Cast Iron Chaos: 2011-10-16

After burning my sigil in the Griswold skillet, I headed out of the house at 7:30 AM yesterday and didn't return until past midnight. It wasn't an uneventful day, but it was very quiet and drama-free. After getting an oil change on the car, I went into Cambridge and found Liber Null/Psychonaut at the Seven Stars bookstore right away…it was right next to the Principia Discordia, no surprise there. Peter Carroll's other books are there as well, but since I'm still working on the basics outlined in the first one, I'm holding off on getting more until later.
On the other hand, I went into a music store between Central and Harvard Square called Weirdo Records, which certainly lives up to its name. Musical bulldada masters like DJ Shaver and Dr. Ahmed Fishmonger certainly know this place. A thought came to me, and I asked the girl in charge to recommend a CD to me that I could use for meditation, something in the psychedelic/light techno area. She went right to the rack and pulled out Seven Stars by Christian Fennesz ([1]). Two different "Seven Stars" in one day? Little coincidences like this have been occurring quite frequently since I started this "Chaos Magic" thing. I enjoy it when stuff like this happens…much like when I popped into this Indian food market to get an apple to munch on, and was surprised when the girl at the counter charged 25 cents for it. (Produce prices have skyrocketed this year, as you know.) "25 cents?!?" I asked. She replied, "Well, the larger apples are 50 cents."
Occupy Boston protest, October 15, 2011: After I came out of the Boston Public Library and took a look at a city-sponsored event calling itself the Boston Bookfest, a large crowd of proteters marched down Boylston Street past the library. It looked interesting, so I joined in. The result: about two thousand people took to the streets on Saturday to march in protest and express their opposition to the general state of the government today. Most of the folks in the crowd were there to have fun marching in the streets, and they were in favor of the easy things that 99% of us want: end the ongoing wars, tax the rich, reduce military spending and use it on education and health care. The usual Ron Paul drones (trying to latch on to this movement to get support for Ron Paul, their political cult leader) were there, along with the usual "overthrow the Masonic New World Order" folks and other political extremists; but most of the folks were everyday people marching in the streets because it was fun to march in the streets. There was no violence that I know of and no incidents occurred with the police. And like good lemmings, the crowd allowed itself to be herded through downtown Boston into the business district – which is closed on Saturday, so we could rant and chant while the rest of the city went about its business. After the crowd gathered at the Occupy Boston tent city by South Station, most of them went home; but a few hundred or so were still there by 10:00 PM that evening. There was one crowd gathered around listening to speeches, and another crowd was dancing with a bunch of Sufis who had thrown in with them to meditate and chant. I ended up at the food tent, helping to serve food to anyone and everyone who came by. I've long since been convinced that 1960s-style protests have absolutely no effect in the 21st century, because the authorities (i.e. the government and Wall Street) know exactly how to handle them: give them a space to run around in and protest, and keep the stupid police-brutality antics to a minimum. The first frost is coming any day, and when it arrives the Occupy Mytown movement will largely disperse. This is Anonymous' flavor of the moment, and like the anti-Scientology movement it will largely fade away, leaving a few stalwarts to carry on and continue. But many of these people are genuine in their discontent, and I found the best place to be was at the food tent serving food. That allowed me to help these people have a good time and feed a few homeless folks as well, while not having to put up with political speeches.

: (Regarding my statement, "Ron Paul Drones:" If Ron Paul ever endorsed a movement like this, he'd be laughed out of the Republican party. Yet, his drones still latch onto any left-wing grassroots movement around in the hope of getting followers from among the political conspiracy extremists who gladly endorse him because Ross Perot is gone, Lyndon Larouche is about to drop dead of old age, and Jesse Ventura is retired.)