Various Topics

Today's post is dedicated to a few random thoughts and catching up on some questions that I haven't answered yet.

Random Thought #1 -- Hedonism

A friend posted on Facebook that she thought hedonists were lucky because they were not concerned with spiritual issues and experienced all this 'pleasure'. I can empathize with  her point as at one time I agreed with her.  I no longer agree.

To me, both approaches to life are the result of a particular bias towards pleasure. Those that view pleasure has unhealthy spiritually have not yet learned that the Logos is just as present in the body as anywhere else. Pleasure comes from the Logos itself. It is as if these people value pain over pleasure. In reality, these things are equal. Each has its uses. Furthermore, these folks are often adopting a puritanical Christian viewpoint, whether they be Christian or not, and worse yet, do not understand the theology and practices of those whom view the ascetic life of value.

The hedonist is not anti-spiritual by definition, though he or she could be by personality. The trap of the hedonist is the idea that their self-worth is enhanced by the number of sexual conquests; whom he or she can drink under the table; when he has better toys; or a nice house etc. Furthermore, many that live this life-style simply can not say no to their pleasure of choice. This is little more than the act of a slave.

Those that can sleep with whom they will, making wise choices of partner(s), drink when they will, making wise choices of time, place, location and amount, and other like hedonistic acts are simply living life through its pleasures and pains. I see no harm in that. Denying oneself sex or a drink or whatever one's pleasure out of a sense of guilt or biased judgment may be as harmful as indulging for one is denying a part of oneself.

Random Thought 2 - Of the Gods

John Michael Greer makes the point in "A World Full of Gods"  that an omnipresent one-god philosophy breaks down when acts of injustice occur and "God" is no where to be found and does not correct the situation. However, polytheism expresses this situation just fine when it says the Goddess Justice was simply not there at the time.  That is a very simplistic redaction of his argument. Those into intellectual studies should read this book to enhance or augment their intellectual understanding of polytheist philosophy.

The philosophies are incomplete in assuming the other reality does not co-exist at the same time. I've experienced gods. Those that are immanent can and do manipulate the reality of their followers be it for good or ill as they have plans that do not necessarily take our own desires into account. The more transcendent gods can be present but not in a way that alters reality in a concrete way that we can perceive. If this can occur, then an omni-present god could behave the same way.

Question 1: How Did I Get My HGA

My practice has been primarily through a Golden Dawn lodge. After doing quite a bit of personal alchemy there, I used Crowely's Bornless Ritual daily for a couple of weeks. That brought about contact. I must be clear that I have had contact, I know his name,  his sigil, his history. However, there is a difference between that and full continual presence this I do not have yet in a way that I can perceive. That is why I will say things like "he is hiding something," or "he seemed distant" or other such things. When full contact occurs it is like being with a immanent god form. Someday, I will have fully actualized the relationship, not yet.

Question 2: Poke Runyon Technique

I have tried to explain this various times in this space but I still get questions about what I mean. Poke Runyon has a book and DVD out explaining his technique. It is worth a read for the moderately experienced practitioner as well as the book buyer that reads but does little magick. In these works he outlines a system with its own practices and tools etc. I do not criticize his system as I have never participated in it nor have I ever met Poke. I do find his idea to be interesting. Warning the LBRPs done on the video are a bit questionable and even a bit silly looking.

He has popularized, to the chagrin of some, that goetic 'demons' are to be evoked through a mirror that is gazed into by the practitioner until the point that the practitioner's face morphs into that of the spirit. Some find this idea to be dangerous. Poke does not as he ascribes to the theory that demons are merely a part of the subconscious. I do not agree with him on this issue. However, I do not feel the practice is as dangerous as some would have you believe assuming your are experienced enough at your Work.

Since I do not practice his system, when I say that I am borrowing his technique, I am inscribing a sigil on a mirror (which is not what he would do), gazing at my reflection in the mirror, until I trance out. I have only received the barest glimpse of a spirit this way. Though, I did see a perfect white pentagram once. I do enter a trance state pretty fast doing things that way.

