There are Stars in the Night

[This was first posted at The Last Refuge. I’ve been meaning to repost here, but the time never seemed right. Good Friday is a good day for Confessions, so here goes. . .]

I must start by admitting that I don’t know exactly why I’m writing this. All I know it that since reading Dagny’s Women’s Voting piece, I’ve felt the need. Nagging, pressing, annoying. That usually means there’s some manner of Divine impetus behind it. Maybe somewhere in this story is something one of you needs to read. Maybe I just need to tell the tale to some people who haven’t actually met me personally. Maybe between the telling and the reading, some measure of clarity or understanding is offered. I really, really don’t know.

What follows is a partial autobiography at least to this point in my life, an attempt to explain why I approach certain topics from some rather strange angles. Many details will not be shared. Sometimes I may seem to go off onto a tangent—if so, it is only because I am trying to prevent at least some of the seemingly inevitable misunderstandings. Many of you will find some of these experiences strange—I will be as clear as I can and, if you ask questions, I will answer to the best of my ability. But that’s no guarantee to understanding—much I don’t even understand myself.

Please, bear with me. And yes, when I figure out what the point to all this is, I’ll let you know.

The fact of the existence of God was never a problem for me. From my earliest memories, the fact of God was as apparent as the clouds in the sky, or the fact that water was wet. “Du~uh, of course God’s real, dummy!” This has never changed, though to my great joy, my relationship to that Truth has changed a great deal over the years. No, my problem in my earliest years was that fact meant nothing to me. One might say: the brain knowledge was not connecting to the heart.

It was sometime in forth grade, when I was nine or ten years old, that I realized I had no conscience. I remember being a bit of a bully, and never feeling the least bit bad about some of what I did to my fellow students. My brain knew these things were bad, my heart didn’t get it. But around this time, I realized that I was in quite a quandary. For just as the existence of God was never in doubt, nor was the existence of Hell. And one night, with amazing clarity, I saw my life stretch out along two paths before me, one path which meandered through horror after horror until ending in Hell. The concept of Eternity suddenly bloomed in my understanding, and I knew that, whatever else I wanted in life, I really, really, wanted to avoid Hell. So, I asked God—a God who I really had no relationship with at the time– to fix my conscience. Yes, there are far better reasons for being “Good” than simple fear of Hell but, for a ten year old, it’s an effective place to start.

There is an assumption among many in our world today that children either don’t have the interest or the understanding for religious, spiritual matters. This is wrong. Maybe there are many children that don’t, I don’t know. But I know, from my memories, that children do have the interest, and they can understand more than most give them credit for. I was ten years old when I chose. Everyone has a moment like that in their life. Of course, the challenge is to keep choosing, but that first Choice is always very important—at ten years old, I’d decided which side I wanted to be on, even though I was seemingly lacking in some important areas.

When I was eleven years old, I was awakened to the reality of Evil. Growing up Catholic, I always had a mental, intellectual understanding and belief that evil existed, that somewhere was an evil intelligence we called “the Devil” that worked to destroy all that was good and wonderful in the world. In the abstract—like the reality of Hell—I got it. It was a concrete understanding I lacked. But when I was in the fifth grade, Evil came for a visit. Some of you may have experienced such a visit—I have found, in my time speaking to people I’ve met, that some have experienced the exact thing I experienced, and everyone else has no idea of what I’m talking about.

I was waiting for sleep, watching my ceiling fan turn in the dim light of the nightlight, when I found I couldn’t move. Invisible hands (I could feel the fingers) pressed upon my left cheek, my shoulders, my arms, wrists, legs, a great weight upon my chest slowly pressing down. My fingers could move, my eyes could move to see the emptiness above me. There was this overwhelming feeling of hatred bearing down on me—whatever this was, it didn’t hate me, so much, as it hated the fact of my existence. How an eleven year old me could discern that difference, I don’t know. But I knew this. And the more I struggled, the harder it became to move. Fear, panic, the panting rush of adrenaline as my heart and nerves strained to move one arm just a little—all to no avail, my air slowly running out because I couldn’t breathe and my hammering heart was quickly running through what little I had left. There was nothing I could do. So I stopped. I let go. And in that moment, my mind uttered the first, soul-deep prayer I can recall praying, the words forming of their own accord in the echoing confines of my brain: Father, I know you can remove this weight from my shoulders.

And like that, the horrible, hateful thing was plucked away like a petulant toddler, the hatred and fear replaced with warmth and a subdued little joy that had me curling up on my side with a smile as I finally fell asleep. Even so, I could not fall asleep on my back until very recently. Some things don’t leave you, no matter how many years pass.

