I've Been to Church!

Don't worry, I've not been converted.  I'm still the same joyfully debauched old Pagan I've always been.  I have, however, just had quite a strange experience (even for me) and I want to write about it to get my thoughts in order.  In a public place.  Where people can comment if they want to.

The Beginning

It all started a few weeks ago.
I was busking in Manchester on a Sunday afternoon.  When I'm doing that I often see groups of people obviously coming back from church.  They're all smartly dressed, often in family groups, sometimes carrying Bibles and almost always black.
One of these folks, a young woman, came up while I was playing and all but begged me to play in her church.  I even protested that I'm not a Christian but she insisted that it didn't matter, so I said yes.
The church in question turned out to be an evangelical Afro-American style church with a mostly Nigerian congregation.

Good Grief, Why?

I've been thinking about this question quite a lot.  I think it's partly curiosity.  Another part is the fact that the girl who asked me was really, really pretty and I find it very hard to say no to a pretty young woman.
Even if she wasn't, though, I think I'd have still said yes.  I like saying yes to things when I can.  New experiences are welcome, especially if they're likely to be interesting and unlikely to cost money.
I also felt that, while they get a saxophone in the mix, I would get to play with a band.  For free.  And I'd get to learn a new style of music.  That thought turned out more prophetic than I'd expected.

On top of all that something else struck me.  It's very easy for a Pagan like me to hold a prejudiced view of Christianity.  We still, to some extent, see them as the enemy for very good reasons.  Anyone who witnessed the frothing insanity of the Rochdale and Orkney Satanic Abuse scandals that were caused by a few fundamentalist Christians would naturally want to keep them at arm's length.  However, I won't tar all Muslims with the terrorist brush and I don't consider all Jews misogynistic separatist nutters so maybe I should be more open to these Christians.  It's my sense of being fair.

Rehearsal

So, I had a chat with the pastor and then I went to my first rehearsal.
I'd insisted on attending a rehearsal because I wanted to meet the band, make sure we could get on, get copies of the sheet music and so on.  I was thinking it would take a few rehearsals to get to grips with it all.
When I got there I met two young men, one who played drums and one who played keyboard standing in for somebody else.  Where was the sheet music?  There wasn't any.  I was told, "This is worship music" which meant that you just go for it.   Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmm!
Well, the choir sang, the lads played (and the keyboardist very helpfully told me what key we were in) and I went for it.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but it seemed to get better once I'd got into the patterns.
I was then invited to the service the next morning.  Fortunately for my confidence, I couldn't make it but I promised to come back.
I went for a second rehearsal last night, which again surprised me because it had already started when I'd got there and lasted half as long as the last one.  Formality didn't seem to be the watchword of this gang.

The Service

And so, as I'd promised, I went to church.  It was . . . different.
I don't think I've been to a normal Sunday service for 30 years.  Despite my non-religious parents, I had to go to church schools as a child and was consequently dragged to church services every so often.  They were very boring.  They involved muttering prayers with your head down, singing dull songs from dusty hymn books and listening to some dreary bloke in a collar droning on about something irrelevant.
The bloke droning on was there today.  To be fair, his powerful Nigerian accent made it very hard for me to understand the majority of what he was talking about (something to do with how polygamy is 'bad').  I suppose it's the nature of preachers to go on and on for ever, but this guy was doing it more like a motivational speaker than what I'd expect from a church pastor.  There was another guy who led prayers with an even stronger accent who left me completely befuddled.  The congregation, however, loved it - mostly.  I'll have to say that the regular shout's of "Praise the Lord!" sounded like a kind of religious Tourettes
The lack of strict formality really surprised me.  Instead of standing, sitting, kneeling etc in unison people were pretty much doing their own thing.  Some were coming and going, some shouting 'amen' to things they liked, some were kneeling, some standing with their arms wide and an expression of rapture.  One guy was reading the sports news on his phone and nobody seemed even slightly bothered. 

The Music

But, it was the music that I was there for.  That was intense and honestly one of the most Dionysian things I've witnessed.  I was concentrating on trying to play in key and follow the patterns of the music but those members of the congregation who knew the songs were really letting themselves go with it.  The songs lasted at least ten minutes each and ran straight from one to another for a good half hour.  During that time there were people dancing and singing and totally transported by the experience.
At one point someone said, "God wants you to sing and dance" and I could only find myself approving.  These people definitely celebrate their religion.

Detachment

I did worry about certain things.
One of them was the potential for disagreement.  Fortunately nothing like that happened.  The whole service was pretty much entirely praise and worship.  Apart from the sermon that I couldn't really understand there didn't seem to be anything problematically political going on.  I'm still expecting to clash at some point, should I choose to play for them again, but so far so good.  Nobody's even tried to convert me.

Another thing was race.  Having had an ex who was black and saw damn near everything as a race issue, this was nagging at the back of my mind.
I'm used to being a minority in many ways, but none of them are obvious.  They don't usually show up until I've got to know my peers and they start asking questions about my life.  By that time I've already been accepted.  I've never been in a racial minority before and being the only white person in a room containing at least a hundred black people I was in a minority of one.
I was expecting to feel like a spot on a domino.  I didn't.  I felt like a saxophone player!

And That Was That

It was a bloody long service (although mostly not boring).  I got there at about 10:50, walking into the middle of a kind of adult Sunday School thing and I didn't get to leave until after 2pm.  I caught a bus back into Manchester with a member of the choir, a very pleasant young woman who said I'd done pretty well.
That's nice.

