Summoning up nothing

Some years ago, as part of the research I did while writing my novel Sephirot, I purchased a copy of Richard Cavendish's book The Black Arts.  It's a comprehensive look at the darker side of human beliefs, quite exhaustive and well-written (it's unclear how much of it Cavendish actually believes is true; he's pretty good at keeping his own opinions of out it).  I was mostly interested in the section on the "Tree of Life" from the Kabbalah -- the Sephirot of the novel's title -- but as is typical for me, I got sidetracked and ended up reading the entire thing.

There's a whole part of the book devoted to magical rituals, summoning up evil spirits and whatnot, and what struck me all the way through was the counterpoint between (1) how deadly seriously the practitioners take it, and (2) how fundamentally silly it all is.  Here's one passage with a spell for conjuring up a demon, taken from the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis (The Lesser Key of Solomon), a seventeenth-century sorcerers' grimoire much used by the infamous Aleister Crowley:

I conjure thee, O Spirit N., strengthened by the power of Almighty God, and I command thee by Baralamensis, Baldachiensis, Paumachie, Apoloresedes, and the most powerful Princes Genio and Liachide, Ministers of the Seat of Tartarus and Chief Princes of the Throne of Apologia in the ninth region.

Which is pretty fucking impressive-sounding if you can get it out without laughing.  This would be the difficulty I'd face if I was a sorcerer, which is undoubtedly why even after typing all this out, no evil spirit appeared.  I guess snickering while you're typing magic words is kind of off-putting to the Infernal Host.

Anyhow, if you chant all that and nothing happens -- which, let's face it, is the likeliest outcome -- the book then takes you through an escalating series of spells, gradually ramping up in the intensity of threats for what will happen to the demon if it doesn't obey you.  Ultimately there's this one, which is pretty dire:

O spirit N., who art wicked and disobedient, because thou hast not obeyed my commands and the glorious and incomprehensible names of the true God, the Creator of all things, now by the irresistible power of these Names I curse thee into the depths of the Bottomless Pit, there to remain in unquenchable fire and brimstone until the Day of Wrath unless thou shalt forthwith appear in this triangle before this circle to do my will.  Come quickly and in peace by the Names Adonai, Zebaoth, Adonai, Amioram.  Come, come, Adonai King of Kings commands thee.

Which, apparently, is the black magic equivalent of your dad saying "Don't make me ask you again!"  The whole thing is even more effective, the book says, if the magician chants all this while masturbating, so that when he has an orgasm "the full force of his magical power gushes forth."

Kind of makes you wonder how teenage boys don't summon demons several times a day.

Crowley absolutely loved this kind of rigamarole, especially because it involved sex, which appears to have been his entire raison d'être.  The book tells us that he "used this ritual in 1911 to summon a spirit called Abuldiz, but the results were not very satisfactory."

Which is unsurprising.  This, in fact, has always been what is the most baffling thing to me about magical thinking; that it simply doesn't work, and yet this seems to have little effect on its adherents.  For a time during my late teens I got seriously into divination.  Tarot cards, numerology, astrology, the works.  (I hasten to state that I never tried to conjure a demon.  Even at my most credulous, that stuff exceeded my Goofiness Tolerance Quotient.)  After an embarrassed and embarrassing period when, deep down, I knew it was all nonsense but wanted desperately for it to be true because it was so cool, I gave it all up as a bad job, decided rationality was the way to go, and pretty much never looked back.  (I do still own several Tarot card decks, however, which I can appreciate both from the fact that they're beautiful and from a touch of shame-faced nostalgia.)

But it's astonishing how few people go this direction.  The combination of confirmation bias (accepting slim evidence because it supports what we already believed) and dart-thrower's bias (noticing or giving more weight to hits than misses) is a mighty powerful force in the human psyche.  Add to that the fact that for certain miserable members of humanity, hoodwinking the gullible into belief is big business, and it's sad, though no real wonder, that when I type "astro-" into a Google search, "astrology" comes up before "astronomy."

Anyhow, those are my thoughts for a Monday morning, spurred by my looking for another book and happening to notice the Cavendish book still on my bookshelf.  It resides with various other books on ghosts, vampires, UFOs, cryptids, werewolves, and the like, and several with titles like Twenty Terrifying Unsolved Mysteries.  It's still entertaining to read that stuff even if I don't believe any of it.

On the other hand, if I get visited tonight by Abuldiz or whoever-the-fuck, I guess it'll serve me right.

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Message in a bottle

Ever heard of a witch bottle?