Perhaps I should say that I perform a bastardized form of his practice. Oh, wait, I'm a mage, I can't say bastardized, I should say 'redacted'.

Does Practical Magick Work?

There is a discussion in one of the blogs comment section where someone is arguing that practical magick doesn't work or if it does it doesn't work as often as magicians suppose. He further goes on to say that the path of practical magick leds to delusion.

To take up the last part first, all paths of magick led to delusion if the would be mage lacks the necessary skepticism to judge the claims of his own ego, imperfect communications with spirits, wishful thinking and the like.

I think he also made the point that such magick is selfish. He's right. So what? Anything we want that we don't need is selfish. For instance, I want to watch a baseball game on TV rather than work in a soup kitchen helping humanity. That is selfish and maybe even lazy. However, if I become lonely and bored to the point of depression and use practical magick to gain more friends or even a girlfriend is that selfish or merely understanding what I need and using my hard earned skills to obtain that? I leave you to decide.

Theurgy is selfish too. When I seek the divine, or as my friend says, "to glow in the dark", I am seeking to have my own wants and needs fulfilled. It is unlikely my activity will feed the hungry or aid some starving soul. However, the after affects of theurgy do help the world. When I make myself a better person or have a stonger connection to higher aspects of my soul, I have a tendency to do less damage to my fellow humans. By not causing that damage, I am making their lives better.

As for it practical magick working, of course it does. However, magick rarely works for those that don't feel like it should or that doing so makes them feel diminished. The very soul, which is the source of all magick, recoils.

When I was learning thought-form magick, also called artificial elementals, I would send thought forms with specific job: Show me what I need to learn about situation X; What is the true nature of my conflict with "Y"; "Show me what I need to explore about..." I trusted my soul to imbue the force with my deep needs and reflect them back to me. This always occurred. However, it is so subjective, that any skeptic could say that I just picked up a random conversation or assigned meaning to something that simply didn't exist. I cannot argue with these folks except at an instinctual level which is pointless as their monkey mind can not accept the thoughts of my own.

Practically speaking, magick is harder for me to push aside. For instance, just to make sure that I wasn't deluding myself with my theurgic thought forms, I did something 'practical'. Practically worthless really but it was fun and showed me the magick was working as intended. I noticed that I was the only baseball fan at work. I've never had a conversation at work regarding baseball or if I had they were so rare as to not be memorable.   I did a thought form that was charged with, "let someone instigate a conversation about baseball at work," or something like that.

Within a day or two, someone was directed to move into my building. I walked by his office and said hello and he said mentioned the San Francisco Giant memorabilia up on his wall. For those who are not in the US that is a professional baseball team. I am a fan of their rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers. We had a brief chat on baseball and I went on my way knowing the magick worked. Two hours later he was packing his stuff up. He'd been told to move to the wrong building and was moving out. That is far too much of a coincidence. That magick had effect on the real world. Such "coincidences" happen too often to be coincidences. Practical magick does work.

That said, those that use it too regularly simply get trapped in cycles. Getting $50 whenever you need it to pay they rent, simply keeps you unambitious. You always get by but it gives one an excuse not to further one's life by schooling or making the effort to find better employment.

A magical career without a long term theurgic purpose is pointless. Well, perhaps not, as the theurgic effect will likely happen over time anyway unless you fight it. However, a magickal career without thaumaturgy, removes a hard earned tool from the tool box of life. I don't see why such assets should be utterly abandonned. Though, I do think they should be used judiciously and with aquired wisdom.

Attitude Change?

When I presented at Pantheacon this year, I made a few of those self-printing business cards. Across the top it said something a bit cheesy like Magician - Seeker - Tarot Reader. I had to put something there as there was too much white space when left blank.

