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"Stupid" magick, religion and spirituality questions

 
  

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Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:54 / 16.10.07
I need to murder a book.

Normally I would hesitate to enact so heinous a deed (omg burning books etc) but believe me, this particular tome has it coming. It is a cheap mass-produced whodunnit of no literary merit whatsoever and much boringness, although this is not why it has to go. No, the reason it has to go is the Ngggggstabbystabbystabby ending, where it turns out that the serial killer is an intersex person who has been driven mad (MAD I TELL YOU!) through not having SRS performed at an early enough age.

So I have a sucky book which sucks and is also EVIL. It must DIE. How shall I kill this sucky book? I have my Day of the Dead/Hel-blot/posthumous interfaith outreach thang coming up, so maybe I'll tie it into that?
 
 
Ticker
19:13 / 16.10.07
I like the transformative approach. I make a lot of mail art and it is hard to kill good books so I use the sucky crappy ones and take great pleasure turning them from shite into beauty.

I'll cut out interesting pages (maybe one or two words catch my eye) and tape them all over a box and then layer with other images, stickers, etc until only blurbs of the original pages stick out. I find it deeply satisfying. Frank Miller's shitastic future Bats vs Sups comics gave up a surprisingly many good standalone images over a trashy romance novel a few months back.
 
 
EvskiG
20:35 / 16.10.07
Along those lines, this guy seems to have the right idea.
 
 
*
04:24 / 17.10.07
Seconded. Reminds me of the art project done with lots of vandalised books in the SF public library, when a person responding to some mental health problems methodically ruined hundreds of books with the word "gay" in them over some months. The library sent them out to artists and volunteers who created empowering, affirming artworks with them and returned them to create an exhibition.

Aunty, it may not mean much to you, but I honor your anger. I appreciate, support, and affirm the sense of compassion and justice that gives rise to your anger. I hope whatever you decide to do with the book is fruitful for you.
 
 
Quantum
08:00 / 17.10.07
It must DIE

KILL IT WITH FIRE (insert Aliens jpeg here)
 
 
EmberLeo
08:18 / 17.10.07
Hmm.

The idea that comes to my mind for a creative project is one I've intended for some time.

Take off the cover (thus removing it's identity), and provide some other sturdy cover of your own (thus reclaiming it anew).

Then cut out the center of the pages in bulk (thus removing it's rotted innards). Split the pages into two sections, and line the two sections with slats of wood. You may need to glue most of the pages together into those two chunks.

I'm not describing it perfectly, but the ultimate goal is a pretty, but empty book-shaped box into which any worthy content may be safely hidden.

--Ember--
 
 
EvskiG
11:44 / 17.10.07
I'm not describing it perfectly

A stash box.

Like this.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
13:09 / 17.10.07
Thanks, all for the input. (And esp. thanks to Zippid--that means a lot.)
 
 
Papess
15:02 / 17.10.07
May I ask what book has illicited such anger in you, Aunt Beast?
 
 
EmberLeo
18:54 / 17.10.07
Ev: Exactly, though I pictured more top than just a few pages, with the tabs from the bottom sides sticking up into the top sides to hold it shut.

--Ember--
 
 
Olulabelle
19:30 / 17.10.07
I think the book sculptures are beautiful. You could make one about how you felt about the sucky book. I know the ones in the link have pictures in but you could do one just with a wordy book, making shapes as sculptures.

I think it would be lovely and I imagine it would completely obliterate the feelings of anger about the book because when you were finished you would have created a beautiful artistic thing, which is what the book ideally should have been in the first place.
 
 
Glenn Close But No Cigar
20:51 / 17.10.07
Sympathise entirely with the notion of transforming an aesthetically / politically sucky book into a thing of beauty, but I'm wondering what the limits of this are. Would any of you feel comfortable with doing this with, say, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which, as a pamphlet, would probably have to be turned into an origami something), or Mein Kampf?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:24 / 17.10.07
I would. But I don't own Mein Kampf or a copy of the Protocols, so I'll just have to make do with (to answer Med's question) Want to Play? by P. J. Tracy.
 
 
*
21:43 / 17.10.07
Maybe; it all depends on the intention. For that matter, what is your intention in choosing those specific examples? Aunty asked a question about a specific situation. What leads you to want to first generalize it, and then specify it to cases of antisemitism?