Witch bottles are magical items that are a type of apotropaic magic -- spells meant to ward off evil (the word comes from the Greek αποτρέπειν, meaning "to turn away from").  The idea has been around for a long time; if someone tries to use an evil enchantment on you, you can respond with a defensive spell of your own, and it might even rebound on the person who was trying to hex you.  One of the first written accounts of a witch bottle is in seventeenth century English clergyman Joseph Glanvill's book Saducismus Triumphatus, or Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions, wherein we hear about a man whose wife was sick and who kept getting visited by the apparition of a bird that would flutter in her face, because apparently that was a thing in seventeenth-century England.  The man was given advice by an "old man who traveled up and down the country," who said the cure was to have the sick woman pee in a bottle, then add some pins and needles, then cork it up tight and put it in the fire.

Which, I have to admit, is at least a creative solution.

The first time it didn't work because the heat made the air in the bottle expand and blew out the cork, which must resulted in a situation that was unpleasant to clean up.  But they tried a second time, and it worked -- and had an interesting result:

Not long after, the Old Man came to the house again, and inquired of the Man of the house how his Wife did.  Who answered, as ill as ever, if not worse, and still plagu'd by birds.  He askt him if he had followed his direction.  Yes, says he, and told him the event as is above said.  Ha, quoth he, it seems it [the spirit which was troubling them] was too nimble for you.  But now I will put you in a way that will make the business sure.  Take your Wive’s Urine as before, and Cork, it in a Bottle with Nails, Pins and Needles, and bury it in the Earth; and that will do the feat.  The Man did accordingly.  And his Wife began to mend sensibly and in a competent time was finely well recovered; But there came a Woman from a Town some miles off to their house, with a lamentable Out-cry, that they had killed her Husband.  They askt her what she meant and thought her distracted, telling her they knew neither her nor her Husband.  Yes, saith she, you have killed my Husband, he told me so on his Death-bed.  But at last they understood by her, that her Husband was a Wizard, and had bewitched this Mans Wife and that this Counter-practice prescribed by the Old Man, which saved the Mans Wife from languishment, was the death of that Wizard that had bewitched her.

Apparently other things that people sometimes put in witch bottles were hair, blood, fingernail clippings, red thread, written charms, feathers, dried herbs and flowers, and money.

The reason this comes up is that apparently there are still people who believe in this, because there's a beach in southern Texas where a guy keeps finding what appear to be modern witch bottles.  He's found eight of them thus far, all filled with odd items -- sticks and leaves seem to be the most common.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Malcolm Lidbury (aka Pinkpasty) , Witch Bottles Curse Protection, CC BY-SA 3.0]

Jace Tunnell, Director of Community Engagement at the Harte Research Institute, has spent years scouring the beaches of South Padre Island for anything odd that's washed up, and starting about six years ago, he began finding sealed bottles that evidently had been out there adrift for a long time, given the fact that some of them had barnacles on them.  After studying the currents, he believes they may have come from as far away as the islands of the Caribbean, or perhaps even West Africa.

"I don't open the bottles," Tunnell said.  "In fact, my wife won't even let me bring them into the house.  The theory is that if you open it you can let the spell out, whatever the reason the person had put the spell in there.  They're counter-magical devices, created to draw in and trap harmful intentions directed at their owners, so it's best to leave them sealed."

The fact that some of them could contain piss and rusty needles is another good reason to leave the tops on.

Predictably, I don't think there's any other particularly good reason to be concerned about them.  You have to wonder, though, how these superstitions get started, and (especially) how they persist despite the fact that they don't work (notwithstanding accounts like the one from the estimable Mr. Glanvill).  I wonder if it's because sometimes the "cursed" person does get better after the counter-curse, and to the credulous this is sufficient proof, even though it is an established scientific principle that the plural of "anecdote" isn't "data."

Although you have to wonder about the sanity of the first person who came up with the idea of peeing in a bottle full of pins.

In any case, if you find a sealed bottle washed up on the beach, it's probably best just to deposit it in the nearest trash can and not worry about it.  Unless it contains money, in which case open that sucker right up.  Call me greedy, but I'd risk being plagu'd by birds if the price was right.

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Potions 101

One of the coolest things about writing Skeptophilia has been the connections I've made with other skeptics.  The friendly comments, and (even better) the suggestions for topics, have been a continual source of cheer for me, far outweighing the outraged rantings of various woo-woos I've offended, not to mention the occasional death threat.