The word seeker bothered me. I have self-described that way for a long time. Spiritual Seeker. It doesn't feel right anymore. I have found quite a few things on my journey, wonderful things. One can not seek what has been found. I am not saying that I've found everything or even a large portion of whatever it was I was seeking. I am not a spiritual guru, the next messiah or even that much of a guide. "Seeker" no longer fits though. I count that as a mark of progress.

There isn't much to replace that with. Maybe next time "Doer of Strange Things" will be up at the top of that card.

I am also thinking of putting my real name and picture in this space maybe someday that will happen.

Layout Changes

I've made a few changes to the layout. I don't think this will effect those that subscribe in a reader. If it does and makes things a pain in the neck, please let me know. For those that view via a web page, please let me know what you think. If I get enough comments to change it, I will do so. This space is as much for you as for me.

I have having some issues with subscribe features and feeds. I am working on them. 

Expect some posts soon. I'm getting that writing feeling again. 

Dearth of Posts

Regular readers may have noticed a dearth of posts of late. I have been pushing into some new areas and found myself to have had to deal with massive allergies, back issues, distractions, personal issues and the like. In short, that either means it is going well or the universe will smack me upside the head as hard to tell me I'm going in the wrong direction. Who knows?

I am doing some work but really not up to keeping up the chronicle of late.  I am sure that will change soon. It always does.

Magick has become work of late. It was getting easy there for a while but now I have to work to get motivated and the like. I am looking forward to baseball season this year. I need something pointlessly mundane in my life right now and it will be that.

Unanswered Questions

There have been several questions in the comments section that  I haven't reached yet. I've been off work and on meds for most of the last week due to my back going south on me. I figure the least it could do was wait to go south until the Dodgers are playing and we could go together. Unfortunately, my back had other ideas.

So, I will get to them and a few other things as I get to feeling better. Today was my first really good day but I'm still not 100%.

Stupidity

Let's start with stupidity. black mirror and scrying through the mirror. The techique is Poke Runyon's in that you're supposed to see the entity in the mirror through you're own distorted face. My vision has never been that good. I did get a perfect pentagram once and some maybes in the mirror.

I then developed a plan to have all the sigils I needed on paper and hole punching the junction points. This would allow me to mark the junction points on the mirror quite easily. From there, all I had to do was connect the dots.

I made a few of them before I realized I was making sigils of their names using the rose cross. Problem? I was doing planetary spirits whose sigils are derived from Kameas! This is equivalent to mispelling an entities name. This is a serious error for a magician. Serious fricken error. Fortunately, I didn't call up anything using this flawed method.

Sharing the Love

Last night, this blog was honored by reaching the century mark in subscribers. While in reality that is little different from the 99, it is fun to see the triple digits.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank fellow bloggers Jason Miller, Rufus Opus, My Gal, Lavanah, Faust (or whatever he calls himself now) and  even former friend WitchDoctorJoe. I've learned a great deal from you all. Also, I'd like to thank the various commentators over the years that forced me to clarify my own thinking, write in a clearer manner, explore new avenues and offered voices of encouragement.

I've been able to be honest in this space with very few abusive comments left by readers. Given the unfiltered web, I find that to be amazing.That allows me to make a post about my own utter stupidity from time to time, one of which will be arriving in your inboxes in the relatively near future.

Thanks again.  

My Issue

I've posted a lot about my obsession issue with my former group. Though, I have not provided the dirty details. I am not going to do that in this space.

However, I think I found a foothold the other night. Gained a clue about what spawned the obsession. I give this credit because I have noticed this about myself in other areas and never applied it to this and because, I think this would come appear to come out of left field for anyone that knows the nature of the conflict. When answers are counter-intuitive and yet make perfect sense and feel real, I gave them a little more weight.

There may be hope. Call me an optimist. 

Follow-Up

The saga with the demon-aided car continues. Once it left my domain, it broke down repeatedly, got towed and got stolen.

