I never imagined I’d be writing anything like this after almost 30 years of practice in academic Western Tropical Astrology and 35 in Crystalwork, but here I am. Let’s go. Here is my testimony on the grave dangers of what is commonly known as Western Occultism or Satanism and why I will never look back on them in my life.
Over the years I’d been seeing a thread of a certain category of individuals being woven through the discourse scene of the world of occultism, witchcraft, and magick: individuals who had been coming out as giving up their practices, often very suddenly, often after having developed quite elaborate careers. I saw this most often in the Tarot community, particularly on Youtube. I noticed it, and while I didn’t judge them, I did often find myself a bit incredulous. People do have changes of heart, but the only reasonable interpretation my conceptual understanding could make at the time was that perhaps they had had some sort of panic episode that led to a fear response and kneejerk… because magic can be dangerous, right? And that can cause some wild and very scary spiritual experiences. I’ve been there. Anyone that practices it and gives credence to it understands that it can backfire, and it can also do harm if you’re not careful or using the right intention. But, dropping the flag and leaving the scene completely? And the consistent stream of people dropping out? It didn’t add up for me. What about “moderation in everything?” I’d been practicing magick all my life and though I’d had some hair-raising experiences, I had mitigated, rectified, and tended them, and no harm done (or so I thought). What could explain that this was happening? I wondered. I stayed open minded, but continued practicing as I had been. My identity as a Witch was integral to my sense of self, and my second book was even titled Witch’s Poems (it may still be when I re-publish it).
As I edit this about a month after initially publishing it, I find myself unsure about how I feel about my own self-reference in identifying as a Witch. There is so much co-optation of the term, which has been terribly complicated for centuries anyway. It’s a word that means something different to almost everyone that uses it. Yet, it’s a term that etymologically refers to a “wise one.” “Witch” is also a “class” in the sense that contemporary RPGs teach us about. It’s also a bloodline condition. One can note skills like extrasensory “seeing,” spiritwork, healing, cursing, etc in those born into this class. I cannot and don’t want to erase these aspects of my identity that place me in the Witch Class. But, there has been so much damage done to our class (and the class of Wizards as well) by nefarious organizations, damage that is visible on today’s surface level as the phenomenon of European-descent witches committing violence by misappropriation and what we call “whiteness,” (I’ll have to go into more detail about how that core problem is visible through the surface later) that it’s not possible to engage with mainstream “Witch” community safely anymore. It’s not even possible to engage with most very intentional anti-racist witch community anymore because of the influence of imperialist organizations and practices like Tropical Astrology and Tarot as Divination. These practices have made their way so deeply into the mainstream that even otherwise on-point mainstream and fringe content creators are offering them. I mean, up until about a month ago, I did too. But I can’t unsee what I saw.
All of this in mind, I am aware that my present stance places me way outside the possibility of co-operation with any of the practices, groups, organizations, or communities I once identified with, even if most of my experiences with them were positive in the past. I’ve been grieving the loss of those connections, but there’s also been a running realization that though I received notable support from them at important moments, they were not ever core connections for me.
Am I still a Witch? If we’re talking about my bloodline gift, my natural human class, then I’d say yes. I’m even more aligned with my ancestors and ancestral craft than I ever was now that I’ve given up Imperial Occultism and Satanism for my life. It’s become very clear to me that my racial and bloodline identity as a Witch was co-opted by primal forces of evil/Satan. I’ll get more into that later on.
My awakening has shown me not only that my identity as a Witch is something that is racial and inherited, and that the conditioning I received from whiteness culture and media has lied to me about most everything I was supposed to learn, but that I was born with a particular potential that is unusually notable, and that that potential is probably why I’ve been taken on the trafficking journey I was taken on. There have been many indications of this, including the private support of multiple people in my life, but one indicator in particular was the realization that I was able to claim the book title Witch’s Poems before anyone else (it’s currently out of print: when I experienced my awakening, I depublished both of my books and removed all of my Imperial Astrology, Tarot, and Yoga content that I could source from the internet). Somehow, over all of these years of books being published, over 130 million since the invention of the printing press, that title was being held in spiritual escrow for me. My whole life of working so hard to “find myself” and I naturally and magically come up with that title and book. In my years of struggling with disassociation due to my experiences of complex trauma, coming to full realization that I’m the sole author of Witch’s Poems was a bit of a shock to me, even after I had done the work myself. Somehow, no one else was able to write Witch’s Poems, clearly a classic title, until I did earlier this year. I’m still processing the significance of this on my life, and this testimony is part of that process.
