Book Review; Atlas of Cursed Places.

Atlas of Cursed Places

A travel guide to dangerous and frightful destinations

Author:                          Oliver Le Carrer

Publisher:                      Black Dog & Leventhal

Type:                              Hard Cover

Pages:                             142

Genre:                            non-fiction (mostly, see below)

Published:                      2015

ISBN:                              9781631910005

 The book itself is really nice looking, its hardcover and is well made.  It has many beautiful maps, but no drawings or sketches of the buildings described sadly. 

 The introduction is a little off putting and i started to worry what i am in for with this one. It kind of implied that the biblical genesis is actual history. And insinuates that  billion people (that's almost everyone on earth) is judo-christian. It also strangely tries to separate the paranormal and supernatural from religion, which is really weird, whats more supernatural than magic and the Gods?

 But please do plow through this, the book isn't really trying to indoctrinate the innocent reader into any one religion, as later on it gives other Gods almost as much historical reality. It seems the meaning can sometimes be muddied by flowery prose.

 The book does use the antiquated BC/AD which doesn't add to its credibility, but is a common enough mistake to not effect the score too much. 

 The book looks at some interesting places like, islands, castles, villages, forests, tombs, cemeteries, marshlands, and delves into some haunted locations and the homes of some cryptids. Each entry has a few pages of information and at least one map of where the subject is located.

 Some of the most interesting places for me were, the Pine Barrens, Amityville, The Suicide Forrest, The Bermuda Triangle, and Eilean Mor Lighthouse. 

 As an example the book looks at Nuremburg and tells how a former SS Nazi barracks has become home to the High Commission for Refugees there.

 But on page 92 i read something incredibly distressing. The location is Nauru, and the last paragraph notes that it- 

"leased part of its modest surface area to Australia as a reception center for illegal immigrants." 

 I was shocked, i read those words again and again as tears came to my eyes. 

 Because i know that the reception refuges face on Nauru is not a nice one. Any person that arrives in Australia by boat is captured, and relocated to one of Australians off shore prison camps like Nauru. These poor men, women and children are not processed, our far right wing government (and center right opposition) have refused to ever allow any of them to resettle in Australia. These prison camps are designed as a punishment for trying to seek asylum in Australian, and as a deterrent from other refuges from attempting to do the same.

 Remember that these are not illegal immigrants, these are refugees seeking asylum in Australia, fleeing war, famine and terrorism.

 In these prison camps on Nauru and Manus islands, refuges face isolation, torture, lack of medical care, hopelessness, rape, assault, murder, and child abuse. As a result of the horrors they have fled and those inflicted upon them by indefinite incarceration without crime, charge or trial some of these poor people have self harmed and even committed suicide in order to free themselves from the unending horror.

 Please don't take my word for it, follow the links. Another disturbing aspect of this is that the ministers responsible for this horror are often promoted, and given even more power.

 While contacting the Coalition and Labor governments might help the only real solution is to vote Green in Australia as they are the only  party (of reasonable size) that have an even remotely humane refugee policy. 

A history of Nauru

Nauru human rights abuse 

Dutton promoted despite failure

Women on Nauru

Australian Human Rights Commission

The Greens Refugee Plan

 Okay, so in light of this horrific lack of research on the author, fact checker, and editors part it may surprise you to know that i do actually recommend this book. It is a nice looking book and is an interesting read. But the Nauru part is a great example of the need to check your sources, and to get your information from more than one source. It would be a good way to teach children the importance of this ability and it seems the ability to discern fact from lie (alternate fact) is more and more necessary as we know that the fascism of the Right gains power through ignorance.

 Please seek help if you need to talk about the horrors that refugees are facing at the hands of the Australian government.

News: Satanists curse Trump...really?

You can listen to an YouTube version of this post here.

Satanists curse Trump!

 Is a headline you may have seen recently. I implore you to remember where you saw headlines like this because they are fake news. i should point out that i am using the term fake news correctly here, that is to say that the news story is demonstrably incorrect and misleading. I am not using the trumpian definition of fake news which seems to be anything that is not pro-trump propaganda.

 I am referring to the spiritual of the world who are working good magic against the evil of the Trump administration. So what makes these news story's fake exactly? Firstly the claim that the movement aims to in any way curse Trump is simply untrue. The ritual was a binding ritual, which specifically designed to merely prevent Trump from doing harm. 
 I will point out here that anyone trying to counter this ritual is admitting that they want Trump to do harm, and are actively trying to aid Trump in causing harm. 

 A lot of the news story's refer to satanists and Satan worshipers participating in these rituals. Now while Satan worshipers are certainly not disallowed from participating, i find it difficult to imagine that these Satanist Christians would want to. Surely Satanists would be supporting the evils of the Trump administration not opposing them? And if Satanists are trying to prevent harm and other Christian sects are trying to stop the Satanists from preventing harm....then i think those other Christians need to have a good hard look at their own moral code.

