The Haunting of Borley Rectory 2019

This is a review of the film of this name. The main reason I am reviewing it here is to counteract the many negative reviews it has accrued on the internet, because The Hound thinks it's rather good.
The story of the notorious haunting of Borley Rectory was one of the things on which I cut my weird shit teeth. In fact I have read virtually everything about it except for James Turner's My Life with Borley Rectory, but only because I have never been able to get my grubby little hands on it.
This film's negative reviews largely stem from historical purists. Set in 1944, it features an American serviceman, ordered to live in an Essex cottage and monitor the airwaves. Unfortunately the famous Rectory nun won't leave him alone and he enlists the help of Harry Price.
Probably I have said here before that while I have read both the for and against literature on Borley I have to come down on the side of the sceptic. The story is too incredible to be true, all of the characters too vaudeville, and frankly the level of hysteria would give Freud a fit.
This film is done no service by the way it is described online as the story of Borley Rectory. It is no such thing. It is a fantasy inspired by the already incredible legend of the haunting of Borley. The mere fact that it opens with Marianne Foyster (pictured) speaking in the ruins of the rectory should tell anyone who knows the story that this is not a historical account and some drama is about to happen. A fantastic story based on a fantastic story, this is not history.
But the aspect which makes this film really easy on the eye is that it stars the gorgeous Zach Clifford. I'm not going to go on, because I will embarrass myself!

Endless Bullshit

Honestly, some people.
I have commented here before that I semi-regularly read this person's blog, who doesn't half talk some rubbish. I only read it when I can stand to, but continue to read it because she is an interesting person.
Previously I think I have commented that she spouted one day that she had this particular bowl to eat from and how green and wonderful it was because it was reused from a salad.
The salad in question was from Marks and Spencer.
I know so, because she just threw that in there.
She also spouts the wonders of a minimalist wardrobe. This seems to entail fairly frequently giving her current clothes away and starting afresh by buying a new wardrobe on eBay.
But the most ridiculous thing she talks about is the Gerson protocol. One of these days I will do a post about why it's utter nonsense, but suffice to say that it is a quack treatment for cancer. She thinks it will stop her getting cancer. The Hound has news for her, that people who peddle dangerous quackery can find themselves getting a good hard slap from Fate. But anyway, she published some pictures of her kitchen, with its array of expensive foodstuffs, and amongst them was special Gerson coffee. Look online, I promise your hair will stand on end when you see how much it costs. And it's not even for drinking - it's for coffee enemas!
All of these things are only available to rich people. The cost of minimalism is that you have to have money to buy things you need because you don't have them. Poor people tend to own more stuff because they can't afford to replace stuff they have thrown out.
The blogger I am talking about presents all this shit as a'spiritual' thing. The Hound thinks it's just another form of consumerism.
Today she has posted a link to a YouTube channel about minimalism and mindfulness. Each video has an Amazon link to buy the things you see in the video!
Why am I expatiating about this? Consumerism/capitalism have a habit of pretending to be other things. In this case about spirituality and mindfulness (don't start me on that one). Personally I love a good shop. But you won't find me pretending otherwise. My own aspiration is to be right sized, and I think that eiwi not involve disproportionate use of Stuff.
This is one of the reasons I started this blog. I had something to say and didn't want to write a Llewellyn book. I wanted it to be free on the internet and to embody my own do-it-yourself ethic, that you can't buy magic, but once you step on that path, what you need will always appear.
And I suppose this is my witchy version of mindfulness - I have to focus on my intent and do the Great Work without deviation.

Knock off Chinese Tarot Decks and Not Going to Pride

I have recently bought two knock off Chinese tarot decks. This is not to be derogatory about the Chinese, the decks actually came from China and are very clearly knockoff.
Of course there is an immediate ethical problem here, however one of the decks was one which I had thought I would never buy because it was too expensive - the gorgeous Prisma Visions Tarot. If you want to buy the original you can get it here, but in my own case I was never going to buy it and so I'm not cheating the artist out of any money. The other deck is the Pamela Colman Smith centennial edition.
These decks have the disadvantage that they are very obvious cheap reproductions, and you can tell they are such because they don't even have a publisher's name on. The printing is not perfect and they feel cardboardy, which personally I prefer to the high gloss of many decks. Also if you lose them, that's less of a problem.
These decks have one big advantage for a decrepit old witch like myself, which is that the cards are rather smaller than standard size tarot cards, which makes them easier to shuffle.
You can find endless knock off decks on t'internet. You can tell them because they are ridiculously cheap and ship from China.

This weekend is Birmingham Pride and naturally the Hound isn't going, for reasons I have rehearsed here every year. If you are a recent visitor you can click the label 'queer' down there 👇on the web version and see my reasons. That is why the Kray twins illustrate this post, as they are my exemplar of non-establishment queer sexuality and definitely non-conforming if psychopathic with it.

Inspiration from Mixed Martial Arts

The gentleman whose picture illustrates this post is a mixed martial artist called David 'One More' Round. My opinion is that witchcraft, in fact magic, bears more resemblance to a martial art than a religion, and in fact I think David's tattoo is a perfect motto for a witch: Be the Hero in Your Own Life. The witch, as well as the martial artist, must step up and stop looking for heroes outside. Below is a video of David talking and another of a suitable song for the theme of this post.

May is Masturbation Month

Hooray it's come round again! Although I do wonder whether, being the Hound I am, I shouldn't instead be humping things and sniffing crotches. Blush.
Incidentally, since I aim to be educational as well as entertaining, I would like to point out that there are photos of different wanking techniques on Wikipedia. Don't thank me, it's all part of the service.
Enjoy!

Everyday Tarot Review

This is a review of the Everyday Tarot (the deck, not the book, which I bought some time ago and am just getting comfortable with. I tend to find that a new deck will just sit for some time until its time comes to pick it up.
First things first, this is a pocket deck, more like the size of ordinary playing cards. The card is quite thick, so it comes in at about twice the thickness of a playing card deck. The edges are coloured gold. I don't know whether this is the case with all decks, because some pictures on the internet make the edges look shiny as if gilded, and they are not on mine. It is also cheap, compared to most tarot decks, coming in at not much more than a tenner.
I like it, is my verdict. The images are streamlined and simplified versions of the RWS deck. It therefore lacks the hidden mickeys for which that deck is famous. All the cards are in the same purple, gold and white colour scheme, so there is a layer of meaning lacking that the RWS has. The flip side of that is of course that the cards could take on meanings which they don't in the RWS because they are not contained by the colours. A major change is that this deck introduces many more women than RWS, and the illustration to this post shows just some of the cards which depict figures who are usually male but female here. This includes some of the knights!
I think this would be a good deck to learn with, and comes with a little book of meanings. The deck's basis in the RWS means that it can also be used for more developed reading based on that deck.
One thing I would say is that the cards tend to stick together when new, and it's taken several months of handling for mine to separate and ease up.