Am I a Witch? I have a memory of walking in a public space in normal clothes and a child yelling out to their mother: “Look, mommy! A witch!” I was in New Orleans, having just arrived. I was dressed casually. It wasn’t anywhere near Halloween. I just couldn’t hide myself in the Sunken City. I suppose it’s just a part of who I am. God made me this way. Perhaps it’s my shadow side, because it’s not all I am. I’d already been well aware of my witch-self, but only in this process have become aware of my spiritual crimes in my practice. I will testify on behalf of my people.
Until last week. I cannot share what brought on a series of profound spiritual clarity illuminations over those days, but, through the fires of the storm blowing off all of what thick dust had settled on my spiritual eye, I finally saw. And, I’m really grateful to be sharing this with you now. I’m really grateful to be alive. It did not escape my knowledge that a couple of days into my process coming to awareness of this truth that Carolyn Elliott, the famous Crowley-line teacher of Western Occult Hermeticism and author of Existential Kink, had died, later confirmed from suicide. This correlation is a major factor in my speaking out on this now. It’s a matter of great urgency. The people need to know.
First I want to provide you with more qualifications for this testimony:
I have been practicing Western Occult Magic(k)s since childhood when I first began playing with crystals. My mother bought me a rock tumbler and I remember setting it up in the basement. I loved Tiger’s Eye the most. I’d begun to explore inquiries toward crystal mining back in 2014, particularly around the ethics of mining for metaphysical crystals. I made no unilateral or definitive statements, but merely posed inquiry. I then conducted my own mining operations in my home colonial state of New York in 2018. I harvested Herkimer Diamonds, the purest naturally faceted of the clear crystals, and Dravite Black Tourmalines from Pierrepont NY, the only naturally faceted Black Tourmaline. I no longer have any of the stones. I used to lament this a little. Now I praise Life that they all fell away from me. I’m in the process of reaching out to people who I gave crystals to. It’s not safe to harbor crystals. They fragment our reality. They’re supposed to remain below the soil surface, as fish are meant to remain in the sea.
(edit: I found one specimen from the Pierrepont site recently while reclaiming my possessions from my mother’s home, and it is still in my possession, along with a broken lapis lazuli necklace. I’m patiently abiding while I wait for instructions from my well ancestors as to what I should do with the rock and jewelry).
I continued developing and at approximately age 12 or 13 I began studying Astrology. I possessed that old large classic book with the purple cover, The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need. I used to joke about how the title was wrong, because I ended up needing so many more, “LOL.” I see now though that the title actually was right :)
I began reading Tarot around the same time. I had a Rider Waite deck, which in the Tarot community within the past however many years has been being referred to as the Rider Waite Smith deck to honor the female artist who created the visuals for the cards.
