The title of this post is taken from the title of an album by the Firesign Theater. It's also the name of a song by Weird Al Yankovic and a book by Russ Kick that supposedly reveals the "secrets and lies" that everyone thinks are true. Now, it appears that social psychologist Diederik Stapel has admitted that thirty of his research papers that have appeared in peer reviewed journals, were faked. His papers have included such things as claiming that environmental issues (such as litter) can result in discrimination and the way beauty products are advertised can affect self-esteem. His faked "studies" have appeared in prestigious journals such as the internationally known as

This is part of a continuing series of posts that form a Magick 101 class. I hope you're enjoying them. Previously, I have shared a great deal on preparations. Most recently I've been going deeply into the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, beginning with why it still matters and then going into the first section of the ritual, The Kabalistic Cross HERE, HERE,  and HERE. The next part of the ritual is called the Formulation of the Pentagrams. It is here that you actually form your dual-purpose magickal circle. Due to the name, most people are familiar with the concept that this is a banishing ritual, clearing your area of unwanted magickal influences and keeping them out. But it

The Challenge of Language As readers probably know, there are specialized words in the LBRP, and in the first section of the LBRP known as the Kabalistic Cross, that are in Hebrew. There are many challenges with pronouncing them "correctly": Hebrew is at least 2,600 years old and its antecedents are much older. It has evolved over time in sound and appearance. Nobody knows exactly how ancient Hebrew was pronounced. Different areas of the world and different communities pronounced words differently. At least one author has proposed that some words were actually ciphers for other words. Non-trained "linguists" made gross assumptions and errors that continue to this day. So let's

In my previous post, #6.2.1, I shared some background concepts of the Kabalistic Cross section of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. I would encourage you to read or re-read that post before reading this one. It gives a rather thorough understanding of what this part of the ritual means. Visualizations and Actions In this post I'm going to share what you physically and mentally do when performing this part of the rite. I'm going to put the Golden Dawn's original instructions, as they appear in Regardie's book of that name, in red. Take a steel dagger in the right hand. There are two things to note about this instruction. First, you should optimally use a dagger made of