Rufus Opus

Category: Blogspot Archive

Category: Blogspot Archive

  • Rock the Vote

    At a friend’s request, I’ve added a Rock the Vote widget to the blog. This tool lets you register to vote. With all the shit going on in the world today, politics matters. Do your part to change the world. Register to vote.

  • Sorting things out

    I have a couple of different perspectives on life that I get wound up in at different times.

    From the life perspective of the human being going through the processes of existence, I tend to take things very personally. My family, my job, my magic, my books, my students, my health, my impact on the world around me, and its impact on me. I am motivated, inspired, wounded, offended, angered and amused by the things that I experience. I react to it as if it were real, because it matters to me.

    But I also recognize that these things, the things I do and feel and experience and know and learn and conjure and all that, they all are meaningful only within the context of my life, and they aren’t nearly as meaningful to you. Some things we experience in the world are equally meaningful for both of us, but most of what happens to you doesn’t mean anything to me, and vice versa. So I try to remember that at a social level, the things that are meaningful to me are not necessarily going to be meaningful to you.

    Furthermore, I’ve stood at the apex of the hierarchy of spiritual beings and looked out at the universe as it unfolds. I’ve climbed Jacob’s Ladder with the other Angels, and seen that the things I worry most about personally are not that important in the grand scheme of things, even though they are part of it all. At a universal level, the cramp I get in my shoulders when I slouch as I type is not a world-ending event.

    And speaking of the end of the world, I’ve also seen that. It all ends. Sooner or later. Personally, it ends with death. Socially, it ends with the collapse of civilization. Universally it ends when everything collapses back in on itself or expands to the point that it no longer interacts, or if it’s all just random shit popping up with no plan, it could all just collapse back into the probability soup that spawned it at any second. The conditions that allow life on the Earth are cosmically temporary and will pass, and there’s always a possibility that a singularity might just come into being in my cube and suck the Earth and Sun and Milky way into an event horizon at any second anyway. If the Earth is still around in 4 billion years, life and the conditions to maintain it will be long gone.

    So, knowing that it doesn’t really matter in the long run, I’ve got this perspective on life that allows me to take it less than seriously. And the things I take seriously, I don’t take all that seriously. I hold opinions because I like to, not because they are particularly right or wrong. I know I see things from a very selfish perspective most of the time, and knowing that mitigates my attachment to them. I value opinions primarily based on the entertainment content.

    Let’s take the issue of piracy as an example, because it’s been on my mind lately. I care a great deal about people stealing from me. I don’t like it.

    That said, I know it’s going to happen. I found out this weekend someone is printing and binding copies of my stuff and selling it from a van at Pagan Pride events in Massachusetts, and probably elsewhere as well. In addition, someone posted the Modern Goetic Grimoire on yet another file sharing site. The file sharing site removed the content at my request, kudos to them for that. I’ve contacted the pagan pride organizers and sent out some specific entities to address the other problem as well.

    But dude, free advertising! I don’t know how many of the recent additions to my followers came from that file sharing site, nor do I particularly care. I just like that over the weekend, my followers grew. When I do come out with my next books, I’ll make a couple more sales. Jason’s outlook on piracy has greatly impacted my own, and while I don’t like it much, I adapt and integrate the inevitable theft of my work into my business model.

    And it gives me a chance to hone some skills hunting down and extracting just retribution from those who steal from me. Being a Christian Magician, I rarely get a chance to curse people as much as I’d like to, so I appreciate this kind of opportunity. And the issue of piracy gives me something to rant about in public, and ranting is therapeutic. It’s like weeding a garden, you get to kill plants but you don’t have to feel bad about it. It’s a win-win.

    But really, in the long run, I don’t really give a shit about piracy. It happens, life goes on. Why would I sacrifice a moment of fun over something as ephemeral as a few lost sales? If it’s not fun, or interesting, I don’t think it’s really worth my time.

    And for the record, I don’t do death curses over pirated works. That would be rather extreme. Branding the aura with “Do not trust this thief” is sufficient. They won’t get jobs, they won’t get laid, they won’t get anything in life that requires trust, or anything that requires them to obey the rules of society. People will just know they can’t trust the person.

    And the demons will eat their souls.

  • Arrr! Avast ye scurvy knaves, it do be time to address ye piracy yet again!

    Jack wrote something about piracy that ought to get a bit of press. While I don’t like piracy, I do happen to agree with his more salient practical points, and to borrow a bit of his wisdom, I’d like to make a public address to ye olde internet pirates:

    Dear pirates: 


    Please stop giving out what you have to everyone. The boys making these books need to buy food. So at least wait for a year. During that year, be sure just to give copies to your friends… Who should at least review the book, or bring attention to it somehow. 