I was casting birth charts on astro.com and and learning to read them while my peers were still gossiping about who liked which boy and gaggling about what they wanted to buy at the mall. I learned quickly, though I had many interests and was not full-time studying this modality. Interestingly enough, I recall my mother having a problem with the Tarot cards but not Astrology. Over the years of practicing and observing general attitudes toward both modalities I have observed that in a cross-section of society, people tend to be more “freaked out” by Tarot than Astrology. My theory around why people are more scared of Tarot has to do with the use of mass-industry media (propaganda):
Most people who have been exposed to a wide variety of Anglo-world TV shows and films over the decades have been presented with the trope archetype of the “tarot reader.” This stereotype is mysterious, often seductive. She holds space for the client who enters her frontroom but also comes off as threatening because she knows things, can see things… spirits, the future, your deepest fears and vulnerabilities. The cards are shuffled and spread, being arranged by some higher force. Could it be angels? Could it be demons? Either way, one feels a sense of bridged panic when the cards are put down because in this moment your future is being decided or shown. We even have the commonly used phrase, “it’s not in the cards.” People are scared of the “tarot reader” because she can see things that you can’t, and what is the mysterious force that has the power to assemble the cards, through the shuffle, in the order that will show your future? It’s unnerving. There’s something, someone, unseen, in the room with the tarot reader and everyone knows it. So, when those cards come up on the screen, we have been programmed for our guts to flip a bit. Oh, no, Death card! Somehow, half of all Tarot card appearances in TV and film show that pesky Death rider or the Tower. We’re conditioned to be scared by Tarot (and, well, we should be, actually, but we’ll get more into why later).
However, and I’m interested if anyone can point out examples to the contrary, there are to my knowledge no examples of this sort of thing in regard to astrologers or astrology. In fact, the opposite is true: Sun Sign horoscopes in newspapers started appearing in 1930, and obviously, people really enjoyed them. Then, in 1968, Linda Goodman’s book Sun Signs blew up and sold millions of copies quickly (it’s worth noting that Linda Goodman experienced a devastating loss when her daughter died, and spent the rest of her life losing her monetary fortune on private investigators desperate to find her, deep in heartbreak-striken delusion that she actually had just disappeared). Suddenly Astrology was not only fun and entertaining, but a pathway into self-knowledge. Astrology became normalized and exciting with these books. And, there was no mystery: because the charts are based off of concrete information about astronomical placements. No unreliable spirits of questionable alignment moving invisible hands over cards. Instead, education and science backed spiritual insight.
Back to TV tropes: while the Witch is the untrustworthy but captivating and soothsaying archetype that reads the Tarot cards, the Wizard is the archetype that reads the sky chart, and they are portrayed much more positively. Wizards are portrayed at best as extremely intelligent, skilled, valuable members of royal courts, and at their worst only eccentric. Wearing a hat with a moon and stars, the Wizard/astrologer looks into his telescope, or down at his huge table upon which is a map of the sky. There is a crystal ball and an astrolabe. There are books all over. The viewer feels that the wizard can provide accurate, calculated insight. There’s none of the fear or uneasy mystery of the Tarot Reader. No spirits who can influence the cards being laid out in a certain way, no scary imagery, no subjective interpretation. Just clear, mathematical truth. The reason that this portrayal was used is because unlike tarot, which though is used in upper-eschelon occult magical practices, astrology has root ties with empirical science and government rule. Once the mathematical information is provided, it remains in books for as long as the books can be preserved. This is how Western imperial nations have maintained their power. Every move is calculated down to the minute by wizards whose entire lives are in service to the imperial overlords. In fact, this is one of the worst and most unseen forms of human trafficking and slavery, because the wizards’ intelligence and skill sets are used to assess war situations and time movements therein, as well as time rituals used for human torture and death, including en masse, and to track individuals into specially-designed trafficking pathways that will trap them into generational slavery. The unconscionability of it all is beyond what people can imagine even if they know about the human sacrifices already. The wizards have been trafficked in beginning a long time ago based on aptitude demonstrated in feudal apprenticeship pathways. In these times, they are also trafficked from any walk of life through the public school systems or operative casing. In either case, this is generational bondage and speaks to the “royal family lineages” that is so often a talking point of conspiracy theories.
Back to my own experience. In the 1990s the Propaganda Overlords embedded astrological programming in children’s television. I’m sure they would have done it in multiple ways, but for me, I was obsessed with Sailor Moon. It was the only thing that could get me up for school. I didn’t know it until now, but this was the beginning of my apprenticeship and trafficking pathway into the same trafficking pathways that have been taking wizards from their families for a very long time, likely going back to Ancient Egypt and maybe beyond. Some wizard families even are complicit in the enslavement, sale, or trafficking of one of their own in order to benefit financially, by receiving immunity, or other nefarious things.
