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My Bookshop.org Occult Book List
Still updating since I gotta remember the titles for books I read and either do not own or have in some unknown place, but here is the link that will be updated with more recommendations or otherwise personally influential books.
One day I’ll fuck around and make a new page on here or something with all my relevant links, but this is what you get for now.
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A Sort of Introduction
I want to write a book. A book about my own personal ideas of spirituality, magic, deism, and all the branching thoughts and beliefs stemming from there. On another site, I follow someone who is in the process of writing a book on magic, esotericism, and their history. It’s a lot of work and research and they are constantly uncovering new information. But I don’t want to do a lot of work and research. I just want to write a book.
I am aware that writing a book in any sort of nonfiction sense (that isn’t a personal memoir or something similar) without doing a lot of work in research is, overall, a terrible idea. I am increasingly made aware that a lot of my own ideas have been covered and expanded upon by dozens or hundreds or maybe thousands of people before me, most or all who have done their own research. I know that my current ideas are not fully formed and I will end up discussing what has been covered ad nauseum and I will also get a lot of things wrong, even when I’m only trying to speak from my own perspective.
I am also aware, however, from the little research I have done, of the existence of Madame Blavatsky, and, frankly, if she can make up a bunch of bullshit based on minimal research, warped to her own world views, and not only presented as fact but also becoming a huge foundation of modern Western esotericism, well…
I want to write a book. And I don’t want to work so hard writing it that I have a bibliography half as long as the book itself, with footnotes that would rival Infinite Jest1. However, I also don’t want to start down the slippery slope of becoming the next Madame Blavatsky. Thankfully modern technology has allowed a compromise I find agreeable enough: The “weblog” or, as the kids these days say, “blog.”
So here I find myself, starting yet another public-facing project and relying on the whims of my ADHD for it to be something semi-regularly updated and worthwhile. I should have a head start, since I have notes written in various places that I can translate into blog posts2 that will, perhaps, show how I arrived to where I am, on the cusp of making my own book and even religion3 simply because I get into things at 200% intensity before dropping it and forgetting about it for five years.
So, if all else fails, see you in 2027.
Footnotes
- The only thing I know about Infinite Jest is it is nigh incomprehensible and full of footnotes so do not attempt to engage with me about it — to prevent your own disappointment
- Probably
- Of sorts
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Welcome to the Salt Room
So you’re me. You’re in a New Age store you’ve never been in because the one you usually go to closed an hour ago, but you’re not complaining. Never too many New Age stores, right? This one also advertised itself as a spa, so you’re not sure how much will be occult-adjacent and how much will just be, like, spa stuff? You know. Stuff spas sell. Spa merchandise.
So you go in with your roommate/best friend, and are immediately greeted with a wide, spacious room full of rock displays. You’re used to these sorts of stores being more crowded and knick-knack-y, but it’s not like you’re the most experienced, you know? Anyway, you were kinda set on picking out some rocks on your trip, so it works out! You do some looking around, eye the small collection of books and tarot decks in the back corner, disappointed that none catches your eye, and also notice this room connects to two other rooms, one you assume to be for spa stuff, the other for ???
You’re anxious and don’t want to Do The Wrong Thing, so you stay in the main room. That is, until, the owner of the establishment comes out. She notices you are two new people, apologizes for not being out sooner, introduces herself, and asks if you want a tour. Sure, why not? Maybe now you can confirm the rooms you’re Allowed to be in.
She immediately takes you to the room you intuited was for spa stuff, and, sure enough, lots of bath bombs and soaps and other sort of handmade and/or New Age-adjacent bath supplies. She kinda breezes through this one and takes you to a room further in. It’s a bit cooler than the rest of the store, and you can see behind a partition that the majority of it is unfinished. It’s a new section where they hand mix and sell teas, which is cool, because your roommate loves teas. Don’t you roommate? Your roommate nods noncommittedly. Maybe she’s just nervous.
The owner takes you back to the spa stuff room, and gestures to a door you kinda noticed but just wrote off as some sort of storage closet or something. “This,” she says, smiling, “is the salt room!”
