The Death Of Magic

When I was an impressionable teen I got into magic. Or rather the idea of magic. In fact this occult interest lasted well into my impressionable twenties.

At the time the occult section of Waterstones (now, I believe, respectably entitled “Health, Body and Spirit” or some such) was bursting at its magical seams with middle class grimoires from the likes of Laurie Cabot and other darker tomes from the late, great and dangerous-to-know Aleister Crowley, who is in fact a fellow Leamingtonian.

I have to say I was swept along more by the theory than the practice though I do recall once going into an “alternative” shop in York and buying a wand that looked like a Native American phallus. All dangly feathers and a ruddy great bulbous crystal sprouting from the end of it. It languished under my bed for years until I offloaded it onto a kooky ex back in 2003. I don’t miss it at all.

As for Crowley... well I was never tempted to try out any of his Magick™, beleaguered as it was with demons, drugs and downright moral depravity but I did purchase a lot of his books. I got about 2 thirds through his immense autohagiography (for those of you who don’t know an autohagiography is supposedly the biography of a saint) before getting bogged down in lengthy "he said / she said" transcripts of various conversations Aleister had enjoyed in various privileged gentleman’s clubs across Europe. It all got a bit stuffy. I just wanted the salacious bedroom exploits and the otherworldly descriptions of the Abyss not the scripts from an Open University staff meeting.

I still own the books and have a few rarities too including a copy of his very dirty poem “Leah Sublime” (which in the modern age is no worse than a 6th form Rugby song).

I keep them now not out or any respect for magical lore but as interesting historical documents. As a figure Aleister Crowley has, I think, stood the test of time. The magical theories, I’m afraid, I now view as complete bunkum. It’s plainly obvious that Crowley was doped to his eyeballs most of the time on heroin and cocaine and various other Victorian opiates and spent a great deal of his time reading esoteric texts and then hallucinating as a direct consequence.

One story from the autohag is a case in point:

Aleister recounts an occasion when he saved a man servant’s life by wrestling a demon to the ground. It’s one of the signature notes of his autohag and makes a great read. However, that same man servant later independently recounts Aleister taking various drugs and then suddenly attacking him. The man servant was lucky to get away with his life, his dignity and his virtue intact. Enough said.

But there was more to Aleister than the dodgy magic. There was philosophy, literature, appalling poetry and a rock and roll lifestyle a good 60 years before rock and roll was even invented. He’s a genuinely interesting character and I may write more about him in the future but don’t have the room or the time now.

Laurie Cabot – an American white witch – is another case entirely. Stephen Fry met her earlier this year during one of his televised road trips across the States and she came across as an aging nutter who spent her time living in a yurt for the tourists and touting feather-based love charms for the sad, lonely and financially incontinent.

I can’t believe I ever fell for any of that crap. It all seems utterly ridiculous now.

Me and magic have, alas, parted company. I’m no longer a believer.

Which isn’t to say I don’t keep an open mind on ghosts, UFOs, and other paranormal oddities.

But magic... magic I’d like to believe in but sadly just don’t anymore. I’ve grown out of it. It’s a young man’s dream, borne out of ignorance and wishful thinking; a desire to control the uncontrollable.

Nowadays I’m more accepting of the uncontrollable. In fact part of me is rather glad that there are some things beyond my control – I can take neither responsibility nor blame for them. It’s an immense relief.

And yet...

...and yet there is a tiny part of me that is sad that I have lost this wide eyed belief in magic. The world seems a little smaller, a little greyer as a consequence. It’s like figuring out the true identity of Father Christmas. You still get the presents. Nothing physically changes in the world.

But the magic has gone.

The Mormon Invasion

So we'd made it to Friday evening. The kids were in bed. The washing up had been done. All the chores were out of the way.

It was Quality Time at last. Curled up on the sofa. Big bar of choc. Jasmine Harman on TV shaking her impressive decolletage over various locations in the South of France.

And naturally the doorbell rings.

Cold callers.

Pains in the effing A.

I did the net curtain twitch and took a quick deco.

Two young guys. White shirts. One in a blazer. Both with neat little back-packs hung from their broad shoulders like turtle shells. Even before I'd heard the American accent I knew they were Mormons.

