When the Trickster Comes to Town

 

“There’s a sucker born every minute”, P. T. Barnum said. The original huckster, the carnival barker and showman of American circus history, is well-known to have said these words in regard to the money he made off of marks and rubes. The trouble is, he never said that- a detractor of his said that as a way of criticizing Barnum’s sensationalism and false claims. 

Would old Phineas have disagreed with the sentiment? Likely not, but the point here is that the Trickster spirit that animates and lives parallel to all hoaxes, illusions, and lies is so intrusive and all-encompassing it even permeates those things that everybody knows. When we think of the Trickster in terms of high strangeness, we run the risk of ignoring its presence in the more mundane realms. This is to say, the highly strange phenomena itself is but the exterior workings of the Trickster; what we do with it, what concepts we build from it, and how we ultimately synthesize the data is the really tricky stuff. Trying to pin down any particular event definitively amounts to playing three-card monte on a cosmic card table, and always walking away a few dollars short and mystified.

While we’re talking about cards, let’s look at the old 21 Card Trick for a bit of table magic. “Magic” in this sense relates to the stage variety, although this trick tends to fall more under “uncle magic”, common tricks a family member or bartender might pull out on a whim. We talk about stage magic as distinct from magical magic, and sometimes append a “k” to the end of the word so no mistake can be made, but let’s really look at the trick to see how tricky- and magical- it is.

21 cards are laid out in columns, face up. The “victim” selects a card without saying what it is, but indicates the column of seven cards and all of them are gathered, then redistributed in three columns again. Eventually Uncle Bartender will take up all the cards, spell out “Abra Cadabra!” and lay a card down for each letter, and wouldn’t you know it? The last card is the one the victim picked.

This is what’s known as a “self-working” trick. There is no real “trick” involved, no sleight, no palming of cards or manipulation. Just simple math. Mathematically, in ways I can’t explain, if you follow the correct order of operations with the columns and the laying out of cards, that last card will always be the one your victim silently selected. It may as well actually be magical magic. And why, I think it’s fair to ask, can’t it be both?

If we broaden our circus tent to a Bradburyan degree, and let in some spooky mysteries and curious creatures alongside the gaffs and stage illusions, we can see our assumptions about reality warp like a dwarf in a funhouse mirror. Everywhere one looks in Forteana, ufology, paranormal history, and occult magic claims one finds weird truths behind tall tales and only smoke and mirrors behind more cut-and-dry explanations. Sometimes a credible seeming explanation of an incredible claim, when interrogated, seems much less likely than the original claim itself- and often, those little things that “everybody knows” turn out to be fallacies. Through it all, there’s an air of mystery within the tent and without. Phantom odors of both popcorn and elephant dung simultaneously entice and repulse you as you weave your way toward the side-show.

If we move from the metaphor of this fantastical circus of the mind to the more literal and historical circus history, we might consider claims that Helena Blavatsky started out as a trick rider of horses in a traveling show after abandoning her first marriage. Whether this is true or not, the idea that the woman who would ultimately be the face of Theosophy, with its myriad influences throughout occult traditions culminating in all manner of New Age beliefs, had a carnivalesque origin story is oddly appealing and fitting. Similarly, much later, Anton LaVey would claim to have played organ for the Clyde Beatty Circus, all the while learning from the animal trainers and magicians there. While there is no proof of such a connection, outside of his claims, the performative and influential effects produced through his Satanic Church had a carnival barker quality. In both examples, keeping an open mind, one wonders where the show ends and the mystery begins. One gets a sense, returning to the metaphorical tent, that within it somewhere is a fortune teller who is actually a powerful soothsayer- someone with eyes sewn shut and yet with the ability to predict more than just illustrated men. Perhaps it wouldn’t be difficult to prognosticate where all of this leads us, as following our noses leads us either to the concession stands or animal stalls tracing histories of fringe belief and weird phenomena. It seems all of it is, after all, in the eye of the beholder, not the nose- and that whatever your preconceived biases, the investigation of the highly strange continues to be the Best Show on Earth. 

If you haven’t yet thrown up your hands in frustration, and are willing to further traverse the phantom fairgrounds, you might consider again the magician who deals with illusions and sleights. Often, these types are some of the best-equipped in evaluation of paranormal claims. John Keel, for example, remains an influential voice and to some investigators one of the best who ever wrote on the subjects of the highly strange, which is largely to do with his background in magic. Much has been made of magicians like James Randi or Houdini debunking claims of various phenomena, but this is only part of the story. There are also investigators like Loyd Auerbach or John E. L. Tenney, who both practice magic for the stage while being more open to an examination of the otherworldly. Still in our histories we see others, like the Davenport Brothers, who conjured spirits in seances with claims to legitimacy- and upon being found out, continued their performances as stage magic. It’s a small matter of saying it’s a show, “For entertainment purposes only”- but is it, ultimately? Or is it all a part of the Big Show in the Big Tent, all under the umbrella of the Trickster, still looking for that newly born sucker?

It’s all fun and games to conjecture, and fun and games is where we meet the Trickster halfway. There’s a crossroads outside of the fairground where we appear, dressed as Mr. Dark, to meet the Trickster. Down the road is a place where people are concerned only with what they can prove, and what authority figures tell them. This writer has no fear of offending these folks, since none of them will have read this far into these poetic meanderings. Those who seek proof, Disclosure, acceptance from the amorphous and ever-ill-defined entity known as Science in regard to their pet theories about ghosts, UFOs, monsters, and whatzits of all kinds celebrate when sitting congressmen talk about UAP or NHI. It’s a big deal, they claim, when our legislators are finally taking the weird stuff seriously! It might interest these people to know that in American history, legislators and even presidents have been open to or strong believers in all kinds of wild claims. It was a congressman who wrote one of the most influential books about the existence of and history of Atlantis, which would later inspire the aforementioned Blavatsky as well as contribute to all manner of wild beliefs. John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States, approved a mission to discover and sign a treaty with the Mole People of the inner earth. Bringing it back home, Barnum himself served in the Connecticut legislature. The appeal to authority and the self-satisfaction of certainty as regards the various mysteries informing the Big Mystery is anathema to the equation, and only serves to illustrate how tricky the Trickster gets.