    Thanks,


    The Authors


    PS: The curse on ye uploaders of my stuff to ye torrents or other file sharing tech are still very much in effect. Though some think a death curse is warranted, I do not. I just curse you with suffering more than usual until you pull my work from the torrent and pay me $50 in restitution. 



  • The Very Best Cold Dish

    Henry Jenkins had a bit of built up tension in his life. His masseuse noticed it and commented that he needed to find a way to relax, and she suggested meditation and spiritual pursuits she found personally helpful. He grunted noncommittally and she sighed and got back to work on the deep tissues, wondering why she even bothered with her wealthier clients. It’s not like anyone with that much money had any interest in spirituality.

    Of course, she was wrong. Henry Jenkins had spent a much higher percentage of his lifetime studying and applying spiritual teachings from around the world than she could in twenty years, even if she became a cloistered nun tomorrow. His material success was due to the practical application of several simple spiritual principles, in fact. “Leveraging relationships in high places,” he liked to call it when he was in good company.

    Of course, for most of his life, being in “good company” meant being very nearly completely alone.  It was a regrettable state of affairs Henry Jenkins had spent years trying to correct. At last his plans were nearing fruition, and he could finally begin raising the spiritual awareness of most of the population on Earth simultaneously, bringing them closer to Enlightenment as a whole, and kicking off a golden age of  wisdom, beauty and peace that hadn’t been seen since the days of Atlantis. If he remembered right.

    Just as soon as he killed the last three assholes on his list.

    Gregory Hills. Gregory was a pastor’s son who had once given Henry very bad advice. Alcohol and prescription drugs were involved, and the near complete annihilation of a complete spiritual ecosystem. Women and children had been deeply scarred from that experience, and it had taken Henry years to treat and heal those scars Gregory had left. Gregory must die.

    Travis Thompson. Travis was a gifted and talented young man with a bright and shining future ahead of him. He was in the Future Business Leaders of America, Advanced Placement courses in English, Math, and Science. In the 9th grade, he could solve complicated calculus equations simply by looking at them, though he had not yet figured out how to show the work explaining his solutions with those who couldn’t keep up. He even excelled in art, with a gallery in the nicer side of town already having sold a piece of his work when he was still 15. Then his parents divorced, and things … changed. By his senior year, he was on his last strike before being permanently expelled. He was well known as a drug dealer, and he regularly beat up other students, and stole almost everything that wasn’t nailed down. He had threatened to stab a teacher, and one day had the bad judgment to hold a drill with a large bit to the arm of Henry Jenkins in a Technical Theater class. Henry had seen the drill was unplugged and had registered no fear as he gazed into Travis’ eyes without flinching, and Travis, still slightly in multiple realms from a recent mushroom excursion, caught a glimpse of something truly vast in the depths of Henry’s soul. Letting him go, he said, “You’re psychotic” with a touch of awe in his voice. Yes, Travis Thompson had seen too much. Travis also must die.

    Theresa Von Shwaartzenhymen. Theresa was a blond lady driving a small red car who made the poor choice of cutting off Henry Jenkins in traffic, and then flipping him the bird. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to his plans for global enlightenment, Henry didn’t even know her real name, and strongly suspected he had forgotten the make and model of the car entirely. He had several spiritual agencies searching for her, but to date had come up with nothing solid.

    Perhaps it was latent frustration over this seemingly insurmountable obstacle his masseuse was feeling in his shoulders. He promised himself not to fall into the trap of forgetting who he was and why he was here, and he felt the deep tensions begin to break up and disappear. When he left, he gave the masseuse a large tip, and wrote, “Samsara: Profitable in proper proportions.” on the back of her invoice. The obscure cuneiform script he chose made her curious in passing, but thoughts of any hidden meaning were pushed aside when her next customer came in, still sweating from a long day at Wimbledon.

    “Still not ready to retire yet, Mr. Agassi?” she asked with a smile. “Let’s see what we can do for you before you get too stiff.”

  • On Magical Insurgency

    I got a fascinating message on facebook this week. A young man (younger than me, anyway) wrote me to ask about using magic to address Fox News’ policy of witholding information to influence public opinion, and the FDA and the poisoned meat and dairy they’re killing us with, and generally taking a socially responsible magical stance against the things that are documented to be against our best interests as a society (as opposed to the crackpot conspiracy theories of things that are against our best interests as a society; he’s not a flake or a nut).

