Sex

I read today that people are having less sex, at least in the civilized world. I think that sex was overemphasized, beginning in the 1960s or thereabouts, and the Western world, at least, is resuming the historical norm, in which sex was relegated to an occasional necessity for most people, although in truth, there is no necessity, the human population being what it is. Perhaps, in time, reproduction rates will drop off, and a gradual decline take hold, which would be preferable. The human population probably needs to drop about 50% in order to realistically cope with climate change. Governments need do nothing. Nature will take everything for else. Probably double-digit losses in the global population will occur every twenty years or so, brought on by droughts, fires and other natural disasters, but also in the inevitable world wars that will break out, and of which we see glimmerings already.

As to causes for the decline in popularity of sex, one need only consider the many pitfalls and liabilities to sex in today's modern society. There is little to gain, but much to lose, by getting naked with another human being. Disease ranks the highest, but after that pregnancy, then too, financial hardship brought on by blackmail, divorce, or crime. Emotions and drama seem to get involved wherever sex is concerned. Mainly though, today there are simply many more alternatives to sex, other ways to occupy one's time that are safer, cleaner, and arguably more fun. In the end, then, sex is just too much damn trouble for a lot of young people, and who can blame them?

Yep, Alcohol's Bad

In what should come as a surprise to no one, scientists are discovering new ways alcohol wrecks the body and mind. Every day I scan the headlines, and almost every day a new horror is uncovered with alcohol as the author. Either new research, new disease, or some new crime from an inebriated loser.

Yes, those who get inebriated are losers, because they are losing this world and lowering themselves to a lesser spiritual plane than this one, and this one is not all that great, to begin with.

One of my life's regrets is that I ever got habituated to the drinking of alcohol. Unfortunately, I found myself at a vulnerable age unprepared to cope with the stresses and pressures of school and sought solace in the bottle and to a lesser extent marijuana, which was always hard to come by and extremely risky to indulge in, because the entire nation was hysterical over "The War on Drugs," not the least my parents, who waged constant war over the use of marijuana. I think the wars and conflicts only exasperated the problem, by making it all seem like an issue of freedom versus totalitarianism. The irony, of course, is that now I do voluntarily, and with great zeal and enthusiasm, prosecute the strictures of complete and total abstinence from all inebriating substances, whereas before, when every punishment was levied and endless battles, physical and psychological and spiritual, were waged against me, I prevailed to continue in what I perceived as my own prerogative. Forever, people suppose they can control others, and perhaps they are able to control slaves, those without a strong spirit. But not everyone responds to the cycle of endless punishments.

The question arises, why did not anyone care to give me guidance or instruction, as to alternatives to drinking? Well, that is a complicated question. Of course alternatives were given from many directions, but an adolescent mind filters out almost everything quite effectively except for the ignorance prevailing among peers. It is probably not such a good idea to herd people of the same age group together all the time, because there is a lack of wisdom and a prevalence of ignorance.

At any rate, the result is not one I can fully understand. I do not know how exactly my life would have turned out any differently, had I never drank. Probably, I would have been more successful, if even slightly so. Maybe I would have merely performed better from time to time at various tasks and in various roles. Maybe the difference would have been slight. I did not drink to great excess, but I have found that even a bit is bad, definitely bad. The main problem is that the lower thoughts are allowed to surface, rather than remaining checked as they would be under normal sobriety.

Certainly, drinking is not the worst vice. I find Trump remarkable by his abstinence from alcohol, because he acts like a man that downs a quart of whiskey a day. Some people just are attuned to the lower impulses by nature. Just imagine Trump if he did drink.

Normal people find it difficult or impossible to give up what they view as light, moderate or occasional drinking. They only have a few glasses of wine at a party, what's the harm? Well, if that is the case, continue on, I say, and don't worry about me. If however, you do perceive to be lessened by your consumption of alcohol, and wonder how it is possible to give it up, then my secret is well-known. As a matter of fact, it is revealed by Alcoholics Anonymous. I am not a member, because I do not gain anything by joining groups of any kind. The secret is merely to have something in the way of spirituality, to replace one irrational practice with another. I find that this is not difficult, and why? Because I feel joy in the spirit. Great, blissful, mind-expanding and soul-expanding joy. Now, those who have not tried it or who have tried it and not felt anything like this will wonder what I am talking about. One just has to find the right practice that suits one's spiritual needs. The human race has laid out a rich and varied buffet with many aromatic dishes consisting of religions, philosophies, and various types of belief systems. So, examine what is offered by our forefathers, and choose one that suits. Be slow to choose and careful to evaluate.