I loved learning about the archetypes of the planets. I had my favorite Sailors (mine were Mars and Venus and Pluto) and I got so into it that I would spend hours on the family dialup laptop downloading “transformations” and attacks. This was in the days where a 15 second small video could take all night to download. I’d spend all of my money buying bootleg VHS tapes of the original Japanese version at the Japanese import booth at the malls. Later on, around age 15, I taught myself HTML from source code and made my own websites. I made at least two “shrine” websites to the Sailor Moon show: one that I named “Tsukino Kagayaki” or “Light of the Moon” in Japanese, and another one that was to the ParaPara character, a particularly cute villain. By the way, I don’t know a lick of Japanese and so used online dictionaries. I was very young, but that does not excuse me from the harm I may have caused by misappropriating Japanese language and religious references for my creative work in those days. At the very least, I looked foolish.
While I jumped into the deep end with chartreading and adult level books early, the Sailor Moon show provided me the long-term repeated installation of the planetary archetypes and glyphs (symbols) that laid the foundation for a functional practice once having learnt aspects (the angular relationships between the planets on the chart). I was fully immersed on my learning pathway to professional academic astrology before I could legally drive a car. I now know how truly dangerous that access was.
I continued studying on and off ongoing over the decades, though not dedicatedly until the 2010s when I dropped out of my Master’s program after 8.5 years of higher education in Liberal Arts (the perfect backdrop for an Astrological practice). I took many classes in English and received a minor in that for a BA and specialized in English Education and Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition during my 2 years of Master’s work. I took 2 semesters of Nietzsche studies (“when you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you”). It was the same class, but I audited it the second time around because I hadn’t completed my final paper and had gotten an indefinite extension, but needed a refresher and enjoyed being in the space of that course. I was free after leaving University to go back to studying and creating what I wanted to do.
I started recording poems on my old WordPress blog before I left school in 2011. I did this to ensure that I would record the dates and timestamps of the poems. At some point, I began drafting a book titled the same as the blog: Quilless, my feminized neologism for “one who writes with a quill,” but also “the state of being without a quill.” I intended to play on the fact that English is a doublespeak imperialist language but in the most florid, pretty of ways. The book was to present the poems and wordcraft pieces alongside the actual “birth charts” of the poems, and consequently interpretation of their context. It was written in such a way that it would both impress advanced and professional astrologers and also educate new astrologers, even completely “green” ones who had never read a chart or interpreted factors in their life. The drafts for this book were numerous and over the course of quite a few years, years during which I enlisted in the International Academy for Astrology, a prestigious online academy with a rigorous program track leading to the student graduating as a fully-equipped Astrologer with entry-level internationally sanctioned credentials and a bypass on national and international higher order exams and credentials.
I enrolled in 2017 and spent two and a half years in the Natal Astrology module, a portion of the program that was supposed to take perhaps a year and a half, but took me longer, two and a half years, due the fact that I was intermittently being actively trafficked on the road through the Rainbow Family of Living Light and “food delivery apps” at the time and, let’s face it, human trafficking takes up a lot of human resources. In fact, I was enrolled in school during some of my pathways around Turtle Island (Colonial “USA”). I was so dedicated that I remained in classes and in contact with the school while I was homeless in Maine, while I was stationed in Texas doing relief work alongside the Army and National Guard after Hurricane Harvey, and while I was in Savannah Georgia. During some of those times I literally laid scrunched in the backseat of my sedan, my 45-lb dog in my front seat, using my cell phone hot spot and laptop to attend classes. This was particularly challenging and dangerous in the summer heat of Texas. But, I had no money most of the time, and life was too unpredictable and chaotic to remain in school steadily.