I'm glad I did it.  I'll probably do it again.  It was fun and the people were lovely.  They even offered me jolloff rice, but it had meat in so I had to refuse.  I was expecting pious hypocrites and I was pleasantly disappointed. 
I'm glad of that.

That's it, I'm an actor!

I suppose most of my friends already consider me an actor, having done walk-on work on telly and am-dram, but now I finally feel justified in using that title for myself without qualifying it with some term like "aspiring" or "in training".  And all this because I have taken part in my first ever professional stage play

I've have been in training for stage work at The Houldsworth for more than a year, I think, albeit in a sporadic manner as the classes have changed shape, type and teacher.  Now I'm part of The Houldsworth Academy, enjoying more advanced training, and hoping that I can sweet-talk our boss, Sally Lawton into putting me on the books for her agency, Strawberry Management.

It was also The Houldsworth that gave me the chance to consider myself professional.
Some years ago the lovely people at Whitefield AODS allowed me to audition for The Importance of Being Earnest, the role being Dr Chasuble, despite the fact that I couldn't take part due to a clash with the World Naked Bike Ride.  It was good practise.
This time it was The Houldsworth's turn to stage the show, so I auditioned for the same part and got it!  I flatter myself that I got the part because I was the best, but it's entirely possible I was the only one who applied.  Frankly, I don't care.  I got the part and that's what matters.

We rehearsed for slightly more than a week.  No, that's not a typo.  We really did have a week to rehearse and it was one of the most intense experiences I've ever had, especially when I consider that I also had two parties and a busking gig between the last rehearsal and the beginning of the show.

The other actors amazed me from the first moment.  Their ability to play with their roles in such a relaxed and creative manner was an education in itself.  I had to be pushed.
Sally suggested that I play Chasuble as jolly and exceptionally camp.  I wasn't sure about it at first, but as it's a good idea to trust your director I gave it a go.  So I watched YouTube clips of the campest, gayest characters I could find and came up with a weird conglomeration of John Inman and Graham Norton.  It worked beautifully.
Another strange idea was to reset the play in 1990s Manchester high society.  It was also a stroke of genius because it allowed us to play with the script and to avoid expensive sets and costumes - important considerations for an unfunded fringe theatre.
I surprised myself with how I managed to learn my lines in such a short space of time.  The amount the main characters had to learn was ten times as much and most of them combined it with jobs or university courses.  It's all but impossible to describe how impressed I am.

So now I feel extremely chuffed and proud of myself.  I have successfully auditioned for a role in a play and played that role in a real theatre on a real stage in front of a real audience.  I didn't "corpse" onstage (although I came extremely close) and I'm being paid for it.
I'm not being paid much.  In fact, I don't know how much but it won't be a lot.  Profit-share doesn't pay very well but I don't care.  If I get paid, that makes me a professional, as far as I'm concerned.

And that means I'm an Actor!
Love and thespianism,
Seán

I'm in a Writey Mood

For some, as yet unfathomed, reason I'm in the mood to write something on this long-neglected blog.  I don't even feel hampered by the fact that I've no idea what to write about.
"Forgive me Weblog, for I have sinned.  It has been 16 months since my last post"

Having a weblog is an odd thing.  Some people have blogs with a purpose.  They write about food, comics, television, LARPing, occult adventures or their pets.  Others use their blog as a kind of diary, to let off steam or empty their heads every so often.

I started this blog in November 2007.  Gosh, that's more than five years ago.
The intention was to write down my opinions on whatever I could think of that interested me or struck me as important.  Looking back I've written about quite a lot of things.  54 posts, in fact, if you count this one.  As far as subjects go sexuality seems to have been a biggie, as does religion, nudity, polyamory, music, disability issues and Jesus being a Pagan.  Then it all rather slowed down.
I think I ran out of steam because once I've said something I don't really like repeating myself.  There are some writers, for instance, who will bring out a series of books which are essentially all the same, just rewritten versions of each other.  I can't seem to do that.  It feels like cheating.

Surprisingly I didn't post about my book coming out, which was seriously remiss of me.  It took a long time to write and deserved more publicity.  The launch party (at Treadwell's book shop in London on 7th Sept 2012) was also something I'll remember for long, long time.  Well, the parts that weren't obliterated by red wine, anyway.

I think perhaps that Facebook has had a hand in my writing less here too.  I can't possibly deny the usefulness of Facebook.  I've met some amazing people on there, found my publisher, used it to advertise my own events and become involved in things I wouldn't even have known about.  I still spend way too much time on there, because it's so easy and I find it easier to react to other people's statements than to come up with my own.
Funnily enough, though, the first thing I'll do when I finish writing will be to link to this on Facebook in the hope that my friends will read it.  Hmmm, ironic!

There are new things I want to write about and alterations I want to make.  I could definitely update the links down the side of the page.  There are probably quite a few now defunct, and some new ones I want to add.
I definitely want to write about my experiences in learning to speak Welsh with SaySomethingInWelsh.com, but not until I've finished the full course which probably won't be until sometime in July or August at present rates.
I have considered writing about the present political situation especially where benefit cuts are concerned, but there are people who do a far better job already.  I'd certainly like to write about my experiences with acting, the 5:2 'diet' and in the poly community,  I just haven't decided what yet.

Perhaps a little discipline is what's needed.  Maybe I should force myself to write something every Wednesday, no matter how banal.  More drastically, perhaps I should dump this blog and start another from scratch so I can't refer people to previous posts and have to rethink everything.  Okay, perhaps not.