Once I contacted  said spirit and instructed it to lay off, he's being cooperative. At least as soon as I did, we found out the car was not stolen. 

It was parked at an apartment complex by My Gal. It was towed by a security company. That company didn't have authority to tow it, didn't have any paperwork and didn't notify law enforcement. The company defied a deputy sheriff who told them to give it back or their license would be in jeopardy. The apartment complex corporate vp is fighting with the security company and the tow company to get it back. The security company is pretending not to be responsible. The tow company is being what appears to be illegally defiant and the apartment corporation is at its wits end.

The gist of the spirit's take is that he worked under orders given. However, once he is in contact with something (that then falls outside those parameters) his natural tendencies take over. There is not an emotional attachment as Jason Miller seemed to think I am implying. My Gal and I have parted on friendly terms. There was no poorly done magick on my part that RO is implying. This spirit has and continues to work well on my behalf. This is simply a spirit who's natural tendencies are not very helpful.

The problem may have been created because My Gal contacted my version of that spirit to gain its cooperation with the car. It obeyed her because she was part of my household at the time. However, she never called the spirit herself and enlisted it to her service. I am reminded of a chapter in one of Lon's books -- Never Share a Demon with a Friend.

At this point, this is my theory. My Gal may have to call it up and deal with it. If so, I will feel sorry for the demon. You do not want to be on the other end of a pissed of My Gal. Nor do you want to be on the other end of a female Thelemite. Well, you may want to be at THAT other end but not the angry other end, if you know what I mean.

Whatever their origins, the spirits of the lesser key are somewhat problematic in nature. I would not call any that I have dealt with evil. I prefer the term fractured.

As for RO's problem with his, well, this is why we disagree on how to work with them. I do not give them vast amounts of attention and energy by lighting candles to them regularly and coming up with a mission for them on  regular basis. Mine have one regular mission each. On occasion, I require further assistance from them. But for the most part, I treat them like my staff at work. I give them an assignment and get out of their way, with some discreet supervision of course.

Finally, one of the things I have learned through my work with magick is that you treat a thing for what it is. You do not pet an opossum

like you would a domestic cat, even if you have named the opossum, Fluffy.

(Pictures: Opossum from http://www.aaanimalcontrol.com and Cleo the cat is My Gal's fluffy cat.)

A Dream

Last night, I felt like one feels after a good initiation. My brain was cracked open a bit. Nothing negative mind you, just a like one is open. I went to bed like that and was in an initiation ritual dream. There was someone, Buddhist like in charge. Someone else tried to advance in the initiation but was held back by two women bearing swords. They pointed as someone filled a large class jar, of the dimensions of a large seven day candle, with orange wax.

yes, I get the hint. More work with Hod to balance out my mercury issues.

Oh Goetia!

It seems some time ago, I called up on them thar beings from the Lesser Key. This is a spirit of house and home, protection, that sort of thing.

My Gal was in desperate need of a car at one point and I had an old junker laying around and reasoned that since she and it were part of my house and home, this spirit should take care of the car too. The bill to get it running was $150 when the previous estimate was $450. It had it's problems but whenever My Gal mentioned the spirit's name all became well.

My relationship with My Gal ended last July. She moved out in January and immediately had problems with the car. She fixed it several times and we kept delaying the  transfer of title in case we had to junk it. Finally she moved to a new city many hours away. The car broke down on the freeway. She towed it to the hotel. The hotel she was staying at towed the car as the license number wasn't on the registration card of the hotel. The tow company was a nightmare.

Today, the car was stolen.

This is the second time I've seen a car obtained through Lesser Key spirits that has had these issues, including being stolen, when the relationship split up. Even though the first vehicle I witnessed was called by one party, given to a second party when it wasn't needed anymore and was stolen when that second party's relationship ended.