Perhaps the metaphor of the circus tent and the surrounding area along with the Bradbury allusions is a bit too dark and cerebral. The sinister carnival has been a useful theme for as long as we’ve had carnivals; the subversion of amusements and novelty betraying our confidences and thus instilling terror has its place, but there is a risk of putting too much emphasis on fear. It might be more helpful to think of high strangeness and the Trickster nature of it all as operating on cartoon logic. I’ve often said that in order to understand the weirdness of the wyrdshit out there, one should study the 1953 Merrie Melodies cartoon Duck Amuck. There are several ways one might take such a suggestion, but for our purposes here let us consider the investigator to be in the role of Daffy Duck. Daffy is keenly aware that he is painted onto a cell in a cartoon, awaiting direction from the mostly unseen animator. He accepts that anything is possible in his cartoon world, and further, that most of it is illusory. Despite this, he is still frustrated in his attempts to compromise with the animator who torments him. He finds himself transported, transformed into a motley beast, and even in conflict with his own double; even though he knows the trick, he can still be tricked.

The animator of course (spoiler alert) turns out to be none other than the ultimate trickster, Bugs Bunny. Bugs is a demiurgic stinker, casually toying with his feathered frenemy in the surprising reveal. It only makes sense that the legendary rascal would attain godlike powers after a lifetime’s experience traveling down rabbit holes… and the clowns of the circus, which we failed to mention early, are the real power in the Big Top. At this point the reader might think we’ve wandered into the realm of nonsense, which surely we have- after all, the whole premise of “going down rabbit holes” comes from a classic of nonsense literature. Chasing the White Rabbit down into Wonderland we find ourselves sitting for tea with the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, who asks us why a raven is like a writing desk. It might be the most appropriate question we’ve yet been asked.

In several Native American cultures, Raven is a Trickster figure, with his own motives and purposes. He is variously also a messenger, which corresponds to the ravens depicted in Norse mythology as associates of Odin. Much like the desk where tales of high strangeness are written down, dissected, and disseminated, Raven sends messages while himself also being the message in question. It’s tricky stuff, and accepting that you’ll be fooled is a step toward overcoming the frustration of not knowing. Laugh at thyself, from time to time, and learn to unknow.

It is significant that some of the wildest tales of the highly strange prominently involve children as witnesses. Think of Gef the Talking Mongoose, and his association with young Voirrey. Think of the young girls who took photos of the Cottingley Fairies, and all that resulted from them. Hell, consider the Fox Sisters and their outsized impact on the entire world once they conjured spirits through raps and knocks. Children are more readily accepting of cartoon logic, of the wider range of possibilities reality has available. They haven’t yet learned to abandon flights of fancy, through which fanciful things might filter through from another realm. Recently I had occasion to interview Paul A. T. Wilson, who shared with me what he learned from a woman who claimed to be the little girl from the now famous Sam the Sandown Clown story. Before long, I was receiving all manner of comments and messages picking apart Paul’s narrative, accusations of fraud and attacks on his character. It seemed so strange to me that these folks would so readily accept the narrative of the young girl, about her improbable encounter with a weird entity on the Isle of Wight, and yet spend so much time and effort finding reasons to reject any further story. Perhaps we’re more sympathetic to tall tales told from the perspective of children. There’s a purity there, albeit one that’s intrinsically tied to the impish impulses of youth, that we respond to out of nostalgia and empathy. It may also be the case that each of us knows there was a time when the monster under the bed posed a real threat, or that dragons were something to look out for or that the spooky old house down the road was the home of an old witch. Reality is more malleable for children because they see not with their eyes, but with an infinite prismatic kaleidoscope of probability. Raven delivers true visions to those who deserve to see what can’t be seen through normal eyeballs. Adopting a childlike view, where cartoons make sense and preconceived notions don’t prohibit one from entertaining wild ideas is a wild talent in and of itself. 

And so we’re back at the circus, standing at the platform next to Mr. Dark’s Merry-go-Round, weighing the risks of taking the ride…

Manifesting Our Cultural Superman: Truth, Justice, and the American Way

 

In 1978, Hollywood not only asked us to believe a man could fly- they gave audiences a directive. You will believe a man can fly. Superman came to movie screens across the United States and inspired viewers, young and old, with a character who at that point had been emblematic of our cultural values for 40 years. 

Belief is a tricky thing, though. Superman himself had trouble breaking into the pages of comic books because he seemed too unbelievable; leaping tall buildings in a single bound or traveling faster than a speeding bullet was considered too far of a stretch by the men at the top. Believing in the impossible requires a level of intellectual bravery, or, paradoxically, childish credulity. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote about this as a type of "poetic faith"- that the "semblance of truth" could be conveyed through supernatural or otherwise fantastical means by simply enjoying the impossible narrative for its own sake. When we willingly suspend disbelief, we become privy to ephemeral truths about human nature, about society, and about the world in which we live. All of the best speculative fiction, even if it's considered low brow by literary standards, illustrates the usefulness of actively letting go of critical faculty- taking a leap, into the air, and flying, as an act of faith- and thus being rewarded not only through the power of entertainment and novelty but by the inherent meaning and truth conveyed.

Truth, however, is another sticky concept. Christopher Reeve, in his role as Superman in the aforementioned movie, uses the hero's old motto of "Truth, Justice, and the American Way". We see here how intimately Superman is tied to ideas about the U.S., what it stands for, or perhaps what it should aspire to. Veering away from suspension of disbelief for a moment, this motto traces its roots to the second World War, for Superman's radio show in an effort to support American troops overseas. It again became used by George Reeves in the 1950s TV series, this time as Cold War rhetoric. These are true statements, and the more cynical among us bristle at the hokeyness the tagline embodies while simultaneously being tangential to propaganda. If we employ our willingness to believe, without any umbrage or analysis, we may find that the simplicity of these basic values as stated have a kind of beauty that is often absent in popular discourse. 

Truth is not only sticky, it's very difficult to face. It's not terribly surprising that Superman has been increasingly considered corny in recent decades, or that belief in American ideals has become such a quagmire. People often rightly point out that the men who founded our nation, and spoke of freedom, largely owned human beings for the purpose of forced labor. Many examples from history directly contradict the ideals expressed in the founding documents, and it feels increasingly childish or naive to equate "the American Way" with Truth or Justice. Perhaps, however, a childlike view - or a suspension of disbelief, cynicism, and anger - is helpful in believing we can get there. In recent years, Superman has been instead saying "Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow"- and one could argue that the sentiment is precisely the same. The Truth that the founding fathers were promoting was held by them to be self-evident. One might say even a child could tell you what freedom is, what equality looks like, and what's fair. For reasons seem to be intrinsically part of human nature, the basic values of human dignity and equality are reasoned away as flights of fancy. 

