Urban Grimoire: Sex with the Dead for Samhain

So of course at this time of the year all the magic blogs are talking about family reunions for Samhain when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest. They all think this is so edgy and gothy so here we'll talk about having sex with a dead person of your choice.

Perhaps I should say that this is not a how to post, it's more a having an idea post. If you're advanced enough even to consider this magic you don't need The Hound to tell you how. You will already have spent considerable time communing across barriers and hanging around in graveyards.

I'm not going to lie, it will come as no surprise that the effect of even thinking about this magic on the fluffbunnies, has me rolling around on the floor clutching my sides. However regular readers will be familiar with my approach to witch ethics - the threefold law is bollocks and the whole point is that magic takes you beyond what is acceptable to you. Magic presents you with challenges that you have to deal with - while it is usually phrased in such a way that transgressive actions lead to magical power, in reality magic transgresses the magician. And that is what leads to the power - remember how the real target of magic is always in some way the magician?

In case any Llewellyn reader is in danger of a stroke let me explain why magic with the dead is ethically ok and is not rape. Remember how the magical world view is composed of multiple layers and a change made in one affects all the others? Here we are only having sex with the idea of the person. You won't need a condom, there can be no pregnancy or risk of an STI.

Nonetheless this is genuinely having sex with the person because the idea of the person is what's sometimes called the thought form or egregore of the person. An example of this would be the way Diana Dors used to tell her son that the reason she was always smiling and waving at people was she was being Diana Dors. In other words she was being the idea of Diana Dors. If by chance you've ever fantasised about Diana Dors, you have approached what I am talking about. It is no more sex with Diana Dors than sex with Diana Dors is.

And magical sex is actually real sex and not just a fantasy because of the intent. You are only meeting the thought form but you are actually doing It. In fact I have a quote about how this is actually sex:

but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Jesus in Matthew 5:28

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that no other witchy blog has Jesus and Diana Dors as guest teachers.

Since this is sex on a different plane from the person there is just a danger that you can get them attached to you. For this reason I would advise not trying this with someone living and making sure you pick someone long dead with a strong and clear memory. Fairly long dead so that you are having sex with the egregore of a previous incarnation and the strong egregore speaks for itself. For example Marilyn Munroe, James Dean, or Marlon Brando.

I am not suggesting sex with Jesus. Although I can tell you for a fact he was circumcised. I don't think I have anything to add so I will wish you a happy feast of the dead, and.... Enjoy!

Just one thing, Ricki Starr is mine. All mine! 

Agony Hound: My friend is angry with me because I didn't tell him I'm gay

This is one I found on Reddit (here) and is again a quandary which has made me think. I haven't copied the various answers because I'm the Agony Hound here, and like Claire Rayner, luvvie, I know best!

So I know this guy for a very long time, since the first grade, now we're both 20. We're best friends. All this time I was in the closet and I didn't plan on coming out anytime soon because I just didn't feel like doing it and also the area where I live in is not very gay friendly. My friend asked me to lend him some of my old school notebooks because he wanted to use them for his college studies and accidentally I put my journal between those notebooks. I didn't realize it until later, I was terrified and I texted him that I didn't mean to give him that one notebook, that it's very personal and asked him not to read it but I was too late. He had already read it and that's how he found out I'm gay. Most of my journal consists of my thoughts and feelings about being gay, I hold a journal because I need to let this out of me and I just didn't feel like telling anyone about it.

The next day we met and his first question was "are you gay?" I said yes, because it'd be dumb to deny it after he himself read all about it. And he went livid on me, not because I'm gay but because I didn't tell it to him. He was like "we're friends for the most of our lives and you didn't tell me such an important thing about you, does our friendship mean so little to you, etc" But I didn't want to. Even my parents don't know I'm gay, no one knows, except him. I didn't want to come out, I didn't feel comfortable coming out. Do you think he has rights to be angry with me?

I'm not going to lie, my absolutely first instinct was to say that he's being an arsehole. My reason for saying that would be that it would obviously be so difficult for you growing up gay in a conservative community and also that you had outed yourself accidentally.

In an absolutely ideal world I would have preferred that whether he had read it or not, he would have said he hadn't got to that notebook yet, and left it to you to decide when to tell him.