I've recently (and more or less by accident) achieved quite a following amongst some of my former students.  I certainly never believed in proselytizing during class; not only is this unprofessional and ethically questionable, given that they are a captive audience, I always preferred keeping my own views about most things out of the scope of my lectures.  It was far better, I found, to present the facts of the matter, and give students the tools to think critically, and allow them to make up their own minds.  But it was inevitable that a few of them would discover Skeptophilia, and once that happened, the news spread, leading to the formation of what I think of as a sort of junior branch of Worldwide Wacko Watch.

One particularly enthusiastic young man that I taught the year before I retired has taken it upon himself to become something of a research assistant, ferreting out crazy stories and loopy websites in his spare time, and sending them to me.  And just yesterday, he found a real winner, that has all of the hallmarks of a truly inspired woo-woo website: (1) a bizarre worldview, (2) no evidence whatsoever, and despite (1) and (2), (3) complete certainty.

So allow me to present for your consideration the Lucky Mojo Free Spells Archive.

The first fun bit about this site is that it's run and maintained by someone named "Cat Yronwode."  Having a background in linguistics, I have deduced that the latter combination of letters is an attempt to spell "Ironwood" in a vaguely medieval fashion, but who the hell knows for sure?  In any case, Ms. Yronwode has requested that the spells contained therein not be copied, because some of them are copyrighted material, and I have honored this, so if you want more details about exactly how to concoct the magic potions described below, you'll have to take a look at the site yourself.  (Who knew that pagans could be so legalistic?  I didn't.  But better to play along with her request than to find myself hexed with, for example, "Confusion Oil #3."  Heaven knows I'm confused enough, most days.)

In any case, what the "Lucky Mojo Free Spells Archive" turns out to be is a set of recipes for magic potions, and instructions in their use.  Thus we have the following:

• "Seven Holy Waters" -- allegedly invented by Marie Laveau, the "Witch Queen of New Orleans."  Contains whiskey, which I've never found to be especially water-like, but given that the word "whiskey" comes from the Irish uisge beatha, meaning "water of life," we'll just let it slide, because arguing with both the Witch Queen of New Orleans and the entire nation of Ireland seems like a losing proposition.  In any case, it's supposed to bring you peace, and is "very old-fashioned and Catholic."
• Three different recipes for "Money-drawing Oil."
• Two recipes for "Love Bath," one of which is called "Courtesan's Pleasure," and about which I will not say anything further in the interest of keeping this blog PG-13 rated.
• Something called "John the Conqueror Oil."  Made, predictably enough, with "John the Conqueror root."  We are warned to "beware commercial John the Conqueror and High Conquering Oil" because they "rarely have the root in them," especially if it was made in a factory.  This made me ask, in some astonishment, "There are factories for making this stuff?"  Notwithstanding that I'm supportive of anything it takes to keep Detroit solvent, you have to wonder how you could mechanize making magic spells.  Don't you have to be all pagan and ritualistic and druidic and so forth while you're making up potions?  I can't imagine that you'd get the same results from cooking up your potions in a cauldron in the woods as you would if you made them using electric blenders, pressure cookers, conveyor belts, and so on.  At least one has to hope that the machinery is operated by certified witches.
• "Haitian Lover Oil," "for men only," about which we are told that it is "not to be used as a genital dressing oil."  Okay, we consider ourselves duly warned.
• "Damnation Powder."  Used to hex someone you don't like.  "To be used with extreme caution."  Don't damn anyone lightly, is the general advice, which seems prudent to me.
• And the best one: "Harvey's Necromantic Floorwash #1."  Just the name of this one almost made me spit coffee all over my computer.  But hey, I guess even necromancers need to scrub the linoleum in their kitchens every once in a while, right?

So anyway, there you have it, a concise formulary for concocting magic spells and potions.  All of which puts me in mind of one of my heroes, depicted below:

If you are, like me, a Looney Tunes fan, you might remember that he got out of this particular fix by chanting such powerful spells as "Abraca-pocus" and "Hocus-cadabra."  It worked, but I bet he'd have defeated his vampire captor even more quickly had he had access to some "Damnation Oil," or even better, "John the Conqueror Root."

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Spells for sale

Today I learned that you can buy magical spells on Etsy.

When I found out about this, I thought, of course you can.  Everything else is for sale, so why not this?  So out of curiosity, I went to the Etsy site of the particular witch I heard about, one Victoria Zasikowski of Cardiff, Wales, to take a look around.