There's nothing controversial or even political about Truth. If we accept for our purposes that by "men" the founders used an archaic form of "human", we see by these self-evident truths that we are all equal, and each of us has the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. There are no qualifiers in this vision of what it means to be American. It should be obvious, this Truth, or self-evident as we interact with others in the world- and yet for so many, the premise seems laughably alien. This is, perhaps, where Justice comes in. Prior to, during, and after the founding of these United States the original ideals have consistently failed to manifest in a multitude of ways. In other ways, though, this grand titanic experiment has gradually arced toward its goal. If we are to exercise our muscles in disbelief suspension, through intellectual honesty or childish optimism, we can get to a place where despite all evidence to the contrary such lofty ambitions are achievable. We can believe in a Better Tomorrow, we can believe that it's the same as the American Way, just as we can believe a man can fly.

The ugly truths and injustices of our modern world may lead us to ennui, despair, and hopelessness. It must not, however, lead us to concede defeat prematurely. There is still goodness in the world, and even if it seems less self-evident when one looks at the news or scrolls through social media, we are all equal parts of the equation and in the same boat. Xenophobia, dehumanization, and bigotry seems so obviously anathema to the very specific principles set forth in the Constitution, and yet many wave American flags while spewing such rhetoric. There's something to be said for the fact that Superman stood for these ideals even though he was not only an immigrant from another nation, but from another planet. We seem to be stuck in a binary mindset, one rife with contradiction and logical fallacies. Whether we consider the America of the idea space to be just as corny and fictional as Superman, or whether we believe in an alternate factual interpretation of traditionalism from the founders, we are becoming increasingly at odds not only with each other but also with our humanity. If we don't want the Earth to go the way of Krypton, we should do everything in our power to bring these founding principles to bear.

   As a character, Superman was born out of what became known as the Golden Age of comic books. In a literary sense, the concept of the Golden Age relates to a time before humanity suffered, a paradise that once existed and was lost. Occasionally, examples of this literary device depict a Utopian future. Myriad dimensions of this kind of idea manifest in our discourse regularly; people may speak of the "good old days", or become nostalgic for simpler times. If we are to concern ourselves with Truth, however, we realize that this nostalgia relates to a past that never was. The above image seems like a bittersweet relic of a bygone era, but worse than that, it's a message of hope from nearly three-quarters of a century ago that seems to have burned out instead. The 1950s were a complicated time, and there are plenty of reasons Superman's message here didn't match reality then- but our Man of Tomorrow was forward thinking, and many of the inequalities present at that time gradually met with Justice. Now, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, this golden utopian America seems just as fictional, cornball, and archaic as Superman himself. But Superman never dies, even despite stories in the comics and the movies; similarly, the defiant and indomitable spirit of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness can never be crushed.

The point here is that we should not discard our ideals simply because they are impossible. Real Truth exists despite our inborn need to dissect it and twist it and ultimately cast it aside. The America that is analogous to Truth and Justice, that truly embodies such values, exists in the imaginal realm and is still worthy of our aspiration. It also lives in our symbols- the flag, the bald eagle, and Superman- and can be manifested with these forms. There are stories about real-life encounters with Superman, and other comic characters, existing as a sort of tulpa to the writers and artists who bring him to life on the page. Alvin Schwartz, who wrote Superman comic strips for nearly 20 years, writes about his encounters with such manifestations in his book An Unlikely Prophet- and ultimately realizes that Superman is only one half of the character. The other half is Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter. While none of us can claim to fly, bend steel or have x-ray vision we can all relate to Kent. Whether we choose to believe claims such as those made by Schwartz in his book, we can nevertheless extrapolate from the idea of thought forms becoming real that the impossible may not be as far away as we think. In spite of the fact that we've never quite seen the kind of Golden Age or self-evident truths in action the way we would wish to, we must nevertheless hold space for them. We keep them close to our hearts, the way Clark wore his costume under his shirt.

Perhaps some symbols, archetypes, and forms outlive their usefulness eventually. Perhaps there are ages and epochs where the gods reign supreme and others where humanity lifts itself up. We can't wait for the deus ex machina, the blue and red bullet from the sky to come and rescue us all from the horrors we've created. But if we believe a man can fly, if we believe that a better tomorrow can be today, if we can suspend our disbelief enough to make room for such naive sounding things as Truth or Justice or the American Way, then maybe we can manifest our cultural Superman as we live our Clark Kent lives. As we look up in the sky, we can channel hope. The fight is not over, and likely it never will be. We fight in spite of it all in the hopes of that impossible future which rests entirely on poetic faith, that there will come a time when fighting is no longer necessary.

Who cares if it's corny? Believe.

Communion With the Critters

 

I have fed the birds at my house for almost as long as I have had a house. Initially, this was more for the benefit and amusement of my cat, who loves to watch from the window, flicking her tail and chittering away as they fly around. I have always enjoyed birds anyway, and seeing who visits my house because of the feeder has been quite literally a magical experience. 

I got in the habit of throwing whatever was leftover from my cold sandwich lunch at work onto the grass under the feeder each morning for the birds and squirrels to eat. It occurred to me recently that this daily bread, as it were, is part of a mystical bond with the birds- we are eating the same meal, communing in the most vital fashion. To extend this further, every new cold sandwich that gets made in the morning has its own attendant ritual, with both my dog and my cat appearing out of nowhere for a little scrap of meat. Our “Sandwich Time” morning rite has become very important, and ties us all together- the critters inside, myself, and the birds and creatures outside my door all partaking of the same broken bread.

The indoor critters, Bernie and Lucy, alerting me that it is dinnertime

I had my avian biases. Blue Jays always seemed to me to be the bullies of the bird world, and many assess them as such. I was less than thrilled about their attendance at the feeder, until one day an injured or sick Jay took up residence under my butterfly bush. It seemed incapable of flight, and could only hop short distances. Often it would just sit in the grass pointing its beak skyward, or cocking its head strangely. The smaller birds were cruel to it. I softened in my opinion of the Jays, and did what I could to help the fella along. Eventually it got well.

Similarly I had an irrational disdain for turkeys, mostly borne out of a joke. I just thought it was kind of funny to dunk on turkeys, I suppose. One day a lone turkey strolled into my yard, and kept coming back. It caused me to wonder why a lone turkey would hang around, as I’ve only ever seen them in groups. As it happens, this turkey was a hen with a nest somewhere nearby. Mother turkeys are solitary during this time of their lives and don’t stray too far from their nest when foraging. I took it upon myself to help the expectant single mom, and bought cracked corn and peanuts to spread on the lawn for her. She came to trust me enough that so long as I avoided looking at her directly, she would come within a few feet of me to eat. Eventually she stopped coming around- but a few months later, a pair of hens appeared with a troop of over a dozen poults following them. She had returned to show me her babies. 

