Views from the Cyberhenge

Have you been wondering why things are going so wrong in McBush’s America? Someone finally gives us the answer:

Clout is the name of the radio show on Air America Radio that Phae and I were just on, with our friends Tom and Joy out in Santa Cruz, California, talking about polyamory and the current “scandal” over John Edward’s lovelife.

I got a chance to discuss monothesisism and dualism, and to explain how and why mudslinging works in political campaigns. Richard Greene, host of the show, loved the fact that Phae and Joy and Tom and I were “getting together” on his show, along with a poet named Sara from New York City, and challenging the dominant paradigm not only about marriage and relationships, but the very roots of America’s dysfunctional schizophrenia about sexuality.

Go to the show’s website and download the podcast!

That’s where I’ll be Saturday, August 2, from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, at the Hands of Change Pagan Picnic, in Johnson Park, Piscataway, NJ. I’ll be pontificating, giving tarot readings, and just hanging out with the New Jersey Pagans.

Be there or be cubical.

Here are some suggestions for some ethical spellwork we could do this weekend and at the next few new moons. Feel free to do one or more of the following:

1. Cast a spell of protection around your favorite candidate to protect him/her from physical danger. I’m especially concerned about protecting a certain Democratic candidate that will have a lot of crazies, as well as sane but evil members of the Power Elite, gunning for him — perhaps literally.

2. Cast a revelation spell around your least-favorite candidate, to expose any aspects of their history or personality that would make them unfit for office.

3. Cast a revelation spell around your state Secretary of State (or whoever is the highest elections official) to expose any illegal, unethical, or immoral attempts to rig the elections. This would include efforts to purge legitimate voters (usually minorities) from the election rolls, hack the programming of electronic voting machines to throw the election to a preferred candidate, etc.

4. Cast a courage and tenacity spell on the members of the House Judiciary Committee who are investigating illegal behavior by the Bush administration. You could also help them with a few more revelation spells on the White House.

In each spell, design it to build with the moon, reach full power at the full moon, and stay at full power until after the elections (for spells 1-3) or 2010 (for the 4th).

Note that revelation spells have to be very powerful to cause results that will be widely reported by the corporate media — just reaching the blogosphere isn’t enough. The targets have to be made so psychologically clumsy and/or courageous that they blurt out the truth under circumstances that are impossible to edit or spin. So don’t hold back!

It’s never easy. Phaedra and I only ever do so when our backs are to the wall. Regular readers may have noticed that we haven’t asked for financial help recently. That’s because we’ve had a small rise in income lately due to my tarot readings and a couple of weddings performed, plus some income from Real Magic School. Even so, we’re glad we have an understanding landlady. We may be starting a Moving Money Fund to get us away from the expensive town we live in to a much cheaper one in Oregon, but that too will be a survival issue for us as Pagan elders.

I was a bit surprised to see Arthur’s post earlier today asking for help to get to Starwood. I’ll admit I didn’t see much wrong with it at first. To an eighteen-year-old, not getting to go to an event he’s attended every year of his life would seem an emergency. Eventually I decided that his appeal should have been sent to the Starwood emailing list, rather than the entire world via our family blog.

So I’ve removed his first post in which he asked for help and his second one in which he thanked and promised to pay back those who sent him money. I’ll make sure that he does.

Nonetheless, I’m glad that he will be able to go this year and next year he’ll know well enough to start saving for it in April.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Phaedra, here. I usually leave the political commentary to Isaac, but I couldn’t resist this one.

When I moved down to North Carolina back in the mid-nineties, I was blessed to know some previously relocated Yankees who could fill me in on local etiquette. Now, I’d lived in the South before, down in the Florida panhandle, which is not so much related to the Florida peninsula as it is to southern Alabama. In fact, my son has lived most of his life in Mobile. So I’d picked up “y’all” and “gimme some sugar” and “put it up” (instead of “away”) nearly forty years ago.

However, by the time I wound up in NC, I’d been back north for a long time. My buddy A.D. (you know who you are, darlin’) was kind enough to give me a refresher course.

“The most important phrase to remember,” she told me, “is ‘bless your heart.’ But you’ve got to use it correctly.”

“You can say anything about anyone, if you follow it with ‘bless your heart.’ So you could say something like, ‘Now, Loretta May, down in the house on the corner, she’s an ax murderer — bless her heart!’”

So I was just delighted to hear Nancy Pelosi bless Bush’s heart. She’s spent a lot of time in Washington, which is, of course, almost the South. It’s nice she picked up some of the local lingo.

Bless her heart :-)

At the June 28th Totally Normal Event, I was videotaped giving a Tarot reading with Lo Scarabeo’s Tarot of the Pirates. This excellent deck is distributed in North America by Llewellyn Publications. Since real-life pirates are Not Very Nice People, this deck presents an idealized version of the lifestyle. It’s clear in a few cards that the artist was heavily influenced by the recent popular pirate movies. What I like most about the deck, besides the opportunity to make bad pirate jokes, is that it is very action-oriented. The Nine of Swords, for example, shows a pirate crew staging a mutiny instead of the classic images of worry and fear. Some of the other cards show pictures so different from the traditional Pamela Coleman Smith images that they force the reader to stretch his/her psychic muscles to interpret them. This is a perfect deck to use if you are reading cards at an event where you expect pirates to show up!

The reading I did at the TNE is now available as a podcast from the Con Goer group on Vidgle.com. If you’ve ever wondered what a reading from me would be like, this will give you a good idea, though I usually dress better and don’t look as hungover—it was a great event! To schedule a telephone or online reading with me, just email me via ibonewits@neopagan.net with “Tarot Reading” in the Subject line.

Netroots Nation, the annual convention of the progressive blogosphere, will be having House Speaker Nancy Pelosi showing up to answer and discuss questions submitted online. I decided to suggest my own question on Defining Freedom of Religion.

America includes tens of millions of conservative, liberal and moderate Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Wiccans, and members of other belief systems, as well as atheists and agnostics. Yet federal policies always seem to be dominated by the doctrines of conservative Christianity.

In your opinion, does freedom of religion under the first amendment include all belief systems, or only ones that are popular or that you personally like?

How will you use your position as Speaker (should you be re-elected as such) in the next Congress to promote freedom of — and from — religion?

If you think this would be a good question to ask the Speaker, please go vote it up!

Arthur and I had a blast on Saturday (into the wee hours of Sunday) at Jeff Mach’s Totally Normal Event. The vendors room had art, musical instruments, jewelry, furry/erotic costumes, books, video games, and some of the most amazing, er, “toys” I’ve seen in a long time. I did a number of tarot readings with the erotic Nybor Deck and the brand-new Pirate Tarot (which Arthur had given me for Fathers Day), both of which worked very well.

By a bizarre series of “coincidences,” the other people that were supposed to appear on the Magic for World Domination panel never showed up, so I was “forced” to reveal the secrets of the Illuminati all by myself. Later that evening, I moderated a panel on Magical Mavericks with Deborah Friedman, a gender-bending Wiccan priest/ess and heretical Hebrew Kabbalist on my right, and Arthur Moyer, inventor of Omnimancy, a completely intellectual system of magic in which deities and other spiritual entities are unimportant, on my left. Deborah was horrified to find herself the magical conservative on the panel, but we had a lot of fun arguing.

My son Arthur didn’t make it back to our room till 6:00 am or so, but he had a smile on his face, so I didn’t ask any questions that a parent wouldn’t want to hear the answers to.

On Sunday morning, I was videotaped by a team from Vidgle.com called Con Goer doing a tarot reading for their interviewer. This should be up on their site by July 3rd or so (I’ll post a direct link when it is).

If you’re looking for subculturally friendly fun in New Jersey, stay in touch with Jeff Mach’s posse.

The server that hosts Real Magic School came down with a virus this weekend while I was at the Totally Normal Event, but the techs are busy injecting cybernetic penicillin and the site should be back to perfect health in a day or two.

In the meantime, we’ve been contacted by several excellent teachers who want to join the faculty — including a real rocket scientist! We’ll be sending out responses to them in a few days as soon as we finish the syllabus guidelines, but we’re thrilled at the response so far. Stay tuned for more news as it happens!