 The ritual is to be performed on every every waning crescent moon which is not technically monthly. The spell will continue to be performed until he is removed from office which doesn't necessarily demand impeachment.
 Lets get it straight the ritual is not a curse, it is not evil! How could preventing someone from doing harm be an evil act? Its not even dangerous, if your really concerned about your spiritual safety or any "karmic" repercussions, you could add something like "harming none, and for the greater good of all" just before you say "so mote it be".  
 You could also just remove the lines "Heavenly hosts. Demons of the infernal realms" if those lines concern you. 
 Also if you follow any gods you would definitely add "In the name and by the power of (your deity's names)", after you list the elemental spirits. 
 In this way the divine will add their own power to your ritual and they will also filter your intent through their moral code. That seems to be the whole idea of this ritual its amorphous enough to be altered without losing intent. I do understand that this may be foreign for a lot of people who are not proficient in spiritual matters, but performing this ritual might enlighten many to the fact that there are other paths. 
 The  #MagicResistance / #BindTrump movement has a Facebook page and the actual ritual can be found here. Remember too that any spiritual advisers who are feeding you a fake narrative about this movement should be of concern, they may actually have little knowledge and couldn't be bothered to educate themselves or are possibly being actively deceitful.

 As an aside i had a lot of trouble just getting the headlines for this post. A lot of Christian websites never stop loading, they play advertisements constantly and they slowed my Internet to a halt if i opened more then one at a time. Some of them even played music?!?
 Don't forget to act in the mundane world to help those being oppressed by Trump and his supporters.
 I would also encourage any "sceptics" to actually study the science before making any uneducated or false claims.

 I implore those with magical knowledge who feel they have legitimate concerns or criticisms to produce their own version of this ritual. Below you can see the ritual modified in a way that should alleviate those concerned with accidentally doing any harm. I also tried to "tidy" the wording up a little and added specific references to divinity. Changes should be in bold. I provide this just as an example of such alterations and encourage you to check out the full ritual,. In fact only the spoken part of the ritual is shown below so you will need to reference the original.

RITUAL TO BIND TRUMP

(v. 2.2 with PRUDE edits)

(Light white candle)

"Hear me, oh spirits
Of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air
O (name deities)

And blessed spirits of our ancestors
Protect and aid me as i do this good work"

(Light inscribed orange candle stub)

"I call upon you good spirits, Elemental, Ancestor and Divine
To bind
Donald J. Trump
So that his malignant works may fail utterly
That he may do no harm
To any human soul
Nor any Animal, or any Environment

Bind him so that he shall not break our polity
Usurp our liberty
Or fill our minds with hate, confusion, fear, or despair
And bind, too,
All those who enable his wickedness
And those whose mouths speak his poisonous lies

I beseech thee, spirits, bind all of them
As with chains of iron
Bind their malicious tongues
Strike down their towers of vanity"

(Invert Tower tarot card)

"I beseech thee in my name
(Say your full name)

And In the name of (name deities) 

In the name of all living things
Of all the spirits of place
In the name of Justice, Liberty, Love, Equality And Peace

Bind them in chains
Bind their tongues
Bind their works
Bind their wickedness"

(Light the small photo of Trump from the flame of the orange candle stub and hold carefully above the ashtray)

(Speak the following loudly and with increasing passion as the photo burns to ashes) 

"Harming none, and for the greater good of all
By (name deities) divine hand
Donald J. Trump and those who abet him are bound  from doing any harm!

So it shall be!"

(Blow out orange candle, visualising Trump blowing apart into dust or ash*)

(Pinch or snuff out the white candle, ending the ritual)

Book Review: The Witches Almanac 2015

The Witches Almanac

Issue 34 Spring-2015-2016 

Fire the Transformer 

Author:                               Various

Publisher:                            The Witches Almanac    

Type:                                    Soft Cover

Pages:                                   192

Genre:                                  Non-fiction

Published:                            2014

ISBN:                                   978-1-881098-15-7

Source:                                Independently purchased 

The book itself is of good quality and has black and white pictures thorough. It is in the style of a magazine in that it has a variety of articles and entry's. 
It has no index, but does use correct non-bigoted dating standards. The fire the transformer theme seems to be almost non existent, strangely enough.

There is a huge variety of articles, including entry's on Oarfish, The Voynich Manuscript, Tasmanian tiger, a haunted lighthouse, Orisha, short fables, H.P. Lovecraft, Yule, Walpurgisnacht, Dorje, animal lore, ghosts and love, to name just a few.

There are a few entry's on Cryptozoology, one being about lumberjack folklore unfortunately has an unnecessary mocking tone . The folklore always suggested to me to be an imaginative explanations for the odd sights seen in the woods. 
It is amusing that one of the "hoaxes" discussed (the furred trout) has actually been proven to be a real thing. I think it should be a lesson to all writers to tone down the mocking and just report the facts, in order to minimise embarrassment later..

The article o reincarnation may also be a little out of date, as there is a lot of evidence currently for "past" lives. 

A moon phase calendar does take up a lot of space, but it is speckled with seemingly random bits of lore.

There is an interview with Olivia MMelian Durdin - Robertson founder of the Fellowship of (The Goddess) Isis.

Buying a book like this is a bit of a risk as the content will always change. There is always be a risk that you wont like everything within the book, but you should like somethings i am sure. I would buy another issue for sure, and i would recommend it to anyone interested in the supernatural or spiritual.