Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Where's a gnome when you need one?



I had my first real run-in with trolls on blogspot today.  (Luckily not on my blog)  I don't know why but I just assumed the troll problem wasn't as severe here.  And I still kind of stand by that statement (nothing beats the WoW forums).  But I was still kind of shocked to see my inbox explode overnight.

I know I've been on here a couple months now, but I still feel like a noob sometimes.  I'm used to LJ automatically keeping track of what I post to and emailing me the responses.  So 9 times out of 10 I forget to subscribe to blogs I commented on or check back later for responses.  Sometimes even if I remember to subscribe, I don't because the blog generates so many comments that it will flood my inbox (even without trolls).  I really wish blogger had a nesting feature so I'd only get the comments that were direct replies to mine.

Anyway, I was having an engaging conversation in one of the blogs I read and decided to subscribe so that I could stay on top of things for once.  I wake up this morning to find 40 new emails from this blog alone!  The blog has already been purged of  the name-calling, swear word laced rubbish, but there it was in my inbox in all its glory.  It was so bizarre.  I felt like I was privy to some clandestine information or something.  But it was also a bit of a deterrent from trying the subscribe feature again, at least for a little while.

Friday, July 9, 2010

AVIA's psychic vampire fact sheet; or the weird stuff I read as a teen.

One of my favorite websites when I was in high school was the Australian Vampire Information Association (AVIA).  They had vampire fact sheets on various subjects, classifieds, forums,  book reviews, short stories, and all sorts of other things.  I admit, some of the classifieds were hilarious.  I kept imagining a bunch of Vampire: The Masquerade larpers gone over the edge.  But a lot of other information they had on the site was fairly solid.  I still don't know why the site was taken down.  I'm pretty sure it disappeared before Australia's 2008 mandatory ban on like half the internet (wtf, Australia?).  But that doesn't mean it wasn't one of the first victims, before the ban went mandatory, or the victim of some other law or lawsuit.  (If anyone knows, PLEASE tell me)  Fortunately, thanks to the internet's magical way of preserving itself I was able to find this snippet on a search engine Jhonn introduced me to.  The following is not mine; it's solely the property of AVIA and whoever wrote it.  I present it to you merely in the interest of preserving internet occult history and feeding my pangs of nostalgia.



The term 'psychic vampire' is used to describe the siphoning off of a person's energy and vitality, perhaps to the point where health is impaired" (guiley, 1991:190). This is a simple definition which will serve our purpose. What must be understood is that the psychic vampire steals energy. Now this may seem to therefore put it in a different category than the regular vampire. Not so! A Burmese may differ from a Persian, but they are both cats. So it must be remembered that a psychic vampire is still a vampire.
Not all psychic vampires are malevolent creatures. Often they are unaware of the effect that they are having. Energy is constantly flowing from one person to another of from the environment in which we live. We feel "good" with some people, "drained" with others. A person with an excess of energy is "glowing", "radiant", or "high-spirited", whereas a person with an energy deficit is "down" or "low".
Now the "true psychic vampire is aware of his lack of energy, and of is ability to sap energy from others which he has developed with practice." (kaplan, 1984:157). They choose a victim and then go through a certain ritual, whether consciously or subconsciously, which will guarantee to put them in a position to steal energy. However, there are some people who just naturally absorb energy and have no idea that they are doing it. The steal energy from humans, other animals, plants and, as Dion Fortune reports, some electrical machines.
So how does one tell a psychic vampire? There are no hard and fast rules, however, there are some common characteristics that have been reported. Look for someone who's:
A complainer who belittles and likes to bring people down.
A pessimist.
A touchy/feely person, i.e. gives unwarranted or exaggerated physical signs of affection such as hugs, kisses, puts their arms around your shoulder, etc.
The center of attention, constantly, and seems deflated when they are not.
Any position of power but will give up greater power if it means losing physical contact with people, i.e. a sales rep refusing to be promoted to an isolated office job.
An intimidator.
Insistent on giving you some form of present, possibly something small, but it will be something that you will have to handle at some stage during the day. It could be anything from a book or a pen to car radio.
Seldom ill, and recovers from illness very quickly.
Very "draining" to be around.
Somehow always getting things to work out in their favour - people give them money, lend them material possessions and don't worry about getting them back, etc.
Eyes change colour at different energy levels - greys and dull, lusterless brown/hazel at low energy level to bright luminescent blues and greens while 'feeding' or at high energy levels.
A sensual, attractive person of high charisma. This does not necessarily mean physical beauty but they can appear young for their age.
Interested/fanatical about religion, the occult or the martial arts.
This is not a complete list by any standard and person exhibiting one or two of these characteristics is not necessarily a vampire. A person who exhibits most or all of them, however, would be a person to be wary of and if you work with this person, then it might be advisable to seek some form of protection.

We hope you enjoyed this sneak preview of Fact Sheet #10. The complete version, as well as other AVIA products, are available from our products page.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

relativism

Just a thought that came to mind tonight.

Back when I was frequenting a certain pagan community site *cough*, the boyfriend and I would get into discussions about objective truth in magick.  A lot of people on the site have a very "if it works for me, it must work" attitude.  I think in a lot of cases this can be true.  Your mind is your most powerful tool.  Simple unwavering belief can go a long way towards making something happen.  Sometimes it's all you need really, so the physical trappings become rather obsolete anyway.  Who cares which color candle you put out as long as it's the one that gets your mind thinking the right thoughts?

But as to the converse - well, allow me to use an example from Moral Philosophy to illustrate.  During a class on moral relativism my professor used this example to highlight a major problem with this theory.  Imagine that we are to accept every cultures' morality and make no judgments.  How can we as outsiders?  Now imagine a culture that takes babies, throws them up in the air, and catches them on bayonets for fun.  It's not a ritual sacrifice, or population control - at least not primarily.  Sometimes they just do this when they're bored.  So what do you think?  Are some things, at least under certain circumstances, universally wrong?(1)

Or try this angle - Can you fit a square peg into a round hole?  (And don't give me any BS about "well if the hole was big enough..."  You know the point I'm getting at, smartypants.)  There are some truths out there that I hope we would all agree on.  We live on this planet.  We have a sun and a moon.  I, or someone, has to pay my credit card bill every month.  If I want to make scrambled eggs, I have to crack open some eggs and find a suitable heated surface.  Sometimes that's the way it is with magick.  You can't make scrambled eggs in your freezer (and if you can, why haven't you made these godly powers known yet, huh?).  Sometimes you need to follow the damn recipe.  Sure, you can add your own flair (I like mine with cheese!) or substitutions, but you can't go and replace the eggs with pickles no matter how much those slimy green things call to you and your soul.  You're just not going to get the result you were shooting for.




1. I want to put a little footnote here for those unfamiliar with this particular philosophical debate.  It's very, very hard to work up an airtight argument for universal wrongs as well.  Take a gander at some stuff about Kant trying to universalize his maxims and arguments responding to it.  It can be hard to say something general is universally wrong without tacking a bunch of conditions on it.