Decisions, decisions.  But there's time to decide.  I doubt anybody's life is hanging in the balance waiting for my blog to cure cancer.  Meanwhile I think I'll add a totally gratuitous picture of some naked people in Star Trek body paint.  Because I can!

Love and literacy,
Seán xxx

Do You Like Musicals?

Do you like musicals? Well, there's a euphemistic question if ever I heard one! Just for a change, though, I'm not going to write about sexuality and social expectations, I really am going to write about musicals. One musical, anyway.

Do I like musicals? No, not really. I love some musicals (yes, you can read that as a euphemism if you want to) such as Rocky Horror, Hair and Cabaret, but most of them just irritate me. I find them schmaltzy, emotionally manipulative and about as subtle as a mallet to the head. The very thought of watching Glee gives me toothache.

I've recently been in a musical and, if you'll forgive the pun, I'm beginning to change my tune ...

Before people start yelling hypocrite! and throwing things, I think maybe a little explanation is in order.
In the summer I joined my local AmDram, Whitefield Amateur Operatics and Dramatics Society, thankfully shortened to WAODS (and which I take a certain childish pleasure in pronouncing as "way odds"). They had already been amazingly nice and allowed me to practise my audition skills the year before, despite the fact that I was over-commited and couldn't do the play. This time they were staging Hobson's Choice (Harold Brighouse) which sounded like great fun. So, I went for it.
They were kind enough to offer me the part of Dr. MacFarlane. This was perfect. It's only a small part (10 minutes out of the whole play) but he's a strong and distinctive character, which gave me something to really get my teeth into without too much pressure. It also allowed me to be in a proper play, on a proper stage in a proper theatre - something, despite all my other types of performance, I hadn't done since I was 12! I didn't know if I could still do it.
I flatter myself that I made a pretty good job of it, all things considered.

Then I heard about the showcase.
WAODS were going to do some pieces from the new Addams Family musical. I love the Addams Family (My friend, Becca said, "You are the Addams Family!"). It meant stepping right outside my comfort zone but, frankly, life's too bloody short to waste such an opportunity. For those who wonder what the hell could possibly be outside my comfort zone, the answer is singing and dancing. Yes, I can sing a bit, folk songs around a camp fire and so on but ensemble singing where you're supposed to actually be in tune was entirely new to me. The same goes for the dancing. People who know me well will say, "But, you bloody love dancing!", which is true, but proper dancing with real, actual steps in time with other people is a world away from the ridiculous, manic thrashing about I do on a nightclub's dance floor.

Unfortunately it didn't happen. The miserable bastards who own the rights got all sniffy about it and wouldn't let us go on. So, I thought that would be it for me until next year's play. WAODS were doing the musical version of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and I wasn't particularly bothered. It's not a story that's ever appealed to me, nor is it an historical period I've any real interest in.
Not long after they'd started rehearsing, the producer, Nick, made a shout out on Facebook for more men in the chorus. The thing is, I like Nick. Maybe if I didn't like Nick I wouldn't have cared, but I do and so I did, and I thought, "What the hell! If nothing else, it's all valuable experience even if it's crap. How hard can it be?" Famous last words!

Rehearsals started off fairly well because were were told to be trolls, the sort that live under bridges. Awesome! Physical theatre. Bring it on! (Aside for anyone who doesn't know: Little Women features Jo March telling melodramatic stories which are illustrated by being enacted in a kind of fantasy world behind her) The song was tricky, partly because I'm not used to harmony parts but mostly because the top note was a whole tone above my range. I cheated and if Steven, our Musical Director, noticed he was considerate enough of my weakness to say nothing. I was okay with trolling it up and thinking that's all I had to do - even though it involved two of us carrying an astonishingly brave actress on our shoulders - until our choreographer, Shirley, mentioned the waltz. Waltz? Oshit!
As weird as it may sound, I find simple, repetitive patterns really hard to do. This is why I'm a much better folk musician than rocker. I can play a long melody with some confidence, but a two-bar riff gets me all confused after the third time round. In waltzing you effectively play that riff with your feet!
Fortunately Shirley gave us a short dance based on the waltz, rather than an actual waltz. It was more like a formal set-dance in 3/4 time, but that doesn't mean it was much easier. It is almost certainly the most terrifying thing I've ever done on a stage, and I never got all the steps right even once.
There was another dance too. This time it was based on ice skating and a bit easier than the waltz, although that doesn't mean it was actually easy. I think I got it to a relatively satisfactory degree by the final night and I'm proud to say that I didn't drop my dancing partner, Helen, at all. Nearly, but nearly doesn't count!
There were a couple more bits and bobs, but they were straightforward and very short walk-on, ad-lib parts. In comparison to the waltz, they were a doddle!

That's just what I did, though and, compared to the principles, I hardly did anything at all. What about the show itself?

Nick, fairly quickly, had us doing whole-show run-throughs at rehearsal. I reckon that was wise. It gave us (well, me certainly) a feel for the story and a chance to understand and engage with the characters - to care about the whole thing rather than just our bits. It also gave me the chance to appreciate just how much work and talent goes into a production like this, and believe me, that's a lot!
There are some remarkable actors, singers and dancers at WAODS and they don't give, or expect half measures. They're also really, really nice people! I should mention this because I'm a) the new boy and b) the only Pagan. Many of the members are Swedenborgian Christians who attend the church in whose hall the rehearsals are held. I am an uncomfortable misfit in non-Pagan company (I don't know the social protocols like "should I hug this person?" etc) but I've been treated like an old friend.
The sheer, demanding professionalism of the principles is something I'm proud to have seen. Remember that these are amateurs, doing this for fun. I noticed that our actors would push themselves a whole lot harder than they were directed to. This doesn't mean that rehearsals weren't fun though, I spent as much time laughing as acting, but it's the perfectionism that really made it.