I received my Natal Astrology certificate in May of 2019. I was so proud. It was the first time I’d made an academic achievement that I felt good about: I’d coasted through University without an end goal or really wanting to be there, but rather, I was simply afraid of following my soul path and stayed on the monoculture education track out of inertia, self-suppression, and prolonging the inevitable (I had originally left the USA at 17 for a few week’s’ trip. I didn’t want to return home and had every opportunity to redirect and stay with people, get a job, apply for a worker’s visa or country-hop, but I didn’t believe in myself, so returned to my academic prison. I cried in despair and shame at my graduation after 6 years. It was one of the lowest days of my life. But I continued on, because I didn’t see a life outside of the Academy). I’d wanted it badly, paid for it myself with hard labor (I was labor trafficked all over the country by Uber Eats, Door Dash, and Instacart for what ended up being approximately 5.5 years), and did it not only against all odds but with personal support and admiration from the former President of the school, who reached out to me on my private landline at the motel a local support organization had housed me and my dog in for 2 weeks in northern Maine to get to know me and offer personal support. I’ve deleted the old drafts in my rounds of maintaining my files, but I’m pretty sure this was around the time when I started drafting Quilless: An Astrological Journey of Poetry and Wordcraft.
The concept behind the book (described above) was simple but apparently, according to everyone I shared it with, many of whom were more advanced than I in both sanctioned and independent academic astrology, unprecedented. Its distribution was very small. I can safely estimate that less than 30 copies went out, both digital and paper, and likely less than 20. I first published it in September of 2023 while in Denmark. I had found someone who was willing to lend me a hammock and found myself homeless living in the woods of the København area (though my longtime friend Jim Cassidy, who was supporting me financially at the time, told me I wasn’t homeless but “on a journey,” I sure as shit felt homeless), moving from campsite to campsite to remain inconspicuous. In town one day to get supplies I approached the library and found out that, somehow, with my USA passport, I was eligible for a library card. I through-camped in the Furesø area for about a month and a half, using those libraries and my own laptop to complete the work. As I finished it, I was trafficked out of Denmark and went to Scotland.
It’s worth saying that my trafficking story always involved me moving myself. I didn’t have a “trafficker” per se. Rather, I had to navigate the world stage where there were metaphysical blockades against any opportunity except the very specific pathway that the upper echelons wanted me to follow. Usually this was done with money control. I would only be allowed to have a very small amount of money that could only get me one more step of the way, or have to do extensive research to arrange safe situations that I could afford for the longest amount of time. When the money and time ran out or the situation became unsafe, I’d have to leave. Sometimes I’d already have arranged a destination. Other times I couldn’t have, often because I didn’t have the money. For example, when I completely ran out of money in Türkiye I had to hitchhike all the way from Fethiye to halfway up the coast and then got caught at a bus station because someone had given me money that was counterfeit. It was only through being able to reach out to a friend who PayPalled me money instantly that I was able to make it to Istanbul to my safehouse. In other instances, I only could afford work exchange arrangements that I couldn’t actually work at because I was so disabled that I could barely function, and while some hosts were gracious, others were not, and this caused some violent and unsafe ruptures that resulted in further disablement. I was lucky to receive back-year tax refunds that kept me going for a lot of the way, but those also ran out. I have more to share on my experience being trafficked through Rainbow in Europe, but let’s stay focused.
Let’s back up.
I was trafficked all over Türkiye and Europe for two years, first landing at the World Rainbow gathering in 2022 and suffering significantly at intermittent waves interspersed by isolated relief periods. In Denmark I published the book via multiple channels including IngramSpark, Amazon KDP, Draft2Digital, Streetlib, and PDF. I was then led to Scotland where I attended the Scottish Pagan Festival. I was presented with a choice of flying back to the USA from there, or continuing. I was determined to continue. I didn’t want to ever go back to the USA after what happened to me there, especially because I have no Turtle Island ancestry. I really very deeply wanted to make it work on my ancestral territory and was willing and able to gamble again to try. So, I went to Albania, where I spent two months before the situation became so dangerous and I was being kicked out of hostels and physically attacked all over Tirana that I called in my parents, who I had not seen in three years, and had just recently begun to reconcile with, to pay for my flight back to their home. About a year later after relocating to the Driftless area of Wisconsin I published Witch’s Poems, a 13-poem chapbook of more backlog of my workings.
In this moment I close the Initial Qualifications segment of my testimony. More to come.
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