This experience showed me the reality behind the beliefs. God was real, the Devil was real, God replies to prayers. All those supernatural things that are so often dismissed were real. I went to my parents a few days later and told them what had happened. They are both devout Catholics, but are also rather grounded folk. Most of the time. Mom was concerned that there was some neurological problem, and there followed a round of doctor’s visits and tests. Dad told me it was Hypnagogia, sleep paralysis. I learned later he was trying to reassure me—as much of a hard nosed realist as his is, even he knew that the diagnosis of Hypnagogia couldn’t account for the miasma of hatred I’d felt—and he’d read enough other accounts of the same thing happening to other people, that he knew nothing explained the widespread tales of hateful things.

I understand why they reacted this way—it was their way of trying to reassure me, of making me feel safe, as was their job as my parents. But what it also did was convince me to never, ever tell anyone about such things, because they won’t believe you, at best, or they’ll think you’re nuts. Silence was learned quickly and effectively. I had been looking for guidance, and learned I was on my own. I had to find my own answers.

At this time I was in public school, so once a week I went to CCD (Confraternity of the Catholic Doctrine) which is basically Sunday School, only not on Sunday. Any Catholic reading this will likely agree that, overall, Catechesis in the 80s and 90s in America was deplorable at best. I was one of the few kids in class that actually paid attention to the readings and lessons, and I quickly realized that somewhere along the way, I’d missed something. I didn’t know what it was, but I felt this great, gaping hole in my understanding. I was filled with a great drive to find that thing that was missing, because it seemed to be the Key to The Whole Thing.

So I told my mom that I wanted to go to a private, Catholic high school, preferably one without boys. To say the least, she was surprised, but pleased as well. I ended up, through some miracle, getting accepted into the oldest American Catholic Girls’ School (not to be confused with the oldest Catholic Girls’ School in America, which is Ursuline in New Orleans), Georgetown Visitation, a prestigious school with a reputation for very high-level academics that had survived the fires of 1812, the battles of the Civil War, and various riots and unrest since.

Four years of solid schooling later and I was more logical in thought, but that gaping hole was still there. The solid year of Bible Study, the semesters of Church History and thought, Bioethics, all that, and while I knew a heck of a lot more, there was still this great, gaping chasm between knowing and understanding. I could rattle off a thousand interesting things about Jesus, the saints, various mystical paths and traditions. . . and yet still, everything seemed hollow, like I was missing something important.

At the same time, I was discovering that my mind worked in its own way, different than most others. Some people discover that geometry or calculus make sense to them. It just clicks. Likewise, some people find the same with history, or music, or cars or computers. They just make sense, even when everyone else is scratching their heads in bewilderment. I found that my natural talents always seemed to find their way back to all the strangest, most “forbidden” subjects. Yes, I was good in history, music, literature, Japanese and religion. I aced every religion test and assignment. But visiting the school or public libraries, or the library of neighboring Georgetown University, it was always the subjects that the dear nuns who ran my school would have disapproved of that I found myself reading. No, nothing sexual, gutter brains! No, it was always subjects that, for lack of better (and I wish there was better) word, we shall classify as “occult.”

Nothing in depth, at the time. I had far too much on my plate to really pursue such subjects going to the school I did—6 hours of homework on the easy nights, after clubs, rehearsals, and an hour commute home. To wake up at 5:30 to get there for chorus and classes. No, no time for those pursuits at the time. But my inclinations were not entirely hidden—at a Christmas party my senior year, I received my first Tarot Deck and a book of spreads from two of my best friends. Apparently, they had noticed.

It was the summer between high school graduation and starting college that one day I felt Heaven pressing upon me the need to find, what was even in my journal at the time, written as The Truth. I didn’t know what truth it was I was supposed to find, only that I was to pursue every clue, every hint of a trail until I found it. This “pressing” catalyzed an instinctual reaction that others, later, would term my first bit of “magick. [Yes, spelled with a “k”. *sigh* For a reason.] But I knew nothing, really, at the time, despite my sometimes readings at the libraries. It was all prayers and psalms and a vow with a knife and a ring. It was a formal acceptance, really, of the mission being laid upon me: To follow every trail and crumb until I’d found the Truth that He wanted me to find.

Despite my ignorance (that I was rather aware of even at the time), I also knew that I was setting out on a very dangerous path. One misstep and I could well be lost forever. I was eighteen years old, and facing up to the fact that if I slipped, I wouldn’t loose my life—I’d loose my soul. I think this fear was a Grace straight from God. It wasn’t mere curiosity that compelled me, a desire for power or knowledge that drove me—it was the fear of failing the Mission I’d been given. I really want to impress that on you so that when you read what follows, you understand that at no time, no time, did I turn away from Jesus. To the contrary, every step resulted in a wondrous growth in my devotion for Him. Please, keep that in mind.

