Category: theatricality

Living Enchantment

And yet, as I reflect upon these topics, I feel like conceiving of these engagements with the Unconscious-Dreaming-Spirit World from a theatrical or aesthetic perspective misses the mark. Art is the road, or a royal on-ramp. In treating enchantment and magic as “aesthetic” enterprises, I wonder how much that keeps that which is imagined or […] … Continue reading…Living Enchantment

Cosmic Theater

If we want to avoid being characters in someone else’s drama, then I argue that this theatrical, shapeshifting, role-shifting perspective is one magicians, witches, and other practitioners should cultivate. We want to be the directors, writers, and volitional, agential, aware actors even as we perform different personae. Magonia and Faerie and spirits often have associations with tricksterism: however, so do witches and magicians. Fight Trickster with Trickster, I say. As we work to better know and bridge with our deeper selves, with our own spiritual realities through our enchantments and practices, and as we do so in pursuit of realizing and having—of earthing–our faërian dramas, so too should we be ready to adapt and improvise when we encounter the daimonic, Magonians, spirits of all kinds, the other, and even each other… … Continue reading…Cosmic Theater

Will Shakespeare

It is Shakespeare’s (probable) birthday and death-day today. Born in 1564, dying in 1616. Author of 38-ish plays, two long form poems, at least 154 sonnets–the son of a glove-maker from Stratford. I’m of the Stratfordian school: I will argue Shakespeare was the author of his plays–in association with and collaboration with his colleagues in […] … Continue reading…Will Shakespeare

Jail-breaking Machiavelli 2: Shakespeare & Gaming Kingship

It’s interesting to note how quickly the European elite moved to demonize Machiavelli, mostly because he exposed the hypocrisy of political and ecclesiastical power, its violence and deceit. Magicians and witches may have reputations as charlatans, but Machiavelli showed how the same was true of kings and popes. As Alessandra Petrina argues, Machiavelli may have […] … Continue reading…Jail-breaking Machiavelli 2: Shakespeare & Gaming Kingship

Jail-breaking Machiavelli 1: Lucifer, Elizabeth, Machiavelli

At the suggestion of someone whose opinion I’ve come to value, I started reading Peter Grey’s Lucifer: Princeps, and the book is less about “Lucifer” as a definite presence and more about sovereignty, the Dead, and how we enchant our selves and worlds. Early in the book, Grey points to models of sacred kingship–& that […] … Continue reading…Jail-breaking Machiavelli 1: Lucifer, Elizabeth, Machiavelli