I rank religions in terms of their appeal to me. Some are at zero, no appeal at all. Others are close to a "10". There are many in the middle. Very likely, the first choice is in the middle somewhere. Later, you may grow disenchanted and drift to something else. That happens sometimes, and it is okay. Not every faith is for everybody. I think that many ways are intended to suit many different personalities. The trouble with religions has always been when they try to control other people, including people that are not even a part of their religion. That brings trouble. But otherwise, if coexistence is possible, then everybody can be happy, or as happy as human beings ever can be.

Some religions, particularly those described as "conservative" or "strict", require life-long adherence, and when I say require, I mean that sanctions are imposed against apostates. Indeed, the Muslims in many countries are known for killing, harming or otherwise censuring those among their faith that stray to other belief systems such as atheism. I regard that as a spiritual crime and oppose compulsion in spiritual matters. Using force to control others points to spiritual emptiness, because if there was anything of spirit in a practice, no compulsion would be necessary at all. In many Muslim countries, people are killed or tortured for insignificant and irrelevant infractions against the majority religion. This is due to barbarism and ignorance, and I point it out because so many writers avoid doing so. If evil is not pointed out, then it becomes assumed to be good, and human beings can easily get things wrong. A religion becomes debased and wrong when it is used to justify acts of evil, this is what ultimately discredits a religion--not the apostates nor the atheists, but the ones harming the apostates and the atheists, because by harming, they make a lie of all that is in their religion.

Maud Gonne I Skipped

I had read long into the book on the G.D., but skipped the final epilogue concerning Maud Gonne, a historical figure I do not admire. She spurned the poetic genius, Yeats, for another man, who proved to be an alcoholic that brutalized her and raped her sister and young daughter. Just atrocious judgement, and in addition to that she advocated violence for political ends. I suppose this yearning for blood turned on itself and entered her own life in a frightening way. Such is often the case with those that want to marry the dark forces of nature.

Aristocracy

Aristocracy survives and thrives today, although titles have evolved from "Baron" and "Duke" to Vice-President and CEO. Humans repeat the same basic structures. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Little Innovations

Tiny innovations that may seem insignificant make all the difference in spicing up activities that have become routine, chore-like. One of the wonderful aspects of Donald Michael Kraig's book is that he opened the door to precisely that. He invited the reader to innovate, to experiment. This is the way to avoid the boredom and mindlessness that is spiritual death. The mind has to remain engaged, because it is so accustomed to being so. It must be given something to do. If not, daydreaming or otherwise wandering of attention ensues. The practice loses significance, meaning. One might as well not practice at all in that instance. Creativity must be employed, given the green light. There is no one right way.

Reading about the foibles and little failures of the originators of G.D. practice was at first disillusioning and disheartening, but then upon reflection, liberating, because it means there is no one formula, but there are formulae, and the human beings of a hundred years ago were just that, human beings, not that much better on balance than any of us, and certainly less, now that they are dust. I think there is more room for innovation than many suspect, and that hidebound adherence to tradition has pitfalls. A framework helps, but upon the framework, many different colors can work.

Celebrities' Cluelessness

I read that Myley Cyrus's house burned down in the fires sweeping California. I also read that these fires are periodic in nature, a natural feature of the landscape, and that they have been happening for hundreds of years. Perhaps the thought is not charitable, but I wonder why the hell these fancy big-time celebs did not know what time of day it was before they went investing millions of dollars on a palace destined to be incinerated? Why do human beings fail to perform due diligence? I will tell you why. Due diligence is something that highly sensitive individuals perform. Careful, cautious, detail-oriented, or quite the opposite of many of the world's celebs and needless to say, our President, Donald J. Trump, who is about as sensitive and detail-oriented as a lump of clay.

No one is glad for any disaster nor delights in the suffering of others, but I wish humans would get real. Study the earth, do not build in zones prone to earthquake, hurricane, fire, or similar natural disasters, and do not build in zones likely to be attacked by other countries. This is all self-evident, not rocket science in any way, shape, or form, and bi-partisan. I was against rebuilding New Orleans, because I believe New Orleans has a destiny that lies below the sea level, as do many of our coastal cities. We need to make peace with the fact that global warming will continue, even accelerate, unabated, and that the coastal cities will become underwater monuments to a civilization that once was. In reality, no federal or state funding should be allocated to coastal regions subject to flooding. If the locals want to waste their money, that is their own prerogative, but the money of others should not be wasted.