I think I could address your question better if I understood the reasons why you were asking. As of right now, in the context of discussions in Policy, I find myself wondering if it isn't that you've taken an opportunity to work antisemitism into a Temple thread to see what will happen. Maybe you could give some more background so we have a clearer idea.
 
 
Papess
22:22 / 17.10.07
Wow. I just read some reviews for that book. The reviews were good, but the book sounds stupid. Actually, so do the critics.

The plot is a good one and very original,...

They mustn't read a whole lot, or watch movies.

Anyway, I'll be sure to avoid.

Yeah, GM...trying to push buttons again?

Enough rot...back to stupid questions.
 
 
Glenn Close But No Cigar
22:55 / 17.10.07
Not trying to irritate at all. Was motivated to write 'cause a) I find the concept of transforming a sucky text/object into a beautiful thing fascinating, and b) 'cause AB wrote: Normally I would hesitate to enact so heinous a deed (omg burning books etc) but believe me, this particular tome has it coming which got me thinking about notable book burners, the books they themselves wrote, and which books, if any, I'd like to transubstantiate too. Zippid, if you're thinking I'm attempting to cause a whole Temple/Anti-Semitism quake you're mistaken, and Medulla if you think I'm pushing buttons you're equally wrong. AB has let me and us all know that if she owned a copy of MK or the PotEoZ she'd turn 'em into something nicer she would. Only question that begs is whether one ought to acquire copies of MK / PotEoZ in order to transform 'em, but maybe that's one for another day...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
03:45 / 18.10.07
Oh fuck, why did I have to skim it again? "Oooh, we know the killer is this kid who was born with both sets of genitals so we don't even know if the killer is presenting as male or female now, oooh scary! Scary scary intersex people!"

I hate this book.
 
 
EmberLeo
05:02 / 18.10.07
Okay, I want to go ahead and answer that question about _Mein Kampf_

I would never destroy the last copy of a book, no matter how stupid or descructive it is (barring fantasy-novel type issues that I cannot believe would happen as-such in the physical world as I know it).

I might not even destroy any available copy of a book that was descructive, but rare and difficult to acquire.

My reason for this is the spindle precept - I don't believe the best way to fight a dangerous idea is to limit access to it. I believe the best way is to reveal the dangerous idea deliberately, and then openly refute it.

However, for copies of readily available stupid books, sure, I'm content to take the thing apart and do something better with it. For something like Mein Kampf I'd probably either do something like give it to a theatre company to use for a prop when they do powerful shows like God's Country.

For books where I really wanted to transform the content, I'd actually take the thing apart and do something with the component pieces.

--Ember--
 
 
Unconditional Love
05:24 / 18.10.07
Behind all the words and ink is a blank page, with beautiful patterns and grains that are quite empty of meaning.
 
 
unbecoming
05:27 / 18.10.07
an effective way of properly taking a book to pieces is to find a workshop with a barn saw and use it to take off the spine. I've found that freeing the pages from the object of the book has an interesting transformative effect. The pages can then be used as a Gysin style cut up resource.
 
 
Unconditional Love
05:51 / 18.10.07
The words are swimming on natural fibre in a slow state of decay, so like the times they were published in they are relevant for a certain period, books become like throwaway magazines, more for the recycle bin, only in context for the times they were created, no more classics, just temporal transitory distractions, cant see the trees because of the books.

Library's like so many dead forests, filled with dried ink from many dead hands like headstones bearing inscriptions to so many dead minds trying to capture a moment in time to immortalize temporal thoughts without content of context to the life they were written from.

Information passing through generational filters passing over in other content and context, mixing and disseminating old thoughts in new minds, abstraction of consciousness locked in static security, old guards of ideas.

The blindfold of print, given new life in receptive minds, taught to read, one direction to another. Each word a separation from a sentence, each sentence a separation from awareness.

Playing with words as art, before i played with words i just played. ~

Reading the Narada bhakti sutras at the moment they are so good i would recommend them to anybody with a devotional practice. Narada's Bhakti Sutras
 
 
Katherine
10:14 / 18.10.07
At the moment I don't necessarily think this will be worth it's own thread but will any one else be watching Channel 4's Beginners Guide To Voodoo?