I attended college in New Orleans, mostly because when I visited, I got that elbow-in-the-gut feeling that one sometimes gets when something is supposed to be. In my brain, I went to New Orleans because I was majoring in Music Education (voice) and I loved jazz. Looking back, I went there to follow my Mission and meet my best friends.

When not studying for classes, my pursuits took me in two, seemingly opposed directions: I was reading all I could of theology (my best friends were all Theology majors, so that helped), but I was also learning everything the occult subculture of New Orleans—and the budding internet– had to offer. In the theological realm, my pursuit finally found itself circling that huge question that practicing Catholics learn to loathe: Why can’t women be priests? (This is why this writing was inspired by Dagny, btw) I really wanted to know—but all the authorities I asked were useless, or worse. Their answers made no sense, or were too stupid to be given much merit. I realize now it’s because most modern American Catholics (even the conservative priests and theologians) either don’t really understand themselves or, if they do, they are entirely unable to communicate that understanding to the honest questioner. When I would ask, the best I could hope for was “Because the Church says so.” Usually, I was met with accusations of trying to destroy the church, of being an insolent heretic, blah blah blah. Really, it’s no wonder I made more progress in my faith through witchcraft than through the “approved channels.”

Yes. Witchcraft. Wicca. Didn’t stay there long—Wicca, for the most part, is far too shallow for my tastes. But, one thing I will grant, is that studying the Craft taught me how to believe. This was the very first part of what I’d been missing all along, and I realized that almost right away. Never in all my years of CCD and Catholic schooling had I learned how to believe, how to take what the brain knows and make it connect with the heart. I think this is because formal Catholic education stays strictly away from anything that might smack of mysticism (the Sacraments aside)—when that is exactly what the mystically inclined person like myself needs. That great gaping chasm was, in the most basic light, a lack of experiencing what I believed. And it was with witchcraft that I learned how to believe. So, when I say; I am a devout Christian because I was a witch—as a direct result of being a witch—I hope you will understand. My faith would not be what it is today if I hadn’t studied and learned all that. This is why I cannot regret any of this—because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t love Jesus, wouldn’t be as in love with Him, as I am now. This effect cannot, for me at least, be divorced from the cause.

So I was hitting dead ends with the official, “safe” routes. Even my friends, the theology majors, were getting increasingly frustrated. They have continued to work through official routes (they are now Doctors of Theology, the over-credentialed bastards ~_^), but I continued along the way that seemed to be giving even the slightest clues.

In time, I found the one person I’d ever call a mentor. I’ll refer to her as K-sensei. K-sensei once told me that while most people had to learn and study really heard to understand the concepts behind what is generally classified as “the occult”, some people are just born with the ability and understanding. “For you,” she said “Magick simply is. You’d do it eventually, whether you intended to or not. It will manifest in dreams, intuitions, sudden knowledge. It manifests in the way you played make-believe as a child, in the way you pray as an adult. It influences the way you see the world, and you will never be rid of it. All you can do is either ignore it as much as you can, or train it and use it to glorify God. Magick is a prayer, and praise. Some people have a talent with football, welding, accounting or physics. This is what you are natural at. This is the talent God has given you. You can bury it in fear, or you can nurture it and give it back to Him. That is your only choice.”

So I nurtured it—with great caution. I learned I was natural with Tarot, found I was rubbish with runes. I studied Kabbalah—not the purely Jewish Kabbalah that rabbi’s would approve of, nor the stupid Pop-Kabbalah that Brittney Spears and Madonna seemed to be involved in. This was more. . . AJ Crowley. Speaking of which, read his stuff, decided that he had moments of genius (777 and Sepher Sephiroth are quite useful), but was otherwise a dumb-a$$ punk. Dion Fortune was much better. Tried to study various methods of healing, only to learn I was much better at knocking heads than fixing them. Astrology wasn’t a strong suit, mostly because I didn’t really buy the premise. (Although Carl Payne Tobey’s premise that astrology was an expression of a mathematics of influence was intriguing.) Alchemy was a strong interest, but I couldn’t find much information on that until much later, well, beyond a few writings of Israel Regardie on the matter, and of course CG Jung. History was always fascinating, and you could always be certain that waving Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy in front of me would prove quite distracting. Angelology was natural, Demonology avoided like plague. (Although, studying the former does end up exposing you to a certain amount of the latter. But I believed that a person reflected what they studied, and I wanted to reflect the better beings in the universe. . .) In fact, one could say that certain aspects of angelology became a primary focus for me, at least for a time. Mostly, though, my studies in this area were focused on simply sifting the small bits of wheat from the huge piles of chaff, the small jewels from the waste of useless rocks. Most of what is written in this area is chaff—useless at best, very, very wrong at worst.