I clicked on the first one on the site, which was "Love and Relationship Spells."  (And for the curious, no, it wasn't because I need any particular help in that department myself.)  There's a description of what we get for our $22.64, and it includes the following:

• The lighting of a handmade candle that has been consecrated in our honor
• The use of "spellvelopes," small envelopes of a particular color depending on what sort of spell we'd like cast; the envelopes are burned in a cauldron
• Messages written in magickal [sic] "Dove's Blood Ink"
• Chants of spells done in our honor
• Photographs of the spell casting, sent to us via email; one will be of the burned-down candle, to prove that she let it burn all the way down

As far as what she'll cast a spell for, it can be for any of a number of things; attracting a significant other, separating from someone you've decided you don't like, making sure your lover stays faithful, having more sex, having better sex, attracting back an ex-lover, or finding out about your future lover.

And this is just scratching the surface.  She also does psychic readings of photographs, tarot cards readings, pendulum readings, and past life readings.  And for a cool $188 she will do five days worth of "Black Magick Spells" that will really heat things up in the bedroom for you.

The Magic Circle (1886) by John William Waterhouse [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

As you might guess, this site had me caveat emptor-ing like mad.  Especially when I read the disclaimer that's on each of the pages for specific spells:

PLEASE NOTE THAT NO DECENT SPELLCASTER WILL EVER GUARANTEE A SPELL WILL WORK. If it were oh so simple, we spell casters would all be filthy rich ! YES, there is a very high effectiveness rate for properly-performed magick, but sometimes things don't quite work out. This could be for the following reasons : 

1. A single casting was not suffice [sic], as the situation was too complex or deep rooted
2. Spell castings alone were not enough - the situation might benefit from you yourself working with a range of physical products to pour your own energy into things
3. You have an excessive amount of negative energy about it all, or about it's [sic] chances of working, which poison's [sic] the magick
4. You are being unrealistic, for example trying to win an ex back after 3 years of being without him
5. It might not have been "meant to be". The universe has other plans for you.

Which all sounds mighty convenient.  It boils down to spending 22 bucks for something that might or might not work, and if it doesn't work, it could be the spell's fault, your fault, or the universe's fault.

But before you laugh too hard, how different is this from the practice of petitionary prayer?  The devout are always asking god for things, from the banal ("please lord let me not get in a traffic jam on the way to work this morning") to the catastrophic ("cure my father of terminal cancer").  And of course, sometimes these prayers seem to work, and sometimes nothing happens.  If they don't work -- well "god works in mysterious ways" or "god has something better planned" or "you didn't pray hard enough" or "it was god's will that it happened this way."  If it does work, then hey!  Praise the lord!  He is so wonderful!

And I was going to say that the difference between the Etsy spell-caster and conventional petitionary prayer was that in prayer, no one's asking you for money.  But then I remembered that just a couple of days ago, the aptly-named American televangelist Creflo Dollar asked his faithful followers to give him $60 million so that he could buy a new luxury jet with which to Spread the Holy Word.

So maybe there's no difference after all, except one of scale.

And interestingly, there's a contingent amongst the witching community that actually thinks it ruins things to ask for money.  Somehow, being associated with profit will damage the energy, or some such.  Zasikowski, predictably, disagrees.  "There is a belief among some that ‘spiritual’ gifts should be given free of charge,= because they are spiritual," Zasikowski said.  "Time and effort spent should apparently be given free of charge, whereas if you are a hairdresser or nurse, etc, it is your right to be paid.  This double standard is ludicrous."

Except that when you're a hairdresser or nurse, your clients have the right to expect that their hair will end up looking nice and their health care needs will be addressed, respectively.  Here, it seems, you stand a good chance of spending $22 and getting absolutely nothing in return but a photo of a burned-out candle.

Anyway.  I'm unlikely to ask Ms. Zasikowski (or anyone else) to cast a spell for me.  For one thing, I'm pretty good with my life as it is.  For another, there are better uses for twenty bucks, which include, in my opinion, using it to start a campfire.  But if you're interested, might I suggest the "Angel Messages Reading?"  In it, she will get in touch with some angels, who will then relay to her messages that they feel "have the most important meaning for you at this time in your life."  However, you are advised that these messages "may not necessarily have anything to do with something directly bothering you."

You'd think angels could be a little more specific than that, wouldn't you?  Oh, well.  Maybe they "work in mysterious ways," too.

It's the voodoo, I tells you!

I just found something new for the Do-It-Yourself crowd; a how-to for making your own voodoo doll.