So basically I don't think he has rights to be angry with you.

However even I have to realize sometimes that we don't live in an ideal world and it is possible that he hasn't come across this situation before or that you are the first gay person he has knowingly met.

I suppose in these circumstances, and to keep the power in your hands where it should be, it must be up to you to decide whether this is ok and what you want to do about it. You sound like you are really good friends, and you may decide you want to stay friends. You may want to explain to him at some point just why this is so difficult. And have answers ready for when he asks you if you fancy him or he says gay sex is disgusting.

The only worry I would have is whether he will tell people before you are ready, and that that may have consequences where you live. Your response may be formed by whether he will consider your safety, because a lack of 'understanding' of that is unforgivable.

And since being gay is so difficult in Lower Snoring on the Grope you may want to move to a city ASAP.

Being INFJ: Trying not to Make People Jump

When you're INFJ it can be difficult to remember that other people don't see things quite as we do and can be a bit shocked horrified when they find out we know all about them. I mean, we've grown up being able to identify a shit at sight, we can't be expected to understand that not everyone has that.

As I get older I have a better understanding of how our insight affects other people. I once horrified a bloke in a gay sauna by answering his unspoken words. He was genuinely frightened, it was so funny. Bitch I've just sucked you off, of course I can read your thoughts, was not the explanation that would have gone down. I told him it was non verbal communication. Of course regular readers will know that I don't actually adjust my response to people unless I feel like it!

But here are a few things I've learned about non-INFJs:

Many people go through life genuinely surprised at things that happen. Can you believe this? They genuinely don't notice patterns of human behaviour and thought that would tell them what was coming next and so don't see things coming. This one never ceases to amaze me!

Many people don't look into people's thoughts and motivations and just believe what people say. They don't even look at who benefits from things like religion, politics and scams. Incredible, I honestly don't know how they go through life like this. An example would be when the pope says child abuse is terrible, they actually believe that and don't examine the church's complete lack of any action that would stop abuse except when forced. Conversely some people think they are seeing into what is actually happening and end up in totally fictional conspiracy theories. Why the hell would China have created a virus - and how, since the technology to do it doesn't exist.

People don't want to hear the things we know. This is totally sad, because they'll spend fortunes on fake psychics and quacks but what they really want is to have their defenses bolstered.

I have learned with difficulty that there is literally no point with some people, if they learn their lesson for this incarnation it will be the hard way, if at all. That said on other occasions it can be very satisfying to take them to school. For example the practice manager of my GP surgery thinks that my complaint is resolved. But I happen to know that because he isn't actually managing the reception staff the same problem will happen next time I try to make an appointment and he will get the same complaint again.

I am the means the universe has chosen to make him get off his arse. In fact once you've dealt with a few psychopaths the universe starts throwing them at you regularly just because nobody else can even.

Incidentally in a probably unrelated vein I keep thinking how much I like millennials. They have a whole can do and don't give a shit attitude which appeals to me hugely. I particularly like their propensity for rioting. Of course this is not what society wants, and of course I could have told world government that saddling generations with huge debt and no prospect of home ownership, a career or retirement, gives them a whole freedom that earlier generations lacked. But they didn't ask of course.

The illustration is of striking Disney animators in 1941, who knew how to do industrial action.

Agony Hound: Do my secret sex fantasies mean I should leave my wife and try something different?

Another Coleen Nolan this time, from here.

Dear Coleen, I’m a man in my late-30s, married with two young children. My problem is, I’ve been fantasising a lot about sleeping with other women.

I love my wife and find her very attractive, so I wouldn’t actually have an affair, but I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like.

I’ve been married for five years but we’ve been together for nearly 10. When we had our first child, we relocated out of the city to be nearer to her parents. I didn’t want to do it, but I did it because I love her and could see the benefits in having help from the grandparents.

Maybe I’m just craving something different – I feel life is just ticking along or maybe even passing me by.

Surely I’m too young to be feeling like this? Our sex life has always been good although, if I’m honest, we could do it more often and it could be more adventurous.

I’m not sure why I’m having these feelings about other women so much, but I’m worried it means I shouldn’t be with my wife any more. But I’d never split up my family.

I’d love your opinion on what I should do.

Coleen says

You sound bored to me and if that’s the case, do something about it – don’t just sit around moping and thinking about it.