As show week hit I could feel the tension building up. Not aggressive tension, "When will I fuck it up?" tension. That's how I felt and in many ways I was quite glad of the distraction of helping out a little backstage. But, I did very little, on the whole. I can only imagine how the principles felt. There is a song called Some Things Are Meant To Be, a duet between two characters one of whom is going to die and the other who knows it. It's a powerful, heart-wrenching weepie and it worked on me, who hates being emotionally manipulated, (although a different song got me personally rather more). In order to sing that song well the actresses had to feel it, really feel it. They tore themselves to tiny emotional bits in front of an audience every night for nearly a week, and then carried on singing and acting. By the end of the week they could barely even mention the scene without collapsing into floods, and yet they still went on!
How much respect is it possible to feel? I don't know, but when I find out I'll tell you.

I'm welling up myself here just thinking about it.

One thing that struck me was how many people said they were amazed it was an amateur production. It wasn't. It was a professional production without money.

The show's all done and dusted now. It was one hell of an emotional roller-coaster experience. I've been through the adrenalin crash catharsis, the getting horribly drunk, the weeping like a little girl and the hangover that lasts all sodding day. So what am I left with?
Valuable theatrical experience, certainly, but a lot more than that. Feeling proud to say I'm a member of WAODS for a start, and a feeling of being privileged to have witnessed such talented people do what they do best. The ability to say, "I was there". I've also got this huge, protective Walt Whitman style feeling of love for (when I really think about it) a bunch of people I hardly know.

What's next? Well, WAODS are doing Little Shop of Horrors next. I'm awfully tempted but I've got 18 weeks of acting classes booked with 3 Minute Theatre and I think I need to concentrate on that. After that, though, there's Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, and just you try to keep me away!

Do I like musicals now? Hmm, tricky question. Let's say I'm a lot more open to their possibilities (which I don't think is a euphemism). I still couldn't face the idea of watching Glee though, at least not without a visit to the dentist straight afterwards.

Love and thespianism,
Seán

Liber Malorum by Sean Scullion

Another book review. This is becoming a habit!

Liber Malorum - Children of the Apple is a fascinating piece of Pagan/mystical/occult "fiction" ... errrm, sort of! It would easy to take the lazy way and attempt to squeeze it into some sort of genre, but that wouldn't do the book justice and, frankly, there isn't one big enough.

Essentially, Liber Malorum is an anthology, collecting original short stories from some of modern occultism's brightest stars, and texts borrowed from more established authors and poets, and weaving them together as part of a larger story concerning the experiences and spiritual evolution of a variety of characters, particularly one Bernadette. The item they all have in common is the imagery and mysticism of the Apple.
The whole thing creates a weird and wonderful journey through the cutting edge of modern magickal practise.

Sean Scullion (aka Seani Fool) is an independent occultist and magickian, and a proponent of his own system of Fool Sorcery. As he makes one if his characters say, "Only a Fool would believe ... And I am a Fool!" The thread of Foolishness is what holds all the disparate stories together and creates a unified whole, like the thread which holds enough patches together to make a magnificent pair of trousers.
Those patches have been created by 23 personally chosen modern writers including Jaq D Hawkins, Ramsey Dukes, Anton Channing and Stella Damiana, and other patches are taken from the works of Starhawk, Robert Anton Wilson, Pete Carroll, William Blake and Timothy Leary, among others.

Such an unusual tome is difficult to describe, so the best thing I can do is to give my own readers a chance to read it for themselves by putting a link to the publisher's website, HERE. If your interests include what magick is and can be nowadays, I can't recommend Liber Malorum enough.

Love and Apples,
Seán

Sex at Dawn

There's a problem with writing a blog of opinions as opposed to, say, a diary. When you've said all the things that are important to you it's hard to find anything else to say without repeating yourself. I do so hate repeating myself! In consequence, I haven't written on here for well over six months.

Here's something I've never done before, though: A book review. It's by a psychologist called Christopher Ryan and a psychiatrist called Cacilda Jethá, and it's called,

SEX AT DAWN

Sex at Dawn, I feel, is going to become a very important book, partly because it's so radical but also because it's so accessible. I'm not naturally academic, and dense, heavy reading gives me a a headache, which is why I feel qualified to write a review - because I could read and actually understand it without having to go over paragraphs several times out loud!
Unfortunately, Sex at Dawn isn't available in the UK yet, although the lovely people at Waterstones are very accommodating if you don't mind waiting. You can always try Amazon, I suppose, but I prefer personal interaction. That's sort of what the book is about.

The main premise is very simple and something I believe already - that the basic assumptions we hold as a society about prehistoric life and human sexuality are wrong. The book explains why better than I can. You can even look up bits on their website.

What's Wrong?

The first couple of sections look at what sort of ape we are, and what sort of pre-farming societies still survive.
Genetically we're almost identical to two of the great apes, chimpanzees and bonobos - sharing 98.4% of our DNA. Evolutionary science has always looked at chimps to gain clues about our earliest behaviour, but there's absolutely no reason why bonobos shouldn't be equally studied, or perhaps even more.
I like bonobos and have written about them before, here. Looking at bonobos rather than chimps shows a society based on co-operation rather than competition, where sex is used for pleasure and social bonding and infanticide is unknown.
They've also come up with a wonderful new word, Flintstonization. Briefly, we have a powerful tendency to assume our own way of life is "normal" and apply that pattern to other times and societies. In other words we imagine that Stone Age life was a bit like the Flintstones in that monogamy and male dominance were the norm - but without any real evidence. In fact there are multiple societies in existence even now which simply don't fit that pattern.

