole area was sordid, dirty and unpleasant. Many of the girls had very obvious needle tracks on their arms and legs and were haggard and malnourished. The cynical part of me wondered how they made any money, they were so hideous, until I saw the punters. They were worse.
These girls weren't doing this job as a chosen career, they were doing it as a guaranteed way of making some cash for the next fix. Their punters were some of the worst examples of humanity I'd ever seen, and this was the only sex (or possibly human contact) they were going to get.
All these people were involved in sex work for the simple reason that they couldn't do anything else. These are people who fell through society's cracks and need help to climb back up.

But does it HAVE to be like that?

Well, no it doesn't. There are sex workers out there who do this because they want to and they don't feel demeaned at all. For something to be demeaning requires a person to feel that way and that's definitely a matter for the individual. Notice what I said about failure earlier on. Most of these women don't consider their job demeaning because of one simple factor - they are in control.
One of my favourites is a young lady called Sequoia Redd. Here's her blog:
http://sequoiaredd.com/blog/

Sequoia is a sex worker by choice. She's highly intelligent and in control and she works both as a prostitute and as a pornographic model (not entirely sure what the difference is, but nevermind). To put it crudely - it's Sequoia's cunt and who she chooses to fill it is entirely her business, whether that's by financial negotiation or not. She looks young and gorgeous but has actually been turned down for porno work because her "tits aren't perky enough". Guess why I don't like normal porn!
Sequioa is part of a growing movement of feminist sex workers who are attempting to get past the exploitative standardisation and money-based control and allow female control of this societal aspect of their own bodies. Other examples would include Abbey Winters and the Suicide Girls.

Others have been known to occasionally provide a really important social service to those unable to help themselves. Many people don't like to think of the very highly disabled as sexual beings, but a 19 year old boy with cerebral palsy has exactly the same bloody painful erection as any other 19 year old boy. And the poor sod possibly can't even masturbate! There are those who can and will help him out, and thank heaven for that.

(Damn, I hate this generalisation! What about gay porn/prostitution, trannies, kinks? Since when were all women so perfect they never exploited anybody? There's so much more to the whole issue of sex work.)

How can sex-workers be kept safe?
The obvious answer here is legalisation, although that doesn't necessarily prevent exploitation. I've known men who have worked on production lines six days a week, 9 hours a day making 35 coffins a day for the CWS for 20 years and more - that's exploitation of poverty and it's perfectly legal.
Legislation may help too, but that can just as easily lead to a black market of non-legislated girls who'll do stuff the law doesn't allow. Legal protection has got to help though because it can provide health care, free condoms, holidays and so on. I don't think it's the answer, because there isn't one single answer, but it may be an answer.
I believe another answer comes in self-determination. I understand that there are websites which some prostitutes use to advertise themselves entirely of their own volition. They can vet clients and arrange meetings in safe places very easily and don't have to face them in the street.

I think what's keeping sex work in the dark, in this country at least, is of course the stigma. We see sex work as a "bad" thing, a dirty, sordid thing. I would see going myself to a prostitute as a personal failure, that's my stigma. It's going to take a lot more than legalisation and legislation to remove that stigma, to stop us considering sex for personal profit as demeaning.

It's possible in our utopian future of perfect equality and liberality (well, you never know!) that prostitution and other sex work may cease to exist because they've become unnecessary, but I doubt it.
For some punters it's the prostitution itself which is the attraction. It's the sordid illegality and risk which turns them on, and where there's demand there will be supply. Even if we had a society which had dispensed with money, there are other forms of remuneration.
And as for pornography - well there are those who simply like looking at pictures!

As a final note, someone in the comments said that "If people were 'balanced', no one would look for a sex trade worker. There would be just monogamous relationships."
I disagree with this statement entirely because it considers a balanced society to be restricted to a single viewpoint. I think that a perfectly balanced society would include monogamy, polygamy, non-gamy, and all the other -gamys as well as all non-exploitative sexualities (including prostitution in that sense). What would make it balanced is that nobody would give a damn. But that's a different discussion.

