News today of naughty Pagan goings on in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire, UK. Apparently, a local well has been the subject of a severe case of well-dressings to celebrate the Equinox. Shock, horror! Apparently St Anthony’s Well, which is the renowned for its miracle cures for skin conditions, has been haunted by several teenage delinquents who have also been leaving pentagrams nearby, much to the consternation of local Christians.
Let us gloss over for one moment the fact that Christians ought to be praising God for any teenager that ventures near a cure for skin conditions, no matter how odd. Let us also gloss over the fact that this ancient well, though supposedly a Christian site is almost certainly an old pagan one that got saved for the Lord. What – pray tell – exactly is wrong with a Pentagram?
The Pentagram is a symbol of Nature – literally. Its proportions are based upon the Golden Ratio – 1:1.618… etc – which itself is based upon the Fibonnaci series.
Now there is a curious (and not unrelated) fact – if one were to imagine that the orbits of both the Earth and the Planet Venus were circles, then the major occlusions of the Sun by Venus as seen from Earth would mark out the points of a pentagram! There is a simple reason for this: the ratio of the distance of Venus from the Sun, to the distance of the Earth to the Sun, corresponds to the Golden Ratio – 1:1.618. Because orbital speed is also proportional to its distance from the Sun, it follows as a Math that a Pentagram-like arrangement would occur.
I was chatting on this matter to some Companions of mine in the pub – where all matters of cosmic importance are always discussed.
“What I find most remarkable,” I said, “is that the planet Venus just so happens to be that particular distance from the Sun in relation to Earth.”
“Yes,” one of my Companions answered. “And we are the only planet with intelligent life to see it.”
In this sense the Pentagram is quite exciting – it is a greater argument for Intelligent Design than a lot of the tripe put forward by Bible-bashing fundies. Christians have a unique opportunity to embrace this symbol because it really does indicate that a divine being created the Heavens and the Earth – yet they shy away from it because they think it is a symbol of the occult. Pagans are smarter in that respect.
Of course there are some Christians who like to appropriate the Pentagram as a sacred symbol – simply because it is a symbol of the number 5. There were 5 wounds of Christ, and there are 5 letters in the Hebrew spelling of the Qabalistic name of Jesus – “Yeheshuah.” This, incidentally is the basis for the Pentagram ritual of the Golden Dawn, which itself has passed into the neo-pagan tradition.
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Sex
You may be amused to know (I certainly was), that according to researchers, the ideal duration for sex is only ten minutes – and anything more than 13 minutes is too long.
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This would be a source for a great deal of comedy if it were not so tragic. For a start, the methodology of the researchers leaves a lot to be desired. They did not find out the answers to their questions in the usual manner – instead they just went round asking people.
Furthermore, I take umbrage at the assertion that more than 13 minutes is too long. I mean, come on! That’s barely enough time to do it just once! What about foreplay, multiple orgasms, interplay, doing it more than once, afterplay and all that? Claiming that more than 13 minutes is too long almost makes me feel inadequate – for all the wrong reasons.
More seriously though there is an implied criticism of Tantra. This is something which concerns me not just for personal reasons but for professional ones as well: I deliberately incorporate a strong amount of “magick with a K” in my books. The fact of the matter is that when sexual magick is performed properly is it very powerful indeed. I cannot stress this too much. It leads one into a state of magickal consciousness in which one feels one has been handed the key to unlock the mysteries of the entire universe and beyond. It is so powerful that I deliberately want to avoid giving the impression that there may be an upper limit to what may be achieved.
However – very little of this will be experienced by people who merely aspire to ten minutes on average. It has been observed by Nikolas Schreck, author of “Demons of the Flesh,” that sex magic is essentially an elitist path – and, if the researchers mentioned in the article are allowed to define orthodoxy, it is likely to remain so for the near future.
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Tagged as Demons of the Flesh, Magick, Nikolas Schreck, sex, Tantra