The idea of voodoo dolls has been around for a long time, long before honest-to-Baron-Samedi voodoo made its way from Africa into the Caribbean, and later to Central America, South America, and the Gulf Coast.  The whole thing is a kind of sympathetic magic -- creating an image of someone, often incorporating something from the person into the image (hair or fingernail clippings were common), and then doing something to the image in the hopes that the real person would respond in kind.  It was by no means limited to the Afro-Caribbean voodoo tradition; similar practices have been found in many parts of the world.  And like most magic, a lot of it was centered around getting the person in question either to have sex with you or else die.

Funny how those two seem to come up pretty frequently in these discussions.

In any case, the whole concept has been around for a good while.  Consider the following picture of a voodoo doll that is at the Louvre (and I'm using the colloquial name even given that this isn't really voodoo in the strict sense), from 4th century Egypt:

(image courtesy of photographer Marie-Lan Nguyen and the Wikimedia Commons)

Check the pin placement.  Not too difficult to tell what this magician was after, is it?

In any case, we now have a DIY guide if you'd like to try the whole thing out for yourself.  Here are some highlights:

Since this is an authentic method, only naturally available items are used. All you need is two sticks, a string, strips of fabric, adhesive and something to stuff the doll with, such as grass, pine needles, etc. Also, if you want to dress up your doll you will require pieces of cloth, buttons, feathers, etc. Since the doll is intended to resemble a living person, it is best to use that person's own belongings to dress the doll. Once you have gathered the paraphernalia, here's how to make it: 

• Take a long stick and a short one. Place the short one perpendicular to the long stick about a quarter from the top of the long stick. Tie up the two sticks with a string in an X-motion. When done it will look like the image alongside.
•  The two ends of the short stick will be the doll's arms and the short end of the long stick will be its head, while its long end will be the body of the doll.
• Wrap your stuffings around the sticks: starting from the middle, then wounding around the head, then an arm, then back across another arm, then down to the middle and finally to the bottom.
• Cover the doll with pieces of fabric using glue and stitching to make them cling to the doll. But remember to keep some part of the stuffing exposed at the ends of the arms, the head and at the bottom.
• Give the doll a face. Stitch two beads or glue down two peas for the eyes and another bead for the mouth.
• Now dress up the doll. Since the voodoo dolls are intended to resemble somebody, you should use belongings of the person the doll is intended to resemble to dress the doll. You can even put a piece of that person's hair in the doll.

The next step is to baptize the doll in the name of the person you're trying to establish a link with.  You can consult the site for the exact words you're supposed to use.  Your doll is then ready to... um... use.

The writer seems to be having some misgivings at this point, because (s)he cautions, "(R)emember, using a doll for evil purposes has horrible consequences, since the person using the doll may suffer badly and even die for dark voodoo practices.  So you should never use voodoo dolls for anything wrong."  And later, (s)he puts in a rather comical disclaimer -- "Please note that I am not a vodouisan myself and this article is best read for informative purposes only.  Me or All About Occult will not bear any responsibility should you try to use the above mentioned method practically."

Righty-o.  We'll just let you completely off the hook, then.  But being fearless experimentalists, and also considering that the entirety of the foregoing is unadulterated horse waste, we here at Skeptophilia don't have the need for such disclaimers.  In fact, I not only give you my permission, I positively encourage you to make a voodoo doll with my image, and stick it full of pins.  I realize you don't have any of my hair or fingernail clippings (at least, I sincerely hope you don't, as that would be a little creepy), but maybe just having a reasonable facsimile of my fortunately rather unique face will be enough.  My photograph is over there in the right sidebar.  So have at it.  Feel free to skewer me, in effigy, to the wall, and I promise I'll post here to report any ruptured gall bladders or brain aneurysms I happen to suffer.

All in the name of the scientific method, you know.

Potions 101

One of the coolest things about writing Skeptophilia has been the connections I've made with other skeptics.  The friendly comments, and (even better) the suggestions for topics, have been a continual source of cheer for me, far outweighing the outraged rantings of various woo-woos I've offended, not to mention the occasional death threat.

I've recently (and more or less by accident) achieved quite a following amongst some of my current and former students.  I certainly don't believe in proselytizing during class; not only would this be unprofessional and ethically questionable, given that they are a captive audience, I have always preferred keeping my own views about most things out of the scope of my lectures.  It's far better, I've found, to present the facts of the matter, and give students the tools to think critically, and allow them to make up their own minds.  But it was inevitable that a few of them would discover Skeptophilia, and once that happened, the news spread, leading to the formation of what I think of as a sort of junior branch of Worldwide Wacko Watch.