“What’s the salt room?” you ask, as though you were a plant in the crowd to prompt the owner to show you the salt room. Maybe it’s just like… seasoning? Kitchen witch stuff is a thing, right?
She opens the door and leads you and your roommate down a narrow hallway. This hallway is immediately colder than even the unfinished tea room. She opens a locker on the side of the hall and takes something small out of it, but you can’t see what. Keys? Who knows? This is not Chekov’s locker. You will remain curious about that object until the day you die.
On your right is an unlocked room she opens, and you and your roommate walk in. It’s a dark, cool room, with a handful of those relaxing chairs that just remind you of dentist chairs. And the back wall? Oh, it’s completely lined with Himalayan salt lamp-things. Like one solid wall of it, the only light source in the room.
“Himalayan salt helps with inflammation,” the owner says, smiling, and standing just outside of the open doorway. Are the two of you about to be shut in? Is this the last anyone will see of you? Why does she feel so menacing in that doorway? Why isn’t she in the anti-inflammation room? “And inflammation,” she continues, “is the source of all illness in the body, so this is a wonderful room to stay in.”
You fake a bit of “oh wow, interesting!” and make an excuse that the store closes soon and the two of you have other things to do here in a bit, which the owner smiles and accepts and lets you leave. “You can come back any time. Afterall, you’re local, right?” You and your roommate mutter something about actually being two hours away, but she laughs lightly and says that’s local enough.
She leads you back into the main room of rock displays, tells you to let her know if you need anything, then releases you to look around again for yourself.
And now you’re you and I’m me and I don’t have much else to say about the trip. My roommate had quickly realized it was a reiki healing store, which is why the rock displays were color coded, and why they didn’t have much besides what I’ve already mentioned and the last room that was primarily filled with incense. And a small section clearly aimed at children who got dragged along. Legitimately almost bought a “dig for fossils” kit I found there.
Anyway. Salt doesn’t heal inflammation. Inflammation is not the cause of everything wrong in your body. And don’t fall for owners of shops who are obviously leading you into a trap.
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I Got [some] rock[s]!
![I Got [some] rock[s]!](https://tenetsofambrosia.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/211130-i-got-a-rock....jpg?w=606)
I went to a New Age store recently (ish) and got some crystals!
Top Left – Amethyst geode
Top Right – Garnet
Bottom Left – Desert Rose Quartz
Bottom Right – Agate sliceI’ve always loved amethyst (purple) and there were So Many Kinds to choose from, but I really liked it still being part of the rock. Garnet is my birthstone and I’ve always loved that. Desert Rose was in this collection of rocks from the SW US (New Mexico, maybe?) that my dad got me when I was young and I became obsessed with it since then. And this agate slice is just pretty lol
Also, as someone who has watched all of Steven Universe, it is absolutely hard looking at crystals without thinking of the characters lol
Anyway, I have a story about the shop I’m going to tell in a future post, so look forward to it!
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Update 07/05/22
I went down an Ancestry.com rabbit hole, which is why there’s been a pause in updates. I’m done now, so I’ll get back on track soon. It’s no longer the first of the month, but I’m still planning on finding a monthly tarot spread and doing that. I’ve still been learning more about chaos magic, and even got some altar supplies, so once I figure out a good set up for it, I’ll post a picture!
Also might do a retrospective or whatever of how my daily tarot readings ended up panning out. And probably start doing them again, hopefully with regularity.
I hope I don’t sound too wishy-washy about things, but I’m working on my “if it’s not this perfect way I invisioned/if I don’t keep the schedule I want, it’s terrible and I’m terrible and nothing is worth doing” mindset lol
This is just a chill blog I’m updating as I can and trying to turn into a habit.
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Daily Card Pull 06/30
The Card
The Chariot VII
The Reading
It is time for focus and hard work to achieve your goals. Do not let indecision make you hesitate. “If you see a fork in the road, take it.”
Other Things of Note
- The Chariot is my personality and soul card
- For my 11 card celtic cross reading (sometime in April, I think), the Chariot was in the second position, the card that surrounds me.
