Doing Unto Others

Ok, I have a confession to make. Back when I was younger, like 10 - 14 or so, I honestly believed that The Necronomicon was real, that you could summon demons with it, that the Mad Arab was a real guy. It never dawned on me that the reason me actually trying to summon the entities mentioned within didn't work was because it was fiction - I thought I was doing something wrong. (I opened some other doors in the process, and there are things that are very old out there, and probably shouldn't be named, but that's another time & another tale).

At some point, someone told me that H.P. Lovecraft wrote The Necronomicon, and that it was fiction. This, to me, was worse than learning that the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus were my parental units sneaking around at night hiding eggs & delivering Christmas presents. I think I may have actually cried. "What do you mean, it's not real? It's in the bookstore right next to The Satanic Bible and Magick in Theory and Practice... if it was fiction, it'd be sitting in the sci-fi section, right? RIGHT?!"

I don't think I've ever recovered from my betrayal. I know this because... on the pagan forums I frequent, and even in WoW sometimes, or general conversation, I run into people who still talk about the infamous book in hushed tones. Things like, "the Vatican keeps a copy of the Necronomicon in its secret vaults".... or "how do I get a copy of the real Necronomicon, you know, the one bound in human skin?"

When I hear these things, I get very mad and feel it immediately necessary to burst their bubbles. "The Necronomicon is nothing but pulp fiction written by H.P. Lovecraft. Get over it!" And then I stomp off, or do the internet equivalent of stomping off. If they persist, my asshat gets even bigger & more flamboyant & I start linking to the publication history, or tell people where to find said publication history.

I feel shitty and mean for doing it, but I can't help myself. I'm hoping eventually I can just get to the point where I can smile knowingly & nod, but it's been like, 20 years with no sign of that healing ever happening.

New Cards for an Old Path

Got a new set of Rider Waite Tarot today.

I dun like 'em. They're slick, my old pack was more matte. The colors are too bright. The Magician keeps gravitating to the top of the deck (or bottom, really - the visible side, anyway). The edges are stiff and hurt my fingers. I got them at Borders, so they have the 'new card' smell instead of smelling at least like the inside of an occult shop. They're slippery.

I've been trying to work with the other cards in my collection, but none of them feel right to me. The Robin Wood deck is too boisterous, and honestly has some bad-tasting associations with the images, the Thoth deck is just too fucking huge, the porn decks are... well, they're for titillation at bachelorette parties, not real divinatory tools. The Halloween & Dead deck - I can't jive with the symbols. Anthropomorphized vegetables & movie reels just don't make any sense.

Argh! I hate when stuff like this happens!