The biggest danger in this subject area is not the books (and I say this despite having  experienced first-hand the mind-twisting effects of merely skimming Crowley’s Liber al vel Legis ; The Book of the Law)—it’s the people. While I was for a time associated with a group of people online—where I met K-sensei—I never had much in the way of personal association with the various groups and factions in the New Orleans occult community. I had some—I had a nodding acquaintance with the kind Lady Mimi at Esoterica on Dumaine (who has the best incense blends I’ve ever found). I was friends with a girl (we’ll call her Katie) who was a student in one of the local groups, and through her knew her teacher Satori, his then-wife Brianna (always the better of that pair), and her student Hazel. But other than this, there was an invisible wall between myself and most of those in the community. At the time, this vexed my lonely self, but looking back I can see this was a blessing. I was kept a solitary, which kept me from the influence of some charismatic, twisted individuals. I was kept away from all those potential emotional attachments that cloud the mind, forced to decide for myself what was Truth and what was Not.

So while I saw many things, I was kept from direct interaction, for the most part. I always had the feeling of being an observer. In fact, apparently that feeling was shared, because Katie and that lot started referring to me as a “Watcher”—a reference to the Grigorim of the Book of The Prophet Enoch. This was more true than any of us realized at the time, but I only came to understand that later. That said, sometimes merely observing is an interaction, and things seen can haunt you forever.

In general, I was actually rather safe—kept that way both to my own caution and a healthy dose of Grace and angelic intervention (when I say I’ve a pretty interesting relationship with Michael, I actually mean it). But that’s a hindsight realization. At the time . . . well, there were sleepless nights with a rosary wrapped about my left hand, little crucifix in my right, trying to keep the nightmares at bay. There were days when my peripheral vision was swimming with shadows that I wasn’t entirely sure were there, times when the conversation in the dorm room would stop because something large and not-feathered had just passed by our 10^th floor window. That I wasn’t the only person to see these things was not a reassurance. On the other hand, there were moments of joy, sparkling diamonds in a blasted waste. I cannot describe them, except to say that they were a comfort in a dark, stormy place, a reassurance that I was not lost, not yet.

I think I need to make one point, here. Most people who get involved in the occult are posers, or dabblers. The latter are generally harmless, though they can get themselves into heaps of trouble because their emotions overcome their sense. The posers are at best irritations. The more loudly one proclaims their experience, knowledge, whatever, the more likely they’re full of crap. There are authors in the field who’ve made careers out of faking it, making people believe they know what’s what. I’m temped to toss Crowley in that pile, but he was the real deal, despite his issues.

I think I also need to expand a bit on what exactly studying these matters entails. It is, primarily, a way of training the mind in certain ways that support a given cosmology. That is, you learn to think in certain patterns and habits in order to interact more effectively with the greater universe around you. “Magick” (with a k! *sigh*) is “Causing change to occur in conformity with the will—in a manner exceeded or not used by standard physics”. The first part is often quoted because it’s how Crowley defined it, the second half is me, distinguishing that from the mere act of opening a door with a doorknob. And spelled with a “k” to distinguish it from stage magic. It’s all very pompous and self-righteous, like most practitioners of the occult. Very self-important. Magick: Now with more K! *rolls her eyes*

The danger in the occult comes not necessarily from the rituals, ceremonies or any individual practice (with some notable exceptions). The danger is that while you’re futzing about with your thought-processes, while you’re re-creating your personal cosmology, you are wide open to deception. Self-deception, deception from outside influences, any of it. And, of course, the slightest mislaid course, and you end up going through a black hole instead of arriving safe at Naboo. There are some rules that help, but people are always trying to wriggle around them. The first rule, learned in my short days as a witch, that you never, ever, abrogate the free will of any other sentient being. One cannot force one person to love (or have any given feeling) for another. But, likewise, you cannot heal a person without their permission– no matter how well intentioned, you must have permission. This has even carried over to now for me– with the exceptions of some generalized prayers, when I pray for people, I get their permission first. Even better when they ask (It’s why I love our little prayer threads– no need for permission when people are asking!).