- The Chariot also shows up in my astrological birth chart several times, but I need to go through it again, because my notes are absolutely incomprehensible
- The Chariot was also in the second position in my 6/13 weekly reading, which was the Divine Guidance for my Home/Community
Disclaimer:
This is entirely personal, a reflection on my life. You may interpret the card differently. Trust that I use several sources plus my own intuition to figure out what the card is trying to tell me today.
If you have your own interpretation you’d like to add in the comments, feel free! I’m interested to hear how this card may reflect your current life. -
Divinity
So here’s a post I’ve been thinking about writing since I first started this blog. Which sounds like something you’d say after having a blog for years, rather than weeks, but time means nothing to an undermedicated ADHD brain.
I touched on it with the poem I posted (“(Not) God”), so you might have a basic run down of my thoughts. Or maybe not. I don’t know how clear it is to people who do not exist inside my brain.
One thing I see a lot both in fairly secular places and in occult specific places is the idea of divinity. What is divine? What is holy? Can we achieve it? Are we already it? And such and so forth. Pagans tend to see nature as divine in and of itself, and us as we grow closer with nature. People who worship deities obviously see them as divine. Those who don’t may see the human experience as inherently divine.
But what if there is no divine? What if everything is mundane, and that’s what makes it ineteresting? There is no higher power, no ascended existence. Nature is not more holy than man-made constructs. Humans do not have an essence that separates us from the beast or the plant or the stone. A road through a mountain isn’t inherent sacrilige and the city lighting up the night isn’t an example of the divinity of human creation.
We simply are. We have consciousness by random chance. Our affinity for nature doesn’t change our worth. Divinity is a human concept, and one I reject. I suppose it’s a sort of spiritual nihilism? I don’t want to achieve a higher state of thought or existence. I don’t want to worship something that is Other, Greater. I want to pay tribute to what simply is. I want to love the integration of human constructs within nature without placing any higher worth on it. I want to learn to love myself without a feeling of duty, a step to becoming more. I want to see the importance in the mundane for the fact they are mundane, and let that feeling of importance change over time.
I don’t know if I’m properly getting across my thoughts. Maybe later I will explain my religious upbringing, which might add more clarity, or maybe I’ll think on it more and figure out a better way to say it. Honestly just now writing the phrase “spiritual nihilism” has helped me get a jumping off point to dive further into it.
I’m also realizing this just sounds like secularism, but it’s not that either, I don’t think. The mundane is spiritual, but not divine.
Maybe I’m talking a bunch of bullshit, but that’s what delving into the occult and having a blog is for. -
Daily Card Pull 06/29
The Card
The Star XVII
The Reading
You’ll get through it. This is the light at the end of the tunnel. The promise of a better future within your grasp.
Other Things of Note
- The Star can be paired with the Six of Cups to indicate generosity, an I pulled the Six of Cups Monday.
Disclaimer:
This is entirely personal, a reflection on my life. You may interpret the card differently. Trust that I use several sources plus my own intuition to figure out what the card is trying to tell me today.
If you have your own interpretation you’d like to add in the comments, feel free! I’m interested to hear how this card may reflect your current life. -
Daily Card Pull 06/28
The Card
Six of Pentacles
The Reading
Don’t be afraid to ask for help in times of need, financial or other.
Other Things of Note
- Yesterday I pulled a six of cups, so we’ll see how many more sixes pop up this week.
- On 1/18/22, my first delve back into tarot and first recording of results, I did an original reading for a fan Tarot deck for the podcast The Magnus Archives (a fictional horror podcast with five seasons that I extremely recommend). I pulled the six of pentacles for “The End: Something Ending. What must end to move forward?” Maybe its reappearance six months later means I did not follow that advice and overextended myself in the giving department. This is not a pat on the back, it is a real issue I have, and we all should make sure we do not give beyond our means. We cannot take care of others at the expense of ourselves.
- I also did an eleven card celtic cross reading using Instant Tarot: Your complete Guide to Reading the Cards by Monte Farber and Amy Zerner (now added to my Bookshop.org recommended book list). The six of pentacles came up for placement 7, “What is before you,” which predicted I would receive as I gave using the time period of 3-6 weeks. I unfortunately did not write a date, so all I know is there are only a few passages between this and notes I took on 4/15. Which is about the time I got my tax returns, though that deals much less with any generosity or charity the card implies.