Prehistory

There's a section in the book which looks at our assumptions of stone-age hunter-gather life, and questions whether it really was, as Hobbes said, poor, nasty, brutish and short. The writers put forward some telling arguments, that I make no apologies for stealing here:


Poor? The pre-agricultural human population was less than a billion people. Food was (generally) extremely plentiful and the diet was far wider than our own modern diet. Hunter-gather people almost never consider themselves poor and sharing is considered the norm. Wealth and poverty are relative terms.
Many archaeologists who have studied human remains from the advent of agriculture consider it a disaster for the human race in terms of health. We acquired masses of new diseases, suffered previously unknown malnutrition problems and (yes, really) shrank in stature.

Nasty? A human being alone in a world full of predators has a likely lifespan of minutes. Individually we're useless. We have no natural weapons, we're not big or strong or fast. On our own we're nothing more than a meal. In a group, however, we're the most successful creature ever. The point is that living in a pre-agricultural society (the vast majority of human existence so far) requires a group mentality, and co-operation. We're built for it, it's the only thing we're really good at, and it makes us happy.

Brutish? We're back to the co-operation angle here. Why fight if there's nothing to fight for? Food's plentiful, nobody owns everything because it's all shared, when you run out of stuff you simply move on.

Short? We're often told that people are living longer nowadays. It's bullshit. The normal human lifespan of "threescore years and ten" has been about standard forever. The reason people believe (against all evidence) that primitive people had short lives is that the ones who make such statements don't understand statistics. An average lifespan is NOT a normal one.
The average human lifespan has been increased immensely because of one simple improvement, infant mortality. In many cultures (including our own until fairly recently) the life of a baby was precarious at best. If a child could make it to 2, they might make it to 5. If they could make it to 5 they would likely make it to 10. If they could get to 10, the likelihood of hitting 20 was pretty damn good, but if they got to 20 they were almost guaranteed a full and normal lifespan reaching to somewhere between 65 and 90.

Biology.

There's some lovely stuff about human biology, and sexual behaviour in the modern world. Like the reasons for female multiple orgasm and sexual "vocalisations", and the weird shape of the human penis and unusually large testicles (for an ape). Also there's a surprising amount of evidence about how having an affair is good for your health and your relationship.
A particular question which struck me was why, if monogamy is the natural state for people, adultery is so common. Even in those sick and uncivilised countries where it's punishable by death, adultery is incredibly common.

It's tempting to quote the whole book, but I wanted to keep this fairly short and simple. I also want to encourage people to read it because I haven't made the arguments they have, I've just stated a few bits and pieces.
Essentially what they are stating is that monogamy is a patriarchal social construct which they believe began when we started farming. Previously human society consisted mostly of nomadic groups of a hundred or more individuals who worked in a female-dominated and totally co-operative manner, sharing everything. Sexual relations were multiple and non-possessive, children being brought up by the tribe as a whole. We haven't evolved our sexuality to cope with our modern lives because we simply haven't had time, we've just attempted to force it into new patterns.

Fitting it into now.

We don't live in tribes any more and we're taught to be sexually possessive from a very early age. It's inherent in our culture, but really it's unnatural. So two methods are considered as possible aids to human harmony. One is polyamory (look here for my views on that) and the other is that we start to take sex less seriously - a one-night stand isn't a betrayal, it's just a bit of fun.

Personally, I don't believe monogamy is natural either, but we do a lot of things which aren't natural - I wear spectacles! We just need to accept that if we do something which isn't natural for us we'll have consequences to deal with. Shaving is unnatural and has the consequence of blocked hair follicles and sensitive skin. Monogamy's consequences are a bit more wide-ranging and complex.
Sex isn't simply for creating children. This much seems to me (if not, apparently, to evolutionary psychologists) blatantly obvious. If the opposite were true we'd only be interested in sex when it was possible to conceive.
Yet humans are hypersexual. We're at it all the time, even more than our old friends the bonobos. We have even created ways of enjoying sex so that we can't possibly conceive, which seems the opposite of evolutionary psychology.

I'm going to leave with a quote from the book which I think is a beautiful attitude to sex and to society. There are tribes in the Amazon who believe that a child is made of accumulated semen. A woman will keep on having sex during pregnancy so that her child grows strong and develops well. If she were to stop the child would, they believe, stop growing.

"... a woman from these societies is eager to give her child every possible advantage in life. To this end, she'll typically ... solicit 'contributions' from the best hunters, the best storytellers, the funniest, the kindest, the best-looking and so on - in the hopes her child will literally absorb the essence of each.
... Far from being enraged at having his genetic legacy called into question, a man in these societies is is likely to feel gratitude to other men for pitching in to help create and then care for a stronger baby ... men in these societies find themselves bound to one another by shared paternity."

Love (in a prehistoric stylee),
Seán

Sexy Friends.

Hoorah! I've only been promising this for 21 months and it's taken a day of the most atrocious weather, but finally I've got round to it. It's time for some Friend Sex! ...
... Well, writing about it anyway.

I'm pretty positive about the whole thing actually, partly because it's something I've enjoyed a number of times in the past and also because I've got some seriously sexy friends! You know who you are - I've probably told you.

Okay, kidding aside because I'm not trying to get laid here (Well ... mayb ... no! Behave!) it's time for a few helpful definitions.

Sex!