Another guidence comes from Donald Michael Craig in his book Modern Magick. Craig describes for us a good working definition of Black, Grey, and White Magick (this is far from the only scale, but it is very precise and useful). Black magick is any magick that causes harm to any other individual. Grey Magick is any magic that has an effect on the physical plane. White Magick is solely concerned with bringing the practitioner closer to God. So, therefore healing someone is grey, even though it’s clearly a good thing. Also, while intention is important, it doesn’t decide what type of magick something is– the results do. For instance, say you want to help out a local battered women’s shelter. They are in desperate need of funds, so in addition to donating what you can, you perform a little ritual designed to bring you more money, so you can donate more. Your intentions are clearly good. But, you’re careless in your ritual, and seven days later, your rich, physically fit and not very old uncle dies of a sudden, massive heart attack, and you inherit a tidy sum which you can now donate to the shelter. Guess what? In magickal terms, you’ve just done some very bad black magick, because you brought about the death of your uncle. That wasn’t your intent at all, but because you were careless, that was the easiest way for the universe to fulfill your desire. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Likewise, good intentions are not enough– it’s how you go about fulfilling those intentions that determines the quality of your actions. Hey, that’s kinda like socialism . . .

Most practitioners of the occult underestimate the dangers they pose themselves, and the danger they open themselves to. Oh, they are so very sure of themselves, and that very confidence is their downfall. Like sprinting through a lightless cave, they make quite a bit of progress—at first. My friend Katie was one of these. She sped through learning material, revelation after revelation. I thought, at the time, that it meant she really knew what she was doing. I couldn’t have been more wrong—the faster one progresses on these roads, the more trouble they’re in. Katie was in big trouble.

I don’t know if you’ve ever watched someone damn themselves. Maybe it was drugs, or alcohol, or something like that. Well, occult philosophies and practices can do the same thing as the most insidious drugs. First, the mind twists just a little. Judgement is compromised first, as it always seems to be. Then the mind twists a little more. And if someone notices that something is amiss, well they’re just trying to undermine you, they’re betraying you, you don’t need them, and you don’t need their “advice.” More and more the mind twists, the heart poisoned against care of any nature, gradually twisting the very soul of the person until Katie isn’t Katie anymore. She’s hardly human. She cannot function in regular society, and a once beautiful-girl who had presented papers at philosophy conferences is now roaming the streets, homeless and hate-filled, queen of her own wretched, filthy little existence. It hurt so badly, watching that happen. I had tried to tell her, tried to pull her back, but only got spiteful words and accusations in response. Satori and his lot had kicked her out before that, because she wouldn’t listen to them, so convinced of her own greatness.

Now, at the same time as I was exposed to all this, I was at college, or just graduated from, so I was therefore also getting quite a bit of exposure to the currently standard Academic Leftism. Due to my theological efforts, I often found myself in the uneasy company of various “womyn’s” groups (who couldn’t imagine why I wasn’t lesbian, why I had male friends who weren’t gay in addition to those who were). It was a tenuous association: I was raised with Indiana Jones, so I knew about the Nazi’s, and Neville Chamberlain, and thus couldn’t describe myself as a pacifist. They believed that thinking happy thoughts would make the world a peaceable place. Their “magical thinking” put my occult-laced logic to shame.

So I never really fit in with them. In the church, the groups most likely to take seriously my questions were also those most likely to completely destroy all sense of the mystical and sacred in tradition. Due to my less-approved-of studies, I was gaining a real appreciation for ritual—the necessities of structure, the value of symbolism, the absolute need of Beauty, and how utterly genius the Traditions we had were. And so, I didn’t fit in with them, either, because I wasn’t gung-ho on upending everything. I just wanted to understand why I couldn’t follow what otherwise would have been the most obvious path for my life. Because . . . it hurt, when I didn’t understand. It hurt a lot.

I understand now, at least as far as I am concerned, that this pain was a motivation. It was the fuel of my drive to keep going, to keep digging. It’s what sustained my faith in those years in the Wastes. But I didn’t like it, certainly not at the time. And if even one of those “conservative authorities” had taken my questions and wonderings seriously, I might have found my way a lot faster.

Or maybe not. That’s life—you never know how things might have been different.

So I kept plugging. 9/11 happened, a slap in the face of my leftward drifting. I’m not entirely sure how things changed, but over time, they did. I started to see the fruits of leftist thinking—from 2,996 dead on 9/11, to the chaos that was rocking the Anglican Church, that could be traced back to their decision to ordain women. K-sensei took the time to somewhat publically take me to task over my then-ignorance regarding Israel, and set me straight on that account. I mean, seriously, I was one of her star students, and she kicked my butt in front of the whole class. Thank goodness K-sensei did that! On I went, learning about Islam, the Koran and Hadith, words like Taqiyya and Hudna, traditions like  “abrogation”. I read the account of Mohammad when the “angel” gripped him and demanded that he “recite.” And I, having studied angelology (with a dash of demonology), read that account and, for the first time in a long time, felt the stirrings of fear not just for myself, but for the world. Because when I read that account, I saw a man possessed by a demon that called itself an angel. I saw an entire world religion founded and sustained by an evil entity and its willing dupe. I didn’t even know about the 12^th Imam, much less it’s relation to the Anti-Christ. But you can only interact with so many supernatural entities before the Hadith start scaring the crap outta you.