One particularly enthusiastic young man that I only met this year has taken it upon himself to become something of a research assistant, ferreting out crazy stories and loopy websites in his spare time, and sending them to me.  And just yesterday, he found a real winner, that has all of the hallmarks of a truly inspired woo-woo website: (1) a bizarre worldview, (2) no evidence whatsoever, and despite (1) and (2), (3) complete certainty.

So allow me to present for your consideration the Lucky Mojo Free Spells Archive.

The first fun bit about this site is that it's run and maintained by someone named "Cat Yronwode."  Having a background in linguistics, I have deduced that the latter combination of letters is an attempt to spell "Ironwood" in a vaguely medieval fashion, but who the hell knows for sure?  In any case, Ms. Yronwode has requested that the spells contained therein not be copied, because some of them are copyrighted material, and I have honored this, so if you want more details about exactly how to concoct the magic potions described below, you'll have to take a look at the site yourself.  (Who knew that pagans could be so legalistic?  I didn't.  But better to play along with her request than to find myself hexed with, for example, "Confusion Oil #3."  Heaven knows I'm confused enough, most days.)

In any case, what the "Lucky Mojo Free Spells Archive" turns out to be is a set of recipes for magic potions, and instructions in their use.  Thus we have the following:

• "Seven Holy Waters" -- allegedly invented by Marie Laveau, the "Witch Queen of New Orleans."  Contains whiskey, which I've never found to be especially water-like, but given that the word "whiskey" comes from the Irish "uisge beatha," meaning "water of life," we'll just let it slide, because arguing with both the Witch Queen of New Orleans and the entire nation of Ireland seems like a losing proposition.  In any case, it's supposed to bring you peace, and is "very old-fashioned and Catholic."
• Three different recipes for "Money-drawing Oil."
• Two recipes for "Love Bath," one of which is called "Courtesan's Pleasure," and about which I will not say anything further in the interest of keeping this blog PG-13 rated.
• Something called "John the Conqueror Oil."  Made, predictably enough, with "John the Conqueror root."  We are warned to "beware commercial John the Conqueror and High Conquering Oil" because they "rarely have the root in them," especially if it was made in a factory.  This made me ask, in some astonishment, "There are factories for making this stuff?"  Notwithstanding that I'm supportive of anything it takes to keep Detroit solvent, you have to wonder how you could mechanize making magic spells.  Don't you have to be all pagan and ritualistic and druidic and so forth while you're making up potions?  I just can't imagine that you'd get the same results from cooking up your potions in a cauldron in the woods as you would if you made them using electric blenders, pressure cookers, conveyor belts, and so on.  At least one has to hope that the machinery is operated by certified witches.
• "Haitian Lover Oil," "for men only," about which we are told that it is "not to be used as a genital dressing oil."  Okay, we consider ourselves duly warned.
• "Damnation Powder."  Used to hex someone you don't like.  "To be used with extreme caution."   Don't damn anyone lightly, is the general advice, which seems prudent to me.
• And the best one:  "Harvey's Necromantic Floorwash #1."  Just the name of this one almost made me spit coffee all over my computer.  But hey, I guess even necromancers need to scrub the linoleum in their kitchens every once in a while, right?

So anyway, there you have it, a concise formulary for concocting magic spells and potions.  All of which puts me in mind of one of my heroes, depicted below:

If you are, like me, a Looney Tunes fan, you might remember that he got out of this particular fix by chanting such powerful spells as "Abraca-pocus" and "Hocus-cadabra."  It worked, but I bet he'd have defeated his vampire captor even more quickly had he had access to some "Damnation Oil," or even better, "John the Conqueror Root."

Online magic marketplace

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about eBay's decision to discontinue the posting of "paranormal goods and services" on their site.  While this was ostensibly a good move, in the sense that fewer people were being ripped off by charlatans, the positive aspects were overshadowed by the fact that eBay still has plenty of woo-woo stuff for sale -- books on astrology, homeopathy, and so on.

And of course, the reduction in eBay's woo-woo market share doesn't really change the market itself.  In fact, it opens up a gap that someone was bound to fill.  I just didn't think it'd be filled this fast.