Love and freedom,
Seán

Sex & Drugs & the Left-Hand Path

This blog is inspired by (and thus dedicated to) a friend of mine. I'm not going to name her because that would be embarrassing but she's a Pagan of the Wiccan style and a hard-working young woman in the caring professions who is utterly devoted to her children.
She has, though, come in for some criticism for her use of certain narcotics and sex-magick in her magickal and religious practice. I love her to bits - most people do -but there's a small and vociferous minority who find her and her methods and philosophies offensive because they are "Left-Hand Path".

Disclaimer: Any non-Pagan or non-occultist reading this is likely to find it a wee bit confusing. Sorry! If you do need anything translating please ask.

Left-Hand Path

What do we mean when we talk about the Left- and Right-Hand Paths of magick? As a simple Pagan boy back in the '80s, who had read his share of Dennis Wheatley novels as a kid, the answer was pretty straightforward - good and evil! A Left-Hand Path magician would hurt and use people for their own ends. They would command demons, perform sacrifices and cause destruction. Proper sensationalist stuff.
Many people still believe this and judge accordingly. Certain activities, though, are classed as Left-Hand Path, regardless of whether they are destructive or harmful, and then condemned outright.

It can be argued, because words change their meanings over time, that a word or term means what people believe it to mean at any particular moment. A look at the history of the word "nice" is quite revealing in this regard. Equally a look at the origins of Left- and Right-Hand Paths is very enlightening.
The terms originate in Hindu and Buddhist Tantra and were first applied to Western Occultism by the famous Mme. Blavatsky back in the late 19th Century.
To give a general gist: Right-Hand practices can be considered the slow and safe way to Divinity - prayer, meditation, strict adherence to moral codes with the aim of (in Christian terms) "sitting at the right hand of God".
Left-Hand practices go direct - they are the methods which, occasionally dangerously, speed things up. The ingestion of certain mind-altering substances and sexual magickal acts are commonly used. They use real-world rather than symbolic methods and, most importantly, consider the practitioner to be potentially God themselves. A good description I've read describes the difference thus: ". . . the Great Rite performed symbolically using chalice and athame is a right-hand ritual. When the High Priest and High Priestess perform the Union by actually having sex, it is a left-hand ritual."

Magick

When we perform a Magickal act we're are looking at the multiverse in a different way from normal. We have to. We have to consider that there is an unseen force which we can be aware of and manipulate. During our normal lives this force is usually not noticed and we have to tune in in order to become aware of it.
Crowley defined Magick as causing changes in accordance with will, (such as the healing of an injury or the removal of an obstacle) but that's only a small part of the whole thing. What we are really changing using Magickal practices is ourselves. We change our awareness. We change it temporarily during a circle in order to be deliberately aware of the force we're tuning into and manipulating. In changing our awareness and perception of the multiverse we change ourselves into creatures with a wider perception.
And what is this force into which we tune? Mana, chi, the Holy Spirit, the "force", the True Will? By whatever name it's known it is our direct link to divinity, to Heaven, Samadhi, Yoga, enlightenment. By widening our perceptions we become more godlike, and the more we do it the more divine we become. The modern Pagan does this in very old-fashioned ways, such as invocation - which makes one divine by identification with the divine.

SEX!

How do you feel when sexually aroused? Do you feel "normal"? No, neither do I.
Sex is a great way of altering our awareness of the universe. The best method for most people appears to be loving sex with an absolutely equal partner - you open up yourselves and each other together. During orgasm the human being has an experience like no other and when two people do that together they join in a manner not possible by any other method. They literally know, for a moment, how it feels to be divine.
Yet, this is not the only way. The alteration of awareness via sexual methods can be done solo or even in large groups, via orgasm or the suppression of orgasm, or even via the various "kinks" which work so well for some people. Frankly from my own point of view, as long as everybody's happy doing what they're doing then whatever floats your boat is great. Go for it!
From a Western magickal perspective there is also another sexual road to divinity, to tuning in - the afterglow.

Here's a note to all men who get up, give it a wipe and then ring for a taxi - you're an idiot!
Awareness during afterglow whilst cuddling your partner/partners/simply enjoying it, is exactly the same as the awareness deliberately attempted during a circle. During afterglow we are automatically tuned-in, no longer a small, separate creature and instinctively aware of what Buddhists spend years of meditation trying to achieve.

