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Here's "The Devil" from Crowley's Thoth tarot deck, illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris: http://www.esotericmeanings.com/thoth-devil-tarot-card-tutorial/

I tried to read Crowley's "The Book of Thoth" and dropped out about a third of the way through. Clearly I am not cut out to be a magician.

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This poem by Yeats was featured in Stehpen King's novel THE STAND, having to do with a devistating global pandemic that literally ended the world.

I think the poem has great rellevance for our situation today.

The Second Coming

W. B. Yeats - 1865-1939

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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I have practiced magic on occasion. I understand the physiological processes and the means involved, but to most people it would appear to be magic. A good friend, one of whose doctorates was in physiology, was experiencing pain. I put her in a trance and redirected her blood flow to raise the temperature in the area, which helped. Later, we worked together on on other self-directed body changes. We were able to raise the level of endorphins, and then lower the level of eosinophils. We discussed trying to change the shapes of body parts, but I was unwilling to proceed. I want to explore whether humans can actually shape-shift.

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