Here to spread to Word of God and save me from myself.

Well sorry. I was too tired to be saved so I ignored the doorbell.

It went again. A second time.

OK. OK. They were being persisent. But in my house that doesn't always pay. I was more determined than ever to ignore them.

Doorbell chimed for a third time.

Jesus!

(Though I kept my voice down when I said that.)

When are these guys going to get the message? Tom was asleep in bed and I really didn't want him woken up by two well-meaning God-botherers. I resolved that if they tried a fourth time I was going to march out there and give them a piece of my mind.

Then we heard a strange jangling sound. The sound of keys being pushed through our letterbox. The Mormons then headed over to next-door's house.

I went into the hall to investigate.

Sure enough, there was a bunch of keys lying on the mat. Not the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven I might add but our own house keys. Seems Karen had accidentally left them in the front door keyhole when she'd arrived home an hour or two earlier.

Boy did I feel guilty.

I'd been mentally slagging off these pure-hearts in my head and then they go and save me and my family from burglary and God knows what else.

Shame on me.

Thank God I hadn't answered the door though. I'd have felt even worse if, mid slag-off, they'd handed me the keys personally with a cheery, "There you go, sir." Their halos would have blinded me. I would have had to listen to them then. My guilt would have had me honour-bound to repay their kindness by listening to a sermon or two and maybe even admitting to the fact that I do own at least one Osmond record (admittedly it's "Crazy Horses", the one they released when they were desperately trying to raunch themselves up to increase falling record sales). I know how guilt makes me behave. I may even have invited them inside and offered them a cup of tea and a biscuit whilst chastely switching Jasmine off in favour of the The Chelsea Flower Show.

But thinking about it some more... maybe the way it happened was the right way?

I mean, I suffer a little post-irritation guilt and learn a lesson or two about the kindness of strangers... and they continue on their rounds taking pride in the fact that they've perfomed a Godly act of kindness in the face of total heathen ignorance.

Everybody's happy.

Isn't that how religion is supposed to work...?

The Fawke Off List

No.1) Dizzy whatever his name is talking to Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight yesterday evening attributing Obama’s recent Presidential success solely to the far reaching, world harmonizing effects of “hip-hop music”.

Yeah right, cos like it was his fly rappin’ what won the election for ‘im, innit?

Now, I don’t doubt that having a young, black role model has encouraged young Americans (black and white) to get off their backsides and vote – contributing to one of the best voting turn outs America has seen for a long time – but I don’t recall hip-hop having much of a role in this.

Personally I put it down to worthy policies, intelligent strategies, uplifting rhetoric and the promise of much needed change from the top down after the long stagnation of the Bush (mis)administration. Not a predilection for a lickle bit of drum and bass.

Besides which Obama looks more like a Nat King Cole man than Dr. Dre.

Paxman just looked bemused by Dizzy’s stuttering schoolyard outpourings and I couldn’t help thinking that the show’s producers had merely asked Dizzy to take part simply because he was black and had street cred and not because he had anything intelligent to say.

Sorry to dis you, old chap, but that’s just how it is.

No.2) Fireworks. I hate them.

Call me a killjoy. Accuse me of not being down with the kids (what’s wrong with a lickle bit of Nat King Cole, eh bruv?) but if ever I got into a position of power I would ensure the nationwide ban of all firework sales to individuals.

Now I’m not saying they should be banned altogether. Properly organized displays are fine. They’re safer. Less damaging to the environment. And less damaging to the social well-being of local citizens.

But in the hands of individuals they are lethal.

I’m sick to death of being woken by idiots detonating atomic explosions at 1, 2 and 3 in the morning. I’m sick to death of seeing teen Neanderthals launching fireworks down roads towards occupied vehicles coming the other way.

Most of all I’m sick to death of hearing every year of some poor kid or animal that has been badly burnt by (a) rogue fireworks that have detonated by mistake (b) mindless individuals who use fireworks as novelty weapons or (c) hospitalized by makeshift bonfires that haven’t been properly tended or constructed or have been tampered with by local yobs.

One injury is one injury too many. End of.

Selling fireworks is selling gunpowder without a license to people who, with the best will in the world, don’t always have a brain.