    Long time readers know this is right up my alley when it comes to doing magic. I love politically and socially motivated planned strategic tactical strikes that result in the world being made a better place for everyone. I did magic in the Obama-McCain election that had some fascinating results in my own life, that revealed there were spiritual players in the game in high places pulling strings and manipulating events according to a plan that kicked off before the time an angel was set to guard the gates of Eden, and hasn’t missed a single milestone yet. Even my own naive attempts at influencing events were part of their plan. I was so intrigued, and humbled.

    So, I found myself telling him to be careful, and that he was being duped by the system into reinforcing the system.

    At the same time, I advised him to go ahead and do what he thought was right, because it’s fun and probably necessary. I warned him to keep in mind, however, that the world seems to exist at a constant level of “suck,” and that while you may remove an instance of suck from one aspect of the world, things will settle back into the overall suck equilibrium eventually regardless.

    Political and social magic is effective, and useful, and if you’re into being a Secret Chief or the Invisible Hand or a Shadow Governor, it’s a valid and useful path to follow. Magic will empower those who seek this kind of control over the world. The system has a place for Shadow Governors, it’s like a job position that you can earn, claim, and take on for yourself. You get all the responsibilities and consequences of taking the role, of course, and that can be more than most people bargain for, but it’s possible to do that using magic if that’s your thing.

    But the System exists almost entirely to maintain the System. It’s a huge old tar baby. The more you take swings at it, the more stuck to it you get. The System is designed to take all energy devoted to destroying it and then using that energy to sustain itself. Become the Destroyer of Worlds, and you’ll find you’ve managed to become the Creator of Worlds without intending to at all. And the inverse is also true, those who become Creators also become adept Destroyers. It’s the push-pull effect. Samsara, I think the Buddhists call it, though I am by no means sure that I understand everything that word represents.

    But while you can change some aspects of the System and how it might be manifesting at any given place and time, change itself is part of the System. You can’t get OUT of the game while you’re still playing the game. It’s a lot like money. I used to be hell bent on getting more money so I could leave the game, go on permanent vacation and have no need to worry about providing food shelter clothing for me and my family anymore. I wanted the benefits of the System without having to work to maintain it. Or at least to greatly reduce the time spent performing the work maintaining my place in the System. To me, money was the key to that, because money is the grease that keeps the system running, the fuel it burns, and the output it produces. Or so I thought.

    But I realized something. The real fuel, grease, and output the System uses and produces is attention. Awareness. The money is a marker, but it really measures how much attention you’ve given the System.

    So anyway, social justice, consumer protections, and issues like piracy, or net neutrality, or impartially presented information from the press (ha!), or the quality of our meats and/or grains are all important issues, things that can be addressed with magic, and probably should be addressed with magic. At the same time, it needs to be remembered that every swing at the tar baby gets another of your noodly appendages stuck to the tar baby. Don’t swing an appendage you’re fond of, or that you won’t mind having to clean up later.

  • Friends help friends move

    So last week, I’m pulling this heavy-ass dresser up a set of stairs on a hand truck, and the thing is killing me. I really feel my muscles giving out, my joints popping, and my bones being broken. I need help, and there’s no one to help me. And no one around. So I conjure up my HGA and ask him to give me a hand.

    Pain’s gone, the thing weighs less, and I can roll it up the last few steps easy.

    I can think of many reasons it worked, many ways to explain what happened, what might have happened, how it may have worked, and so forth.

    But I called an angel for help lifting a heavy object, and received it. And that makes me pretty happy.

  • Read any good books lately?

    Sorry for the inconvenience, I pasted the wrong code earlier and just noticed it. So I deleted the old “Read any good books lately” post and reposted it. This time with the right code, fer sure. I think.

    And now you’re up to date. On with the movie!

  • Great Old Spice

  • Orders

    If you’ve ordered something from that nifty Google Checkout gadget I had up for the last couple of weeks, and haven’t received an email link to download your item, please let me know, and I will email you the item.

    Sorry for any inconvenience, I blame my ignorance.

  • Unforgiveable Sin

    I don’t usually talk Christian Theology on my blog, but today I’ll make an exception.

    According to the Bible, Christians are supposed to TRY REAL HARD not to sin, but if we fail, the blood of Christ is sufficient to cover those sins, and we just ask for forgiveness and help not sinning any more, and then carry on.

    However, there is one unforgiveable sin, that is, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. There’s a lot of debate in the Church at large about what, exactly, that means. I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure it’s when you fail to clean up your dog’s shit when you’re walking them in other people’s yards.

    Kidnapping Jesus and holding him for ransom is forgiveable.