I read with amusement on Facebook today of apparently there are a load of witches in America who want to “bind” Donald Trump from doing any evil. Hmm! If they are powerful enough to do that to Trump, why didn’t they cast a spell to make sure he didn’t get elected in the first place???
Anywho. What I find most amusing though is how the organiser, a Mr Michael Hughes, attempts to justify his actions. I quote:
For anyone worried about their karma, Hughes writes that binding “seeks to restrain someone from doing harm” and is “differentiated from cursing or hexing, which is meant to inflict harm on the target(s).”
I hate to break it to Hughes, or to any witch that is considering taking part in this event that Binding is itself a form of Cursing. More precisely, they are both Curses, but a Binding is a Curse with an “unless” clause attached, i.e. it usually takes the form of “I curse you, so-and-so, unless you refrain from doing evil.”
If you do not believe me when I say that Binding is Cursing, ask yourself this: imagine that although the Binding spell works, Donald Trump tries to resist its effects as best he can. What do you suppose will happen to him if he does so?
If your answer is “nothing,” or something light and fluffy – then you have not actually succeeded in Binding him.
If however you answer that something unpleasant will happen to him, then that is the very definition of a Curse.
Don’t get me wrong. There is evil in this world, and sometimes one has to take robust measures… but one should not kid oneself that there will not be karmic consequences. If one were being honest with oneself, one ought to man-up and take ownership of the karma that arises from ones binding spells and what not! Binding is most definitely is not good against evil, it is about using evil to fight evil.
A non-occult related post – addressed to other members of the Indie Author Community who use Facebook Pages.
I am the manager of a Facebook Page – a page to promote myself as an author (see here). I come into contact with other indie authors who are in the same position as me – who also have their own Facebook pages. Recently, I have seen a lot of concern within the community that the average reach of each post on our FB pages – as a % of the total number of Page Likes – has noticeably decreased since this time last year, or before.
This has led to a lot of people in the community wanting to complain to Facebook itself, as if it is FB’s fault. Whilst technically FB could do something about it if they tried to, we are in fact missing the point. What I believe is the true situation is that we find ourselves in this position due to our own past actions.
FACT: in about August 2012, a movement began on Facebook of creating “Like Pages for Like” groups – i.e. post a link to any page which you managed in the group, expecting its members to Like it, on the understanding that you would return the favour. What a good idea, we all thought at the time. I hold my hands up myself to this – I did not realise what the implications would be, so I participated in it myself at the time. I saw the Like counter on my own page rocket up, and I thought “whoo!” – and so did many others.
However, when I was watching the above video, (what I now believe to be) the truth dawned on me, viz:
When you add 1000 Likes (or any number for that matter) who have no intention of engaging with your Page, you are actually Decreasing your Page’s popularity rather than Increasing it.
It works like this. When you post anything to your page, Facebook with all its evil machinations will only bother to make sure it’s seen by a ridiculously small number of people, determined arbitrarily. However, if that small number of people actively engage with the post by liking it, commenting on it, and / or sharing it, the post’s reach grows. If on the other hand that small number of people immediately ignore it, that post’s reach atrophies and dies.
Hence, if the vast majority of people who supposedly “Like” your page don’t actually read your posts, you will inevitably see your reach shrivel and die. This has led me to propose the following radical solution to the Facebook Page Like Scandal. It may seem counter-intuitive at first, but stay with me for the moment. It is this:
INSTEAD OF ATTEMPTING TO MAXIMISE YOUR NUMBER OF PAGE LIKES, YOU SHOULD IN FACT DO THE OPPOSITE: DECREASE THEM – TO THE MINIMUM WHERE YOUR PAGE BECOMES AN EFFECTIVE MARKETING TOOL.
Yes! This is why I say in the title to this blog post “You Have Been Lied To,” because there are self-appointed marketing Gurus who try to sell people the idea that maximising Page Likes is the be-all-and-end-all. Wrong. You should only try to maximise the number of genuine fans for your page – people who are willing to engage with it. All the rest are worse than useless, they are negative influences in your pages popularity.