Upping the ante in risk factors, and moving away from the feathered friends of my locale, I developed a friendship with a young skunk. I have always loved skunks, and juvenile skunks are particularly adorable. Fear of getting sprayed causes most people to revile them, and run away like a character in a Pepe le Pew cartoon. I have always found them to be most reasonable if you talk to them. A simple “hello” goes a long way, and once a skunk is greeted it tends to make a decision to stay or go- but it won’t be startled, and you should have adequate warning if it intends to spray. My skunk friend perhaps became a little too comfortable at my house, which caused trouble with package deliveries. The pizza delivery guy called my phone from the driveway and refused to come to the door. I stepped outside and knelt down to chat with Skunk Friend, and scolded him for scaring the pizza guy. The dumbfounded look on his face as I took the pizza and mozzarella sticks put into perspective how odd my connection with the local fauna seems to the average observer.

Odder still, where I live isn’t a particularly woodsy area. The wildlife that passes through is surprisingly diverse; I’ve seen deer, possum, hawks and buzzards, groundhogs, bats, and, worryingly, coyotes.

Coyotes are a particular concern when you have a dog that barely weighs ten pounds. As such, he is never outside alone- and he always knows when the coyotes have been around. His hackles go up, he starts obsessively sniffing and barks his threats into the air, defending his turf. A persistent coyote who had unseen partners nearby tested his boundaries for quite a while, and I chased him off enough times that he gave up. I started, then, to consider the coyote as a Trickster figure, although I don’t presume to know enough about Indigenous beliefs and stories to comment too deeply. I will say that I felt particularly silly chasing him off while wearing flip flops, which made a threatening clopping sound on the walkway as I ran down it. It proved very effective, but also clownish. I wondered at that time if I was really chasing some part of myself away, and ending up with egg on my face. Later I received assistance from my Skunk Friend, who sprayed the coyote and got rid of him for good. The joke ended up being on me though; I later realized the canine adversary had tried to rub the spray off on the grill of my car, and I could smell it for weeks afterward.

In the early months of 2024, a new coyote arrived in the yard. He was more persistent than the prior one, and behaved more erratically. He seemed to enjoy upsetting Bernie, my intrepid ten pound hound, as I caught him lifting his leg or defecating under the bird feeder a few times. I began a campaign again of chasing off the interloper and this time was even more conflicted. My logical and practical mind wrestled with the more mystically and magically oriented realms of my being. I intuitively felt there was a spiritual resonance to this critter, this Trickster, this beast tormenting my dog- but on the most rational level, I know that wild animals are inherently unpredictable and not to be toyed with. I could tell the coyote, who I named Ozzie, was claiming my yard as his by marking it, and that his presence not only presented a threat to people and their pets in the neighborhood but also to him. The best thing for him, and for everyone, is that he be chased away. I had to close off any kooky mystical ideas about communion with the creature and do what was right and reasonable.

The harassment campaign commenced- he was chased away several times but always made his way back to the feeder. I suspected that voles or mice were active there at night and attractive to him as a snack. He eventually learned that although I made a good show of it, and made some scary noises, I probably wouldn’t actually hurt him. He tested the boundaries by running just far enough into my neighbor’s yard that he felt safe, and watching me from there or sniffing around. One night, out of frustration, I picked up a small bit of gravel and winged it at him, hitting him right in the hindquarters. I saw him jump vertically, then run away. Not being in the habit of throwing stones at animals I felt guilty about it, but reasoned that it was for his own good. 

The next morning I threw a bit of sandwich out, went through Sandwich Time with Bernie and Lucy, and as I was leaving for work Ozzie came slinking into the yard. He beelined to the feeder and grabbed the sandwich. I got out of the truck and he saw me, turned and ran with his mouth full of my offering to the birds and stopping at the property line. The Trickster at the boundary and I locked eyes. I was keenly aware of the line of cars behind me, as parents heading to a nearby school were dropping off their kids. I had made the situation much worse in a practical sense than it had been- any one of those parents could have seen the coyote and called animal control. What would they have done? I shuddered to think that my adversary could get hurt, or worse, that he might attack someone’s kid. This was also the first time I had seen Ozzie in the light of day, the first really good look I had gotten at him.

He was mangy. He was emaciated. One ear was broken, dangling uselessly to the side. He had probably been ostracized from the pack, and had been doing whatever he could to survive all winter and had only just barely made it through. As springtime was dawning, he stood resilient and defiant at the demarcation point between life and death, wither and growth. My efforts had failed because they had been wrong. The lessons the animals had tried to teach me was brushed off by what seemed so certainly to be a rational concern, and as a result backfired badly. He was too smart, too innovative to be driven away. He calculated that the risk at night was too great, so instead he would come in the morning, which was far worse. I knew then that following my initial impulse was the right thing to do. 

On Saint Patrick’s Day, I was fixing a bit of leftover corned beef from a dinner earlier that week into a sandwich, and found that I had leftovers of the leftovers which would surely go bad in the fridge. I resolved to offer it up to Ozzie. So that night, I brought the remaining hunk of cured meat out and placed it under the bird feeder, then sat on my steps and meditated a psychic message to the foe who had so troubled me, and who seemed so troubled. I conjured first the word, then as much of the feeling as I could: PEACE. I wished peace for him, and emanated it, with the picture of the coyote in my mind. 

Bernie didn’t bark that night when we went out, and the beef was still there. It was there in the morning as well. When I arrived home from work, it still sat on the ground where it had been.

Then, as I was sitting down to eat with my family, my son said “Whoa! Coyote!” and pointed through the window of the front door. I only caught a flash of grey going past the window, but it was him- he had waited until dinner for our communion. It was quite a while before I saw him again. 

I began to worry that he had been killed, but he was spotted across town by someone who posted a picture to Facebook.

Later still, a much better picture appeared online- very much the same coyote but looking much healthier, with a new lease on life; much less the scrawny, frantic and mangy canine who so unnerved me at the start of the year. The last time I saw him, I was sitting on my front steps and he trotted over to the feeder, a mere four or five feet from me. “Hello, Ozzie.” I said. He didn’t hear me, I suppose because of his bad ear, so I talked a little more. He looked up and jumped a bit, then casually scampered away.