Many people have friends they find attractive, and often that attraction is mutual. I can think of a couple of examples in my own life without trying. Most people probably can.
So, imagine a situation where you've been out with a friend and are on your way home, let's say the heady atmosphere of a nightclub. It's been warm and a bit sweaty, you're (at least) slightly drunk, the people were gorgeous - especially through beer goggles - and, frankly, you're gagging for it! You and your friend happen to look deeply into each other's eyes and think, "Sod it! Why not?"

Okay that's just a simple and facile example, but it's not an uncommon experience with a multitude of variations. It doesn't even have to be two people either - I'm inclined to think that experimental threesomes are probably more common that pairings in the complex and wonderful world of Friend Sex.

Love!

I'm also inclined to place Friend Sex under the capacious umbrella of Polyamory. Why? Because it involves love. I've written about Polyamory elsewhere so I'm not going to go into it here. I am going to examine love a little though.

I've noticed that in the Occult community many people consider love to have the four forms using the Ancient Greek names codified and analysed by such luminaries as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle - Agape, Eros, Philia and Storge (G'wan, look 'em up). We can be a conservative bunch sometimes.
What utter bloody nonsense! We may only have one word for it in English, but there are as many types of love as you, personally, can think of and experience. Simply because some dried-up, old, Athenian pederast could only come up with four and wrote them down doesn't make it true. All it proves is that he had the "emotional depth of a teaspoon"
(Nothing wrong with pederasty above the age of consent, by the way. I'm just feeling a little iconoclastic today)

Friend Sex, therefore involves love, or at least should. It's simply an extension of that love between friends into a more physical experience. Sometimes once, sometimes as a long-standing arrangement. Some people have "fuck buddies", for instance. Personally I wouldn't dream of referring to any friend by such a crude term, but it certainly does what it says on the tin.
This - to me anyway - makes the whole Friend Sex thing a positive experience. Unfortunately, there are at least two sides to every story.

Ooops!

I'm going to tell a little parable now about a couple of mutual friends. Just so you know, I haven't slept with either of them ... although that's an intriguing thought! Anyway, it was a chat with the first of these friends a couple of months ago which reminded me about writing this post. The people involved will recognise themselves, I'm sure, so I'm going to attempt to keep this as anonymous as possible for their sake.

It was after an event a couple of years ago, with an outcome not unlike the nightclub example I gave above. She is an extremely intelligent, educated, attractive and well-adjusted adult woman and she was feeling bloody horny! He is an extremely intelligent, educated and attractive adult man, who was attracted to her.
So, they went for it. Good for them! - Or it would have been, if he had been as emotionally well-adjusted and in control as she was.
It turned out that where she believed she had been completely clear on the casual and friendly nature of the sexual encounter, he had interpreted the whole experience rather differently. Perhaps she wasn't clear (I doubt that) or perhaps because of his emotional difficulties he could only hear what he wanted to hear. Either way, though, it led to problems. He was left feeling rejected while she had to start avoiding him just for a bit of peace.

Communication!

As the above example shows, it all comes down to communication. How do we know that when we say "I love you" or "I fancy you" the person hearing it understands what we mean?
We tend to communicate badly about emotions and sex. I'm as guilty of this as anyone - I'm English, male and middle-aged. Talk about emotions? Err, no! Talk about sex? Meaningfully that is, not mucky jokes with your pals. Dear me, how embarrassing! Maybe if I get drunk first.

As usual, I don't have any answers. Questions and perhaps even suggestions, but no answers.
Is Friend Sex a good thing? I think so, but then I've only had good experiences (apart from one minor problem which was, of course, down to a lack of communication!)
Do we need to talk about these things? Yes, but don't ask me how.

Sex is very strange experience because it's entirely what you make of it. To some it's nothing but a bit of harmless fun, to others it's the seal of a monogamous relationship; to some it's a filthy burden, and to others it's the ultimate sacred act. Sometimes it's all those things and more to the same person.

So, here's to loving, pleasurable and, above all, properly understood Friend Sex.
Gissa kiss!

Love,
Seán

Traveller's Joy

My posts seem to be a little thin on the ground at the moment. There's plenty to talk about, it's just a matter of finding the time to put it all into words - especially when you type as excruciatingly slowly as I do.
I was going to write a piece on the joys and perils of "friend sex", which is something I've had on the back-burner for about two years and was recently reminded of by a friend and her experiences. I'll get to it soon (no, really), but for now I've been inspired by a recent experience of my own to do a little psychospiritual navel-gazing on the subject of travelling.

I love to travel.

Most people who know me personally will read that statement and say, "Eh? But you've never been anywhere!". They'd be right, too. When most people talk of travelling they're talking about visiting far-away lands, experiencing new cultures, catching dysentery and so-on. I've never really done that because I've never been able to afford it, or when I could I've had other things to do with my money.
I did go to Paris once on a school trip, and I've been to County Clare, western Ireland a few years ago, which I loved. That's about it though. I'd love to do more, and maybe in future years I will but that's not the sort of travelling I'm talking about here.

I love to travel.

What I mean is the act of physically moving through space for an extended period of time - completely alone and under my own steam. I'm talking here about walking, cycling and driving. Trains, boats and buses are really just ways of getting somewhere. They aren't under my own volition nor am I alone.
The two most vital elements appear to be solitude and free will, and it's something I've been doing for a long time. When I was ten years old I used to take myself off for walk quite regularly, for about four hours at a time. I had no idea where I was going and neither did anyone else - it's a wonder my mother still has hair!