DRUGS!

I'm not going to suggest here that people should use illegal and possibly dangerous substances. In fact, for legal reasons I'd like to declare this section on drugs entirely theoretical. Don't try this at home kiddies!
Okay, that's that out of the way!

I have a very limited experience of narcotics, so I'm happy to listen to experts on the subject. One of those experts is William Burroughs who considered opiates to be bad, and frankly he should know. So I'll say right now, stay away from opiates. Opiates include heroin, cocaine, opium, "smack" and so on.
There are certain other substances, however, which appear to have rather positive effects, both in the long and short terms. They also appear to have almost no addictive effects. These are the hallucinogens.
As I've said over and over already, magick is about changing yourself by means of changing your awareness, which is what hallucinogens do. Some people call them entheogens, which is lovely Greek(ish) word -literally within-god-create! They make you like a god inside.
In my own experience I have tried only one entheogen (unless you count kava-kava which was a bit pants), the psilocybe semilanceata or Liberty Cap/magic mushroom. In all honesty, it was great! It altered my perceptions so that I could see with ease all that I imagined and allowed me to look at the world in a completely different manner. Should I try it again I shall do so in a deliberately ritualised environment to heighten the experience yet further and to tune in even deeper.
This is exactly what shamans have been doing across the whole world for the whole of human existence! In other words, altering one's awareness has been magickal practice forever and the use of a substance to aid that change is one common, nay normal, method.

I'm not sure about marijuana simply because I don't like it. Personally I find it a vile substance and can't see the appeal. Different strokes for different folks!
There is one drug I would definitely not recommend - tobacco. Having spent most of my adult life addicted to the bloody stuff, and only having broken that addiction about 5 years ago I can honestly say that there is absolutely no good in tobacco whatsoever.

There is one mind-altering substance which is commonly used by millions on a regular basis. So commonly, in fact, that few consider it a drug at all. It's even used by people who disapprove of "drugs". It's legal, it's relatively cheap and it's incredibly dangerous. You've probably worked out by now that I'm talking about alcohol.
I deliberately use alcohol for what I consider its intended purpose - to get drunk. I'm not an habitual drinker (although there's always a danger of that) and so don't drink except for the effect. If I don't want to get drunk, I simply don't drink! To me this is a form of worship. A night drinking and dancing is my Bacchanale and I dedicate it to Dionysos as soon as I step through the door.

Paganism.

One of the wonderful things about Paganism is its immediacy. You don't need a priest to talk to the gods for you, you can do it yourself. You don't separate your worship to a specific day, your life becomes worship through the alteration of your awareness. You can even join with a spirit or deity so that they can speak through you and the two become one.

These are precisely the aims of the so-called Left-Hand Path!

By that definition, the whole of Paganism is Left-Hand Path, but does that mean that Paganism is also evil?
Bloody stupid question! Of course it doesn't!

It's about time we got rid of such simplistic definitions as Left- and Right-Hand Path. They don't help anybody. The vast majority of us use methods which combine elements of both definitions and therefore make a mockery of the whole concept. We're human beings and, as such, simple black/white categorisations are inadequate, belittling and frankly, bollocks!
If someone uses sexual magick to harm another person then they're not Left-Hand Path. They're bastards!
Similarly, if someone uses sexual magick to heal another person they're not Right-Hand Path, or Left- either. They're sexual healers, and probably an amazing shag too!

We need to get beyond petty moralisations and over-simplified definitions and open ourselves up to a whole multiverse of infinite possibilities. We are potential gods, and whatever methods we use to achieve that realisation for ourselves are the "good" ones.

An it harm none, do what you will.

Love,
Seán

Codex Alimentarius (finally!)

I've been meaning to write about this for quite a long time and, frankly, have been putting it off. It's not that I'm frightened of Monsanto's mafia or of simply being wrong, it's just that there's so much of it I haven't really known where to start.
Codex Alimentarius is also really, really complicated and technical. I make no apology here for running on gut instinct - it feels wrong - and allowing other more informed and expert people to do the talking for me. I'll come back to those people a little later.