 

Living his best coyote life

Animals are great teachers. They can be seen as symbols and archetypes, which they surely are, or as independent entities or as parts within an ecological control system; any way you look at them, they provide an interesting corollary to ideas about morality, compassion, and wisdom. There’s no good and evil in nature, there is only survival. An intricate web of connected organisms, life cycles, and seasonal habits promote a sustainable world for us all. The critters of my yard, from the loud-mouthed Jay to the mischievous Coyote, have been beating me over the head with the same message for years- compassion is the key. Empathy, intuition, and understanding can’t really be quantified or rationalized, but they must at all costs be considered if not strictly adhered to. For simplicity, or practical reasoning, we often close ourselves off to these primeval impulses, but what if we didn’t? What if each of us prioritized peace? 

It is certainly something to consider. I’m sure that Ozzie would agree.

Liber "Weird AL" vel Legis

 

"Liber Weird AL vel Legis", I thought one day, out of the blue. Mashing up the name of a famous novelty songster and the title of a prominent book of Thelemic magic is typical of the sort of nonsense produced by the colliding synaptic relays in my mind, and sometimes they provide me a private chuckle or a profound insight. Sometimes I am able to turn them into a silly joke to share on Twitter, and sometimes they open the door to deeper meanings. Often, the inspired stupidity of such momentary flights of linguistic fancy falls away and is not shared with anyone. 

For some reason this absurdity came to mind again one morning while I was preparing to go to work. While I considered it, I thought perhaps I could provoke some esoteric truths to show themselves, to stop hiding behind a dumb joke in my head. I had all but decided to shrug it off, let it fall away, when I heard a familiar noise. The sound I heard was nearly identical to the little chittering meows my cat, Lucypurr, makes when she's watching birds in the window- but to my surprise I found that this time the noise was coming from a bird! I had heard of, and seen, catbirds before but never knew why they were so named. Similar to mockingbirds and other feathery mimics, they are able to imitate and reproduce sounds from other animals. With that, the bird flew off and a marble dropped, setting in motion the Rube Goldberg contraption in my brain that produces these Weird Writings...

An aspect of occultism that often goes overlooked, especially among those with no practical experience in it, is how funny it is. This isn't lost at all on the atheists, materialists, and debunkers who see it all as kook science and hocus-pocus, the derisive "woo woo" of bygone eras holding humanity back from a "sane" view of reality. The intention here is not to align with the scoffers, but rather to balance the pop cultural view of grim wizards and dark sorcerers with a touch of humanity. Our modern occult world is populated with the spectres of magicians who came before, each of whom has their own personal mystique and mythology built up around them. There is no better example of this than "the Great Beast" Aleister Crowley, who courted controversy and seemed to enjoy being reviled during his lifetime. Following his death in the 1940s, his exploits have become the stuff of legend, to the point that anyone with only a passing interest in magic and mysticism would recognize the name. For those who are open to the Wyrd, but have no direct experiential knowledge of occult practice, Crowley can become inflated to grandiose proportions as a Master Magus calling down Angels and Demons; to the skeptic, he was simply a loony or a charlatan. Whatever one's personal preference within magic, though, those with any level of practical experience recognize that Crowley was first and foremost a man. He laughed, he joked. He ate food and hung out with friends, and enjoyed climbing mountains. It seems strange to even have to say these things, but it feels necessary- we often forget the mundane humanity of larger-than-life figures, and thus they become more like comic book characters with various storylines and continuities and canons. The static grim Crowley that exists as a peripheral phantom, particularly in the Fortean, conspiracy theory, and UFOlogy worlds persists. The phantom is really a person who is not only misunderstood, but not even engaged with by many on a level that could lead to understanding. That understanding begins with recognizing that he was just a dude.

Pictured: A Dude.

A dude though he was, he was insightful and, as already established, hugely influential. The notoriety or the infamy, depending where you stand, endures as his magical name "Perdurabo" would intimate. The particulars of his life have and will continue to be the subject of debate and speculation by those within and outside of occult practice. In many cases, it is perhaps best to just accept that he was a complicated person- and, when necessary, laugh at him.

Understanding Crowley, even to a minor extent, involves framing him within a larger context of modern occult beliefs and organizations. Virtually all groups use similar terminology and define them differently, so for our purposes here "Occult" will be the broad term for various magical systems. It's worth bearing in mind that "occult" simply means "hidden", and this will be a running theme. In my personal experience as a guy who knows some stuff about things, I've found that when approached with questions about any particular Occult figure by someone outside of any practice there is a tendency towards viewing that figure in isolation. It is extremely difficult to ever have an accurate idea about any specific occultist without squaring them against the time and place in which they lived, who they learned from, and where their ideas went after their physical existence reached an end. Thus we concern ourselves with the currents, threads, traditions, lineages- whatever term we wish to use- that wend themselves through the history of Occult thought. Along the way, we meet colorful and flamboyant characters who each have their own human foibles, biases, and motivations- but they all borrow from, react against, and even make fun of each other.

In this sense, it might be helpful to look at Occult literature as being not dissimilar to novelty music. Much as the rationalist might think of someone like Crowley as being nothing more than a mildly amusing historical nut, with nothing to offer the broader culture beyond that, novelty musicians such as "Weird Al" Yankovic are kicked to the margins of popular music. Although he has undergone something of a cultural reappraisal in recent years, for much of Yankovic's career he was acknowledged with an eye-roll by many fans of "real music". As a fan of his work, one could argue until they were blue in the face about his many talents without budging the opinion of a True Music Guy. Primarily known for his parodies, his albums usually contained at least as many original compositions. Sometimes these were pastiches of known bands or genres without being direct parodies of specific songs. Each album also contained a track made up of direct cover versions of popular tunes reimagined as accordion-driven polka. The humor driving the songs alongside the accordion was always more Mad Magazine than Mel Brooks, and certainly not everyone's comedic cup of tea. To the music snobs of the world, Yankovic may as well have been a children's entertainer like Raffi. Kid's stuff. Not real music.

"Weird Al" in many ways has become synonymous with novelty music, but of course he exists within a tradition of the genre along with folks like Stan Freberg and and Spike Jones. Barrett Hanson, better known as Dr. Demento, has had a long career as a historian and DJ of the niche category, and is responsible for promoting it to a wide audience. Listening to compilations from Dr. Demento of the novelty tunes that came before the 1980s gives one a broader context in which to consider "Weird Al", and also an appreciation for the role humor plays in capturing historical moments or in preserving culturally important works. How many of us are familiar with operas such as The Barber of Seville because of the Bugs Bunny cartoon that featured it? In a similar way, Yankovic has endured as a recording artist consistently longer than most of the "legitimate" musicians he's lampooned- and his catalogue of albums thus becomes a marker of what was popular at the time of each album's release.