Lesser Key spirits will kick you while you are down. I can see how my relationship ending resulted in the ordeals they did for My Gal. After all, I called the spirit to aid with my house and home and she and the car are not longer part of that. I do not understand the link to the other example. Either way, it appears this class of spirit will kick folks when they are down.

So far, very little problems for me but the odd details have been duly noted.

Presentation

I spoke on the Golden Dawn today at four Anthropology courses at Fresno State University. The talks went well. No one fell asleep or died. I have done this before. Yet tonight I am exhausted.Tired. Tired. Tired. Stress from speaking? No, I don't think so.

I am tired because I feel spiritually stuck. I feel like I am not growing. My HGA who has been more vocal of late disagrees and points to a couple of major life steps. I can see them as that but those things don't fundamentally assist my growth in any way I can see at the moment. My mentor has been silent and non-communicative for some time. My drive appears to be fizzling in some ways.

Psychosis

And my obsession returns, two days now pretty bad.

On Goetia

I hate to comment on RO's personal tragedy. I've tried to avoid it but given that he is putting it out there in public repeatedly, I feel it is okay to comment.


Fr RO posted a bit on the Goetia today. In that post he said, "It wouldn't have mattered if I were using Agrippa's Spirits of the Planetary Tables, the Archangels of the Spheres, or lighting candles in front of icons of Saints. Any system that I used and gave such generic and open-ended direction would have as much potential to burn down the house. Magic isn't a fucking game. I played fast and loose, and I got burned. That's how it works."

I would disagree. It is very unlikely that contacting a undine (water spirit) will result in your house getting burned down. Flooded maybe, but not burned down. While that is a bit tongue in cheek, the point remains that a given class of spirits react in ways appropriate to that class.

The Goetia are not whole spirits. They are not gods. They may be remnants of a god's nephesch or maybe even their ghosts. However, they are not gods. They are fractured spirits of some kind. At best they are not on your side because they are ignorant of your needs but their ignorance can be harmful. Even if they want to help, it comes out like your grandma obligating you to go on a date her next door neighbor's kid whom she thinks you are too shy to approach. The truth is you have no interest or worse, dislike for this person. Grandma means well but you're in for a rotten evening.

At worst these spirits are out to do you harm and will do so at any given opportunity.

The magician's job, should he evoke one of these, is to educate the kind ones in a proper relationship to the magician. In the case of a harmful spirit, the magician's job is to control it. Perhaps in time a proper relationship can be formed but make no mistake, this fellow is not your friend.

The first sign of a goetic spirit working going awry is obsession. The constant need to work with the spirit, give it energy, give it praise etc. This is what will get you burned eventually. This can be seen in ROs work by simply reading his blog.  The error was in the obsession. The obsession led to playing fast and loose.

A more subtle sign is forgetting it is present at all in your life. Untended gardens grow weeds. Untended demons crack the asphalt and allow weeds to infiltrate your foundation.

He is correct in that open ended generic directions are problematic. He is right that any class of spirit can manifest harmfully. However, classes of spirits tend toward their average behavior. The average behavior of a demon is, well, demonic!

I love RO's work and RO has been a great help to me and I am not putting him down. Mistakes happen. Magicians rise above them. Show me a magician that hasn't erred and I will show you one that hasn't done more than read a few books.  We all create our personal abominations. It is part of the work and I respect RO for doing his portion of the work. However, the spirits of the lesser key are dangerous and should be handled with care.

Taphqiel Angel of Binah

I used the Poke Runyon technique here.

I did get a very brief glimpse of a helmed head. This would not have made sense to me had I not has the a previous revelation about three aspects of myself. He she or it told me that I needed to speak to a Saturn angel rather than it. But it did say that it would explain of those aspects to me. It tried but I could not understand. I asked it to show me in another way. It told me I'd see the proper aspect of this in my life towards the end of the month.

Edit: It did tell me that I could work with the forces of Saturn any day of the week. 