A History Lesson
A short, potted history of Codex Alimentarius (lit: "Food Book") goes a bit like this:
In 1963 a group of countries involved with the United Nations' FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), and the WHO (World Health Organisation) got together to create the Codex Alimentarius Commission (or CAC, which is hilarious if you speak any Irish!). CAC's aims were to create international health and safety standards for the production, hygiene, and labelling of food and food supplements, and thus give consumers a chance to protect themselves from shysters and monied interests.
Sounds pretty good so far, and to be honest, it was until the advent of Genetically Modified foods and the biotech industries who created them. Power corrupts and money, of course, is power!

The Experts
The first person I'd like to bring into this argument is gentleman called Dr. Robert Verkerk. Dr. Verkerk (who has more letters after his name than enough) used to work as a research fellow at Imperial College London and has worked all over the world, often with governments using his combined expertise in agriculture, sustainability and health care. He's also, to some extent, involved with CA - but he's one of the good guys!
In 2002 he started the Alliance for Natural Health, and has been campaigning on multiple fronts ever since. Basically, he's worried. And if he's worried, perhaps we should ask why.

Another person to bring in is Ian R. Crane. I've put a link there, but I think it's probably better to watch his videos on YouTube. Where Dr. Verkerk is possibly a little dry and analytical (like any good scientist) Mr. Crane is a tad more sensational and radical. This doesn't make him wrong (or right either) but it does make him accessible.

One of the most informative and accessible videos about Codex is called We Become Silent. It's worth half an hour of anybody's time and the fact that it's narrated by Judi Dench does no harm at all.
Finally, of course, there are the loud and slightly nutty ones. That still doesn't make them wrong, you just have to turn down the volume a bit. Prime amongst these is Dr. Lima Raibow, although there are plenty more.

On the other hand there are plenty of pro-Codex sites too. The problem with these is that they tend to be government-approved and very technical and confusing. Here's the official site, and if you can translate it you're cleverer than me.

My Own View
There are several things which worry me about Codex Alimentarius. One of which is how quiet and secretive it is. The vast majority of people don't know about it, yet it affects one of the most basic aspects of their lives - food!
Another is the fact that I don't understand it. I'm not meant to understand it because I'm not an expert. But it's my food, and surely I should know what I'm eating and feeding my children, rather than relying on experts to tell me what's okay. It reminds me of the Monty Python sketch of a woman giving birth - Woman: "What should I do?" Doctor: "Nothing dear. You're not qualified!"

The most worrying thing of all, though, is this:
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is staffed mostly by governmental appointees. There are some experts with ethical stances in there but this is never going to be enough. CAC claims that there are no profit-making interests involved in its decisions, which is true as far as it goes. The point here is that there doesn't need to be.
A politician is not an expert in his or her department. A Transport Minister doesn't have to know a lot about transport because they might be the Education or Health Minister in six months. Instead they rely on expert advisers to provide them with all the info they need and suggest what they ought to do. So who is providing CAC with their info?
The answer is vested and monied interests. Big pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness and biotech companies. One of the biggest of these (if not the biggest) is Monsanto.
I'll write about Monsanto specifically another time. The purpose of this piece is simply to make people aware of Codex Alimentarius.

Please research Codex Alimentarius. Find out everything you can, and everything you can understand. Then make a decision. If you decide you're against it you'll already have found a large number of groups to help you do something about it.
If Codex Alimentarius doesn't bother you, then fair enough. You can put your feet up and not worry about it. But I'd like to offer a final quote to think about. It comes from John Hammell, a legislative advocate and the founder of International Advocates for Health Freedom (IAHF):

The Codex Alimentarius proposals already exist as law in Norway and Germany where the entire health food industry has literally been taken over by the drug companies. In these countries, vitamin C above 200 mg is illegal as is vitamin E above 45 IU, vitamin B1 over 2.4 mg and so on. Shering-Plough, the Norway pharmaceutical giant, now controls an Echinacea tincture, which is being sold there as an over the counter drug at grossly inflated prices. The same is true of ginkgo and many other herbs, and only one government controlled pharmacy has the right to import supplements as medicines which they can sell to health food stores, convenience stores or pharmacies."