Take two Facebook pages, one with 100 likes, and the other with 1000 likes. Unfortunately, however, 900 of the second page’s fans are not particularly interested, whilst all of the former have a past-record of engaging with the page’s posts. Each page has effectively the same number of real fans, but in the former case there is a 100% chance that the page’s post will have a higher than usual reach, whilst in the latter there is a 90% chance that it will have a lower than usual reach. A page which limits itself only to genuine fans is a more effective marketing tool than a page with a larger number of redundant Likes.
Hence, here are my Dos and Don’ts:
DO:
As an author, encourage actual customers to like your Page – by including the Page address within the book. If they have already paid to read you, they are more likely to invest their time and effort into your fan page.
Encourage people who have engaged with you in the past to Like your page.
Limit invites to like your page to those in the field of interest relevant to your book.
Controversial one here – go into your page’s settings and block it from being seen in known Link-Farm countries. See the Video above. You ought to know which countries your books actually sell in – authors with KDP will find that Amazon actually tells you. If, therefore, you have a suspiciously large number of “Likes” in places like Papua New Guinea or the Philippines, but don’t recall ever having sold a book there, you know what to do. FYI, the countries named and shamed in the video above are Egypt, India, Nepal. Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines. There may be others, so be vigilant.
Get rid of suppose Fans whom you acquired through artificial Liking-schemes in the past. This is tricky because it may mean having to go into the Likes list of your page – several times – to de-select them one by one. The alternative is to
Be prepared to bite the bullet and start again with a new Page – but done properly this time.
Only post content that people are likely to engage with – i.e. in the form of sharing, commenting and liking. My current best reach, purely organic, for a post is 25% of the Page’s total likes, mainly because it was shared a lot and got a lot of people talking. One can’t really complain about a low organic reach if an given update is not actually that interesting.
DO NOT:
Use “Link Farm” sites (see the video featured above), which “illegitimately” increase your Page Likes in return for money.
Pay Facebook to advertise for more likes – because, as the video above implies, Facebook are effectively using Link Farms as well!
Participate in “Like Page For Like” groups or events.
Like a page unless you actively intend to engage with the posts on it.
This blog post was inspired by a question on Facebook. My answer is a bit more involved than can be conveniently put in a FB comment, so I will post it here.
Celina, in a question in group “Golden Dawn Universum,” asked:
My practice is coming along but I would like some feedback on the intonation of the words. I’m inhaling good n I can do the vibration fairly good to. But it is mostly when I’m using my more quiet voice. When I’m home alone I like to do it louder. Sometimes my voice cracks a bit n its not a smooth chant. What is a technique for a good deep exaltation to make it more smooth and chanty? Where should u focus ur breath on when chanting ?
Now, everyone who’s into the GD style of magick comes up against a similar situation in their own practice, to wit: “How do I know when I’m doing vibration correctly?” I.e. the correct way of chanting or pronouncing Divine (etc) names.
The basic theory of “vibration” is that when you do it correctly, the vibrations actually affect the astral plane.
However – partly as a result of my own experiences and partly as a result of talking to magicians from outside the GD tradition – I’m beginning to wonder whether “vibration” per se is actually necessary at all.
My first reason to doubt the necessity of vibration came when I first practised Enochian. I recited an Enochian call, and immediately felt its power. All I had done was (a) memorise the call in Enochian; (b) memorise its literal English meaning; and (c) speak it normally in Enochian, whilst simultaneously remembering both its meaning and the magical effect it was supposed to have. There was no vibration involved whatsoever – and yet it still worked.
The second reason to doubt the necessity of vibration was a comment passed by an elderly gentleman who said that it is only necessary for ritual to be spoken and performed with dignity. The reason being that “them upstairs” can sense the intentions of the ritualist and don’t actually need co-ercing in the form of physical, mental or psychic exertions on the human’s part. Hence, instead of bursting a blood-vessel trying to vibrate (e.g.) “Yod Heh Vav Heh,” it is merely necessary to pronounce “Yod Heh Vav Heh” in the firm belief and confidence that YHVH will indeed hear it.
