Can You Get What You Want Just By Wanting It?

Even those who believe that magic works would say it’s not as simple as merely wanting something and then getting it. If that were true, I’d have been happily married to Kate Bush since 1981. We would have met in 1978, but I wouldn’t want to rush things so prolonged the engagement.

No, it’s not so simple. If it was, why did the most competent magician of modern times — by his own admission — the saintly Aleister Crowly die in poverty and ill-health in a boarding house in Hastings?

Alex Sanders, “King of the Witches” in an amazingly insane quote (sampled here by the Heartwood Institute) says he could easily destroy all life if he wanted to. Good job for us he never wanted to. …

Enargia: The Ancient Art of Conjuring a Scene

You all know what enargia is even if you’d never heard the word. Enargia is a Greek word used in the art of rhetoric to describe how an author conjures a picture with all the associated emotions to charm a reader and hook them into a scene.

Let’s look at an example, which was a best-seller in its day and still does pretty well over a hundred years after first publication.

“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.” …

Curses, Lies, and Pure Baloney

The Exorcist was a horror novel by William Peter Blatty published in 1971 that quickly became a best-seller. In the story, the Mesopotamian demon Pazuzu comes to America and, with the height of bad manners, possesses a young girl.

An exorcism takes place, and all goes rather dreadfully badly. People are hurt, not least their feelings — because the possessed girl says unkind things to them in a guttural voice. You know sometimes it’s not what people say to you, it’s their tone of voice? I think it’s like that.

That’s the book.

But the interesting thing is that William Peter Blatty didn’t make all this up. It was real, or at least it was a real fake. …

What I Found Out Surprised Me

Why do people use nootropics anyway? Nootropics are a disparate bunch of substances, some are plant extracts, some are synthesized compounds, and yet others are purely pharmaceuticals and available only on prescription.

Taken together, these substances are called nootropics, on the model of the class of drugs known as psychotropics. Psychotropics are pharmaceuticals used in psychiatry which change your mental state.

The word nootropic comes from the Greek ‘nous’ meaning mind, and ‘trope’ meaning turning, therefore: ‘mind-turning.’

Nootropics are classed differently in different parts of the world, but generally, they are categorized as supplements or foods rather than pharmaceuticals. …

Here’s what my Nootropic Rhodiola Self-Experiment Showed Me.

Previously, I experimented with the nootropics L-theanine to aid and bacopa to promote memory. There were mixed results, but on the whole, they did seem to do something.

The next nootropic I tried was Rhodiola. It is claimed that Rhodiola promotes strength, endurance, stamina and mental capacity, as well as being helpful on your wedding night.

It is also said to give tolerance to cold weather. I wondered whether this was a sympathetic magical idea: because the Rhodiola grows in the Arctic and withstands cold, if you take it, you will withstand cold better too.

But hey, the claims sounded good. I gave it a go. I took 500mg of Rhodiola Rosea each morning around 09:00 for a week and recorded how I felt as well as some basic physical observations of blood pressure, heart rate, sleep and so on. …

How A Luxury Castle Hotel Dealt With A New Invader

The Lockdown Part One.

“In my forty-three years as a hotelier, I’ve never had to face anything like this before,” Margaret Livingstone-Evans, general manager of the Langley Castle Hotel, said.

We were talking of COVID of course.

Margaret has been a hotelier all her career, seen it all, done it all, but COVID is a new challenge.

Langley Castle Hotel is, as its name suggests, a luxury hotel in a castle. It has the feel of a boutique hotel because its not a chain hotel and it has lots of special, very unique touches that really add to the stay.

Margaret has been at Langley two years next spring, but she’s lived and worked in hotels across ten counties. She has managed similar properties before: historic houses and manors now open to for discerning guests. …

Taking Responsibility For Your Own Health

Preventing heart attacks by quitting sugar? It all started in Paris, but all the best stories do.

It was June 2017, and I was on the Boulevard St Michel having a whale of a time. We were due to leave Paris that afternoon, but we went to a restaurant and sat outside. I ordered a French cheeseburger. Not massively adventurous, I know, and something I would soon regret.

You see, it was French blue cheese, the kind with mould in it. I can eat English blue cheese and Danish blue cheese, but, it seems, not the French.

I apologise to the squeamish, but I have got to tell you how sick I was: very, like very-very. …

Let Me Save You Some Cash

Can Marketing Self Published Books Be Profitable?

This is a story about my experience of marketing books without losing money.

“What do you mean you can lose money?” You say. “I thought it was pure profit?”

Easy tiger! Sure, self-publishing can make you money...

But let’s face it, you can make money doing most things. Selling cold cans of cola on a hot beach seems to work for some.

Persuading strangers to buy dyed (and died) roses in pubs on Friday nights in Soho turns a few pennies too.

But is self-publishing fiction profitable? …