The Desk and Florence Farr

I dreamt I was working on a desk, trying to sort out a problem with its configuration, much as I had been out at work just yesterday. In my dream, a lady with long blondish hair tried to help, but she kept getting stuck inside the desk. It was a big desk with a complicated mechanism for adding and removing components and crawlspaces in which people were supposed to maneuver. I don't really remember much more than that, just struggling to work on sorting out a desk with a helpful lady, not too dissimilar, I might add, from the ladies I have been reading about in "Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses: Maud Gonne, Moina Bergson Mathers, Annie Horniman, Florence Farr" by Mary K. Greer.

Mary K. Greer is quite the scholar, no two ways about it, and here I had been formerly impressed by Donald Tyson. Well, Tyson's adulation of Mathers is now called into question by all sorts of revelations. Mathers does not seem like such a great character really in this book.

I think the lady in my dream may have been a thought-form of Florence Farr, who impressed me the most. She died of breast cancer in Ceylon in 1917. Mathers on the other hand died of the Flu epidemic of 1918. It would certainly seem that the practice of magic has no power against physical maladies such as cancer and other diseases. I think the evidence is overwhelming that if you want to be healed, medical science is the first stop and the last stop.

I read about Florence's troubles and travails in the above book. It seems to me she had a rather hard life, short on money much of the time, and although a successful actress, once she got into her fifties, no theatre was interested in her anymore, which is the usual case in acting. The young are what people want to go to see, the young and the beautiful, for their intensity and energy. Of course, the same is true in every profession.

I would have liked to have known Florence Farr. She had an affair with William Butler Yeats as well as Bernard Shaw, led the G.D. in London, and fought with Mathers and held her own ground. She was interesting and powerful in her own right, but also seems to me to have been gentle and kind.

Look Beyond the Human Factor

The most distressing thing about religions and other spiritual systems are what I call the human factor. Get humans involved, stuff gets messy. I just get nauseated thinking about some of the shenanigans I read about from time to time, done by erstwhile "spiritual" leaders supposedly in touch with their "Higher Selves" and/or divinity. Just a big "Hmph!" comes to mind. Self-delusion, more like, than divinity. But I imagine that Republicans must get nauseated too, if they ever examine their Republican idols up close. Trump, for instance. If I were a Republican, Trump would give me great unease.

I've suffered heartache learning all the backstory to the Golden Dawn in its various incarnations and revolutions throughout the last century and up to the present day. I wish I could read about calm, wise, mature leaders, but instead I read about petty, vindictive, selfish drama queens just striving for power and control over others. But you know, humans will be humans, and in point of fact, the early organization was composed of actual drama queens, that is, people involved in theatre. Of course they would opt for drama in every facet of their lives. That is their bread and butter, their chosen mode of living. So, those that followed appear to have been cast in the same mold, no?

I think I have to separate the system from the people espousing it. The people are often bickering, fighting among themselves, because let's face it, that's what we humans do. Maybe that's what we humans do best, is to fight among ourselves. The idea of cooperating is really strange and foreign, isn't it? Some liberal, hippy nonsense brought on by marijuana, right? So let's compete, why don't we, argue, fight and be at each other's throats all the time, because we don't really want to get along, do we?

For my own part, I think spirituality is best kept private, even secret to an extent, because it is at risk of great disillusionment and disenchantment when other people get involved. Always and forever, people strive to make a damn living out of spirituality, and that's where all the problems come in--with the money!

Racism Turns on Its Own Race

WW2 killed off more white people than the Crusades. White racism just never made any sense at all. White racism is just about hating other white people that don't believe the exact same thing.

If You Gave These Guys a Million Dollars

It is demoralizing to read about these pointless mass shootings in what is otherwise a wealthy, strong and wonderful country. Our people do not deserve to be exposed to such horror. If these amok angry white male shooters were given a million dollars and left on a deserted island with all the supplies and equipment they might ever want, they could never in all their lifetime put together anything approaching the killing power of a modern handgun. They are cavemen, stupid and desolate evil-doers that always gravitate to the tools of destruction and chaos, demonic spirits predestined to cause pain and suffering wherever they go. The best solution really would be to round them up and place a bullet through their head before they do the same to others. The trick lies in identifying them, like a needle in a haystack. For that reason, once a shooter goes amok, their parents should be seized and DNA forcibly extracted from their blood to determine genetic markers that might identify worthless murdering scum in the future. Also, it would be as well to sterilize their natural parents, and possibly extended family as well to the fifth generation, to prevent further calamities down through the generations. The human race has a problem of hygiene, in that anyone with functioning genitals procreates and then lets society nurture their offspring. Society did nurture the worthless shooters everywhere and paid the price. What needs to be done is get wise about human procreation and stop the shooters before they are even conceived. Stop them being born. Quality control. Just as we want quality control in manufacturing, so too is there desperate need for quality control in human procreation. Worthless scum cause 99% of the problems in the world.