Aside: This all seems to be making me look like an antisocial
misery. I'm not. I love my family and friends, and I love their
company. This just seems to be my yin to their yang.

Thirty-odd years later, I'm still doing it. Every so often I feel an overpowering need to just go. It doesn't matter where and it's often best if I've no idea where I'm going, I just need to go. A few hours, or the better part of a day is usually enough, so long as I'm moving forward.
My bicycle has become a very handy part of this process, and I've managed to work out a compromise whereby I will take the train to some distant location and cycle home. I took the chance for a travelling session very recently by riding to and from a Morris band practise day about 20 miles from home.

I even do it in my dreams. Some people have situational dreams where they experience events in one place. In mine I travel (usually) aimlessly from one place to another, usually on foot and usually within my own dream-town. Oddly, I'm very rarely alone in dreams - I'm almost always accompanied by at least one other person and usually someone I already know quite well.

So, what is this travelling all about?
I've just looked up a dream-interpretation website. This is what it says about travel:
To dream that you are traveling, represents the path toward your life
goals. It also parallels your daily routine and how you are progressing along.
Alternatively, traveling signifies a desire to escape from your daily burdens.
You are looking for a change in scenery, where no one has any expectations of
you. Perhaps it is time to make a fresh start. If your travels come to an end,
then it symbolizes successful completion of your goals


That's quite interesting, but surely it can't be as simple as all that. I'm not exactly sure what my life goals are, and never have been. Do I even have any?
The stuff about escaping daily burdens and changing scenery (temporarily) makes sense nowadays, but I had no daily burdens when I was a kid. I do like the statement that the ending of travels means the completion of goals, because my travels never end.

There is a strong element of shaking off routine and expectations when I'm travelling - and when I return my batteries are definitely recharged - but there's more to it than that. It's a kind of meditation, unlike the accepted forms of shutting down against external distractions and concentrating, yet meditational nonetheless.
In fact, being open to the landscape and things going on around you (like not getting killed in traffic!), and getting distracted are important parts of the whole experience. The traveller becomes a part of the landscape through which he travels and the person, place(s) and act of movement become one overall process. That's an important word - it's not a thing, it's a process.
As Kerouac once said, "The road is life".

I'm not going to make any conclusions in this examination as to what it all means, and I'd welcome other opinions. (Am I asking for psycho-analysis? Hell, why not?) I think it's important to keep travelling though, because the journey seems so much more interesting than the destination. Sometimes it's better not to have a destination at all.

Love and sore feet,
Seán

Ye Gods!

The problem with writing an opinions blog, as opposed to some sort of diary, is that you eventually run out of things to have strong opinions about. Or at least ones you feel qualified to rant about.
So, it seems that things have been quiet at Dionysian Towers. They haven't really - your humble host has been doing lots of stuff, just not much blogging. Anyway, my lovely friends at Clarian Faeries (Hello darlings!) decided to start a discussion on their Farcebook page which has got me thinking . . . and blogging.
The original question was "What does deity mean to you?" and my original answer was "An awful lot, actually". But then I realised that doesn't really tell you anything at all. So, I'm going to use this page for a personal consideration of what deity means to me.

Note: Please don't expect a sensible, coherent philosophy here. I'm making this up as I go along!

Oh God!

The first question, then is whether or not I believe in god or gods. The answer is a very definite yes. I don't believe in the modern Judaeo/Christian/Islamic concept that there is one (and only one) infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent and consciously active power. I'm sure there is some overall spiritual essence of which all things partake (the Tao), but to consider that deliberately active and conscious, especially in the form of an all-seeing father figure makes no sense to me. It's more environment than object, and to consider it conscious feels like the sea telling the fish what to do.

I do, on the other hand, believe in gods. Yep, plural! I don't like labels, but one that fits me very well is "polytheist" (I'm poly-lots of things, actually. Does that makes me a polypolyist?)
I believe in all the gods, every last one of 'em. Even poor old Yahweh/Allah/Hashem/G-d, who normally comes in for a lot of stick from me, is as real as any other. He's one god amongst many whose followers' rather warlike tendencies imposed a larger role upon him than he should have had, but he's there all the same.
There's another note. Believing in gods doesn't necessarily mean treating them with respect!

Okay, so I think they're real. In fact I think they're more real than most things. For example: Looking at it in terms of time, I have a limited reality. I have existed for 44 years and with luck and good judgement I hope to exist for at least another 44. Choosing a god at random, Zeus has existed for at least 4,000 years. Simple maths makes him a hundred times more real, and from his point of view I'm just a blip - hardly having time to exist at all.

But temporal existence is only one way to judge the reality of something. For some people things aren't real unless they can experience them for themselves, using their "normal" senses. That's fair enough. My coffee table is real, especially so when you walk into it and mangle your shin. The computer I'm typing at is real too, because I can see it and touch it and hear the click when I press keys.
That works pretty well until we get to more abstract things such as, for instance, a tune.

When you hear a tune it obviously exists. You can hear it, sing/play along, dance to it and so on. But does it exist when it's not being played? It may be written on paper, but that's a fairly recent idea (especially to a folk musician) and anyway, that's not the tune. It's only a "picture" of the tune. It could be captured in a recording, but again that's only been happening very recently and it isn't the tune itself - it's simply a very reliable way of repeating the tune.
Yet when the tune is being played it very definitely exists, so it must be real.
To me gods have an analogous form of reality. If a tune can be real, or a dream, an emotion, an idea - the gods also are real in a very similar way.

