A Rare Political Post

You will rarely or never catch me talking about politics in its most restricted sense: the Hound is far too independent to align with any party or view. There is however one view current which is so obviously wrong and economically suicidal that I must comment on how pleased I was today to see a rally against it.
If you want a soundtrack just put the words 'We're not going to Brexit' to the tune below.

A Big Present

Despite having devoted years to developing my curmudgeonly persona, the two abilities I have which never fail to surprise me are my remarkable healing ability and the way I have with animals.
I genuinely don't know how I do healing, and no I can't do warts. What I do is healing rather than curing, dealing with dis-ease rather than disease, and I'm particularly good at pain. The fluffies will have a fit but I can take it and put it somewhere else, in a worthy recipient. I see this as a major witchly work, and someone always comes to my attention who needs a karmic backlash.
The other day I had the most arthritis pain I've ever had and was hobbling along when some fool cannoned straight into me and called me a prick.
So I gave it to him. All of it. I genuinely don't know how I do it but five minutes later I was fine.
And animals similarly, I don't know how I do it. With dogs it's self explanatory, the Goddess thinks it's hilarious the way a status dog with a bit of rough trade holding its lead, rolls over when it sees me!
Other animals too, and this post is illustrated with a new friend who comes to the witch for a chat before going back to savaging some other bird.
Funny thing, being a witch. And magic is definitely better than sex 🙃

Tarot with Personality made Simple

I have two new tarot decks in my possession. I will probably right about the Marseille tarot I have bought at some point, but will not presume to review the Thoth tarot because it would be like saying an iceberg was the wrong shape.
I am finding the way I am reading is changing, and becoming both more complicated and more simple at the same time. The complication is come from the fact that I have pirated a system of counting from the monumental reading pattern devised by the golden dawn, called the opening of the key. The counting method can easily be found online, that is basically a way of selecting further cards for a reading based on the last one you picked. If you count from a significator through the whole deck you tend to end up with around 12 cards for a reading, and I'm finding that I prefer to read more cards now, without fixed positions. Sometimes I read them as if in a progression, but generally just let them speak to me in the way that seems right at the time.
The other more simple way simply to tell the deck to talk to me and then basically have a chat with it. This method brings out the personality of a tarot deck perfectly. Shows its origins in Taverns and gambling, as an actual deck for playing games, in the overly Frank, unsubtle and sometimes bawdy answers it gives. The Thoth deck never lets you forget for a moment that it was designed by the master Therion. It is both learned and frankly rude! It is a deck which would never let the reader get away with self deception and would soon call you out on any affectation.
Speaking of affectation, I have been entertaining myself with videos of f**** Cradock. I am liking them even better now that I have discovered that this speech app stars out her name!

What Witchcraft Values Would Look Like

My last post was heavily geared towards pointing out the hypocrisy of the people we call Christians. They themselves tend to use the classic derailment techniques of pointing out that the church is for Sinners and so on. This is of course nonsense. On no greater authority than my own opinion I am going to express the view that it is reasonable to expect people to be in fact what they claim to be.
I thought it was in their holy scriptures but I find it is actually in the first Latin Christian writer, Tertullian, that we find the classic picture of the pagans of the time commenting on how the Christians love each other. Do the Christians love each other (or anyone else)? Do they f*ck.
This has caused me to reflect on how we would know that the principles of Witchcraft are embodied in a community, or even an individual.
I don't think for an instant that it would be a very harmonious community, since the sort of people who are drawn to witchcraft are usually as willing to collaborate with anyone else as a bear with a sore paw.
It would be made further quarrelsome by the fact that witches tends to be quite assertive. Oh alright since you ask we are usually downright rude.
I think the fact of the assertiveness and possibly rudeness is one of the things which would indicate that the community embodies the Spirit of Witchcraft.
Another think would probably be a Frank attitude to sex. Now you must understand that I am not talking about the strange creepy men who attend pagan festivals. I am talking about an environment in which people are truly free to be sexually themselves without any fear of intimidation or force. This is really the exact opposite of a christian Community.
Nor would the members of a community which embodies the values of Witchcraft work out their will in isolation from each other, since a real magical community would recognise the interdependence of all things. If my perceived will clashes with yours, then one of us is wrong. Of course it's most likely to be you, but you might just have to learn that the hard way.
That would be another hallmark of the witchcraft community, that people would actively expect to receive the consequences of their actions    and not try to avoid them.
I would expect the members of the community to call out somebody who is a creep or a charlatan or harasses people... In fact in the pagan community as it is, the informal gatherings that we have to often involves bitching about each other and we will usually no other groups reputation very well.
This is not actually a blueprint for what a witchcraft community should look like of course, since I myself would rather have my fingernails pulled out then join one, it is just a few reflections prompted by my last post.
You may wonder the connection between the illustration and these few thoughts. Natural body hair, that is the connection. And nipples of course. But you knew that.