"In the final programme in this series of Beginner’s Guides, Samuel Preston, lead singer of The Ordinary Boys, embarks on a personal journey of discovery to challenge his resistance to religion and to delve into the world of Voodoo, ‘the black sheep of religion’. "

This could be good but then it also has the scope to be very very bad.
 
 
Glenn Close But No Cigar
11:23 / 18.10.07
Are you sure this isn't a joke?

For non-UK readers, this is Preston, during his stay in the Celebrity Big Brother house. I am assuming his companion is a lesser Ghede Lwa.

 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:30 / 18.10.07
I anticipate much swearing at the TV set this evening...
 
 
illmatic
14:29 / 18.10.07
There was actually a similar programme on many years ago, featuring another terrible celebrity - Ruby Wax - taking a whistelstop tour through alternative religions and the "new age" in it's various guises. After encoutnering lots of appalling fraudsters, her encoutners with a voodoo priestess were incredibly positive - they left her crying. She was really moved by the dignity and honesty of the whole ceremony.

My point is, I suppose, that you can have positive representations of voodoo on TV featuring crap celebrities. However, the likelyhood that this will happen tonight seems remote. Especially as the whole thing sounds like the latest wheeze his agent has thought up.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:52 / 18.10.07
I saw a similar programme about five years ago where they sent "Scary Spice" over to Benin to do a similar thing. She kept asking this African priest about chakras and reincarnation and stuff like that, and he had absolutely no idea what she was on about. Quite funny, in a reach for the vodka and oversized jar of paracetemol kind of way.
 
 
Olulabelle
18:09 / 18.10.07
This would be Preston who:

a) didn't make it in a band so agreed to go on Big Brother, then;
b) didn't make it on Big Brother so agreed to get married to a Big Brother non-celebrity but then;
c) didn't make it as one half of a non-celebrity couple so presumably;
d) agreed to make a documentary about Voodoo in his time-consuming, pointless and never-fucking-ending ridiculous quest for fame.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
07:57 / 19.10.07
It was a lot more respectful than it could have been actually. Although I doubt the wisdom of getting yourself wedded to one of the Powers in Benin, and making all manner of promises that you have no intention of keeping, then coming back to Brighton and brushing it all off as a big lark...

But having said that, I don't think unhappy Spirits can really be made to shoulder all of the blame for a sudden downturn in the fortunes of the Ordinary Boys...
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
07:59 / 19.10.07
Next week Lily Allen digs up a corpse and installs its spirit in her very own Palo Mayombe cauldron...

"Everybody knows how much I love slagging off my enemies in the gutter press and on myspace, but after this I'll be able to destroy the foundation of their being with the black arts too!"

Cheryl Cole was not available for comment.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
08:04 / 19.10.07
We follow Girls Aloud as they travel to Haiti and get sworn into the Bizango...
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:34 / 19.10.07
My favourite bit of that documentary was when he had a consultation on the table of Ifa and the most pressing question he could bring before the highest oracle of Africa pertained to some trouble he was having coming up with a decent chorus for one of his songs... Those Ifa guys had a lot more patience than I would have had...

There was another amusing episode where he was trying to talk to this lady in Benin about his brief encounter with Oshun at a Santeria do in Brighton, and being from Benin rather than Nigeria, and English not being her first language, she quite clearly thought he was talking about “the ocean”, and they had this entire conversation at cross-purposes where he seemed to come away with the impression that this statue of a three headed bearded guy in a blue outfit was somehow a statue of Oshun, as opposed to being a local spirit of the ocean as far as I could tell.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:58 / 19.10.07
The idea of Ifa writing the lyrics for the Ordinary Boys is very wrong.
 
 
Katherine
12:01 / 19.10.07
I didn't miss much falling asleep on the sofa then?
 
 
Ticker
12:19 / 24.10.07
Bring back the Greek gods

Prominent secular and atheist commentators have argued lately that religion "poisons" human life and causes endless violence and suffering. But the poison isn't religion; it's monotheism. The polytheistic Greeks didn't advocate killing those who worshiped different gods, and they did not pretend that their religion provided the right answers. Their religion made the ancient Greeks aware of their ignorance and weakness, letting them recognize multiple points of view.

I found it a bit biased but upfront about it so it is worth reading. Plus I'm seasonally gleeful it was in the LA Times.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
12:38 / 24.10.07
Beginner's Guide To Voodoo is up on Youtube.
 
  

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