Personal Confusion

I have always been merciful to people in trouble. As a teenager, I convinced a my mother to take in someone whose dad kicked her out of the house at 19. I was fourteen or so. Aside from drinking my mother's wine, which had sat untouched for years anyway (mom was a beer drinker), there were no ill effects.

Since that time, I've let ex-girlfriends sleep on my couch (got punched), let someone very poor but leaving her spouse live in my home virtually free (she grew pot in my house thereby putting it at risk of legal issues), loaned someone who needed a car desperately my car (and got put through the ringer but it looks like there will be no great financial damage) and of course, the mercy I showed a prior group member was a spectacular kick in the crotch. At least, that mercy I understand was off base.

So, I'm struggling with the idea of why when I help someone with major life issues  I end up getting kicked for it? It doesn't seem to matter if someone is trying to do harm or not (only one did), I always get kicked.  I'm thinking this has something to do with Kedemel's words about my relationships not being in proper alignment. The words made a lot of sense in some very obvious ways. However, I'm not sure how that is a factor here.

I could be cold and callus and not help folks when they are in desperate need. However, I do not want to live like that. On the other hand, I don't want to get kicked for being kind either. Maybe I am too merciful and don't have enough severity. Those at work though would say the opposite. So, maybe it is balanced in the whole but not in it component parts. Maybe it has nothing to do with mercy or severity but something else.

I am at a bit of a loss on this one.

Ask My Anything: Astral Projection

Can you share your experience mastering astral projection? This question came from previous posts on the Stavish book which started this blog.

Well, I'd be happy to as soon as I actually master that. I had a few experiences with Stavish that lead me to believe in his methods. I'd recommend him highly. My problem with astral projection isn't technique. It lay with the issue I mention from time to time here.

I became 'distracted' after my initial successes. I distracted myself unconsciously. Though, if you go back and read those early blogs, you'll notice that I knew or thought I knew the problem lay within, that I was distracting myself. I have a fear of reliving that past trauma that occurred as I was approaching the gate so long ago, so much work ago, so many tears ago.

I posted about the lot reading that revealed this to me here. I've been doing trance work or as close as I can get to it. In hopes that prophecy holds true. I know she was right. What I don't know is if I will over come. Can I face that fear, that terror, another emotional break down that occurred at the malicious hand of another. This is something I do not know. This is something that will define my career as a magician. I have a lot of skills. I have the focus. I have the aspiration. I have the persistence. But do I have this? Consciously, yes, but that hasn't been my problem.

I know I will work on it until old age. Only time will tell. Only time will tell if I have the courage. Only time will tell if I ever have the courage to let anyone close enough to do that kind of damage again. The test is the same yet in two forms. To the test I say, A Double Welcome to You.

Time is running out.

Ask Me Anything: Ritual Work

Question 1: How do you take time to practice ritual, given all of the ordinary daily task that we humans have? 

First of all, I don't watch television. That is a big help. Also, I do not have children and that is a big help as well. But even those were issues, I'm not sure that life would be all that different unless they were young kids. A LBRP, BRH and a middle pillar really take how long? Maybe 15 minutes. All one has to give up is 1/2 of one TV show. It isn't all that much. If you throw in two short meditations a day you're up to 45 minutes. That is only 3/4 of the time spent watching one hour long drama. It is simply a matter of priorities.

 Question 2: Do you find it useful to “Internalize” ritual (so that you’re outwardly walking down the street but inwardly doing something else entirely)? 

I've done that and yes I find it helpful as an aid to developing and maintaining concentration.  It is also helpful to feel how the rituals/meditations work in different environments. I don't do it as often as I should. I will take this as a handy reminder.

(For those that don't read every day: Ask Me Anything has been stolen from a couple of friends of mine that have blogs. Simply ask anything in the comments section and I will answer here. I will not post your question in comments unless you are anonymous but I will answer them in a post.)

Ask Me Anything: Music of the Goetia

In a follow-up to the Music post, someone that knows My Gal, asked what bands the goetic spirits like.