Turds: The World Meeting of Families

The Catholic Church is holding its World Meeting of Turds in Ireland. Actually it may be over now, but I had to comment.

My Hero Miss Cleo

Ok, let's get the bad press out of the way first. If you look up this doyenne of 1990s US phone psychic lines you invariably find her name (or one of her many pseudonyms) attached to the word fraud.
People don't get that a high proportion of magic is theatre, creating the right environment for your subconscious to make the change. You might feel it necessary to dress u in turbans or speak patois, for example. It's unreal. That's the point.
But I've suspected for some time that Miss Cleo was the real deal. Witches recognise each other for one thing, and when she tells people suffering with psychic gunk to clean the house, I just knew she was real. That's some ancient magic right there, and you find that in the US and other places in the African diaspora, because slaves took their magic with them.
Of course as always the Hound's nose is not deceived:

And despite being dubbed clairvoyant, Harris also said she never claimed to be one, and instead studied voodoo under a Haitian mambo for 30 years.

“So they refer to me as psychic – because the word voodoo scares just about everybody. So they told me, ‘No, no, no, we can’t use that word; we’re going to call you a psychic.’ I said, ‘But I’m not a psychic!’” she told Vice.

“I’m more a shaman, an elder in a community who has visions and gives direction to people in their village. My clients and my students are my village. I take care of this community. If you sit down at my table, you have to take away a lesson and not just learn what is going to happen tomorrow. I also perform weddings – both gay and straight marriages – and house cleansings and blessings,” she said in an interview with Advocate magazine.

The link above should take you to an interview about her coming out as lesbian. I recognise a magical person when I see one, after all I'm a fraud myself. You didn't really think I was a dog, did you?

Now I'm Being Stalked by the Queen of Cups

Last month I posted that I was being stalked by the four of Wands. With some relief that I can write that that card seems to have stopped stalking me for the present, I am being stalked by the queen of cups.
This is a queen with whom I have never felt a great affinity, always a sure sign that a card represents a shadow side of one's personality (posh, eh?). And so to start at the beginning, what we see is a woman sitting on a stone throne on a beach. The throne is highly and very campily carved with images of cherubs. The solidity of the throne is in contrast to a number of stones on the beach, and naturally also some sand. The waves of the sea, almost to the Queen's feet and I have always thought of her as representing a rock of stability in a changeable world. Not forgetting that cups represents the realm of emotion, she would be the sort of person who would represent affection carried on over many years despite ups and downs in a relationship. The sort of person you know you can rely on and know where you will stand with them.
Because this is a card that I don't gel with very well, I naturally had some difficulty applying this to my own situation, so I pulled some more cards, asking the Queen what it was she had to say to me.
I got the three of Wands and the four of Wands. The whole tarot deck is now screaming at me to get the message of the four of Wands. A water card is there for telling me to stick with the fiery message of the four of Wands to stand by my own will hadn't carry on to the end, at which point I will get a party. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of steam around, but otherwise business as usual in my life.