Introducing MetaBazaar.  Billing itself "The Online Metaphysical Marketplace," MetaBazaar has jumped in to fill the cosmic void left by eBay's retreat from the world of the weird.  Items are sorted out by category.  We have the following to choose from:

• Metaphysical Publications
• Astrology
• Crystal Healing
• Paranormal
• Psychic
• Reiki
• Tarot
• Wicca
• Other Spiritual Services

A few examples of some of the goods and services you can purchase here:

A SuCcEsS FULL BLUE Moon Blessing and Ritual for your shop (starting bid, $5.00) - On the next FULL moon I do ritual work for money and success. It is said that once the work is done the spell should manifest by the following full moon, although sometimes it could take longer. I honor the Celtic Goddesses of Avalon and request their blessings.  This blessing, spell and ritual includes my own spell (written by me) and the full ritual that I will do for your shop's blessing. This include asking the Divine to bring business to your etsy store's "door", to enhance money, increase sales and so on. I'll also burn a rune inscribed candle that will also be inscribed with your business name.

A Rose Petal Black Concave Scrying Pendant (starting bid, $44.00) - These Scrying pendants work well with the natural scrying methods...and can be used anywhere, at almost any time. They are inconspicuous and do not draw much attention, usually. They may be worn at all times, though it is advisable to keep them tucked in your clothing.  Seeing tools are very personal to your energy. They should never be left on display as a scrying tool after they have been charged, or used with others, if they are to be used for seeing.

A Large Beaded Smudge Feather (starting bid, $92.00) - Smudging is a way to revitalize the energy around you, it is not just aroma therapy, but with the proper intent, can alter the energetic state around you, in a room or area. All of our smudge/dance feathers are of course, one of a kind. The larger feathers like this one, are a bit harder to come by, so we can only make them when the feathers are available.

Attract Love Oil (starting bid, $5.00) - An oil for those wanting a little umph in their search for the right person. This lovely oil was created when the moon was right! Jasmine flowers in a sweet almond base with gardenia essential oil.! Dab a little on each wrist or anoint a red candle for some candle magick! Sealed with wax and decorated with a little red yarn and a charm that you can also wear as a necklace! (I recommend it!) Yarn and flower color may vary!

So I think you can see, from this sampling, that MetaBizarre (sorry, MetaBazaar.  My mistake) has really jumped in where eBay feared to tread.  Amazing what the profit motive will do.

It was inevitable, really.  Whatever else you can say about the practitioners of woo-woo, they have money, and they're happy to spend it on anything their Magick can Scry.  So we've moved way past caveat emptor into the realm of "if you're willing to spend your hard-earned money on this stuff, you deserve everything you get."

Hogwarts lite

Yesterday, we had the story of a Louisiana charter school whose textbooks use the Loch Ness Monster to "disprove evolution."  Today, we have a school in Montana that claims to be the world's "first real school of wizardry."  (Sources here and here.)

The Grey School of Wizardry, run by warlock-and-witch team Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart, is based in Helena, Montana.  Oberon states that the school's classes are mostly conducted online at the moment, with periodic weekend and summer workshops, but he currently has a bid in on a "castle in Helena" where he hopes to have a "real, complete educational facility, just like Hogwarts."

Now, lest you think that this is just a fanciful twist on a magnet school -- sorting kids into "houses," and throwing in a few magical trappings, but otherwise providing a conventional curriculum -- I hasten to correct your misapprehension.  These people are serious.  Let's look at a blurb on the Grey School of Wizardry's website, describing The Grimoire, one of the textbooks they use:

This essential handbook contains everything an aspiring Wizard needs to know. It is illustrated with original art by Oberon and friends, as well as hundreds of woodcuts from medieval manuscripts and alchemical texts, charts, tables, and diagrams. It also contains biographies of famous Wizards in history and legend; detailed descriptions of magickal tools and regalia (with full instructions for making them); spells and workings for a better life; rites and rituals for special occasions; a bestiary of mythical creatures; systems of divination; the Laws of Magick; myths and stories of gods and heroes; lore and legends of the stars and constellations; and instructions for performing amazing illusions, special effects, and many other wonders of the magickal multiverse.

I'd often made the comment that the zealots who want biology teachers to "present all sides of the controversy" over evolution never want chemistry teachers to do the same regarding alchemy.

I stand corrected.