The years passed, and I grew apart from K-sensei, as she had family troubles take more and more of her attention. On my own again, I studied anything that sparked my interest. I finally started finding some leads on Alchemy, a path I think I was always really meant for. On the other hand, I started studying historical shinobi and their philosophies. Why? Well, who doesn’t want to learn about actual ninja? I was reading about various kunoichi (female ninjas) and how they would operate, and in my brain comparing ninja and samurai, when suddenly the whole passive/active, In/Yo (Yin/ Yang), Female/Male dichotomy clicked into place, and then connected to the Pillars of Severity and Mercy on the Tree of Life. Woman is war, man is peace, the rabbis say. Female is chaos, male is stability. Destruction, Creation. Of course, we’re talking archetypes here, but these archetypes exist for a reason.

And that answered my old question about why women couldn’t be priests, at least as far as the Catholic Church is concerned. Because men are stronger externally, women are stronger interiorly. For a civilization to thrive, men must handicap themselves  with various codes of Chivalry or Bushido, and women must handicap themselves on interior matters. A man, by social agreement, is not to abuse his strength. He is to use that strength to protect the weak, the poor, those who have no one else to protect them (like widows and orphans). They do this so they do not physically overwhelm those around them by their mere presence. Thus, the humble knight is most virtuous. The chivalrous man serves women, sacrificing his own dignity and desires to serve hers. (The movie A Knight’s Tale has a great example of this, where the Lady Jocelyn says that if our hero truly loves her, then he will loose every bout in the upcoming tournament. He will sacrifice his pride, his dignity, just to prove to her that it is she that he loves, and not himself. Poor guy!)

A woman, then, stronger in the interior life, should be likewise “handicapped” lest she overwhelm the men—as happens if women are given priesthood and “equal” authority. “Equal” authority is effectively superior authority for women when dealing with religious or spiritual matters. Effective equality comes about through “handicapping” of women—thus even a nun can take on and chastise a pope, and the pope will listen. Maybe not happily, but he will. But you open up those ranks to women and, as history bears out, the men disappear, as they are quickly overwhelmed by un-chivalrous women. And once that happens, religion soon becomes twisted—some of the most horrible, terrifying practices of ancient religion came about through matriarchal religions. Goddesses tended toward infanticide. It is simply the way it is.

Women are chaos, men stability. Men can staff a hierarchy to last a couple thousand years. Bring women into it, and the whole thing shakes loose in a generation. This is not, itself, a bad thing. Chaos is sometimes necessary, destruction is needed just as much as creation. Neither is better than the other, in general terms. It’s simply a matter of what is better for your goal. Women are generally best for defensive fighting, when the enemy is in your streets and homes. Women can do the most twisted, cruel things to their enemy, as any woman who has survived middle and high school will attest. Women know how to poison with smiles, words, or the salad they just served you (I can think of several different ways to use ordinary garden leaves to do just this!). Men are the better fighters for keeping things from getting to that point. Each has a place, each is important, each is different enough that substituting one for the other will not work.

And how marvelous that is! How genius, that our species was created just so. I tend to think in more martial terms, but surely there are non-martial examples of this. Each half of our species is suited for different work, each essential for life above an animal existence. Men are great with building the house, women with making it a home. Men quest and find water sources, men and women say “Wouldn’t it be great to bring the water to us?”, then men build aqueducts, and women wash the men’s smallclothes and make beer. A perfect to and fro. It takes men to harvest grapes, and women to press, to make wine.

Granted, this has not always been appreciated as it should have been. At least, that is my understanding of the past. Men wouldn’t live up to the demands of chivalry, or took the female contribution for granted, or else assumed that exterior weakness translated to interior weakness as well. That was wrong. But the marvelous thing about history is that it’s past. I can appreciate the fact that men are strong (and boy, I do love a man that also appreciates that fact! MM~mmm, shoulders!), and can get irritated that I’m the one that always ends up starting the discussion at Bible Study. Likewise, I hope that a man can at once revel in their physical ability to protect and defend those they love, while at the same time appreciating how different his wife sees things.

