Kimberly Steele

The meme above popped up on social media a few weeks ago, and like many pictures, it is worth at least a thousand words. I wasn’t able to find the artist for proper accreditation. My apologies in advance if this is your artistic creation — the first place I saw it co-opted without any discernible permission was Facebook.

As I’ve said, this meme packs a few tons of baggage. First and foremost, it reveals the transparent longing of feminist women for power. It also reveals how profoundly naive they are to the concept of blowback.

I have a natural talent for cursing that I no longer use. This talent was remarkable enough that I used to feel I was powerful because of it, and I suppose in a way I was powerful. I don’t curse anymore because cursing is a Faustian bargain. To be good at curses, you must dwell on the plane of curses.

Trigger Happy, Trigger Sad

A feminist ex-friend of mine became triggered when I mentioned that quote from Faust that John Michael Greer often drops in the context of dwelling on the lower astral plane. Let me give you a little backstory. My ex-friend, a long-time vegan, has been obsessed with Donald Trump since 2015, when he began to present a palpable threat to Hillary Clinton’s ascension to the presidency. She fancies herself a born witch, whatever that means, despite being technically atheist. Many of my vegan feminist ex-friends fancy themselves as witches, despite a near complete ignorance of magic. For them, they are witches because they say so and occasionally costume themselves in a manner that suggests sitcom, nose-wiggling witchcraft. My ex-friend had posted her umpteenth Trump-deranged rant, but this time it was wishing disease and death on Trump and his family. I responded (responding was my first mistake, never engage a TDS sufferer) with this quote from Mephistopheles:

“Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.”

My ex-friend is an anxious person. She does not sleep well if she sleeps at all. She is one of the kindest and most hardworking people you’ll ever meet as long as you aren’t Donald Trump or one of his supporters. Before the advent of Donald Trump as president, she was easily able to keep a level head.

Now she posts about Trump approximately eight to twelve times a day. Nobody needs to send her a demon. She is already infested with them. Perhaps, like me, she has the uncanny power to curse. Her curses may not be working on Trump himself, but that malevolent energy lands somewhere. Curses, contrary to what atheists believe, do not occur in a vacuum. What she has failed to understand is that she probably has hexed a Trump supporter successfully even though she could not get to Trump himself. I’m nearly certain that in flyover country or perhaps in her own neighborhood, a Trump supporter has received a chunk of what she wished on Trump and all of his supporters. Perhaps the recipient was the young man at the now-defunct car dealership on Auto Row in the town where I work who is scrambling to make ends meet, his debts closing in around him like the jaws of a trap. Perhaps it was the woman who died alone of cancer in a nursing home in April of this year, unable to see her children and grandchildren during her last moments because of COVID lockdown. Perhaps it was the eighteen year old kid who died in a car accident Saturday on Route 38. They were all Trump supporters, so surely they deserved it, right?

I understand the foul place where she lives because I used to live there too. There’s no getting out of it unless you:

A. Understand that wishing harm on others has dire consequences for you and the people around you.
B. Solemnly resolve not to do that anymore.

Shamanic Shysters™ Inc.

My ex-friend is at least not so tacky as to label herself as a shaman after taking a few online courses. She does not go the full monty like some by prancing around making sigils to hex Trump. Imagine the actual shamans of North America’s past rolling in their burial mounds if they could see the for-profit workshop shysters pushing a two day Shamanic Dreamwork™ course on gullible rich housewives! The idea of becoming an "accredited" shaman in two days would not be nearly as offensive if these weren’t the same desperately affluent people throwing hexes at Trump and his supporters. I wrote a song once that asks “Why do you hurt when we all want to heal?” Did I miss a memo or are shamans supposed to be healers, whether we are talking about shamans past or shamans present?

Like Mickey Mouse in Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice, an amateur hour atheist witch might have some beginner’s luck, but it is not without blowback. I don’t think it is a coincidence that every leftist I used to pal around with is a barely-hidden smoking crater of depression, anxiety, and anger. Directing that anger at Donald Trump feels good to them, but it has time and time again proven to be an exercise in pointlessness. Trump would be on the brink of being deposed like Jimmy Carter was in 1979 if only the Left had built upon their few remaining strengths instead of throwing their force into nastiness, spite, and literal black magic rituals.

They see themselves as reserves of deadly power and technically they could be correct. Their bad intentions most likely reach the less fortunate Trump supporters by way of synchronicity and karma. Unbeknownst to them, they bring the same bad intentions to themselves and their networks. Meanwhile, they remain serenely convinced by their delusions of grandeur and impenetrable, obtuse classism. They are too cowardly to assess their own weaknesses and would prefer a Maoist genocide to looking honestly at their own privileges. I used to be good friends with these people and now I back away from them in hopes they have forgotten I exist.

Special Just Like Everyone Else

Would-be shamans and witches see themselves as unique but nowadays, they are as ubiquitous as strip malls and bad drivers.  You can identify them by their sense of self-importance.  They are the ones who claim to be empaths and sensitives.  (There is nothing empathic or sensitive about throwing your bad intentions at someone who disagrees with you.)  As for their uniqueness, they dutifully and consciously parrot the talking points put forth by CNN and the New York Times.  They are unable to tear themselves away from Facebook and Twitter despite the increasing irrelevance of both.  Cancelling the cable TV subscription has never crossed their minds.  Their inner dialogues have been overtaken by lush fantasies about Donald Trump experiencing misfortune.  They are completely blind when misfortune arrives on their doorstep -- their atheism convinces them of their own innocence in matters of spirit.  Yet ignorance of the law excuses no one...besides, aren't they the ones always talking a blue streak about justice?

Protecting Oneself

We are not living in easy times, and that is why I believe it is an excellent idea to protect oneself.  I'm not talking about insurance, not because I don't recommend it but because I have no expertise in the field.  I am talking about magic.  Every human being on the planet right now is being targeted by malevolent magic.  If you have not been targeted directly by another human's bad intentions (unlikely), you have likely been targeted indirectly via a smartphone, a magazine, or the hypnotizing force of the television.  In this age of impotent religions that have discarded the best parts of their ancient routines and rituals for New Age nonsense and mind-emptying Eastern belly button contemplation, you have to take daily measures to shield yourself from the onslaught of psychic crap everyone is neck deep in right now.  I am suggesting that everyone over the age of puberty reading this takes up a daily Sphere of Protection or other form of magical banishing ritual, and if you aren't suited to magic, to take up daily prayer to one or more patron gods.  I am also suggesting that every person of every age learns discursive meditation, another everyday practice.  

The best way of fighting the hexers and the cursers is not to go medieval on them and round them up Inquisition style to put on the rack or in the iron maiden.  That approach has been tried before and proof abounds of its ineffectiveness.  To defeat those who are mired in their own bad intentions, we must fix our own intentions first.  When we become completely unlike them, we become unassailable.  The Sphere of Protection can help with that; so can prayer.  To combat their thoughtlessness, we become thoughtful via discursive meditation.  We defeat their inability to discriminate by setting sensible limits for ourselves.  They are determined to fall to the babbling, torturous, depraved, idiot realm of the demonic, so we must be determined to rise to greater realms of complexity, coherence, and beauty that are possible for the human mind and soul.