It is now a criminal offence in parts of Europe to sell herbs as foods. An agreement called EEC6565 equates selling herbs as foods to selling other illegal drugs. Action is being taken to accelerate other European countries into 'harmonization' as well.

Would you like some basil with your tomatoes?

Love,
Seán

A Question to Ponder

Oh wow! I haven't written on here for ages, and I will write something about the Codex Alimentarius soon. Honest. I promise!

In my defence, I've been seriously busy lately what with Naked Knitting Calendars, playing with a Morris Team (Yes, I know they're all women. The musicians are mixed.) and part-organising a Naked Bike Ride. Really this entry is just a wave to keep me on the radar, but there is a question I'd like to ask. It's near the end of this piece.

WNBR
This year I became one of the organisers for Manchester's leg of the World Naked Bike Ride. It's been quite hard work but definitely worth it. Everyone volunteered their time for nothing, the atmosphere was ace, Caz the body painter kept her clothes on (boo!) but was still a total star, and all was wondrous.
There were mistakes I'd made (like the ride being a bit too long) and things we should have done but didn't get around to - but on the whole it was a resounding success.
Or it would have been but for police interference.

Manchester Evening News readers will know all about this already, but for anyone who doesn't here's the general gist.
In April Becca, one of the other organisers, informed local police of our intention to ride and what it was all about. Two days before the ride on Friday they rang her back and gave full approval. Woohoo! Fantastic! Unfortunately they neglected to inform their officers on the ground.

When we got to St. Anne's Square there was some poor bemused copper who hadn't the vaguest idea what was going on. When we got to Portland Street, however, things were a little different.
Two guys in a van flagged us down and insisted we dress (which, hilariously, wasn't possible for some!) and then a third turned up in another van. Portland Street is busy at the best of times - they blocked it for 20 minutes!

So why were we stopped?
Well, the second reason they gave us was that we'd agreed to cover up in the city centre. Where they got this bullshit from I've no idea, but I'm going to find out!
The first reason was that there had been complaints.
I found out later there had been one complaint, from someone who was "appalled" because a bunch of roughneck Rusholme kids had decided to follow us.

Here's That Question
We live in a democracy. Stop laughing! We live - officially at least - in something roughly resembling a democracy. It's better than a lot of places, anyway. My "Question To Ponder" then is this:

How, in a democracy, can one person be able to disrupt, destroy or prevent an event approved and enjoyed by, literally, thousands?

Meanwhile, there are loads of pictures on Flickr: have a look here, here and here!
And below is one of my favourites courtesy of SamScam. WARNING: The picture contains naked people having a harmless good time. If you find that offensive, don't bloody look at it!



Love, freedom and bicycles,
Seán

Dietary Re-Education

Nothing deep and meaningful. This is more of a diary entry than anything else.

Most people who know me will, by now, know that I'm a fairly fussy eater. It's not that I'm finicky over mushrooms or something silly like that, it's that I eat low-fat vegetarian. Vegan, nearly!
The reason for this (again, as most people already know) is to do with cholesterol.

I have a genetically based tendency for my liver to make more of the "bad" (LDL) and less of the "good" (HDL) cholesterol than is normal. In order to combat this - and make sure that I can still climb stairs and enjoy sex over 50, without suffering a stroke or heart-attack - I avoid saturated fats in my diet as far as possible.

I've been using a fairly simple rule-of-thumb: if it comes out of an animal, it's high-saturate and BAD! The only two vegetable products to add to that are palm oil (which is environmentally bad too) and coconut oil. Nobody in their right mind would deliberately eat hydrogenated oils, but those are avoided as well. The only animal product I've been having is a drop of milk in my tea because, frankly, soya milk's a bit bloody grim.

Last night I began a little voyage of discovery. As it was a Saturday night I treated us to some chocolate to go with our wine. Okay, chocolate's very naughty but I reckoned it would be okay - plain choccy is vegan. It's got no animal fats and so should be okay.
Boy, did I get that wrong!

I decided to have a look at the nutritional info on the label: Fats 46%, of which saturates 29%.
That's 29% saturated fat, without so much as looking at a cow! My immediate thought, after bloody hell that's a lot, was how much more must be in milk chocolate.

