PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

I first heard the wisdom of the visionary teacher and writer Louise Hay 25 years ago when my dear friend Duncan gifted me his well-worn cassette tape of her speaking about how to develop a mindset of abundance. I admittedly brought a bit of a scarcity mindset to California with me from West Virginia and was eager to learn new ways. I loved Louise Hay’s insights, which were wholly new to me. Duncan patiently explained to me his takeaways from Hay’s wisdom and how it had worked for him and changed his life for the better. When paying bills, instead of resenting the utility that had supplied water and electricity, write the check, seal the envelope, and say aloud “Thank you, Pacific Gas and Electric, for supplying me with power for my home and trusting me to pay you. Blessings to you, PG&E!” We even began a ritual of paying bills together and then walking to the mailbox and pronouncing our gratitude to all the recipients of our money. We even added the finishing touch of kissing the stamped envelopes and saying “Thank you!” before dropping them in for mailing. We got some looks of surprise at our mailbox rituals but we believed wholeheartedly in Louise Hay, and doing that had been working for Duncan. Soon, it began to work for me and I fully embraced the mindset. Most surprising of all, I stopped being filled with dread and worry when bills came in and started paying them the same day they came in, whenever possible. In addition to adopting an attitude of abundance, it helped my credit score!

In the early 1990’s, we had to go to the mailbox for our 5-minute gratitude ritual. Nowadays with all the instantaneous ways of sending money and electronic payments, it might be closer to a 5-second ritual. However, before you hit “send”, get into your Manifestor’s Mindset and express thanks before you click or tap. This attitude of abundance that stems from the mindset is like a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it will be and you will see many manifestations.

The strange thing was, he felt no fear.

No fear whatsoever.

As a boy, my friend loved staying with grandma and grandpa on the farm.

He loved the tall, tall corn.

He loved the barn, with its animal smell.

He loved having his own room.

The first thing that he noticed when he woke that night was the smell.

It was the smell that you smell walking into the forest: bright ozone and sweet, dark decay.

He opened his eyes. The Leaf Man stood in the doorway, filling the doorway.

He felt no fear at all. Rather, he felt safe, protected.

The Leaf Man said nothing. He wanted him to, though.

He wanted him to come into the room, pick him up, and hold him in his arms.

He wanted to be his friend.

When he woke in the morning, the doorway, of course, was empty.

“What a strange dream,” he thought.

But when his grandma came to the door to wake him for breakfast, she looked puzzled.

“Where did all these leaves come from?” she asked. “Why is there dirt all over the floor?”

This started with a prank. It turned into a profound insight. Here is the story.

I usually do a mild prank every year on April 1st, in which I say or post something that is not true and see if anyone believes me. When I worked in a call center, one year on April 1st I told everyone there was a UFO in the parking lot.

When I first started my perfume and health journey with my Gila Lizard Powers (GLP-1) I was amazed at how many pagan indie perfume houses there were. Later I became amazed at how pagan-friendly the Fragrantica forum was, and at how many pagan mythology inspired fragrances there were from mainstream niche houses. It's been about a half a year and I have dug into the database enough to find out that Lancome was openly working Magie Noire in 1978.

On March 28 the front page of Fragrantica carried an article in which a perfume reviewer expressed a desire to give a blood sacrifice to Artemis. Link here: https://www.fragrantica.com/news/Hellenist-A-French-House-Greek-Myths-22332.html

...Of the Anglii, this also may be said, if you can believe it: that at the sound of Spring's first thunder, they immediately drop whatever it is that they may be doing, be it ever so important, and fall to the ground and forthwith give themselves over to the act of love.

Indeed, the very king in his judgement-hall, the priest at his altar, nay, even the warrior on his battlefield: all these endeavors they lay aside to observe the rites of Venus without delay. Then, having accomplished their (as they see it) religious duty, they rise up again and promptly resume that which their act of venery had interrupted.

For Thunder they account to be the highest of all gods, and at the year's first sound of his voice it behooves them, so they say, to match, at his prompting, Heaven's pouring forth of seed (emissio semine) with a like pouring-forth here on Earth, that the crops may likewise grow tall and that the flocks may flourish.

Ask Boss Warlock

Dear Boss Warlock:

You call yourself a “witch of the Tribe of Witches.” So, in our relationship with the gods, which is primary: the individual or the tribe?

Philosophical in Biloxi

Dear Phil Bill,

Your question is one, not so much of Who, as of How.

The tribe is the spear; the individual is the spearhead.

Seriously? Evangelicals? At Paganicon?

Now there's something you don't see every day, Chauncey.

Well, I didn't actually see them myself, but I heard the stories.

A couple of guys with that indefinable sense of not-quite-belonging buy day passes to Paganicon 2025. Then, name-tags on lanyards around their necks, they proceed to wonder around, tourist-wise, staring and asking off-the-wall questions.

Well, as a people, pagans value hospitality highly. If non-pagans want to give us their good green non-pagan money for the privilege of hanging around us, so be it.

I heard from the folks at the Sweetwood Temenos Hospitality Suite that the duo stopped in, and wanted to hear in particular about the Sweetwood clothing-optional policy, and the fact that children might be present. One can easily see what their dirty little minds would make of this. To the impure, all things are impure.

Apparently there were no major breaches of hospitality—guests have responsibilities, too—until they came across the Minnesota Satanists' Hospitality Suite. There they barged in with, so to speak, Bibles blazing.

The Satanists threw them out, called Security, and bye-bye fundies.

No refund, either.

(I hear that they caused some disruption at the Pagans of Color Suite as well, but don't know any specifics.)

Doubtless there will be write-ups in the Dysangelical* press about evil, child-molesting Satanist pagans. Nazzes are nothing if not predictable.

Realistically, we can expect more arrogance of the same intrusive sort in the near future. Since the last election, conservative Christians see themselves in cultural ascendancy, with an eye to legislated religion and eventual American theocracy.