Spirituality, Why?

One big reason, seldom mentioned, for belief in God/gods, spirits, and other entities not corporeal, and the desire to communicate with them and nurture relationships, is that our fellow human beings prove, in the long term, unsatisfactory in one way or the other. Who among us has a friend that is trustworthy in all matters? Reading the biographies of famous and not-so-famous folks from a hundred years ago, I am struck by how much treachery, deceit and backstabbing is commonplace. Confide in one's closest friend, and those confidences become marketable. Little or nothing is kept secret, people always look to what can profit them or cast them in a better light on the stage. The truth is probably closer to the observation that no one has any friends at all, only acquaintances that find one useful for one purpose or another, for a temporary period of time in the present.

Humans being faithless and fickle, the thinker turns to the nonhuman, divinity or at any rate higher emanations from the Universe that can instruct, enlighten and ennoble. One can analyze such practices ad nauseum, but in the end, if they are useful, then common sense councils practice. Perhaps a great many things that humans say and do are not based upon reason or upon anything that can stand up to the cold light of scrutiny, but we do them anyway. Humans are animals facing down approaching pain and death not far off in the future.

In regards to religious and spiritual practice, I repeat the Wiccan creed, "An' if it harm none, do wot thy will." That is a mighty and comprehensive moral code compressed into a few words. Harming none includes self, of course, and all human beings, and some Wiccans even include animals, and some extend the "franchise" further to plants and even the planet Earth, although I do not know how we can harm the planet. Harm ourselves through pollution, perhaps, but the planet cares not, I think. Even if all life perished, mighty Earth would still be around.

I think if everyone abided by the above creed, then the human species would come out of our present problems all right. I love the simplicity of it, so much better than a weighty book or complex moral code. Nine words. An excellent litmus test for any decision. I think where other religionists would dispute would be that they have additional Commandments, and want to redefine "harm" to mean more complicated forms of harm. I suppose there is a lot of room for debate over the meaning of that word. So much argument boils down to semantics. What does "harm" mean? Then, too, what is "will?" How does one know what one's will truly is, and is one competent enough and well-informed enough to make decisions? I suppose no one sentence will ever satisfy, nor any one religion, but the human race demands a buffet of religions, lots of variety to choose from at all times. Some people change religions like they change clothes.

At any rate, I feel at peace in Churches and with Christianity, but also with the Wiccan and related practices. I am more at peace with spirituality and religion than I have ever been. I think it is due to being exposed to so many good people that really believe. One judges by one's experiences, and I have known many good believers.

America's Voting Quagmire

The U.S. learned nothing from Florida's voting fiasco in 2000. Our voting process is still antiquated, inaccurate, prone to lengthy delays not just for voters but for counters, and prone to corruption. Apparently, the corrupt politicians in Washington, D.C., don't care because they profit from the corruption. I don't see much momentum from either party to fix voting, and it has been broken for decades, probably forever. The U.S. could do a lot better where voting is concerned. Every time there is an election, it seems to devolve into a finger-pointing contest with lawyers, lawsuits and protests.

Don't Know Much

I read, see and hear, sometimes with envy, other times with admiration, folk that are doing much better than I, in the sense of achieving. More eloquent, more beautiful, more intense, stronger, smarter, or more skilled, or perhaps (Heaven forbid!) all of the above. Well, there's a ranking system everywhere, and no one is exempt. Even the strong must, in time, compare themselves to the stronger and come up short. There are comparisons to be made, not just among the current cohort, but with the dead greats (not to be confused with the Grateful Dead) such as Shakespeare and so on. There are comparisons to be made, finally, with computers, with other animals and finally, with the Divine, besides which no mortal can truly compare. This, then, is a meditation on Humility. 'Tis well to be humble, because even the finest form among us pales before the Divine. Then, too, there is the annoying fact we are dust, most of us, before we reach triple digits in years. I expect to be joining the boneyard in about the next thirty years or so, if I'm lucky.

