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We Invoked Uphill! Both Ways….

You kids today, getting excited at the latest deluxe edition grimoire bound in goat skin with talismanic slipcase. You know what we got excited about back in MY DAY? Loose papers. Someone handing you a manila folder with loose papers meant that they werew either handing you secret order documents you had no business having, or something photocopied from a university library. Oh yeah… We sat there for HOURS photocopying entire books. You wanna complain about the cost of the latest three hands press book? Try paying 10cents a page for just some scraps about the Greek Magical Papyrii…

You kids today have it so easy.

There were no webpages back then. The OTO was like the goddamn A-Team “if no one else can help, and if you can find them, you can join…” I had to befriend an old man I met in a bookstore that gave me the home phone number of guy that MIGHT still be in the lodge two hours away. So all of a sudden you are making repeated phone calls to a some grizzled occultist you have never met, begging to join his cult – not a call likely to be returned. At least until you make that call 50 times over the next three months and he calls you back just to get rid of you.

We didn’t have social media then either. No Facebook. No Yahoogroups. No MySpace. Not even fucking Friendster. You couldn’t find the other people in the world with the exact same myopic opinions and interests that you have. No groups for just for Celtic Taoists, Thelemic Palo Mayomberas, or people following the Key Of Solomon to the letter. You just had to form a study group, cabal, or coven and put up with whoever showed up. You had Setians participating in Wiccan Circles, Tantrikas going to OTO meetings, Chaos Magicians showing up for Modern Magic practice sessions because that is all there was in your area, and at least it was something.

The tools we used at those Modern Magic sessions were all made by us. There were no high quality Grimoire tools made by actual craftsmen that you could purchase. You had dowel wands with finial tops, and old pewter chalices you painted up from the second hand shop. Your stuff all looked like props for a middle school play – BUT WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!

Don’t even get me started on Planetary Hours! We didn’t have the lunarium! We didnt have APPS! We had a local newspaper, a calculator, and a small headache by the time we figured out the hour of Venus.

You kids today would have never made back in 1989…

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below 17 comments
Chris

:p

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polyphanes

“Arglebargle abloobloobloo, look at me with all my grey hairs that match the dust on my altars and my hairy callouses from all dat notetaking I had to do back in the day”

<3 you, man.

And even if I were old enough in 1989 to be an adult occultist, I'd still be the one programming planetary hour programs in FORTRAN and sneaking the computer time from the university labs to get ephemerides printed out for future reference. And yes, I did, in fact, had to hand-copy notes from photocopies of Agrippa in college before I found sites like Esoteric Archives. I have at least a small glimpse of the pains of your misspent youth. 😉

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    Inominandum

    and it shows in your work my man.

    Some of your offering would have taken YEARS to do.

    Reply
      polyphanes

      I could still take a few more years to refine myself, after all. That’s certainly the goal! But first, I need to get back to hand-copying over all my prayers line by painful line and rituals into my new journal, and refamiliarizing myself with all those sacred words again.

      I still prefer a pile of handwritten notes in a manila folder to a PDF on a tablet any day.

      Reply
William Jones

Right there with you. I was lucky enough to live in Houston and was able to view rare first editions of some of Crowley’s work. This gave me a direction to pursue, but definitely led to meetings with strange bedfellows. I love the convenience of the internet, it’s quite magical, but convenience can hamper development. Use what you have. Show up. Put in the work. See results.

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James Baker

*sigh* Thems was the days.

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Bruce Van Horn

In the 1970s Llewellyn had a magazine (that was also their catalog, if I recall correctly) with classified ads in the back. I met my first teacher through those ads. We sent letters, using postage stamps. Crazy, I know, but I felt that I was really learning something special, so I respected what I was taught, and used it. That makes a difference.

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Stone Dog

Wow. Suddenly, being born at such a time that showing up on the work market coincided with the exact time the crisis struck doesn’t seem so bad 🙂

NO nostalgia here…at all. Personally, I thank the gods that I can collect and read all of my rituals from a Kindle and stuff like that, and most especially, that I can have you as a teacher despite the fact that you live in another continent.

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Norene Childs

Calculator? What calculator? I figured out my astrology birth chart with pencil and piles of paper, all wrote out neatly when done. Years later, when an esoteric store (head shop) opened in Houston on Chaucer Drive, they had a newfangled astrology software that my brother and I paid about $30 each for a print-out. You know, a strip of paper printed on that high-tech dot-matrix that had just came out. I compared it to my hand-figured chart, and I was one degree off … and quite proud of myself, too. What a great post, Jason.

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Christian de T

This definitely brought back all of those memories of hand copying what I could, or xeroxing when I could afford it…entire books. I still have nearly all of those notes. There was something very engaging and powerful in doing that. It assured I read, slowly, meticulously, every word I put to paper.
Many I lost in the several moves since the 80’s.
As well as the part about you study with whomever you could find. I definitely relate. Found myself in groups that, outside of our interest in the broad topics, I had nothing in common.
My region lost its only alternative bookstore, covering all topics from New Age, to Occult. I miss it, a bit.
The internet has brought me into contact with several working magicians like yourself, and for that I am grateful.

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Ulfdis

This is the best thing I’ve read all day. I still remember meeting my first real life witch, who was an mature 19 – at least compared to 14 year old me. We happened to be browsing in the same aisle at the book store. She gave me her beeper number.

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