Thoughts on the mind, magic, writing, language, art, philosophy, psychology, culture and just about everything I suppose. Or, who am I kidding, this is probably some kind of fiction too. Some longer and more coherent thoughts, some short random ideas.
My muse always hit me with stuff when I’m the most busy with something else. ALWAYS. It’s like the subconscious needs the speed of the consciousness to be triggered. Like: “Oh, shit, she is productive, I better do something to look good too! Here, have an idea! Or ten! How’s that for being productive, huh?”
I feel abrupted. Well, it definitely should be a word like that. A constant feeling of interruptions that disrupts my mind. Leaving no room for thoughts to fully form. It’s a cut-down technique producing gibberish and longing for coherence.
You don’t really have a name. It isn’t inherent in the essence of a human. It’s just arbitrary sounds your parents made up as a reference to you and to get your attention. Names define things and summons people when spoken – and are as such a kind of spell.
There is a lot of truth in that you have power over someone if you know their name. How much power does your name hold over you? Is it possible to take control over the spelling of your name and thus change yourself? Or to shed that influence entirely by becoming nameless?
Names can be used as spells to inflict discomfort and pain. Mispronounced, distorted on purpose, or a name or epithet you find wrong or degrading. And you can literally destroy someone by using their deadname (name from before a gender transition).
The power of names can of course also be harnessed for benign purposes. By taking control of what you are called you can influence both how others and yourself perceive who you are. A magician could find many uses for magical aliases as they sets your mind and the minds of others in a certain, chosen state. A well constructed alias or epithet is similar to a mask changing your persona. You become different.
A way of intentionally causing change in yourself is if you very subtly but constantly refer to yourself as for example “The Author”. Everyone around you will come to adapt that eventually and you’ll be known in their minds as “The Author”. I call this effect “mirroring yourself” since you create a desired image of yourself in the minds of others and when they reflect this upon you it will reificate the change in yourself that you strive for.
So in essence: If we name something it is instantly changed, it’s made real or changed in some way. An alteration of reality. Names are a strong magical tool that can be used for creative and destructive purposes. Be careful how you name people.
Why do the calls of the Aethyrs work better in Enochian?
Scientists believed for a long time that the Akkadians had invented a secret cipher to write about magic and religion since those texts were not written in the Akkadian language. Then they realized that it was written in the much older, and up until then unknown, Sumerian language. For some reason the older language had been preserved for ritual and magic purposes.
Many years later the Christian church used Latin in their bibles and masses for a long time even though the use of languages changed and ordinary people didn’t understand a word of it. Even now, long after it finally was translated, everyone still prefers the archaic language in the old bible translations over the later, more modern translations. And of course popular media still uses Latin to depict spells and magic. Sigils could maybe be seen as an extreme of this as it is writing that becomes unintelligible on purpose.
Much of the occult currents from the last centuries used the Hebrew letters language a basis for many magical systems, for instance Hermetic Kabbalah and Tarot, although none of the practitioners spoke it as first language, in fact it was near extinct until it was revived in the 19th century. Inherent in the Hebrew letters are the numbers used in Gematria and the endless mathematical computations, often very abstruse, are abundant in occult literature.
I write both fiction and these essays in English despite my native language being Swedish. Why? Well, the simple reason is that it sets my mind in another state. It forces me to think in another way and kind of elevates me into a heightened state of writing. More focused, somehow. Using a different language distances me from the feeling of the banal and mundane that my first language gives when I try to write about magic. It makes me into another writer than I am when writing in Swedish.
The same phenomena is found in music. Sweden has a lot of musicians that sing in English instead of Swedish. Not to get an international career, but just because they think it suits the music better singing in English. I also do this with my band. I tried to write Swedish lyrics with the same topics as usual, but then it felt like it was written for a different band and I eventually made it a solo-album.
Writing in different languages have inherent differences that makes you think in different ways. To the Germans the Sun is feminine and the Moon masculine. That affects what you think they symbolize and how you describe them in writing. There is an African language that don’t describe directions as left or right. They use south of, or north of, etc, for everything. That makes them subconsciously very aware of the orientation of directions at all times. And so on.