I’m preaching to the choir now, I suspect. But this understanding, once it clicked, made me look back. I’ve explained how studying ninjas and the kaballah answered my Catholic theological questions. Funny, how one branch of knowledge illuminates others. For instance, leftism and the various subgroups thereof have a lot in common with occultism. In fact, one day I’m going to study certain parts of history closer, because I’ve a theory that Marxism and leftism in general (as we know it today) have roots in the occult/ spiritualist movements of the 19^th century. I watch people on TV, college kids in particular, and trace the “logic” they use, and dang if it ain’t familiar! Who can read the story of my friend Katie and not substitute various strands of leftist thought. Thoughts that twist the mind, slowly but surely, inevitably effecting the soul. I once read the beginning of one of the books by L Ron Hubbard, and I only recognized what he was doing because, in terms of Mind-f*cks, I’d been through worse, so recognized what he was doing (despite his skill). Likewise, when reading various leftist tracts, I can see how they twist the mind, how they take all that is best in people and pervert it for low, terrible ends. I see the way they work, and so I can tell you that there is no end not beyond the pale, not beyond their desire. They say they want peace, but I’ve been to the places they’re going, and I can tell you that what they want is blood and fire. They want pain, and they want to be the ones dealing it. They’ll never admit it aloud, but that’s the truth. They are vicious sadists who smile and proclaim “peace!” They will never be happy, but bodies in the streets will give them a measure of satisfaction. They have damned themselves just as surely as Katie did. Different authors, different declarations, but the same damned sources.

[The good news is that Grace pours like rain upon the just and unjust, and all they need do is repent, accept it, and start making their way home. As long as they breathe, there is hope for them, which is why we must pray for them. ]

Likewise, my skill with Tarot (which I rarely use as such, anymore) coupled with my skill in music analysis, has given me an ability to see the patterns in life. I’ve found that there is no such thing as “coincidence.” This word is a myth, invented by people who couldn’t bear the thought that God might be trying to speak to them through all the circumstances of their life.  The key with Tarot is not to memorize the meaning of each card. Rather, it’s to learn the system of symbolism running through the images, and then to read the connections between the cards to arrive at meaning. Tarot does not tell the future—the future is always in flux, because humans have this pesky thing called “free will” that always changes things. Tarot can merely give insight into What Is. If I might borrow a concept from Jung, Tarot is a way for the conscious mind to use the sub-conscious (by way of a group of symbols) to access the Mass Unconscious. Like a person accessing the internet. Your conscious is the user, your subconscious is the computer, the unconscious is the internet. The Tarot cards then function as an interface, like the browser you’re using right now. All you can find out with the cards is what any human has ever known. But it’s limited to the symbols, just as the internet is limited to what can be expressed in digital languages.

For instance, if I lay cards out in the Tree of Life pattern (a personal favorite of mine), simply seeing The Empress in a given position won’t tell me much. However, seeing how The Empress modifies the Queen of Coins, and is modified in turn by Judgment, is where insight is gained. When I lay the cards out, I see them, but then I see lines unravel and connect certain cards to each other, showing me patterns and relationships, and it’s in these lines that meaning is found. In time, one begins to get the message before the cards are finished being laid, and eventually, one stops needing the cards at all.

For example: The DC sniper left the Death Card at one of the locations of a shooting. He likely did it to try to inspire fear in people. The news outlets were full of experts, trying to divine the meaning of the card, what he was trying to say. Knowing that the Death Card (the 13^th card, btw) simply means Change and isn’t actually a scary card at all (leave that to The Tower), at the dinner table that night I said “All it means is that there will be a great change in the situation after the 13^th victim”. I was right. Now, let’s turn this around. The card that signifies Change is Death. Death is Change. Change is Death. Hope is the Star. The Moon is Delusion. Hope and Delusion can be found right next to each other in every night sky. Hope and Change. Delusion and Death. Funny how that works . . .

Speaking of the Tower, when 9/11 happened, I seem to remember telling a friend “Well, naturally, when the Tower manifests, it heralds an end of peace and stability. It means things will be greatly upset, but mostly because illusions will be torn down, and people will eventually wake up to the reality around them. But it’ll probably be a very traumatic time . . .” The Tower had two manifestations on 9/11, three if you count the Pentagon as a type of tower, being a fortress. From the Tower of Babel to 9/11, when towers are struck down from above, it always means “Hang on to your butts!”

These symbols were chosen for a reason. God is a rational being, and He uses every chance He can to talk to us, to warn us. No, I’m not saying God was behind 9/11—I am, however, accusing Him of having a hand in the recurring symbolism that led to the Tower Card. When towers fall, upheaval follows.

I think I’m winding up to a point, now, on the twelfth page. Let me try to summarize what I’ve been writing about here.

1) Evil is real, and so is Satan.

a) Satan is an evil bastard, and is actively trying to ruin our Good Time.

b) Fortunately, God is real, too. Cling to him like a limpet, or an annoying five year old, and you’ll be fine.