OK. The soapbox is now put away.

The Borat Pack

Karen and I made the most of a rare day off work together this week by visiting the local cinema to see the new Sacha Baron Cohen movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

It was an interesting experience (the film that is, not going to the cinema with Karen... though of course that IS always interesting... in a totally good way I mean, oh God, moving swiftly onwards...) as the film veered adeptly from uncomfortable scatological slapstick to discomfortingly subtle satire. Despite the shallowness of the Borat persona he was nevertheless an effective vehicle for the film’s many weighty and often poignant themes.

My favourite scene was when Borat was invited to share a meal and experience the niceties of Southern etiquette by attending a small dinner party organized by some of Atlanta’s social elite in the presence of the local preacher. After pointedly excusing himself to visit the toilet facilities Borat, feigning total ignorance of western bathroom protocol, reappeared some minutes later armed with his freshly produced stool daintily contained inside a plastic bag and asked the hostess where he should put it.

Weirdly the reaction of the inanely grinning hostess to this bottom-based faux pas was one of serenity and calmness - one might even say one of motherly indulgence - as she led Borat back upstairs and patiently explained how we in the West go about disposing of our bum-fruit and the various intricacies of the post-poo undercarriage clean-up operation.

Yet as soon as Borat invited a black hooker into the house to be his dinner companion all hell broke loose. The preacher - poker faced to within an inch of being a statue for much of the evening anyway - immediately stormed out leaving his aghast wife behind him and the no longer grinning hostess ordered Borat and his date to leave the premises without further ado and informed him that the police authorities were being called.

Amazing.

It’s important to note that the hooker wasn’t naked or swearing. She wasn’t making any lewd suggestions. There was utterly no soliciting at all and she was better mannered than Borat.

Conclusion:

It seems it’s fine to wave a hardening turd around when attending a dinner party in the deep South but if you bring a woman into the house whose only crime is to dress like a streetwalker - and a black one at that - then you can expect to be chased out of town, arrested and perhaps even lynched - with the local clergy brandishing the biggest pitchforks.

It seems respectability and respect for others (regardless of social class) are mutually exclusive concepts in American polite society...

Hmm.

America, something stinks...

...and it sure as hell ain't my bag...

The Nexus Of Accountability

I guess it’s reassuring to note that the recent sentencing of Saddam Hussein to death by hanging hasn’t been enough to sway the American voting public to shore up the subsiding Bush administration during the recent US mid-term elections. It seems our American friends have got some sense after all.

I do wonder though if their disapproval of Bush (and, by implication, their disapproval of the US led war in Iraq) isn’t so much down to ethical discomforts (the complete invasion and destruction of a sovereign country by an aggressive foreign power, thousands of Iraqis maimed, dead and dying daily) as the fact that so many US soldiers (and British, don’t forget) are regularly losing their lives upholding a campaign that is to all intents and purposes flailing about uselessly without any of its primary objectives being achieved.

I’m sure most Americans would be joyously backing Bush to the hilt if the campaign had been an all-out success (no matter what the cost in human life - Iraqi as well as American) and Iraq had become a Middle Eastern province of US style democracy.

As it is, I’m sure the average Joe Yank is currently scratching his head in a very confused fashion wondering why – if might is right – they haven’t got the war won? Why given their immense fire power and military resources they are still absurdly waving their pudgy arms about trying to swat a bunch of flies that are still incessantly biting them on the arse…

The Axis Of Guilt

With miraculous good timing Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death by hanging a couple of days before the US mid-term elections. What a lucky man George W Bush is. Vindication right when he needs it.

While Saddam Hussein has undoubtedly committed the grossest atrocities against humanity and deserves to be brought to account it’s difficult not to react with some cynicism to the way this trial has been conducted. The whole thing has been a circus at best and a fully choreographed farce at worst.

The sentence of course has always been a foregone conclusion. Guilty. And nobody would argue against it.

But if we’re going to start dolling out righteous punishments for those who commit "crimes against humanity" then we need to be more even-handed and wider ranging in terms of where and on whom we set our sights.

When sentence was being delivered there was room in that dock for a few more people…

All of them politicians. Some of them "world leaders".