So, there are several parts to this: The language itself, how it makes you think and feel and a distancing from the ordinary may be some key elements to why we as humans appear to use older language for our magic, spells and our beliefs.
Chanting the calls of the Aethyrs in Enochian is a more effective way of putting yourself in the right state of mind to work your magic.
Oh, I’ve tried to fit in to many places, school, university, work, with acquaintances in a new city, etc. But it mostly makes me uncomfortable. So I’ve come to realize I don’t need to fit in. I got my odd friends here and there and once I relax and stop trying I seem to be accepted anyway. My co-workers, for instance, like me though I’m nothing like them. And maybe that’s the thing. Not to fit in, but to be accepted as different.
So this is how it begins. I looked out of my kitchen window this evening and saw the houses outside. Out of the blue I thought: “One day all of this will be ruins”. And then saw how it would look, quite clearly, in my imagination. Abandoned and torn by nature – all windows shattered, moss on the walls, trees and bushes growing up through the collapsed roofs. Like it was a long time after some kind of disaster. It felt funny at first, then quite eerie. Where did this come from, I wondered. Why did I suddenly precall the neighborhood after the fall? Why at this moment? What triggered this thought and image in my head? The imagined surroundings disappeared quite fast. But a feeling of calm and beauty lingered. I was not worried.
I got an eye inflation. I wrote that in my diary. Then I realized that is something that only happens to anime characters. Of course I got an eye inflammation instead. Typical.
If you are such a boring character that “male” is your only prominent feature and you get grumpy when you believe that trait is threatened by anything considered “female” I got this advice for you: Get a personality and stop being so anxious.
I awoke early after having gone to bed late. The hint of pain in my chest, still to tired to be able to open my eyes. Eventually I realized that I wouldn’t go back to sleep and found my way to the toilet out of habit. The apartment was cold so I un-nuded myself with a sweater that I fished out of the laundry basket while I sat peeing.
The day before I had gone through notebook after notebook to find and collect scattered notes about a project I might start after the current writing project is finished. Found all sorts of notes. A hundred ideas for short stories. Outlines for about ten novels. And the diary notes. Oh, my god. So much I’ve forgotten. Happiness, pain and sorrow all mixed up.
I was panicking. What should I do with all this material? When would I have the time do do something out of it? Where do I want to go? Where am I going no matter if I want or not? Is there even a point to choose a direction? Where do we end up? What’s the point, really?
I didn’t feel sad or depressed as I had been off and on for a long while according to the diaries. I felt nihilistic. But not in a negative sense – which I realized after a while. I think I’m a positive nihilist. Looking at the core message of the notes I had started to collect I found that one of my five magical statements summed it all up.
When finished on the toilet, washing my hands, looking deep into the reflection I decided that today I’m gonna dress entirely in black. Haven’t done that in quite a while. Although I’ll take milk in the coffee – I guess that’s the limit of how black my nihilism goes.
How to be a magician, writer, artist or just a decent human being: Exercise your mind. Let it wander, let it wonder. Make it afraid, make it reel. Force it to work, make it stop. Excite it, please it, direct it, restrict it and rest it. Dissolve all borders. Focus and collapse, again and again!
Answer to comment:
Open mind? Nah, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m a bit of a HSP and it’s really difficult with all the virtual screaming going on in the world. I’d prefer if my mind had got those heavy steel plates over the windows like the base on LV-426. And some sentry guns of course. Note that the blast shields can be raised or lowered depending on mood and the weather outdoors or inwebs.
I usually argue that we are the demons. Also: All preachers are possessed by a monotheistic alien being from ideaspace.
Anyway, while I jest about open, of course we should be open, I’d prefer the ambiguity of: A curious mind leads to a curious heart!