Occultism and Novelty Music are not the same thing, but much in the way "Weird Al" exists largely on the fringes of popular music occult practitioners and writers occupy the margins of the broader culture. In both cases, there is a feedback loop between society at large and the periphery, which itself exists within a continuum of the same process. Some recording artists have viewed it as a badge of honor, or a rite of passage to have been parodied by Yankovic; and in the occult world there is a corollary, where magical ideas are reified and amplified in their legitimacy when borrowed or adapted by another magician. Without the broader context, some outside of the Occult might say that techniques or ideas were "stolen" when they see this in action. Likewise, the untrained eye might characterize themes within a current as being misappropriated or poorly adapted, when in fact they are being re-contextualized. Attempting to assess any modern occultist in isolation is like listening to a "Weird Al" parody without knowing the original song; you might still benefit from it, but in some cases the meaning and full value is diminished.

Societal pressures, and often threats, play a role in Occult literature. There is often also an interplay between the arts and magic, sometimes so much so that one is indistinguishable from the other. Occult themes infuse themselves in the art, poetry, and fiction of every era, hidden in plain sight. The weird dance between magical traditions and the societal structures in which they grow is difficult, if not impossible, to sort out without doing a heck of a lot of research. One can spend a lifetime, especially on one's own, seeking out answers- and that is, essentially, what one should expect to do if their pursuit of esoteric truths is genuine. Being well-rounded in investigating the people and ideas involved, it becomes easier to see why traditions formed in the way that they did as well as how intimately they are connected together. At certain points it was necessary to employ coded messages, cyphers, and occult blinds which often only became more ambiguous with the passage of time. Sometimes this is does as a safety precaution, to protect those involved; sometimes as a means of keeping magical knowledge out of the hands of those who would use it for destructive ends. Often enough, secret Occult truths remain secret simply by virtue of the fact that they require so much foundational knowledge that saying it plainly just sounds like absurdity. Occultism is insulated by the fact that many people treat it like a joke.

Magical beliefs are intrinsically tied up in the history of religions, arts, and sciences, but largely are obscured for fear that association with such beliefs discredits the person or product in question. Sir Isaac Newton is remembered for his scientific achievements, less so for his Occult interests- and that's not an oversight. We need our Newtons elevated above the riffraff of our Cagliostros and our Swedenborgs. Humor, when applied to music, can have the same effect. Frank Zappa always had weird and funny lyrics in his song, but when an edited version of his Don't Eat the Yellow Snow got played on Dr. Demento's show, it gained him new fans as well as the reputation of being a comedian more than a rock musician. Zappa, like the study of the Occult, has many facets to him and is really not for everybody. Hated by some, he is nonetheless a sort of cult figure in music history who occupies his own niche- and for the fans who get it, it can feel like being part of a secret fraternity; meeting other fans by happenstance, we know each other through certain arcane references and jokes. Being Occult-oriented is really no different. Evangelical Christians would have you believe it's all Satanic, and pop culture conjures Harry Potter, Doctor Strange, or Gandalf. But the truth is Occultists are largely seekers quietly seeking whether solitarily, with noses in books, or in small groups and online communities. The stigma is silly, but at the same time it seems built in- possibly as more of a feature than a bug. The Occult remains occulted, perhaps, because it works better that way- it requires those who seek to seek earnestly, just as the general weirdness of FZ filters out the kinds of people Zappa fans wouldn't want to hang with.

Zappa's lyrics were often derived from inside jokes between him and whoever was in the band at the time, which would develop organically in the tour bus. Occult symbols operate much like inside jokes, and it's helpful to consider that some authors of Occult texts may have been more playful than we give them credit for. 

Consider the 17th century novel Comte de Gabalis. The anonymous author, later revealed to be an abbott named Nicolas-Pierre-Henri de Montfoucan de Villars, recounts his meeting with the mysterious Count of Cabala. This meeting, or series of meetings, provides a setting in which the Count is able to explain the Occult secrets of the universe, promising to reveal all. (Spoiler alert: he doesn't.) Mostly he tries to convince the Abbé to marry an elemental. This text is largely considered to have been a satire of Occultism, a parody of esoteric texts of the time. It inspired poets and writers like Charles Baudelaire and Alexander Pope. Eliphas Levi and Madame Blavatsky, as well as Manly Palmer Hall "took it seriously", we are told; but isn't it just as possible that they were "in on the joke" and found value in it, regardless? On the other side of it, Pope seemed to consider the work to be a true understanding of ethereal spirits. Crowley recommends it in his Magick: In Theory and Practice, even "despite its mocking tone". The Sylphs (air elementals) mentioned in the book and borrowed by Pope in his The Rape of the Lock also get taken as historical fact by Desmond Leslie in his flying saucer writings in the 1950s. Whitley Strieber alludes to them as well in Communion. But the Sylphs, Undines, Salamanders, and Gnomes referenced within its pages are borrowed from the writings of Paracelsus, and are fairly faithful to them. Blavatsky, Levi, and Hall would all have recognized this, but the genre of satire being applied makes them seem foolish.

Anyone intending to learn magic, to seek esoteric truths and practice them must ever be careful about assumptions and taking assessments at face value. Follow footnotes, check bibliographies, and read, read, read. 

It is difficult to say at this late hour whether I have relayed anything of value to you today. Perhaps Liber "Weird AL" vel Legis" should have dropped out of my head, and that gray catbird has played me for a fool by convincing me otherwise. That really is the whole point though; society at large, now and throughout history, has treated Occultists as foolish, delusional weirdos at best and conniving mountebanks at worst. Religious extremists have seen them as devils among us, and poets as fodder for parable and verse. For my part, I have long ago accepted that I am a very silly person. My general goofiness provides a barrier, much like the unorthodox nature of Zappa's music, or the denseness of Blavatsky's writing, or more directly like the corniness of one of Yankovic's jokes- so that the right people receive the signals I put out there. That number seems to be shrinking, these days- so for anyone who read this far, thank you! I will reward you with a goofy thread of Occult and Humor quotes:

"I've wrenched DOG backwards to find GOD; now GOD barks!"

-Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

-Ascended Master Groucho Marx

"Oh, a wise guy! Woof! Woof! Woof!"

-Jerome 'Curly' Howard 

 

   

  

 

  

The Spooky Side of Disclosure

 The word "spook", and by extension, "spooky", has a handful of meanings. For most people, the words would conjure mental images of the Halloween season and horror movies. It derives from a Dutch word meaning specter, apparition, or ghost, and has further cognates in Old German meaning ghost or hobgoblin. It has racial connotations as well, although its use as a derogatory term is rare these days. More commonly, in addition to the aforementioned paranormal association, the term can be applied to those working in espionage. Finally, in the world of quantum physics, the term again appears in common usage after Albert Einstein's description of entangled particles as "spooky action at a distance". These multiple definitions can all be borne in mind as we discuss the modern conception of Disclosure- a loaded term in itself, which can mean various things to different groups of people. Tangled and locked within the chains and padlocks of language and the cages of psychological association, the Truth, as it were, is obscured from our view. So it is, without further ado, we look to the King of Escape Artists himself as a historical example and avatar through which we might gain some perspective.

