magic

Magical Experiment: The Spirit of Bookstores

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Having decided to share some of my esoteric experiments, I wanted to share a fun and practical one – contacting the spirit of bookstores.

Let me reiterate my previous statements about gods, spirits, and the like.  They are a useful concept that lets us interact with the universe by acknowledging its complexity, living nature, and complex systems.  I do believe there is “something there” but know that like any relationship some of it is what I bring to the situation.

Now with that said, let me move on to my experiment!

I love bookstores and especially love used bookstores.  Many is the time I’ve found some life-changing book or wondrous weird tome that sent my life in better and more interesting directions.  Most bookstores have a kind of magic, anyway, so why not work some real magic with them?

Inspired by Patrick Dunn’s “Divine Magic” and previous experience, I decided to form relationships with spirits of bookstores I was fond of.  They had provided me useful books, so why not reach out to them in a more personal way and form a relationship!

The path I followed was simple:

  1. Take a coin as a gift.  I prefer quarters.
  2. Enter the store and wander around.  Speak to the store mentally, thanking it, acknowledging it, and saying you want to develop your relationship.  You may also acknowledge relevant literature/writing gods.
  3. Leave the coin in some out of the way place.  I slipped it behind some books or down a shelf.  Note this gift and state your goal to build and grow a friendship.
  4. Visit the store when you can and simply talk to it.  Tell it’s what up, ask how it’s doing.  Bookstores are rife with synchronicity potential, and you may find answers appearing in covers, displays, and more.  Speak to the store and see what happens to come up or catch your eye.
  5. Support the store when you can.  Buy something, sell your books there, clean up a disordered shelf.  This is a relationship.
  6. See what happens at the store, what books you find, and what messages seem to appear.

So what happened in my experiments!

Bookstore One – A used bookstore I’m fond of.  After the invocation I’ve had several interesting synchronicities/communications but also found some very rare books.  We’re talking books I’ve never seen sold off, one of them extremely rare.  The store has been a great source of books for other projects and for walking around having “conversations via synchronicities.”

Bookstore Two – A used bookstore I like, but I never felt we “clicked.”  I decided to visit and walk around, chatting with the store’s spirit and hoping to connect.  I stepped outside a bit, and suddenly saw a poster for a book that fit one of my other projects.  Dashing inside I discovered not just the book but a load of other relevant material I hadn’t appreciated.  Since then we’ve just “felt” more connected.  The store has it’s own focus, it seems.

Bookstore Three – Yet another used bookstore that I had some great findings at.  This relationship feels pretty chill, and it’s a great place to walk around, have a mental conversation, and ride synchronicities.  This store seems to be good at “ask what you what, you can find something.”

Bookstore Four – A corporate bookstore.  When I did the ritual it felt very confined, afraid, restrained.  I walked around during the ritual chatting with it – and ended up with a shelf staring at a book I’d been wanting to get (and not a common one).  I had the sensation of someone glad for the attention.

Now of course some of what went on was clearly my interpretation – as in any relationship.  The unusual books I found were very appropriate to my works and in most cases, very rare and unlikely.  The synchronistic “conversations” were usually insightful.  My take is “something was definitely up.”

If you try this experiment – and I hope you do, bookstores are wondrous – some advice:

Do not force conversations.  Talk to the spirit of the store and see what response comes up in synchronicities, books you find, or those moments something “happens.”

Be a friend and partner.  Respect the store, buy from it, sell books at it, etc.  It’s a relationship.

I hope you do decide to try these experiments.  Let me know – who knows what we might try in the future?

A Proposal On Networking

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“Where’s the community,” is a question I hear a lot, sometimes from me. As I write this in early 2023 we’ve been devastated by covid, are questioning social media, and are coping with late-stage Capitalism.  People want connection, but it’s a challenge, there are obstacles in the way, and the last few years have really been a pain in the ass.

Reaching out and connecting is a pain in the ass too.  I’ve been networking on my interests –  – occultism, meditation, creativity, and writing – and I find the same worries!  A complaint I see many times is how “Practitioner” communities (people who DO something, from magick to writing to art) end up being all about “buy my book/game/series.”  Capitalism overtaking even tiny, weird groups to be about “making the sale” and “building the brand.”

Since I’ve found community connecting frustrating, I brainstormed an idea to help build communities of specific practice.  As I’m a Project Manager, let’s follow good organization practice and ask what our problem statement is.  And yes, I belong to a PM community – anyway on to the statement:

It’s hard to build a community of communication.  People work at different paces, with different tools, and we’re dodging the pathologies of social media.  Many communities are “production oriented” and sometimes Capitalism takes priority over Community.

So with this problem statement, what goals would satisfy practitioners?

People want smart, respectful communication that builds community.  People want community that persists and evolves.  People are focused on these goals and directed to these goals, which protects from commercial interest taking over.

With those problem statements and goals, let’s get to my proposal.   If you wonder where this comes from it’s a mix of psychology, project management, my own publishing experience, and some readings on older Taoist communities (who networked via inns and passing on books).  I’ve had an interesting life.

So here’s the idea I’d love to try.

  1. Gather five to ten people with an interest in corresponding and communicating ideas and creating/doing something specific.  Try to keep it around seven.  This is the “Crew.”
  2. One of these people acts as the “Collector” – and the position may rotate.
  3. People send essays and works to the Collector.  In time the Crew can (and should) include respectful commentary on the work of others.  Note this work doesn’t have to be exclusive (see below).
  4. The Collector puts out these works as a zine on a regular schedule.  For sanity’s sake it shouldn’t be less than two weeks or more than a month.  “When I got enough” may be acceptable and reasonable in some cases.
  5. The zine SHOULD be in print.  Each member of the Crew gets two copies.  More may be printed to share elsewhere.  The print files should be available.
  6. An e-zine is also possible, but there should be a print copy to start.  The e-zine should be archived, easily available, and maybe even (freely) available on other sites if approved.  It’s 100% fine if the e-zine JUST being an ODT or PDF file of the print zine.
  7. After the Crew puts out a few zines, members are encouraged to join or start OTHER Crews to share and correspond.  Perhaps they also act as Collectors.  Eventually every person belongs to at least two other Crews, but runs maybe one or two at most.
  8. As other Crews are created, THEIR members create zines, ezines, etc.  Work may be shared among Crews – you can publish the same essay in multiple zines.
  9. Once this is running, different Crews and individuals can see what suits them.  Do several Crews do a compendium?  What about small press books shared among Crews?  Are there different arrangements they can try?  Public or private activism?  Who knows?

The idea is to have a project (zine) a small Crews rallies around.  That focus on publishing and correspondence encourages thoughtfulness, provides physical results, and builds communications.  The networking of people on multiple Crews shares ideas and spreads the idea of “zine teams.”.  Larger community can be enhanced or evolved among multiple teams, exchanges of information, and shared effort.

(A friend helped me realize this is a form of Amateur Press Association with a focus on networking and a specific community. I didn’t mention that in the first draft as I haven’t dealt with APAs in ages . . .)

Why add a physical zine?  I hope/think/expect it would slow things down, require people to think about communications and leaving records.  It also inspires new ways to think about creating lasting records (because as we know the internet isn’t as reliable as we’d like).  The idea comes from many sources, but A.J. Roach’s Small Things Manifesto solidified the ideas for me.

Will it work?  I have no idea – but it might be fun to try. Write me at Rev + My Name + @gmail.com if you want to chat. (I’ve got to set up that contact form and post the email easier)

-Xenofact

Projects Are Magic

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The world isn’t what it should be.  We want to change it for the better.  What is the key, the spell, the magic that will help us do that?  Or at least make stuff suck less?

And I answer, “Project Management,” which might not be the answer people want.

Workboards and flowcharts aren’t exciting to most people.  Market research sounds boring at best and manipulative at worst.  We want to act and get things done cleanly and honestly (at least honestly).  No one wants to be like some chart-obsessed office drone from a sitcom.

As a professional project and program manager, I feel otherwise most strongly.  Project Management is power.

Look at the state of the world.  The bad people are organized and productive, and there’s often more method to madness than you think.  Sure, they may not realize the ultimate results of their bad ideas, but they’re certainly getting them implemented.  If you want to make it in this world, change it, work your mystic and mutant strageness, you need to know how to get things to happen.

If you want to do something you need to know how to make it into a project and get it done – often with other people.

The “secrets” of Project Manager and easy to find – they’re not really secrets.  David Allen has written a bunch of great stuff under his “Getting Things Done” brand, and yeah he’s commercial, but he knows what he’s talking about (take it from me).  David Marquet does great stuff on leadership that explores language, management, and mindset.  For that matter, grab the Scrum Guide to check out a light way to organize projects from the “Agile” movement, or go to the Project Management Institute to go old-school.

The power is out there to get stuff accomplished.

I can say, personally, when you dive into Project Management and productivity in general, it turns out to be magical.  I mean this near-literally; it reminds me of occult and meditative systems.

You learn how to see the things you need to accomplish in a new way.  You see how goals are something deep and meaningful, not buzzwords (or shouldn’t be).  You understand breaking down work and how a project is a network of causality.  You get a vision of how things can happen and get done – and make it happen.  When you know Project Management the world becomes different because you can make things happen..

Project Management gives you a bunch of tools, techniques, and ceremonies (meetings and events) to bring some project to completion.  Once you see your work differently, you can apply these tools to get a goal achieved.  There’s vision and action, as long as you make an effort to learn it.  In fact once you learn it, it’s easier to learn from other organizers using the same language.

I invite you to take a look at various Project and Productivity tools.  Here’s a few to try:

  • Getting Things Done by David Allen.  A simple guide to personal productivity, not technically Project Management, but pretty much project managemnet.
  • The Scrum Guide.  Free, online, a fast project management method in the Agile vein, and so quick you can do it with sticky notes or an online document.
  • Project Management All-in-One for Dummies.  A combined guide for traditional and Agile methods, I’ve had decent results from the Dummies series.
  • If you want to go hardcore, you can even dig up serious traditional “Waterfall” project management guides at the Project Management Institute, This is the serious stuff, mostly flowcharts and breakdowns despite the organization being open to lighter methods.

Let’s change the world – and get organized.  What, do you want to leave all this knowledge in the hands of the people currently running the world into the ground?

– Xenofact