I need to write something about magic, to get my mind off Covid, after having spent an entire day sitting on a couch reading Substack posts and commenting. It wasn’t all about Covid, some of my favorite writers here allow themselves to write about something other, even as the Covid issue is indeed the greatest and most deadly fraud ever perpetrated against America and humanity (with the possible exception of communism), paging Greenwald, paging Taibbi. Rogan, are you a transhumanist now?
What is magic? First thing, it’s a lot older than being, say, woke. Magic has been practiced just about as long as humans have had language, arguably longer. In ten years postmodernism and it’s perspective on race and gender will be widely treated as the pestilence it is, remembered by most Americans like they will remember the Covid period, despised but otherwise forgotten. (Saying that: to all Trans and esp Black folk, I love you. You are all unique, astonishing, utterly beautiful children of the earth, divine beings, just like the rest of us. You forget, like most of us have, America is the land of live and let live.) Magic will endure.
Second, it is simply a different way of looking at life, this earth, the planets, the sun, the stars, this universe. There is no reason at all why you cannot study science and magic. In the occult tradition, magic is the Science (sorry, not sorry, Fauci.) To the magician, Jupiter is a gas giant and a god. The Sun is the center holding the heliosphere and all the planets together magnetically, making life on earth possible, and it is also a god and the primary but not entire source of the astral realm, the great magical agent, what is the creative energy of the universe we tap into with our imagination, to give creative form to things in this terrestrial realm, here on earth. That is, the Word, everything we have created, are creating and will create.
That astral realm, that great magical agent, is neither good nor evil, it is what we do with that creative energy that we know as good or evil. We can conjure the devil or a god with our imagination and the Word. We can build with it, things, a life, a society. In that sense we are all creators, all of the creative source. Divine beings having a human experience.
Third, it takes practice, attention, intention, will, determination, diligence, discipline and devotion to learn to see in a magical way, which is to say, a creative way, Every artist knows that. Everyone who has ever created or built anything. Every writer, painter, builder, anyone who learns another language. It is work. But not like work as much as love.
Fourth, well, I thought we would have another reading. Everything is magic, of magic, of the creative source, and there are certain tools to help see, to assist in understanding, such that it can be very much like the universe communicating directly, through anything really but there are tools long in use that are more direct and focused.
For me a primary tool is the traditional tarot. It always gives me something to think about, a way of interpreting an answer to a question. It speaks to me. I will interpret it for you, if you are open to it, and of course feel free to interpret this any way you like.
My Goddess, my Goddess, my Goddess, my name is William Hunter Duncan and I am in service to you, and I thank you. My creator, I am in service and I thank you. My helping spirits, I thank you. My helping ancestors, I thank you. My guardian angel, I thank you. The cards, I thank you.
These are very difficult times for Americans. Times are likely to become increasingly difficult for most of us. I have said to my readers that this life is magical, that creativity is magic, and there are ways and tools to assist in becoming a better, stronger magician and more creative. What is your message, about how to be in these very challenging times?
Three Cards:
King of Wands, Inverted: The Situation
The Text: Wands are assigned to the element of fire and to the Hebrew letter Yod. The letter appears here inside the radiant triangle of the spirit. This is the force of will and intention in the archetypal world of ideas. All Kings reflect an aspect of spirit and the Hebrew letter Yod.
The Interpretation: “The force of will and intention in the archetypal world of ideas.” The key sentence. The card symbolizes the ideas, the narratives that have sustained the King, who are the experts, the technocrats, the scientists, politicians, corporations, banks, billionaires, prestige media, big tech, big edu, the Intelligence community, military leadership, pharmaceutical companies, who have said that their leadership would enrich us all and lead to eternal progress. Science, economics, religion, as King institutions, they are all failing us. It is the narratives that have sustained America and Western Civilization. It is all undone, it is upside down. The king is fallen.
The Six of Swords: The Challenge
The Text: The two upright triangles and the two crossed ankhs suggest balance and harmony, as if trying to reconcile the fateful forces of the astral realm.
The Interpretation: Balance in the two sides of the self first. This speaks also to the challenge for Americans and America, that left/right divide, speaking of ruling energies and narratives that no longer serve. The ankh is the staff of life eternal. That emblem of the two ankhs would make a nice symbol for a movement about coming together and relying on each other. The collapsing King is going to continue to spin narratives to divide us. It is not harmony the King wants, it is to maintain his rule; but harmony is your right and within your grasp as a person and a people, if we remember the core promise of America, and remember that the source of creation is within us.
Seven of Swords: The Outcome
The Text: A white rose with thorns wraps itself around the ankh of life eternal. The upright triangle of spirit and the tetrad or square of matter are in harmony. The Secret Doctrine is said to be embedded in the number seven. Victory of the soul in the astral world can be possible.
The Interpretation: If we come together and remember the promise of America, we can build the America we want. The ankh is now one, graced by the white rose, protected by thorns. What is the America you imagine? There is a Secret Doctrine embedded in that promise. America is still a new nation, a young nation, still a child of Europe in some respects, not yet matured to become its own and wholly new and unique civilization, based on this continent, on this land, we the American people.
Victory of the soul looks like we Americans realizing we can build the life and the nation we truly want, a new civilization. That seven of swords sure looks like a well blessed and protected house to me.
Both sword cards speak to intellect, ideas, writing and the building of solid, foundational, new narratives to define the new civilization. They perhaps too speak of something of the martial spirit, as it would take more than ideas and narratives to retake America from a fallen King.
This set I think is a good measure of why I started this Substack and called it Born on the Fourth of July. Thanks for reading.