Avoid Local Stores

At this time, quality can be found online. Local stores stock garbage, price it exorbitantly, and hope against hope that clueless know-nothings will buy the garbage. When, on rare occasion, by accident, an item of quality somehow finds it way onto the racks, then the local store charges twice the price of the online venue. That is why all purchasing must be done online by anyone with sense. If you want to stock your life with junk, then sure, buy from one of the retail chains. Watch your money go bye-bye as the cheap trash reveals itself for what it is in time. The retail chains hope to prolong their unnecessary survival by cheating the most vulnerable consumers out of their money. They have no plan at all for long-term survival, and it is only a matter of time before they all suffer the fate of Sears and K-mart.

Best Dream of 2018

I had my best dream of 2018 last night, best because it was vivid. I was at a party, and by that I mean a pleasant social gathering with good and gentle folk, and I was seated beside a large and talkative, crafty woman with many ideas and much wit, who was talking to me about things I no longer remember upon waking. It is often the case, that I dream of being talked to, even at great length, and when I awake, can remember naught but the faintest outline, or possibly a single phrase. I do recall one of her friends bringing me a good drink (non-alcoholic, quite naturally, as I no longer indulge in intoxicants), and then she turned to me and with some charming witticism, induced me to rise and fetch her a drink. She said she liked a soda called "The Bossman," which I recognized as a sweet citrus carbonated soda.

Upon waking, probably due to allergies, this being ragweed season, I thought she might be my boss, for one, a natural enough assumption, or else a thought-form based upon the detritus floating through my mind, and possibly an amalgam combining my boss with a charming personality I watched on YouTube not long ago, a young, black woman talking about her religion, Wicca, in mild, gentle and reasonable language. I liked her and thought she was smart.

I don't recall anything of deep or profound meaning in the dream, but I did enjoy a rather nice conversation with an interesting entity in my dream, even if I remember little more than a dozen words of what was said! (And of those words, some permutation of "fetch me a drink" was the gist!)

I do think one of the most potent attractions in the practice of Wicca and other minority religions is quite simple and based in psychology. The mere fact that a religion does not have many millions of pushy advocates on its behalf is the attraction. That it can be practiced in solitary is quite useful. That it is adaptable and open to a certain degree of experimentation and improvisation is almost unique. Christianity and Islam have both become rather stodgy by comparison, full of rules and group-think and group-activities. The room for personal revelation and personal relationships to the Divine seems limited and dismal in those religions, which surrender spiritual power from the individual to the shaman. Where power and politics get involved, spirituality flees. Also there is the fact that, being new, Wicca has not accumulated, yet, such a large number of terrible scandals, and may it never do so, but I fear, in time, it too will succumb to human frailty, as humans do what humans sometimes do, which is to fail. Yes, everyone and everything suffers a setback once in a while, that is the nature of things.

I am more an admirer of Wicca than a practitioner. The ambivalence I feel for Nature is the main reason. Wicca is really tied to Nature, to the observance of days on a calendar and a rather sentimental and emotional regard for things living and dead. The great outdoors and to a lesser extent, environmentalism, both political and personal, are both key to understanding and participating in the faith. I have never cared a fig for the phase of the Moon and doubt I could start now. To me, the Moon and indeed the planets are abstract notions. I admire them rather vaguely and am aware they are there, and like to learn about them, but don't really see them as influencing me that much. After all, they are material. If the Moon could influence me, then how much more so could the floor beneath my feet, and perhaps I should study the phases of the floor, and learn what angle it lies at, and the composition thereof. No, I dwell in the realm of thoughts and really always have and never liked camping or spending too much time in the rough. I hated going camping in Scouts. I like all of the conveniences of civilization and the wondrous artificial comfort zones we have created with our science. Science is the magic of the material plane we dwell in, whereas magic is of the spirit.

Of course, another big attraction to Wicca for many women is simply that there are many female Wiccans, and the relatively smaller number (I imagine) of male Wiccans tend to be feminists or at least open to the notion of equality between the sexes. I do not know what qualifies a man to be termed a feminist in the eyes of a female feminist; perhaps no man could qualify. It is true that some feminists really are down on men, but this is probably because of the misbehavior of so many men, the brutish louts, who behave with reckless criminality and abuse and outrage the gentle sex. There must be some reason that all the wars have been waged by mostly men, and mostly men inhabit the prisons of the world and do the violent crimes of the world. That reason has to do with testosterone and the negative aspects to it that are reinforced by culture and upbringing. I am not sure what the solutions may be, but the best, it seems to me, is to evolve a sexless mortal, with neither gender, for what need have we of gender, if a laboratory offers a better option. But that is far into the future, when I have already checked out, I think.