witch in the woods

In an earlier post, I made an analogy between methods and motivations for studying and practicing magic that compared it to hypothetical methods and motivations for studying and practicing woodworking. There’s an important distinction I’d like to make between these two crafts, though. First, I’m going to talk about Julius Evola. Evola was a prolific author on occult and spiritual topics in the mid-20th century. He was, by any measure, an influential figure on the occult scene and wrote many books on magic. He was also a fascist. I don’t mean that as the sort of catch-all political insult as the word gets used nowadays; he was a literal fascist, an ardent supporter of Mussolini, friends with Nazis, and he described himself as a “superfascist.” He had all the evil, genocidal ideologies you’d expect from such a person. There is nothing about his biography that redeems him in any way as a human being, and his ideology remained odious to the end. I haven’t read Evola. I probably never will....

When I first tried VR, I played a game called "The Climb." It's a rock-climbing game that gives the illusion of being very high in the air as you reach for handholds and dangle from cliffs. The first time I played it, I couldn't do it. I was paralyzed, and even though I knew that I was perfectly safe, the fear of losing my grip and falling was so overwhelming that I could not bring myself to reach for the next hold.  I own a VR headset and use it often for fitness applications. It's a fun and easy way to keep moving. I've had it for about a year and a half now. I tried "The Climb" again not too long ago. I knew that I was in a virtual environment and my body did not react to the height illusion at all. The visceral paralyzing fear was gone. The illusion was broken and it was just another pretend experience, like a TV show. I think it's the same with most new technology. At first, it seems very convincing and immersive; then, the illusion breaks a...

Imagine three woodworkers. One is interested in woodworking from a historical and academic perspective. She loves to read about woodworkers of the past, she knows the names and personal histories of the great woodworkers, and she understands everything about the theory and practice of woodworking both past and present, and she may even have written her own books about woodworking. She has never carved a piece of wood. The second woodworker loves woodworking with a passion. He loves the feel of the tools, the smell of wood as it is carved, and is soothed by the practice of working with woods. He is not concerned with the outcome of his craft or developing any particular skill or technique, because the pleasure is in the doing of it, and what he produces is of no interest to himself or anyone else. The third woodworker practices her craft because she wants to make useful items out of wood. She doesn’t care for woodworking itself and sometimes actively dislikes it, but she gains great sat...