Good Clients

Speaking of object links, I took on a fairly complex matter for a client this week. I wish all clients were like her. Supplied personal links AND photos for herself and all other targets in the spell. She used teh internet to gain birth date info  on those that she didnt have that data on. Everything was in separate bags clearly labeled. 

She actually went through the trouble of mailing some material that might have been used in a hexing in a totally separate package. 

I love that. 

I wish all clients were like that. 

Deaths

Over the Thanksgiving day weekend, two Americans were killed in the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks. 

Three Americans were killed during black Friday shopping. One at a Wallmart and two at Toys R Us. 

The shoppers at the Wallmart were allegdly enraged that he store would be closing because of the death. 

This is the kind of thing that makes me ill. I know that I should be focused on compassion for those that died, but all I want to do is kill the fuckers who complained that the store would be closing. 

I need a tepaphone and some good object links.... 

Reason why a post was deleted

Yes, I did delete that post containing the parting words in the book. 

The reason: Those wont be the parting words of the book. 

I was tired and exhaused from editing and I cranked out a few paragraphs that sounded good at midnight and read like pomous crap the next day. Worse than that, it made it sound like I was starting my own magickal system, which is not my intent. 

So, tommorrow I will write a new few paragraphs and maybe post those. 

Illuminated Tarot

The Rider deck was the first deck I ever read with, and the symbolism is top notch in my book. Its not to bare in the minor arcana like older Marseilles and Visconti decks, but its not over laden with specized symbols like the Thoth and GD Tarots. I just have always hated the art on the Rider deck. Everyone does. 

So I bounced around to Rider clones, which are nicer looking, but always manage to screw it up somehow with something I hate.  My favorite of these is the Morgan Greer, but I am not crazy for some of those cards either. I have used some re-colored rider decks in the past as well, but always found them lacking. 

As a gift for finishing the manuscript, I bought myself a new deck: The Illuminated Tarot

A Hand Painted Rider Deck that maintains all the symbols and art of the original rider, but is different enough with the colors and backgrounds to make it interesting. I ordered my deck from Carol on Tuesday and got it today. 

I am loving it. You can tell a lot of care went into these.  

The cards themselves are not like the cardstock that you would find from a store bought deck. They are glossy laminated cards which make the deck both thicker and more flexible than a standard deck, yet they are amazingly easy to shuffle. In fact, because they are hand done, there is something about them that reminds me of my first experience with Tarot, which was with a deck that my friend Don and I actually photocopied out of Waits Key to the Tarot from the Library, than cut out with scissors when we were in 8th grade. 

I purchased the medium sized deck without the irridescent paint added. The only things I dont like are the backs of the cards (sort of a dusty violet star pattern) and that some ofthe cards have the names changed, like death below. But overall, that doesnt bother me much. 

Carol was very kind to include several gift cards including a version of the magician with the irridescent paint in the large style, the magician cards from the Tarot Revele, an image of Set, and a few cards from her Chakra card series. She also includes a lined bag that form fits the deck and has one of your favorite cards mounted onto it. Very nice touches. 

This is pretty cool

Conjunctio - A Graphic Grimmoire

Quote from the book.

Sometimes people want to do spells involving the saints, but confess to me that they aren’t Christian and want to know if it’s ok. Its funny how, this only happens with Christian figures. Nobody seems to care that they aren’t a Buddhist or Hindu to work with Kurukulla or not an ancient Greek to work with Hekate, but because we live in a Christian culture, working magick with the saints or angels can seem more taboo. My advice is this: just do the spell with devotion to deity as you understand it, but do it according to the rules of the tradition it comes from. In other words, do not call upon St Martha in the name of Artemis or Odin. 

She won’t like it. Just as its impolite to visit a foreign country and demand that everyone follow your customs (though I have seen that often enough), its impolite to call force Saints and Dakinis and Spirits and Loa and whatever into formats that they aren’t comfortable with. After you make contact, you can work out some different conditions with the spirit, but don’t approach them that way from the start. 

The Onion gets profound

The onion gets profound about Christianity. Beautifully done. 

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/im_not_one_of_those_love_thy

I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians

BY JANET COSGROVE 
CHRISTIAN 
NOVEMBER 19, 2008 | ISSUE 44•47

Everybody has this image of "crazy Christians" based on what they hear in the media, but it's just not true. Most Christians are normal, decent folks. We don't all blindly follow a bunch of outdated biblical tenets or go all fanatical about every bit of dogma. What I'm trying to say is, don't let the actions of a vocal few color your perceptions about what the majority of us are like.

Like me. I may be a Christian, but it's not like I'm one of those wacko "love your neighbor as yourself " types.

God forbid!

I'm here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren't anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We're not all into "turning the other cheek." We don't spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no credit. And although we believe that the moral precepts in the Book of Leviticus are the infallible word of God, it doesn't mean we're all obsessed with extremist notions like "righteousness" and "justice."

My faith in the Lord is about the pure, simple values: raising children right, saying grace at the table, strictly forbidding those who are Methodists or Presbyterians from receiving communion because their beliefs are heresies, and curing homosexuals. That's all. Just the core beliefs. You won't see me going on some frothy-mouthed tirade about being a comfort to the downtrodden.

I'm a normal Midwestern housewife. I believe in the basic teachings of the Bible and the church. Divorce is forbidden. A woman is to be an obedient subordinate to the male head of the household. If a man lieth down with another man, they shall be taken out and killed. Things everybody can agree on, like the miracle of glossolalia that occurred during Pentecost, when the Apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit, who took the form of cloven tongues of fire hovering just above their heads. You know, basic common sense stuff.

But that doesn't mean I think people should, like, forgive the sins of those who trespass against them or anything weird like that.

We're not all "Jesus Freaks" who run around screaming about how everyone should "Judge not lest ye be judged," whine "Blessed are the meek" all the time, or drone on and on about how we're all equal in the eyes of God! Some of us are just trying to be good, honest folks who believe the unbaptized will roam the Earth for ages without the comfort of God's love when Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior returns on Judgment Day to whisk the righteous off to heaven.

Now, granted, there are some Christians on the lunatic fringe who take their beliefs a little too far. Take my coworker Karen, for example. She's way off the deep end when it comes to religion: going down to the homeless shelter to volunteer once a month, donating money to the poor, visiting elderly shut-ins with the Meals on Wheels program—you name it!

But believe me, we're not all that way. The people in my church, for the most part, are perfectly ordinary Americans like you and me. They believe in the simple old-fashioned traditions—Christmas, Easter, the slow and deliberate takeover of more and more county school boards to get the political power necessary to ban evolution from textbooks statewide. That sort of thing.

We oppose gay marriage as an abomination against the laws of God and America, we're against gun control, and we fervently and unwaveringly believe that the Jews, Muslims, and all on earth who are not born-again Pentecostalists are possessed by Satan and should be treated as such.

When it comes down to it, all we want is to see every single member of the human race convert to our religion or else be condemned by a jealous and wrathful God to suffer an eternity of agony and torture in the Lake of Fire!

I hope I've helped set the record straight, and I wish you all a very nice day! God bless you!