And be more honest with your wife, too. You don’t have to tell her you’ve been fantasising about other women, but you can tell her that you feel things have become mundane and ask her if she feels the same. For all you know, she might be thinking the exact same thing.

We’re all human and it’s natural to want to feel desired and to be looked at in a different way – ie, not just as a co-parent and a father. And this is especially true if you’re in a long-term relationship.

I just think you need to start by reminding yourself why you love your wife and find her sexy, and start doing some of the things you used to do before the kids came along. 

The Hound says:

Your question really piqued my interest because of the way you talk about these fantasies. They obviously bother you and you feel as if they could be prompting you in a certain direction but aren't sure.

Let me very clear what I mean: to me what you are describing is the normal situation, to my mind. I do understand that there are some people who just don't fantasize but I think it's the norm. Day dreaming about how your life could be different or fantasising about other women seem perfectly normal to me.

Is this actually new? Can you remember a time in your life before when you fantasised like this?

To me what is the real issue here is basically what Coleen says, that you are fantasising because you feel there isn't something right in your life. You obviously don't really want a fling, or to leave your wife so as Coleen says the key would be communicating and maintaining the relationship. Date night, for example.

I also think you could cultivate your fantasy to give you ideas about how you could build your marriage. As a witch I think fantasy to be one of the most useful things we have.

182474 Page Views Guest Post: Why I Distrust Parents of Estranged Children

Another guest post because I feel like it. Perhaps I should consider a series of posts about how not to parent, but of course that would imply I know how to parent. I tend to see my role as criticism rather than help. 😂

By Laura Fox

“I have no idea what I’ve done wrong!”

This is the way it always starts. Then it’s often followed by assertions they did everything for their children. As they try to desperately convince me they are the victim, I can’t help but feel who they are really trying to convince is themselves.

As an estranged child, it’s hard for me to have these conversations. These parents are saying many of the things my parents say. I’m sure my mother and father are out there somewhere, insisting they have no idea what they’ve done wrong.

But the truth is, many of these parents do know what they did wrong. Firstly, because they were there. They know very well what they have done because they were the ones doing it. And secondly, we tell them as adults in a desperate bid to make them see the error of their ways so we can save the relationship.

I told my mother many times how she had affected me. Each time, I naively hoped she would listen to me and say sorry. All I wanted was her to acknowledge the years of psychological abuse and admit it was her fault so I could stop blaming myself. But she refused to take responsibility. So one day I cut ties, and she had the audacity to act as if it came out of nowhere.

I begged my father many times to believe me over my mother. He didn’t. After what felt like the one-hundredth time, I cut ties for the sake of my mental health. He insists he has no idea why I don’t talk to him.

Both of my parents know the truth. But they don’t want to face it. Telling stories to other people where they paint themselves as the victims is more comforting. And those people lap it up and feel sorry for them.

I understand parents and children fall out sometimes. And I know not all situations are like mine. I’ve also had conversations with parents who were victims of abusive children. But I can’t help but feel sceptical of parents who complain about their children cutting them out as if they are ungrateful brats, rather than trying to understand their children’s pain. With this particular sort of parent, there is never any evidence they are taking responsibility for how they may have contributed to their children’s estrangement. And this makes me uncomfortable.

It’s very difficult to separate from your parents. Although my mother was abusive and my father an enabler, this didn’t make is any easier to leave. It took over twenty years to finally cut them out because we had a trauma bond.

The environment necessary to create a trauma bond involves intensity, complexity, inconsistency, and a promise. Victims stay because they are holding on to that elusive “promise” or hope. There is always manipulation involved. Victims are prey to the manipulation because they are willing to tolerate anything for the payoff, which is that elusive promise and ever present hope for fulfillment of some deeply personal need within the victim.

-What is Trauma Bonding? by Sharie Stines, Psy.D.

Although it has been over four years since I cut my parents out of my life, the trauma bond remains. Every day I have to resist the urge to reconcile with them. So when parents of estranged children insist their kids “cut me out for no reason just like that!”, in a way that makes it clear they are making sure people believe they are the victim in case their children tell their side of the story, it makes my skin crawl.