Harry Houdini is a legendary figure in the popular imagination. The name Houdini is nearly synonymous with magic and stage magicians, although he was many things in his life- and, for that matter, after his death. The name "Houdini" was one he adopted as a way of honoring the great French conjuror Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, when he made a claim for himself as the Handcuff King. His stage shows were characterized by elaborate death-defying feats, and were sensationalized by his audacious publicity stunts. He would challenge policemen around the world to try and hold him in a cell, and none of them could. He would dive into icy rivers bound in chains in front of a gasping crowd and emerge before their unbelieving eyes. He was said to be able to walk through walls, and famously made an elephant disappear on stage. He even managed to survive inside of a coffin that was submerged in a pool for over an hour and half. He demonstrated he could survive a punch to the gut from the strongest of men.

These aspects to Houdini are widely known, while others are more obscure. He was one of the earliest pilots, for instance, with only 24 men holding the distinction of being an aviator before him. He also made a series of films, and started his own motion picture company. One of them, The Master Mystery, is notable for containing one of the earliest depictions of a robot in a movie. In his films, he played characters such as Haldane, a Secret Service man. They were loaded with action and feats of derring-do, and some Houdini biographers have suggested there may have been a reflection of truth in them. William Kalush and Larry Sloman, authors of The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero suggest that he may have been involved in spying operations all over the world, using his cover as a performer to justify his travels and connections with important figures. At a time before intelligence agencies as we know them now existed, he may well have been a valuable spook.

In addition to all of that, he was also hailed (or hated, depending on your beliefs) as an arch debunker of mediums and paranormal phenomena. He traveled the country and challenged mediums in an effort to contact his dead mother, and found them all to be frauds. So dedicated was he to revealing the cheats and trickery of the séance room, he developed a small spy ring of his own- employing his niece Julia Sawyer and investigator Rose Mackenberg to infiltrate and expose congregations of Spiritualists. Mackenberg was particularly adept, and thumbed her nose by adopting pseudonyms such as Frances Raud or Alicia Bunk when attaining credentials within these organizations- one name slyly reading F. Raud, or FRAUD, and the other a slant version of "all is a bunk". 

  These activities culminated in Houdini appearing before a select committee of Congress, in attempt to pass an anti-fortune telling bill in Washington, D.C. The idea wasn't very popular because, as he revealed publicly, many of those seated within the Senate and House of Representatives regularly consulted mediums. Spiritualists even performed séances within the Coolidge White House, he claimed. In some ways, this raucous four-day hearing was the closest thing we've had to a Disclosure of the Spirit World- but the ghosts were not the spooks on trial. Houdini's argument had as its foundation that contact with the dead was impossible, necessarily implying fraud or delusion from those claiming to offer such services. The jeering mediums in attendance thought otherwise, as did many of the seated politicians- and the sitting President at the time was not happy with being dragged into it all. Houdini even offered up $10,000 to anyone who could prove their psychic abilities right there. Madame Marcia Champney attempted to claim the money, as she had been an adviser to Warren Harding's wife and made accurate predictions about the election and his death in office- and when this was declined, she predicted Houdini himself would be dead by November. This, of course, did come to pass- Houdini died on October 31st, 1926.

Mr Houdini Goes to Washington

The spooks that Houdini was after, however, may not have been of the spectral variety. In his investigations and with intelligence gained through his proxies, the methods employed by fraudulent mediums were concerning enough to constitute a national security issue. In some cases, employees of the "marks" such as maids and chauffeurs were paid off for information that would prove useful as proof of contact from beyond- and members of these psychic circles would share notes with each other. These same tidbits might well also work for blackmail or international intelligence gathering- something Houdini would have been keenly aware of if there's any merit to the speculation that he was a spy. Some, including the aforementioned Kalush and Sloman, would even suggest that Madame Marcia's prophecy was intentionally fulfilled through the arms of this "psychic mafia". The official story, as it were, is that the master magician's appendix was ruptured because of a botched attempt at his well-known punch to the gut feat. Was it intentionally botched? Were there shady figures at the hospital who sealed the deal? We will probably never know for sure, but the point here is that there are multiple dimensions to spookiness; when we oversimplify these narratives, we risk getting sucker-punched.

  Magic and espionage are so intertwined, one might make the argument that they are kindred arts. What may broadly be described as Occultism, to distinguish from the aforementioned stage magic, has overlaps with both in this multi-dimensional Venn diagram we are exploring using the limited bounds of language. Often cited as the first book on magic tricks, The Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot is a sort of spiritual forefather to Houdini's testimony before Congress. Scot was seeking to demolish superstition by exposing the conjuring tricks of alleged witches, whose executions he found to be barbaric and un-Christian. Unfortunately for Scot, this didn't sit well with the King James VI of Scotland, who would go on to take the throne of England as James I. The King wrote a response in the form of his Daemonologie which asserted that witches were very real, in consort with the Devil and various demons. The witch persecutions continued under his reign, but not just for superstitious or religious reasons- Witchcraft, and the practice of magic, brought with it the subversive connotations of poisoners, upstarts, and potential political adversaries. In other words, Witchcraft had an espionage angle to it, which makes perfect sense when one considers that James I's predecessor, Elizabeth I, employed John Dee for both purposes. Dee's polymath credentials, which included his mastery of mathematics, astrology, cryptography, various sciences, and alchemy made him an ideal candidate for international travel and intelligence gathering. Signing his letters as "007", he is honored for his place within British spycraft in the James Bond franchise.  

Dee is also remembered for his contact with Enochian Angels through the medium of Edward Kelley. Just as mediums in the early 20th century channeled spirits, and as alleged Starseeds do today, channeling has its own niche within this framework. We see all of these elements converge within the UFO question. While much has been made, justifiably, of the influence of occult traditions such as Theosophy on the culture of UFOs, one might argue that Spiritualism had just as great or a greater effect- and everywhere along the way, spooky agents from intelligence agencies employed magicians of one type or another to misdirect, glamorize, and mystify the audience that is the general public. Houdini's Spook Disclosure may not have achieved the goal of passing any particular law, but what it did accomplish was much more profound and long-lasting. Public opinion began to turn from astrology, channeling, and superstition. The narrative had changed. By the 1980s the Reagan White House was embarrassed to admit to consulting an astrologer; society changed its mind on what it expected of its elected officials... and perhaps opened a portal for Flying Saucers to fill that void. 