2) Magick is not to be messed about with. It too is real, and dangerous, and liable to do you great harm unless God and His angels work some serious overtime.

a) Michael the Archangel is seriously awesome, and good lookin’ too! If you ever run into him, know that he’s partial to

red beer and blackberries. And rare steaks  And buy him a cold one, people, the guy’s been working his sexy butt off for the past coupla millennia! You owe him. And his Boss, but that’s a whole other matter . . .

b) School-girl crushes on non-humans are far more common than you’d think.

3) A working knowledge of the occult can be useful for discovering demonic conspiracies from Islam to Marxism, and can likewise give great insight into certain theological questions.

a) points 2 and 3 are both true. If someone you is getting involved in the occult, pray for them. They may be on the highway to hell—or they may be on a Mission. You don’t know, and it’s very possible they don’t either. Pray for them and trust that God will make sure there’s an angel on the job.

b) Anyone who successfully makes their way through the Wastelands of the Occult without going sheer-out nuts will likely have very strong faith. This might be the point of the whole thing. Understand that a deep, abiding love of God and His church is not at all mutually exclusive to talents that are sometimes discouraged. I cannot tell you how vexing it is to always have to battle that assumption. Yes, I can hex you– and I love Jesus. It happens. [Btw, hexing isn’t always bad. For instance, one doesn’t heal cancer—that only makes the cancer worse. One hexes the crap outta cancer, which makes it decrease, allowing the body to heal. Same with infections. Thought I should point that out . . . you know, the good sort of destruction ~_^. . .]

c) That all said, The Occult is considered Forbidden for very good reason, and the rules are written for everyone, not the one percent exceptions. One should never assume they are the exception. That would be stupid. (*looks in the mirror*)

1) The Harry Potter series does not, in any way, teach kids anything occult. As someone who knows both quite well, they’ve nothing to do with each other. Except for the kids being “Witches” and “wizards”, and the fact that actual witches and mages tend to be fond of the books. And Nicholas Flamel was a real person, as was his wife Perenelle, and according to legend, they did achieve the Philosopher’s Stone. Otherwise, if I hear one more person . . .

4) My name. My name is ZMalfoy, short for Zophiel Malfoy. Zophiel was a name given to me one summer afternoon, rather out of the blue. According to Davidson’s Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels, Zophiel literally translates to “The Eyes of God”—the connotation being “God’s Spy”. This is, I think, fitting, for someone who watches and sees quite a bit, but has been kept from getting directly involved in much of it. This is also why I started studying shinobi. God’s Spy ought to know about ninja, wouldn’t you think?

Malfoy is, of course, a reference to the Harry Potter characters. I chose this for the internet so that anytime I say something that horrifies or scandalizes people, they can shrug and say “Well, she is a Malfoy, and a Slytherin. What else should we expect?” And, of course, it’s also fitting for someone with a history in the “Dark Arts”. Why does she know about blood magick, or the demonic influence early in Islam? Well, because she’s a Malfoy, of course! See how that works?

5) For all the above points, I have rather strong opinions on various matters. Because I came to these opinions by some unusual routes, I thought I should give some sort of explanation of those routs. Most people don’t come to the conclusion that something’s wrong with Islam because of their background in “the Dark Arts”. But I did. So when I say “Satan’s behind that sh!t right there. . .” I actually mean that in the most literal sense, and have reasons for saying that. Likewise, when I say that Leftism is a poison out of Hell, I’m likewise being quite literal. Yup, Sammael had a hand in that. Lilith, too, which is why her name is all over that Feminazi crap.

6) Oh, and most importantly: There is no where that you can go that God won’t be right there with you. It’s very hard to see, sometimes. You’re surrounded by confusion and chaos, maybe time itself is warping around you, cause and effect scrambling. Maybe you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t, maybe you cannot turst anyone or anything, inluding yourself. Maybe you’ve been so betrayed and hurt, and the house is falling apart around you, and holy crap! What’s happening in this country?! Amist all the decay and despair, He’s right there, at your shoulder. He’s looking through your eyes, listening through your ears, that’s how close He is. He may have led you to Hell’s Front Porch, but He’s never left your side. And, if you’re taking a breather in Satan’s rocker, just realize that you are where you are for a reason. Maybe there’s something you need to see. Maybe there’s some dead wood that needs burning away. Surely, though, you’ll be stronger when you’ve passed through. Like bootcamp– sucks now, but for good reason.

So, I think that’s all for now.  I think this explains why I sometimes come at things at the angle I come at them with. So now, when I say something a little weird and strange, you all can say, “Look, that’s just ZMalfoy. Her brains got a bit scrambled due to some unfortunate time studying the occult . . . poor girl . . .”