Abusers are manipulative. They manipulate their victims and they manipulate the people around them. I see these uninvited conversations as manipulation. Why have you brought this up out of nowhere? Why are you trying to convince me? Why do you need me onside? Why aren’t you putting this energy into working on yourself and your relationship with your children?

Children don’t want to break off their relationship with their parents, whether that child is twenty-five or sixty-five. The Still Face Experiment by Dr Edward Tronick in 1975 showed babies will attempt to fix a bond with their caregiver.

“…an infant, after three minutes of “interaction” with a non-responsive expressionless mother, “rapidly sobers and grows wary. He makes repeated attempts to get the interaction into its usual reciprocal pattern. When these attempts fail, the infant withdraws [and] orients his face and body away from his mother with a withdrawn, hopeless facial expression.”

— Edward Tronick

When the mother goes back to being attentive and expressive, the infant is overjoyed. This experiment shows our need for connection with our parents starts very early in life. Much like the infants in this experiment, as a grown-up child I would feel overjoyed if my parents apologised and proved they had changed.

Maybe these children leave their parents because they are brave, not because they are ungrateful brats. Maybe they gave their parents plenty of chances to repair their bond.

In any other abusive relationship, we would admire the victim for leaving and becoming a survivor. Yet when the perpetrator is a parent, these actions aren’t met with admiration and often people feel sympathy for the parents who have lost their children.

The last time I had one of these conversations with a parent, I gently probed: “Have you asked your daughter why she isn’t talking to you?” They replied they hadn’t. Obviously, I asked why and they hastily responded: “She won’t tell me why.” They thought I was on their side and felt sorry for them. Poor thing, they don’t know why their child cut them out. But due to their response, I felt like I knew why and they knew why too.

“I have no idea what I’ve done wrong!”

Pretending you don’t know is what you have done wrong. Pushing your children to break a really strong bond is what you have done wrong. Not learning from this and taking accountability to what you have done wrong. And the most hurtful part if that you haven’t learned a thing. You continue to put your ego first by spreading your version of events rather than listening to the pain of your children. That is what you’ve done wrong.

Source

Real Asceticism

Honestly I don't know what is wrong with humans: we join things with very clear purposes and mess them up, not excluding religion. For example you can be an evangelical Christian and ignore pretty well everything Jesus talked about while obsessing about two things (guns and abortion) he never mentioned once. And what is with becoming a Catholic priest and expecting to have sex? Did you bother reading the job description?

Incidentally since the world depends on witches to tell the truth the only passage in the Bible coming close to referring to abortion is Exodus 21:22-25 which clearly indicates a foetus is not a person in the law so abortion is fine from that point of view and I think you will find it also tells you not to murder people and the worst thing about this is you all have this book but it took a witch to tell you it.

This human propensity for messing things up extends to asceticism, which didn't originally mean the self-abnegation it now does but meant athletic training. It had more to do with exercise than the monastery and certainly nothing to do with expensive minimalism. It may be related to Marie Kondo because of her urge towards joy. And there's nothing wrong with seeking joy.

In fact training really can only be directed to your heart's desire, because otherwise there is no point. Seeking your heart's desire is the ascesis, the training. It's a prioritisation. Without it we end up with more regrets than we need to have. For example if I had followed what inspired joy I would have kicked my mother out of my life twenty years before I finally did it. I regret the intervening years of having an influence in my life which did not have my best interests at heart.

Nonetheless I have now arranged my life in a more ascetic way. Regular readers will be surprised to hear that I do have a guru in this. It is John Waters and my life is arranged around a very Zen quote of his:

True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.

 This ascesis is the training that I realise I need and something I work on on a daily basis. It is the yardstick by which I measure everything and honestly I wish I had had the wisdom and balls to do it thirty years ago. 

I have also been gifted a mantra by the universe which I chant regularly to ensure I am on track and it is my pleasure to share it with you now. It is:

Eat shit.

And feel the peace wash over you. 

182,000 Page Views Guest Post: How the Epik hack reveals every secret the far-right tried to hide

Regular readers will know I like to have a guest post when page views of the blog passes some pleasingly round number. Now you may say that 182,000 isn't round but I think it has a certain pleasing nature to it and that's what matters.