2018 in review
My predictions for 2018 kind of came through. I wrote half of a novel, recorded a solo album, explored the boundaries of my genderfluidity, although wasn’t nearly as slutty as I had hoped, but I was good at taking care of myself while feeling low on energy, and I often felt kind of confident in myself. I finally had a breakthrough in my work with what I call magic and now consider myself experienced enough to call myself a Magician.
2019 in preview
I wanna finish the novel and find a new publisher. I hope to record new songs for an album with my band. I’ll continue to explore my non-binary self and find a way to to be comfortable and confident in myself. And when I feel confident enough I’d like some kinky and/or kind intimacy. I also aim to write some about my thoughts on what magic is to me and continue the magical work with friends and acquaintances up in Stockholm.
I’m a work in progress and I know it.
Happy Solstice! Up here in the north there is no Christ in Christmas, it’s not even called anything Christ-related, the English word would be Yule. People do have trees, stars and stuff but deep down everyone knows we celebrate older customs.
I’m heading up into The Northern Zone again for two weeks. Time to fuck up reality, time and self again. Who I am will be reflected in old distorted mirrors. But I will persevere and ascend from the past. I’ll claim my room and declare my direction. As magician I set the stage and as a writer I spell the shape of things to come.
This year I’ve fashioned an invisible time-suit that allows me to interact with the indigenous past-timers without danger to my current chronology.
Adults are children nowadays and children are just insane adults.
Yesterday I had a fever of 39,2°C. For some reason I decided to start re-reading The Nag Hammadi Gnostic Scriptures, with archons, gods, demons and magic all over the place. Today I have no fever and now I wonder what came from the book and what was my fever-induced dreams when nodding off the whole time. A very trippy experience. The only good thing with fever are the strange dreams your mushy head produces. Oh, and that it fights the illness of course.
Dear white hetero sports fan man,
Let me give you an insight into why we need pride parades and still have much work to do with LBGT+ issues. Imagine you are dressed in your team colors. It’s late at night and you have to walk alone through a bad neighborhood where lots of hooligans from your rival team hangs out. Imagine how this would make feel. Then imagine that’s how you feel everyday when you walk out of the door. Hopefully you now understand that this has to change and help us change it. And, dear reader, if I’m preaching to the choir – just sing along!
(Nothing has happened to me, but sadly this has to be explained to some people.)
“How old do you feel, inside?” That was the question at today’s afternoon coffee break at work. Someone said they felt the same as when they were 25 and someone else said they felt like they were still 32. Though they were both actually in their fifties.
I thought about it and considered who I am now. How I for especially the last two years have evolved through my work with myself, writing and magic. People have always considered me educated, well-informed, but now I feel even wiser and have better grasp about myself and the world than ever before.
Of course the present me grew out of the 25 and 32 years old me. But now I am so much more than I was. I don’t want to boast – I’ve still got a long way to go – but I’ve got insights and understandings that most people never even try to reach. I really don’t identify with any of my younger selves anymore.
So I came to the inevitable conclusion: I feel like 200 years old. I feel like a smiling high priestess, a weathered shamanka dancing in the woods, a wise old fool laughing at the wonders of the world. I am happy to feel centuries old and still think that is young.
Let me guide you through the darkness. I’m heading towards the light.
Kisses and best wishes,
Ellinor Kall.
Listening to a video with advice about how to handle stress.
Russell: “Stress is fear.”
Me, to myself: “Please don’t be afraid anymore, Ellinor.”
Russell: “Joy is beyond pleasure.”
Me, also to myself: “Oh, beyond pleasure, take me there already!”
Russell: “Follow your bliss.”
Me, to me: “Oh, sweetie, that is the first step, I know where we are going! Come on!”
Books are beings. They are living entities and we writers are their midwives, proud to have delivered them, but not their biological parents. They live and feed through symbiosis. They never die but can be annihilated. They propagate themselves in the most remarkable ways.
When the bubble of vacuum decay reaches us none of this matters. My new motto.
Yeah, I know, I seem to change motto’s like underwear… But when the whole of existence is annihilated you better have clean underwear!