This morning while shopping, I decided to do a little research. I compared milk and plain chocolate (with a shocked look on my face): milk chocolate has 19% saturates. That's 10% less than the vegan stuff! Bizarre!
I also thought I'd have a look at eggs - something I've been avoiding for (I thought) very sensible reasons. The saturated fat in an egg counts for 3% of its content. That's all! Three piggin' percent!
I'm coming to the conclusion that received wisdom = bullshit.

Later I blitzed the cupboards, checking everything I could lay my hands on to find out the saturated fat content. Some things are as I believed: cheese 22% (less than plain choccy!); butter 54%; fake veggie suet 34%.
Other things were a little more surprising: soya margarine 14% (nearly as much as milk chocolate); peanut butter 9% (3 times more than an egg); semi-skimmed milk 1%.

Weird and wonderful!
I've been making vegan porridge for breakfast to avoid the dangers of fatty milk. I've eaten Fruitus bars, which I now find have the same amount of saturates as an egg. I've eaten peanut butter sandwiches because I thought nut fats were completely non-saturated.

So what's going to change?
Well, there needs to be some more research, but while I'm doing that all chocolate's definitely off the menu, vegan or otherwise. I'm also going to remain vegetarian and eat a lot of fruit and greens, because that's natural for me - I don't like meat very much anyway. Cheese and butter are also still off, obviously.
But at the same time, I'm not going to be frightened to put a little milk in our porridge in the morning, or add an egg to our fried rice. I may treat myself to an occasional boiled (not fried!) egg - apparently it's safer than a peanut-butter sandwich. Possibly even a very occasional white sauce, if I can work out how to make it with olive oil instead of butter

Who'd have thought it!

Love and good dietary health,
Seán

In Praise of Poly

That's poly- as in -amory, rather than Polly as in parrot!

Last time on here I promised a consideration of polyamory as a concept, so here it is. Before starting I think it probably best to put my own position forward - I consider myself a polyamorous person in a monogamous relationship. Happily so, too. I'm not looking for a lover or anything (it'd be nice to have the energy!)
On the other hand I do want to see if I can shed a positive light on polyamory as a viable lifestyle choice for many people. Not for everybody by any means, but probably for a lot more than there are now.

History

Polyamory simply means, in its mixed-up Greek/Latin way, "many loves". By dictionary definition, a polyamorous person finds that they have the ability to love more than one person in an intimate and sexual way. I'm going to question why it needs to be sexual later, but for now I'm going to look at the historical and cultural precedents for polyamory.

The next word in our new poly- collection is polygamy, closely followed by polygyny and polyandry.
Polygamy means a marriage between one person and several spouses, although it's often confused with polygyny, which means a man having more than one wife. Polyandry is the gender-opposite: one woman, several husbands.
In our nuclear-family, montheistic and monolithic western culture we are conditioned towards monogamous and possessive relationships, but this hasn't always been the case and in many cultures polygamy is accepted as normal.

Sadly polygyny is often the result of a male-dominated, competitive and possessive culture. It is, therefore, the most common form of polygamy. Where women are seen as property and second-place citizens, it is not unusual for a rich man to show his status by "owning" several wives in the same way that he owns several cars or houses. This was the case in China until about a century ago, and is still the case in certain middle-eastern countries.
Having said that, in cultures where men would often go out to fight and die in battles, many women would be left widowed or remain a spinster indefinitely. In such a culture an unmarried woman would have no security, or in extreme cases any life of her own at all. Polgyny made sense, then, for a culture with few men and many women.
Many people also consider Mormons polygynous too, which is true up to a point. In most western countries it's illegal anyway and even then not all Mormon men can have more than one wife. The founder, Joseph Smith had several wives who also had other husbands themselves, which seems more fair to me.

Polyandry is rather rarer but still exists, most famously in Tibet. This is usually a form of fraternal polyandry, where a woman marries a whole stack of brothers, although not always. Polyandry makes a certain amount of genetic sense in harsh lands like Tibet, where resources are scarce (a man with eight wives can have eight children a year, a woman with eight husbands can only have one) and a child has a greater chance of survival with little or no competition and two or more dads bringing in food.
Even though Hindus do not generally practise polyandry there is a precedent in the Mahabharata where Draupadi becomes the wife to all five Pandava brothers.