To return to the present day, public opinion has turned towards an openness to the UFO, er... UAP mystery. It has also reached an all-time low in its expectations for its public officials, and crazy beliefs are the order of the day. Conspiracy theory runs rampant, and gets dumber all the time. One suspects that its only natural, given just the sparse examples outlined here. One might start a corkboard and draw bits of yarn once further examples are brought in. Venturing down the rabbit hole, all manner of dumb or insightful conclusions might be wrought considering Aleister Crowley's channeled text Liber al Vel Legis and the entity known as Lam, and Crowley's intersection with British intelligence. Further they might look into Jack Parsons, the connection to L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. Going down a different tunnel they might think of Houdini a little differently when they look into Project MK ULTRA, and the declassified C.I.A. Manual of Trickery and Deception, which includes a primer by close-up magic expert John Mulholland on uses of sleight of hand in espionage. Mulholland was also assigned to investigate the Kentucky Goblin case of 1955, though little is known about that. It makes you think, doesn't it?

One might venture down such rabbit holes, but one should also be careful about that crazy turn on the way to Albuquerque- and be mindful not to let that tunnel collapse and smother them. The point here is not to encourage leaps in logic, propinquity-based allegations or simplified conspiracy narratives. Though it has a dirty name now, conspiracy theory at its best is simply an exercise in connecting disparate bits of information as a way of matrixing the known reality, mapping out landscapes of the possible without pinning our beliefs so strongly that we detach from the remotely probable and enter the Wonderland of delusion. As Houdini's impassioned testimony swayed public opinion incrementally towards materialism, logic, and structure, so might others sway it in dangerous directions. An argument could be made that they already have. It behooves us as citizens of the world to employ critical thinking, even as we entertain that which has classically been portrayed as wacky beliefs. Voltaire warned that those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. In a world where QAnon has come to typify the current crop of conspiracy nuts, and patently insane theories like Tartaria and Flat Earth allowed to gain traction, it's really no surprise that at the time of this writing a man facing 91 felony charges in part for inciting an insurrection attempt is allowed, and encouraged, to run for office again. It's so normalized that prominent UFO figures like Whitley Strieber idly opine on social media about whether we'll get Disclosure from a man who openly says he'll be a dictator, and other "leading voices" in the Disclosure movement flock to right wing media outlets to talk UAP with racists.

Disclosure "activists" on social media often scoff whenever politics are brought into the conversation. Disclosure isn't political, they say- one assumes that their vision of what will happen when the government just admits that aliens are real, and we have their technology, the world will become a heavenly Utopia overnight. Perhaps they are simply very comfortable, unbothered and not threatened by an increasingly violent and intolerant ideology that masquerades as Christian American values. For anyone to have Disclosure as their biggest concern in the face of theocratic oppression and threats to the existence of marginalized groups seems a selfish and isolated position indeed. How does one entertain an optimism about Non Human Intelligence when the basic safety of actual Humans is at stake? 

On that same note, what makes the United States so special as to be the arbiter of truth on the subject? There's a weird strain of isolationism there as well, padded with a kind of patriotic hero-worship of government figures like Elizondo. Very right-wing politicians involved in the hearings are already conflating the UAP with angels and demons, a trend which has waxed and waned for as long as the Phenomena has been observed. When bible-thumpers align with military fetishists, and the UFO question gets rolled up within a model of the world that only focuses on the U.S. we risk a turn of the tide like that of James I's England with its witch hunts. The skeptical reader may think of this as an exaggeration, or a wild claim to make. It may be speculation, but it's based on historical precedent and doesn't necessitate the machinations of a conspiratorial cabal. It only needs human nature to do what it does when it falls under the spell of the zeitgeist. Mind control for the masses is much simpler to achieve and scarier, albeit slower, than its portrayal in media.  

These aspects, all of them, are connected in ways not visible at first glance. The spooky action entangles covert intelligence operatives to public opinion, the UFOs to stage magicians from long ago, and actual wizards to politicians on the campaign trail. Espionage, Occultism, and what may broadly be referred to as the Phenomena all have one thing in common- they are by definition secret. The spookiest thing about Disclosure is how ephemeral and undefined it is. It relies on phantoms, smoke and mirrors, liars and classified documents. It is itself a spook, some intangible specter which one tries to grab hold of but which always evades capture. So much of what disclosurists seem to pursue is illusory, and perhaps that's by design. Perhaps not. The thing about the greatest magic tricks, even those in mentalism, is that the mechanism behind it is so simple that if it were explained the average person wouldn't believe it could work. But it can, and it does. The presence of so many spooks, especially when it's the same ones over and over again, should be a warning that things are not necessarily what they seem to be...

To conclude on a more upbeat and wacky note- while the question of life after death, or of what UFOs are may ever remain unanswered to us mere mortals, what did Harry Houdini have to say about flying saucers? His death was a good 20 years before the modern UFO era began with Kenneth Arnold's classic sighting, but in the 1950s it is claimed that Houdini reached out From Beyond to answer that very question. A psychic named Henry Roberts claimed in 1952 that Houdini appeared before him to give him a message from the Space Brothers- one that should sound familiar to those who have read contactee reports before. The Saucers were a sign to abandon war, the atom bomb, and "general dissension that exists on the Earth plane". This message was relayed to Joseph Dunninger, a magician and friend of Houdini's, so that he could tell the world- which Roberts claimed was of the utmost importance to the ghostly Harry. Dunninger coincidentally held $10,000 for anyone who could relay the code from the deceased legend, which would prove the contact was real. Failing to relay the code, Roberts didn't get the money; but resulting from this report Dunninger recalled a night in 1950. At the home of the improbably named Miss Banana, a call came from his deceased friend that he should take the book Paper Magic off of the shelf and turn to page 113. On the page were circles, or disks of paper, reminiscent of flying saucers.

Spooky calls to Dunninger at Miss Banana's home and spectral Houdini failing to deliver the code aside, settling things down on the Earth plane sounds like pretty solid advice. We may never know the secrets, and many of them just aren't meant for public consumption. Solving the mysteries doesn't do us any good if we destroy ourselves in the attempt. Whatever your beliefs, political persuasions, or knowledge level, thinking critically, with empathy- and perhaps even humility- seems the only way forward that this writer can offer. With those things and a sense of humor, we can move mountains- and maybe get a little of that Disclosure, whatever that stuff is, along the way.