Disclaimer:
This is entirely personal, a reflection on my life. You may interpret the card differently. Trust that I use several sources plus my own intuition to figure out what the card is trying to tell me today.
If you have your own interpretation you’d like to add in the comments, feel free! I’m interested to hear how this card may reflect your current life. -
Daily Card Pull 06/27
Note:
This is entirely personal, a reflection on my life. You may interpret the card differently. Trust that I use several sources plus my own intuition to figure out what the card is trying to tell me today.
If you have your own interpretation you’d like to add in the comments, feel free! I’m interested to hear how this card may reflect your current life.The Card:
Six of Cups
The Reading
Remember the good times of the past and use them to fuel a relaxing present. You are growing more comfortable with the loved ones around you — lean into it.
Other Things of Note
For my 4/25/22 weekly reading, 6 of cups was my divine guidance for my home and community. That’s a long gap in between it showing up, but I still want to keep track of everything I can.
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Don’t Forget About Trans People
I wasn’t planning for this to be my next post, or to really talk about politics on this blog at all. But I cannot separate my occult self from my queer self, nor would I want to, and both are inherently political, anyway.
This decision to repeal Roe v Wade, to get rid of the right to abortion in the USA, is absolutely disgusting and disheartening. I won’t get into all of it. Other people have and will continue to say things a lot more eloquently and with a lot more education on the subject.
All I want to do is remind people trans people exist, people who are not women but can get pregnant exist, and beg you not to leave us out of your activism.
Trans men and trans mascs already face discrimination and harm when seeking reproductive care. We are at high risk of sexual assault. We are denied access to reproductive care if we look too masculine. We are traumatized by transphobic doctors. If we legally change our gender, we are denied reproductive care by insurance companies.
This decision hurts us deeply as well.
Don’t forget about trans people.
Don’t push us under the rug because including us is inconvenient.
Don’t ignore us and tell us we’re “decentering women” by trying to be heard.
Listen to us and support us.
Don’t forget about us.
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Reflection on Last Week’s Tarot Reading
The reading:
Be decisive without being rash.
Remember everything requires effort, even successful spiritual study, but also remember to take the time to reflect and not burn yourself out.
Accept what you feel, but do not dwell on negative emotions.
Trust your gut, trust yourself, but you cannot build healthy relationships on your own.
Even when it feels the world is against you, even when your past clings onto you and despair threatens to take hold, take the time to pause and find joy.
You will make the best decisons. You will find success. You will work and accomplish your goals.With the Chariot and the Three of Pentacles sticking out to me, I need to most focus on decisive action in my home life and encourage teamwork in my relationships.
This feels relevant since there is a lot of cleaning and organizing and such to do around the home that I have been overthinking. Also I need the reminder that relationships aren’t decided on my actions alone. I need to stop being self-centered and encourage more cooperation and conversation with my partner and friends.The reflection:
I put some effort in to cleaning around the apartment. I resisted the urge to assume the worst from my partner and instead encouraged open communication. I signed up for some ttrpg one shots but didn’t sign up for every single one even though I’m technically free for all of them.
I did, however, absolutely fail at letting past grudges go, but I think I managed to deal with them in not an inherently negative way. While I did “post receipts” as kids these days say, I did not identify any persons involved and did it with the intention of providing awareness of previous toxic community behaviors and things to look out for.
Okay, and I did it because I like to occasionally get validation that I did, in fact, deal with some bullshit lol
The future:
You may have noticed I did not do a tarot reading for this week. That is because I forgot how much effort goes into readings, especially longer ones, and I’m simply not at a place where I have the energy to do that every single week. I may go for a monthly read or I may just do a reading whenever I feel like it.
Or, I may start posting my daily single card readings, as much as I fear that would be too many notifications for anyone to want to subscribe to.
Maybe I’ll make a draft of my daily readings then post them once a week.
We’ll see.
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The Tenets of Ambrosia 