Sometimes people get rather confused if they ask me what my type is, and I reply that I don't have one - I know it when I see it. In fact I do have a type - basically if you have the elusive asset that I call 'something about you' and/or my mother would have disapproved of you, you're my type. Since my mother didn't really like anyone, and was terminally resentful of anyone trying to take her little lad away from her, the field is wide open.

Something I find incredibly erotic is the idea of hacking. Even without the sexual overtones of, ahem, breaking and entering. This piece about hacking is by a reporter called Mikael Thalen and is copied from here.

A large-scale breach of the domain registrar and web hosting company Epik has exposed a massive trove of data, including the names of individuals behind some of the far-right’s most notorious websites.

The data, as first reported by independent journalist Steven Monacelli on Monday, was released as a torrent this week by the hacking collective Anonymous.

In a press release on the hack, dubbed Operation EPIK FAIL, Anonymous claimed that it was able to obtain “a decade’s worth” of information, including domain registrations and transfers, account credentials, and emails from an Epik employee.

“This dataset is all that’s needed to trace actual ownership and management of the fascist side of the internet that has eluded researchers, activists, and, well, just about everybody,” the release alleges.

A compressed version of the torrent was later released by the journalist collective DDoSecrets, which plans to upload and host the data for reporters and researchers.

Epik’s customers include social media sites such as Parler and Gab as well as far-right forums like TheDonald. A pro-life website that urged Texas residents to report women seeking abortions to the authorities in the wake of the state’s abortion ruling was also temporarily a customer of Epik.

In a statement to Gizmodo on Tuesday, an Epik spokesperson claimed that the company was “not aware of any breach.”

Epik CEO Robert Monster sent an email on Wednesday to customers acknowledging “an alleged security incident” but did not provide specifics.

“Our internal team, working with external experts, have been working diligently to address the situation,” Monster wrote. “We are taking proactive steps to resolve the issue. We will update you on our progress.”

“You are in our prayers today. We are grateful for your support and prayer. When situations arise where individuals might not have honorable intentions, I pray for them,” Monster added. “I believe that what the enemy intends for evil, God invariably transforms into good.”

The Daily Dot attempted to reach Monster for comment, whose phone number and Skype username were listed in emails from the breach, but did not receive a response.

Analysis of the data by the Daily Dot revealed the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of those who registered web domains for a range of sites related to everything from the QAnon conspiracy theory to forums for supporters of former President Donald Trump. The data was also verified on Wednesday evening by the Record.

The Daily Dot spoke with an individual listed as the registrar for TheDonald, an offshoot of a pro-Trump forum banned from Reddit last year, that operates from the domain Patriots.win. The individual confirmed that the information listed in the breach was his but claimed that he had distanced himself from the site.

The original TheDonald subreddit, which boasted nearly 800,000 members, was removed by Reddit for repeatedly violating the platform’s rules against harassment, hate speech, and content manipulation.

The forum’s replacement at Patriots.win has also found itself embroiled in controversy following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol after members were found to have discussed hanging and beheading politicians.

Another individual listed as running a knockoff version of 8chan also confirmed to the Daily Dot that the information listed in the breach was accurate over the phone.

A Linux engineer tasked with conducting an impact assessment on behalf of a client who uses Epik’s services told the Daily Dot that the breach was one of the worst he had ever seen. The engineer did not have permission to speak about the breach by his employer and was granted anonymity by the Daily Dot.

“They are fully compromised end-to-end,” they said. “Maybe the worst I’ve ever seen in my 20-year career.”

The engineer pointed the Daily Dot to what they described as Epik’s “entire primary database,” which contains hosting account usernames and passwords, SSH keys, and even some credit card numbers—all stored in plaintext.

The data also includes Auth-Codes, passcodes that are needed to transfer a domain name between registrars. The engineer stated that with all the data in the leak, which also included admin passwords for WordPress logins, any attacker could easily take over the websites of countless Epik customers.

The Daily Dot was unable to confirm the claims made in the press release by Anonymous that every single one of Epik’s customers were exposed in the breach.

Analysis suggests that hacked data goes up until Feb. 28, 2021. The data’s release comes just days after hackers aligned with Anonymous defaced the official website for the Republican Party of Texas over the state’s new restrictions on abortion.

Jesus, the nature of the hack is sexy. The far-right's secrets are out and the anonymous collective have done the world a favour.