To Aislinn and Tom

Grab yourself a seat, start a fire and poke one of our resident vigilantes, average Joes or supervillains as much as you'd like.

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IamLEAM1983
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To Aislinn and Tom

Post by IamLEAM1983 »

I've run into recaps of a weird Tumblr/Internet Pagan debacle on YouTube, commonly referred to as "Boneghazi". As cringe as it sounds, it's actually fairly serious.

You've got this group of LGBTQ witches, most of them post moodboards and Instagram-worthy altar pics, all of them resolutely set in the tamer ends of the modern Neo-Pagan practice. They had a clause warning members about appropriative practices, so none of their members felt comfortable using rituals from Vodun, Voodoo or Santeria. The problem is, one of their members was actually trying to work on her hexes; for which she claimed she needed human bones...

Now, you're in Post-Katrina New Orleans. How do you get bones without desecrating a grave? Rich people almost consistently use crypts in and around NOLA, urns hold up better against floods if they're above ground. Historically, most of the below-ground cemetaries were reserved for the poorer stretches of the community. It being the South, Black communities quickly come to mind. Unfortunately, harsh rains, damp soil and cheap graves make for a grim mix, making it possible for someone to more or less fish human remains out of the ground. That one member had offered to sell some of the remains she'd "save" or "recycle", essentially asking for coverage enough for shipping fees. The issue was touchy enough for the Facebook community to disintegrate, for Tumblr callout posts to be created, and, naturally, for someone to eventually call the fucking cops, as they should've been in the first place.

So, my question to you is this: did Tom or you ever have to seek legal advice, before attempting a hex or a spell of some kind? I know he's more of a full-fledged warlock and you still have training in other disciplines, but the business of consorting with demons and some angels in the more John Milton sense of the concept has to come with a few legal or ethical chestnuts, right?
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IamLEAM1983
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Post by IamLEAM1983 »

"Oy. That old can of worms...

Obviously, consulting the Princes and their subalterns was easier back when the concept of laws hadn't so much as emerged out of the societal morass of the mortal plane: find someone you dislike enough, sever a finger or two, draw a circle - c'est fini. One pleased Fiend, coming up. The more the Black Arts came to contain rituals with outwardly criminal components, the harder it became to see them through. Thankfully, us smart Infernalists came up with a different sort of tithe to offer up; it being our emotions.

We spent millennia treating summons like any other discipline and only really brought focus into it, divorcing our feelings from the proceedings. My best guess is a warlock somewhere messed up, needed to call himself a patron for a quick getaway, and couldn't quite help himself from injecting emotion into the proceedings. Nobody knows which Prince or which common target for a summons adjusted their price range first - my personal guess is that Mammon and Melmoth both had a hand in it - but it all changes by the time old Hyperborean chants make it further South and morph into Iron Age ritual calls or the Merseburg Charms. The Celtic world is starting to collect druids and the first recognizable Scandinavians are molding skalds into shape that bragging to the gods and the powers of darkness becomes a cornerstone of most ritual practices.

Pure, focused intent - sometimes with a bit of one's own blood added to the mix. It's been my go-to power source for generations; and I've made it a point never to desecrate graves. I've had to work in cemetaries or on top of grave sites in the past, but I've always cleaned up afterwards and always made sure not to disturb the deceased.

I mean, unless I was there to put an already-disturbed spirit to rest; in which case you might as well ask Lucian. Tomb-raiding for the forces of Good isn't just a Pulp Novel cliché, it's sometimes a necessary aspect of trans-planar social work."
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TennyoCeres84
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Post by TennyoCeres84 »

"Time for another round of arcane pissing contests on social media...at least, for the most part.

From a personal standpoint and background, I find that substitution is an incredibly necessary skill for any mage. Sometimes, it's financial or legal reasons, but there are times you won't be able to easily procure a necessary ingredient for a spell. For magelings, this might be switching those fancy candles for your standard white tealight and so on. However, in the age of Tumblr and Instagram, the witchiest looking setup garners a lot of attention, I mean, if you're using that as a means to charge your spell, more power to you, but you don't always need the fancy stuff.

On the other hand, this is where you have to tread cautiously. I haven't needed to use someone else's bones for a ritual, thankfully, and I generally prefer to use what I have on me: my voice, the occasional bit of blood, or again, some means of sympathetic magic.

To be honest, when rituals require really gnarly components, I have to wonder whether the entity needs to have their ego checked. It's a like a kid who figures they can get what they like with increasingly outrageous behavior. That's another topic for another time, though..."
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