This is a rather radical notion – that angels and gods or God are in fact real, and exist independently of the paltry human’s attempts to mess about with the astral plane – but it does have the advantage of coinciding with the Right Hand Path’s notions of Grace, rather than the Left Hand Path’s more antinomian leanings.
The waxing Moon forms a harmonious angle with Mercury, the planet of writers and auspicious beginnings, during the planetary hour of Mercury next Tuesday afternoon. What better time than to launch my new Tarot-themed novel, Taromancer!
This will be initially available exclusively on Kindle via Amazon. It will be priced $2.99 (US), however: to mark the occasion of its official launch, for a limited time only (December 10th – 11th) it will be FREE from all of Amazon’s sites across the world.
To take advantage of this opportunity, you should:
Facebook is apparently introducing a new Facial Recognition feature which is going to suggest tags for your photos, based on their similarity to other photos already on the site. Now whilst a lot of civil liberties campaigners have immediately like a trout to the fly jumped and shouted “invasion of privacy” etc etc etc I am feeling faintly amused by the fact that if it actually works, everyone who uploads a picture of Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet is going to have “Alex Sumner” suggested as a tag for it.
This has given me an ace marketing idea! What you need to do is to hire someone who has a passing resemblance to a famous celebrity, and get them to be the “face” of your campaign. Then find all the photos you can of this celebrity and tag them with your “mascot.” Sooner or later, the Facial Recognition feature will kick in and everytime someone uploads a new photo of the celebrity, they will get a tag suggestion for the mascot instead! Then they will be like “WTF? Why is this guy getting tagged in the photo?”
Obviously this is a completely Black-Hat strategy, and hence I strongly advise anyone from actually implementing this. 😉
Once upon a time there was an Egyptian named Osiris. According to all reports, he was a generally good chap, respected by all and a pillar of the community. Although modest in his outward behaviour, he was habitually committed to truth and justice – which turned out to be his undoing.
Set
For it so happened that there also lived in the land of Egypt a tyrant named Set, who did not like Osiris nor others like him. This Set was an evil old so and so, who in order to cover up his own corrupt practices and those of his servants, would allow his servants to go beat up and kill Osiris’ countrymen.
One day, Osiris happened to come across evidence that Set’s servants were up to no good yet again, and decided to expose the fact. Enraged, Set sent his servants to capture Osiris and kill him, whilst he authorised his ministers to lie about the circumstances in which Osiris died.
Osiris, after he had been brutally beaten and killed by the minions of Set.
Unfortunately for Set, the evil dictator had reckoned without the tenacity of Isis, who was immediately enflamed with a desire to see justice done on behalf of the murdered Osiris.
Isis - in some of her manifestations.
At the time of writing, this story currently has no happy ending. We await with eagerness the ultimate victory of Isis, and the emergence of a new Horus who can provide a new direction to the old land of Khem.
Just a short note to make the point that I have finally figured out this Twitter type thingumajig. Previously only my status updates appeared as “tweets,” but now my actual blog entries do as well.
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Facebook Facial Recognition & Marketing
Yes I do really look like this in real-life! 😉
Facebook is apparently introducing a new Facial Recognition feature which is going to suggest tags for your photos, based on their similarity to other photos already on the site. Now whilst a lot of civil liberties campaigners have immediately like a trout to the fly jumped and shouted “invasion of privacy” etc etc etc I am feeling faintly amused by the fact that if it actually works, everyone who uploads a picture of Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet is going to have “Alex Sumner” suggested as a tag for it.
This has given me an ace marketing idea! What you need to do is to hire someone who has a passing resemblance to a famous celebrity, and get them to be the “face” of your campaign. Then find all the photos you can of this celebrity and tag them with your “mascot.” Sooner or later, the Facial Recognition feature will kick in and everytime someone uploads a new photo of the celebrity, they will get a tag suggestion for the mascot instead! Then they will be like “WTF? Why is this guy getting tagged in the photo?”
Obviously this is a completely Black-Hat strategy, and hence I strongly advise anyone from actually implementing this. 😉
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