Here and Now

Those examples are very much distant from our normal lives. In the western world monogamous relationships between a man and a woman are considered the norm. This has been borne out recently by the bizarre Proposition 8 ruling in California and the Christmas speech by "His Holiness" the Pope.
Yet, at the same time, old patterns are being broken down. In the space of my own lifetime (and I'm not especially old) the UK has gone from homosexuality being illegal to allowing same-sex marriages. Yes, I know they're really civil-partnerships, but they've been accepted as marriages regardless of the technicality of the law.
Standard monogamy is also breaking down as can be seen by hugely increasing instances of adultery and divorce in the last 30 years or so. Many people worry that such is a sign of the breakdown of society. I see it as a good sign. It's dreadful for those individuals going through it (been there, done that, still have the t-shirt!), but so is surgery!
Just as an example, I used to have a neighbour who was a very old widow. This was 15 years ago and she was pushing eighty then. She had spent more than forty years married to the same man and yet the only good thing she could say about him was, "Well, at least 'e never 'it me!"
If someone can explain to me why that was a good life, I'm listening!

The dissolution of highly defined marital patterns also means an increase of tolerance for and experimentation in "alternative" lifestyles. I see it as the caterpillar's physical breakdown and rebuilding as a butterfly. At the moment we're in the chrysalis, but eventually we will become transformed and be able to emerge.

Modern Polyamory

The wonderful thing about modern polyamory is that it is ultimately indefinable. There are so many forms that the term itself almost becomes a nonsense. There are, for instance, open marriages where two partners take lovers; triple or other number partnerships which are entirely exclusive and closed; amorphous communal group marriages where people come and go as they please. The variations are endless and, wonderfully, also don't define themselves in terms of simple gender. The two things they do have in common, and which define the relationships entirely, are honesty and love.

I don't consider swingers to be polyamorous. That's not to say that swinging is a "bad" thing, simply that casual sex does not require love. It's lustful rather than amorous. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, it simply doesn't work within even this loose definition. Adultery, also doesn't fit, because it is, by nature sneaky and dishonest.
"Friend sex" does fit, as an extension of the definition of love. Loving one's friends can be extended into physical expression. I may write about the joys and pitfalls of friend sex at some future juncture, the point now is that it involves love

In the same way as sex need not involve love, love (and intimate partnerships) need not involve sex. There are rare couples (and I understand that my adoptive grandparents were of this nature) who love each other and marry, and stay married until death, yet never have sex. Who's going to say they're not really married? Not me!
To the polyamorous monogamist like me, love does not divide, it multiplies. I can love my wife with every fibre of my being and still love my friends almost as much. I can be totally turned by my wife but still fancy most of my friends and cuddle them all. Most people probably feel the same, even if they don't admit it.

Aye, but here's the rub!

Polyamory isn't for everybody, but then again, neither is monogamy. That's the whole point. Ideally we should have no alternative lifestyles, because there should be no norm from which to deviate. It's going to take some doing, though. (We need to stop bombing each other first, I think.)
There's also the fact of individual social conditioning. I flatter myself that I'm an enlightened and relatively free individual who can see the fnords and thinks before he reacts, but at the same time I have been brought up in a society which expects me to be possessive and insecure. I try not to be, but mud like that sticks. I've got the greatest admiration for those who have enough confidence to be open about their own forms of polyamory in the face of a disapproving public.
I suppose the test would come if my belovèd chose to take a lover. I wouldn't dream of trying to stop her, her will is equal to mine, but I wonder if I could cope emotionally. Am I mature, free and secure enough, or do I still harbour the demons of possessiveness and jealousy?

The polyamory movement has taught me another new word as well - compersion. Frankly, I had to look it up, but I'm glad I did. It's a beautiful concept.
Compersion is the state of happiness in knowing that someone you love is happy in loving someone else too. It's not voyeurism or cuckolding, because it's not necessarily sexual and they are exclusively sexual practises. It's love that goes entirely beyond expected confines.
What would a society be like if, instead of its marital ethics being based on ownership and exclusivity, it was based on compersion?

That would be truly enlightened.

Love,
Seán