On the site, which you should definitely peruse when you have time and a few brain cells that you don't mind losing, you will find:

• A full description of the program, including majors and minors and so on.  How'd you like to put that on your college application -- "in my school, I majored in Charms with a minor in Potions."  I bet that colleges would just knock themselves out to give you a scholarship!
• A complete faculty list, which includes people named "Alferian MacLir," "Willow Silverhawk," and "Rainbow Stonetalker."
• A description of the Grey Council, which governs the school.  The Grey Council is a "legendary Council of Wizards, Mages & Sages which has been a recurring theme through many tales and histories of Magick and Wizardry."  So don't even let it cross your mind that these are a bunch of delusional posers who think they can do magic.  Excuse me, magick.
• The Colors of Magick -- describing the properties of each color.  My favorite one was "clear" -- "clear is the color of numbers and mathemagicks, reflecting the transparency with which all creation is suffused with magickal formulae."  Whatever the hell that means.

So, if you have a child between the ages of 11 and 18, you can sign him/her up for classes, and soon, you might even be able to pack him/her on a train (boarding at platform 9-3/4, of course) for Helena!  What an opportunity for a quality education!

Okay, so maybe not.  Maybe these people are just as wrong-headed as our fundamentalist chums from yesterday, who think that teaching kids mythology is the best way to educate them about how the world really works.  It's easy to laugh at the presumptive witches and wizards of the Grey School of Wizardry, especially given that they (unlike the fundamentalists) aren't trying to foist their delusions on the rest of the country.  But if these people somehow get a charter, and turn the Grey School into an actual, accredited educational facility -- I think I'm just going to sit down and have a nice long cry.

Peopling the world with pyromaniac goblins

In many cases, the woo-woo view of the world seems to me to come from a sort of fantasy-land style wishful thinking.  Wouldn't it be lovely if our lives were ruled by the stars?  Isn't it a nice thought that our deceased loved ones could communicate comforting messages to us through the voice of a medium?  Wouldn't it be grand if deep down, there was a pattern, that all of the craziness and chaos we see around us actually meant something?

It seems, however, that there are (at least) two other motivations for espousing a counterfactual view of the world.  One comes from a kind of free-floating paranoia, and that's what gives rise to your conspiracy theorists, the sort of people who think that HAARP (the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program) caused the Japanese tsunami last year.  A third cause of woo-woo-ism, however, consists of jumping to a wild explanation because the rational, logical alternatives nearer at hand are simply too awful to contemplate.

Consider the recent goblin attacks in Zimbabwe.  (Source)

The news outlet that reported the story, ZimDiaspora, tells of the homestead inhabited by the Sithole and Muyambo families, which had been plagued by "mysterious occurrences."  Stones were thrown at family members by an unseen hand.  Dirt was put into cooking pots, ruining the meals.  And now, four buildings in the homestead have been burned to the ground, leaving the families "sleep(ing) in the open, while the few belongings they managed to salvage from the raging fire are heaped outside."

And what, pray tell, could wreak all of this havoc upon this poor family?  The answer, of course, is:  goblins.

Or a magic spell.  Something like that.  One of the household's members, 52-year-old Sarah Muyambo, said that magic was definitely a possibility, because a "traditional healer" had told her that her son, Enoch (29) had "laid his hands on some money-making magical charms and things are now backfiring."  Of course, another member of the homestead said he had seen "snake-like creatures wearing sunglasses, a suit and a pair of shoes" near the houses, so maybe it could be that.

Or, maybe not.

Let's quote another bit of the news story:  "Whenever one young male member of the family, Taso Sithole (16) entered each of the huts and as soon as he came out, that hut would unexpectedly go up in smoke and this happened on all the four structures that were burnt at the homestead."

So, what do you think is the most likely explanation here, for the tragic burning of the buildings in the homestead?

1)  Goblins did it.
2)  It was because a money-making magic charm backfired.
3)  A snake-like creature wearing shoes and sunglasses set the fires.
4)  It was a teenage boy, who amazingly enough was on the scene every time it happened.

Okay, I've been a teacher for 25 years, and I've known a lot of teenage boys -- I even helped to raise two of them.  And one thing that seems universal is that teenage boys like to set things on fire.  That a teenage boy would burn down four houses in his own homestead does seem pretty extreme, even by ordinary teenage-boy-standards -- honestly, it seems to point to a dangerous pyromania, something considerably beyond the ordinary enjoyment of watching stuff burn up.  And I suppose that on some level you can understand why Taso Sithole's family isn't all that eager to consider this possibility.  But seriously -- goblins?  Snakes wearing shoes?  Magic spells?

It can't be easy to realize that someone in your family is deranged.  But it seems like, just for safety's sake, it is better to confront the painful truth than it is to make stuff up, peopling the world with pyromaniac goblins so that you don't have to face reality.  To quote Carl Sagan:  "Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy."