blackthornwren

[blackthornwren]

Reiki

At first glance, Reiki seems harmless. The official term for it is pseudoscience, but I won’t take up issue with anyone that believes it works, it’s not for me to decide - after all, I practice magic and talk to spirits. What I do want to talk about is when it started, and where it's going.

Despite the common misconception that it’s an ancient Japanese practice, Reiki began with a man named Mikao Usui and it’s speculated that he came up with the concept sometime in the 1920’s when he spent 21 days fasting and praying on Mount Kurama. Reiki, as it began, is not harmful in and of itself - in fact, it goes hand-in-hand (lol, I’m so sorry for the bad joke) with many other religions and spiritualities that involve a “laying of hands” healing technique.

Mikao Usui passed the practice on to several students; but most importantly, it was Chujiro Hayashi who really began to monetize and create a movement out of Reiki - founding the first institute which offered energy healing sessions to paying customers. From there, Hayashi’s student Hawayo Takata carried the Reiki practice to Hawai'i where it gained ground and spread across the States, becoming quite the fad among the holistic new age crowd.

And really, therein lies the problem with Reiki - whatever Usui’s original intentions were, the Reiki that exists now functions on a similar level to MLMs. It begins with a session, which can range anywhere between $40.00 to $300.00 (and that was at last check when Washington Post wrote an article on it, around 2014).

One session leads to more sessions, as people become dependent upon it. But soon they’re encouraged to learn it themselves, and wouldn’t you just know it, there’s an awful lot of online classes out there to teach you how to practice Reiki…for a fee, of course.

Once you finish a class though, you can then sign up and pay for further attunements! Because Reiki is a lot like being an RPG character in that you need to fucking level up (a lot!) in order to get stronger in your online long distance energy healing.

Because Reiki and New Age have taken to each other like two peas in a pod, you now have Reiki practitioners who appropriate "incorporate" chakras, crystals, yoga, and law of attraction concepts into their sessions.

As you may be able to predict where I'm going with this (I'm still gonna say it), Reiki is naturally a very popular technique used in cults. And while I’m sure it’s great for clearing those negative blockages that prevent you from finding your soul-mate or becoming your higher self, it's important to be able to spot the lure when you see it.

[blackthornwren]

^ seconded 🤣

Reiki

At first glance, Reiki seems harmless. The official term for it is pseudoscience, but I won’t take up issue with anyone that believes it works, it’s not for me to decide - after all, I practice magic and talk to spirits. What I do want to talk about is when it started, and where it's going.

Despite the common misconception that it’s an ancient Japanese practice, Reiki began with a man named Mikao Usui and it’s speculated that he came up with the concept sometime in the 1920’s when he spent 21 days fasting and praying on Mount Kurama. Reiki, as it began, is not harmful in and of itself - in fact, it goes hand-in-hand (lol, I’m so sorry for the bad joke) with many other religions and spiritualities that involve a “laying of hands” healing technique.

Mikao Usui passed the practice on to several students; but most importantly, it was Chujiro Hayashi who really began to monetize and create a movement out of Reiki - founding the first institute which offered energy healing sessions to paying customers. From there, Hayashi’s student Hawayo Takata carried the Reiki practice to Hawai'i where it gained ground and spread across the States, becoming quite the fad among the holistic new age crowd.

And really, therein lies the problem with Reiki - whatever Usui’s original intentions were, the Reiki that exists now functions on a similar level to MLMs. It begins with a session, which can range anywhere between $40.00 to $300.00 (and that was at last check when Washington Post wrote an article on it, around 2014).

One session leads to more sessions, as people become dependent upon it. But soon they’re encouraged to learn it themselves, and wouldn’t you just know it, there’s an awful lot of online classes out there to teach you how to practice Reiki…for a fee, of course.

Once you finish a class though, you can then sign up and pay for further attunements! Because Reiki is a lot like being an RPG character in that you need to fucking level up (a lot!) in order to get stronger in your online long distance energy healing.

Because Reiki and New Age have taken to each other like two peas in a pod, you now have Reiki practitioners who appropriate "incorporate" chakras, crystals, yoga, and law of attraction concepts into their sessions.

As you may be able to predict where I'm going with this (I'm still gonna say it), Reiki is naturally a very popular technique used in cults. And while I’m sure it’s great for clearing those negative blockages that prevent you from finding your soul-mate or becoming your higher self, it's important to be able to spot the lure when you see it.

[blackthornwren]

[blackthornwren]

La Clavicule ou La Clef de Salomon, the Key of Solomon, 18th century

[blackthornwren]

“And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist’s head in a charger.” – Matthew 14:8

How a roebuck found on St. John’s Day became a roadkill saint…

Johnmas [the nativity feast of St. John the Baptist] is the anniversary of Ivan’s rescuing and beheading. He was discovered on the feast day and was ritually decapitated shortly after. Canonized, the roadkill roebuck became Ivan Kupala [John the Baptist] - prophet, saint, and fly agaric mystic who baptized me in the name of this land.

Slava Ivan Kupala!

see also: #ivan, #johnmas

[blackthornwren]

To be very clear, this is not a MAGA friendly blog and I will throw your own infighting and cute little phrases right back at you.

[blackthornwren]

I want Satan so bad I can taste it!

Judging by your reblogs, I'd say you already have.

[blackthornwren]

Reiki

At first glance, Reiki seems harmless. The official term for it is pseudoscience, but I won’t take up issue with anyone that believes it works, it’s not for me to decide - after all, I practice magic and talk to spirits. What I do want to talk about is when it started, and where it's going.

Despite the common misconception that it’s an ancient Japanese practice, Reiki began with a man named Mikao Usui and it’s speculated that he came up with the concept sometime in the 1920’s when he spent 21 days fasting and praying on Mount Kurama. Reiki, as it began, is not harmful in and of itself - in fact, it goes hand-in-hand (lol, I’m so sorry for the bad joke) with many other religions and spiritualities that involve a “laying of hands” healing technique.

Mikao Usui passed the practice on to several students; but most importantly, it was Chujiro Hayashi who really began to monetize and create a movement out of Reiki - founding the first institute which offered energy healing sessions to paying customers. From there, Hayashi’s student Hawayo Takata carried the Reiki practice to Hawai'i where it gained ground and spread across the States, becoming quite the fad among the holistic new age crowd.

And really, therein lies the problem with Reiki - whatever Usui’s original intentions were, the Reiki that exists now functions on a similar level to MLMs. It begins with a session, which can range anywhere between $40.00 to $300.00 (and that was at last check when Washington Post wrote an article on it, around 2014).

One session leads to more sessions, as people become dependent upon it. But soon they’re encouraged to learn it themselves, and wouldn’t you just know it, there’s an awful lot of online classes out there to teach you how to practice Reiki…for a fee, of course.

Once you finish a class though, you can then sign up and pay for further attunements! Because Reiki is a lot like being an RPG character in that you need to fucking level up (a lot!) in order to get stronger in your online long distance energy healing.

Because Reiki and New Age have taken to each other like two peas in a pod, you now have Reiki practitioners who appropriate "incorporate" chakras, crystals, yoga, and law of attraction concepts into their sessions.

As you may be able to predict where I'm going with this (I'm still gonna say it), Reiki is naturally a very popular technique used in cults. And while I’m sure it’s great for clearing those negative blockages that prevent you from finding your soul-mate or becoming your higher self, it's important to be able to spot the lure when you see it.

[blackthornwren]

Sometimes, it doesn't even need to be goat leather. It can also be bound in "full emerald morocco".

Throwback to that moment when occult publishers realized that their customers would pay almost anything for hot garbage, as long as it's bound in goat leather with marbled end pages.

[blackthornwren]

Throwback to that moment when occult publishers realized that their customers would pay almost anything for hot garbage, as long as it's bound in goat leather with marbled end pages.

[blackthornwren]

Wizard bath complete!

Alas, this did not improve the state of the peeling skin on my hands. That wasn't the point of the bath, but dear god, my hands!

[blackthornwren]

really dislike having a content generation economy that incentivises people to come up with something else every time time it looks like theyve run outta shit to say and may have to finally shut the fuck up. I feel like maybe people would be less stupid overall if shutting the fuck up was a more neutral act thats healthy and respectable to do sometimes cuz for every poor twat aging 10x a normal rate from the stress of doing responsible scholarship for 3 to 4 essays a week we get 2500 dimfluencers and a good 5000 commoners with dreams of a higher station in digital serfdom just absolutely spitting whatever lazy bullshit seemed to get a response last time and sad for us that always seems to be an authoritatively stated and apparently sincerely held belief that the globe itself and all catrography for all of history has been a massive conspiracy to keep people from learning of the atlantean palace of telepathic whales with 100% aryian genetic material living just beyond the ice wall from game of thrones

[blackthornwren]

"Faire braire les poeles" is a singular usage with the supposed result of driving away evil spirits. It prevailed up to a few years ago, in the parish of St. John's in the island of Jersey. The ceremony took place annually on St. John's eve and consisted in obtaining a brass boiler partly filled with water and encircling it with a covering of strong rushes, strings also of rushes were attached to it and these being wetted, the persons who surrounded the cauldron drew these rapidly through their hands, by means of which a vibration and an accompaniment of uncouth and inharmonious noises was produced. At the same time others blew horns from cows to swell the note of discord.

[blackthornwren]

Midsummer Spell to Have Conference With Spirits

From the 17th century Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet, presented by David Rankine “Take Pedra di dura fruit (the hard pit of a fruit, such as peach or cherry) on the day of St. John Baptist (traditionally June 24) Or in the vigil of St Peter or in the third day after and burn it and cast it into a secret place And after the third day come thither and you shall find as many Devils as by them And thou shalt see them and bind them saying as followeth. When our Lord descended down from Heaven to deliver the People In the name of the same Lord I Conjure you Spirits that you do whatsoever I command you And that you do no hurt to any creature And thereto I charge you + In the name of the Father+ And of the Son+ And of the Holy Ghost+ Amen+

Then ask or bid them do what thou wilt and they will perform”

[blackthornwren]

rural life is interesting because it gives you the opportunity to experience as an outsider a culture where everyone is presumed to have ready access to something called an Ikea, so all the furniture styling tutorials are about pieces from there, specifically, and it becomes a puzzle to figure out how to apply the same basic principles of fashionable design to furniture you will instead have to curate and build slowly, over time, by stealing non-load-bearing planks one by one in the dead of night from the barns of families you feud with

[blackthornwren]

Get that witch some stinging nettle. Witches love stinging nettle.

[blackthornwren]

Altar Guardian (Making of)

Some time ago, I posted about the North German practice of the Bannkorb ((Spell)Binding Hive), a beehive adorned with a human face, which is supposed to keep evil spirits and honey thieves from a group of beehives.

While researching, I came across a publication by Aladin Borioli, who took some stunning photos of extant examples in German museum collections. I cut some of these out from a brochure of his publishing house (spector books), which I plan to frame and hang in my flat.

I’ve been thinking a lot about binding practices and how in different spiritual practices figurines and statues guard holy and sacred places. Since I felt such a resonance with these hive-figures, I wanted to create a miniature Spellbinding Hive for my Altar Space.

I collected a whole bunch of dandelion stems, that had already gone to seed and hung them up to dry. Once they were nice and crispy, I began braiding them into one long braid and startet sewing it to itself.

I’m currently in the process of forming the basket-structure. The next step will be to form the face/mask and attach it to the finished miniature hive.