All this implies that reality depends upon someone experiencing it (When a tree falls in the forest, etc). It does, but only for us. Personally I believe that the gods have existed before humanity and will do long after we're gone, but what matters to us is entirely our experience of them. The only way we know anything is via our own experiences, so whether the gods exist without humanity is a bit of a pointless question. It's humanity which is experiencing them in the first place, and to some extent recreating them.

So, what are they?

My daughter, who is 8 years old and therefore a very clear thinker, recently asked me what gods are. The conversation went a bit like this:
Me: "You know how trees have spirits?"
She: "Oh yeah"
Me: "Well, the god of a forest would be like, a really big spirit made up of all the little spirits of the trees, plants, animals and so on"
She: "Oh. Right-oh!"

And that was that!

Okay, all that was a bit simplistic but notice that we don't just have random gods. We have gods of things, like love, war, mountains and so on. Now imagine a spirit of love. What would it look like?

All cultures across the globe have, or have had, deities of some form and, interestingly, their appearances seem to reflect the appearances and experiences of the people and cultures they come from. Very nature-based cultures, such as nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes and subsistence farming villages tend to have a lot of gods which look like animals and a few who look human. This can be related back to the tree-spirit conversation. What would a tree spirit look like? Well, it would certainly have an element of tree-ness. The same goes for say, Anansi, Coyote or the Rainbow serpent. The more abstract powers tend to look more human, such as the Navaho goddess of night and day, Estsanatlehi.

As people become more "civilised" their gods tend to lose their animal qualities and become more human. In ancient Egypt the gods often had animal heads, which suggests a culture which became extremely conservative in the middle of a transition period. In ancient Greece something even better happened, their gods are entirely human but they have animal companions. So do the Germanic and Norse gods, and many others.

To a certain extent, what this means is that we create the gods in our own images, but that doesn't mean we create them out of nothing. The power, quality, experience (etc) is already there but we need to experience it in a way we can understand, a way that we can relate to. We give the gods their shapes.

What about Chaos Magick?

Our society is going through a massive and extremely fast transition period. It's been happening with ever-increasing speed since the industrial revolution and doesn't look likely to slow down anytime soon. Religious experience, to be relevant, needs to keep up with those changes.
Personally I prefer my gods to have tried and tested forms which I can research and understand - my personal favourites being Dionysos (well, duh!), Shiva and Ishtar - but for some it's Cthulu, Shub-Niggurath, Bugs Bunny or Laurel and Hardy. The point is that the "power" is already there, but we need a way of relating to it in order to understand it better. Frankly, if it works who am I to say nay?

The last question remains, "What are the gods for?"
Some people worship their gods. They ask them favours, they give them gifts, they blame them when things go wrong. Fair enough, I suppose, if it works. And, for them, I'm sure it does.
Personally (which is what the question is about), I don't. I honour my gods by dedication of various activities (dancing, exercise, drinking, sex, etc) but in the end they are that which I am aiming to become. It's all very Dionysian because to me the gods are for ekstasis (to stand outside oneself) and entheos (to have a god within oneself). To become one with the nature of the gods is my personal aim.

So, I think I've come up with an answer to the question, "What does deity mean to you?"
To me it means potential, direction, ecstatic union, "An awful lot, actually!"

Love,
Seán

WNBR 2010

WNBR Manchester 2010 – An Announcement

Hello all you wonderful naked cyclists.

After our first request your friendly-neighbourhood planning committee have come up with a provisional date for Manchester’s 5th Naked Bike Ride –

Friday 11th June 2010.

It may seem a long way off yet but we need to be getting our heads together very soon in order to keep our agreement with the police (details below). With that in mind we’ll be calling a meeting asap for anyone who wants a say it what goes on.
If you want to be involved, watch this space.

Love and bicycles,
Seán


After the problem on last year’s ride Becca, Dave and I had a nice chat with our local constabulary and worked out how to have a safe, fun and trouble-free ride this year. Not long after that Manchester’s Finest sent me a letter stating the agreements made. I think it’s very reasonable – hell, they even apologised, which is fantastic!

Here is a transcript of the letter:


Tuesday 28th July 2009

Dear Mr Fitton

RE: The World Naked Bike Ride Event 2009

Thank you for your letter dated 21st June 2009 regarding the policing of the 2009 World Naked bike Ride Event in Manchester.

We apologise for the confusion which led to your event being disrupted. It appears that there were initial misunderstandings in the planning process for the event; communication issues within the police in relaying the event details to patrol officers; and confusion by officers as to how to deal with the event when a complaint was received from a member of the public.

On Wednesday 24th June 2009 you attended a debrief at Bootle Street Police Station. Present at this meeting were Inspector Ron Orr (senior officer in charge of the events planning office), Constables Steve Dodd and Ann Ferguson (events planning), you and two other representatives of the organisers.

The issues listed above were discussed in detail with the resultant recommendations being agreed.

1. GMP will liaise with other force areas holding the same event, London and York primarily, in an attempt to adopt a common event policy.
2. An initial event meeting will take place between the North Manchester Forward Planning Office and the event organisers at least two months prior to the 2010 event. At this meeting the route and any conditions of entry will be agreed.
3. There will be regular contact between the organisers and the police between this meeting and the event.
4. Event organisers will ensure that all event participants on the day conform to the agreed conditions of entry.
5. The police will ensure that fully briefed officers accompany the cycle ride from start to finish to alleviate any confusion.
6. The police will ensure that all interested parties are made aware that the event is taking place.

We hope that the meeting addressed your concerns and that we can work together to make next year’s event a safe and enjoyable experience.

Stamped and signed “pp.Steve Dodds, PC 3841”
28 July 2009.

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