As far as background, I noticed they really liked it when a heavy metal song came on the radio and I cranked it up. Actually, it was mostly just one of them but the other joined in as well. You haven't lived until you've watched a demon dance. The first tune I noticed this with was Run for the Hills by Iron Maiden. It is a song about Native Americans running from slaughter. They've also boogied to Judas Priest, Breaking the Law.

I'm not sure if they boogie to the music or how it makes me feel. I know another goetic magician that noticed them boogieing to music as well but that is not my story to tell.

Ask Me Anything: Enochian

Question: What is your opinion on the various methods of employing Enochian Magick? For instance, Anton LaVey suggested the use of the Enochian Keys for obtaining specific, material goals, yet Crowley and the Golden Dawn employed the keys for very different purposes (ie, 'vel Chanokh'). Do you think that employing the Enochian Keys in the method of LaVey is dangerous and perhaps contrary to their original intent, or may it be considered a pragmatic and (some suggest) effective outgrowth of Enochiana (perhaps even revealing the original intent of the keys)? Thank you for your response. 93 93/93

When I learn magick tech, I learn magick tech. I try not to be overly concerned with what other people think it ought to be used for. However, I know enough of the history to know that Dee and Kelly were not successful using their own system for material ends. That may be a clue as to what it 'should' be used for. Probably not though. It should be used in whatever manner coincides with the magician's abilities and temperament.

As you read this, keep in mind I have only worked with the horizontal, vertical names on the tablet of union. I have also called two angels at once from the point their lines connected.

When I experienced the Enochian angels, they manifested as instructors in  how the universe was created. At no time did they hint that I could call on them for specific magickal practices. Well, save one. That basically told me to use a specific name as a matter of defense but warned me it must be in dire circumstances. To me, this name is basically the nuclear bomb of defense.

That being said. I learned some very practical magick from the Enochians. After the series of rites ended, I found myself listening to each of the horizontal angels of fire, air and water download a particular meaning of the tarot cards to me and how all the pips fit together. This is the basis for the talks on the tarot that I have done. Furthermore, the unique understanding of the aces has been of great practical benefit magically speaking. I can change almost anything by placing an ace between me and something else.

I am unfamiliar with LeVey's use of the keys. Even if I was familiar, commenting would be outside my area of competency.  I do not have enough experience with a variety of keys.

Enochian tip: In my experience they do not impart new information. They simply put things you already know together in new and interesting ways. Therefore, it is my theory that the more educated you are, the more you'd get from them. 

Ask Me Anything

Feel free to ask me anything on any topic in comments. If you are not anonymous, I will not post your comment for all to see your name. I will simply answer as I did above.

Ask Me Anything: Music

What is your favorite type of music?

When I was a teen I loved the Ozzy Osbourne/Randy Rhoads combination, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and like bands. Rush was my favorite. Iron Maiden actually made reading cool for me as they did a song called To Tame a Land on their Piece of Mind album. That was inspired by the Dune novel by Frank Herbert.

Once I got a bit older, I found myself still loving that music but my brain just couldn't take it. I moved to classic rock. I never really found anything that inspired me as much as that old heavy metal. So, I became stuck there. In an effort to literally shake up my mind, I've moved my radio listening to NPR. I enjoy the classical music but I don't have enough of an ear to remember what piece of music I like or not or even which composer. I am trying to pick that up. Music has to be complicated to get my imagination going.

I do find myself attracted to some really moving Celtic tunes and Celtic rock. I don't want to imply I'm into the pagan Celtic thing because I'm not.

I've listened to some jazz. It is too discordant for me but I'm still trying to figure it out to create new brain patterns more than anything else.

Ask Me Anything

A couple of blogger friends are encouraging people to "ask me anything" and it has resulted in some interesting posts. So, here goes, comment to this post or any other and ask me anything. I will do my best to answer your question in this space.