My latest article on Reality Sandwich: A Magical Experiment in Economic Activism I got to to really exercise Zi Fupsekip Vosri, mentioned in the article, this last week as I did a lot of networking from Monday through Friday, and was able to help a few people out as a result, by helping them make some good connections with other people. As a networking entity, he's really helpful in prompting the question, "What do you need?" as well as then helping with the connection process.
An experiment in Magical Economic Activism
As you might recall, I'd written a post a little while back on here about economic activism. For a good definition of economic activism, see my article here. Of course, being me, I also wanted to turn this into a magical experiment, and so I have, along with some other people I work with on a regular basis. The working isn't fully finished, but tonight was a major step. Several weeks ago we agreed we'd focus on creating an entity that helps people with networking. We then took sometime to list what the entity does and what it doesn't do.
Tonight, Bill W took over for the part of the experiment where we'd determine the name of the entity. We also spent a lot of time figuring out the elevator speech, essential for networking purposes. Once we'd done that, I invoked Purson, the goetic demon of divination to help with the working, while Cobalt and M also did their own workings to feed energy into the creation of the entity. Purson had me shuffling a tarot deck a lot of the time and ended up creating a divinatory enchantment for the networking entity that emphasized it's focus on making connections, providing a balance of power in the networking and other essential skills for successful networking.
While all that was happening, M did some I-Ching readings, and Bill W used a pendulum with mercury to first determine the number of syllables and names for the entity we were creating. Then he used the pendulum to determine the letters for the name. It was an interesting process to observe, and a bit different from how I've created entities, so I definitely felt like I learned quite a bit from watching him, but also want to actually learn how to do the technique, by doing it.
We did come up with a name for the entity, but we still have some more work to do in the creation process. Look for future updates here!
Review: Flow: The psychology of optimal experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
This book explains what optimal experiences are and how they relate to the psychology of happiness. This book also provides some intriguing definitions for consciousness, attention, and intention, which I think are useful in reconsidering how to purposely use such elements of our behavior to prompt flow. It's a good book overall, with the author providing some excellent examples of how people have used flow states to overcome adversity as well as create works of genius. It also presents some psychological theory which isn't rooted in Freud, Jung, or the eight circuit model, which is refreshing to read, and much needed in order to better appreciate psychology as a discipline and how that discipline can be related to one's spirituality.
If there's one area where this book suffers, it's that the author is sometimes too wordy and overly repetitious. While I enjoyed this book, there were times, I felt the author was repeating himself too much, in order to get a point across. That said, it's definitely worth picking up, to broaden your understanding of psychology and optimal states of experience. 4 out of 5 psychologists
Economic Activism as a form of Social Responsibility
Last night I was invited to speak at a Reality Sandwich event at Powell's books. I evidently spoke well enough that people actually wanted me to sign copies of the RS anthology about 2012, even though I had not written an essay for the book. One of the subjects I mentioned was economic activism and a book I recommended for people to read. Here's a book review of said book:
Book Review: Investing for Change by August Landier and Vinay B. Nair
This is a really intriguing book which looks at how investors can use their values to shape not only their stock portfolios, but the companys they invest in as well as explaining how this is a form of social activism. I found this book to be useful in terms of considering how I want to plan my investments to reflect my values as well as helping me be an agent of social change. This book shows that people who are middle class can be socially aware and use their financial influence to be a positive force for change. Different criterias of investing for change are included which examine the motivations of people for doing certain types of investments. Definitely worth reading if you want to use your finances to make a statement about your values.
5 out of 5 investors
I see economic avticism as a from of social responsibility, the responsibility we need to feel to ourselves, each other, and this planet. As I've observed before, there is often a dysfunctional relationship with wealth/money in the counter culture movements and a lot of that is because of a tendency to demonize money as evil, without really recognizing the inherent problem with that perspective, which I'll simply say is an evasion of responsibility for our choices. While I don't economic activism alone is the answer, I do think it's a vital component and tool for us to use if we want to manifest positive change in the world. We will never escape from economics, so we need to start using money, etc., as a tool for change, if we want that change to occur.
I'll be writing more extensively on this subject and how it relates to wealth magic as well, in the future.