Tenth Annual Smashwords ebook sale

It is once again time for Smashwords annual July ebook sale (July 1st to 31st).

(Some of these books are scheduled to be expanded and updated--if it has an asterisk [*], it is scheduled to be expanded and revised--in other words, if you want to get it cheap before the expansion, do it now because the price will be going up on these ebooks when I update them later.)


Discounted to $1.50 USD

Five Reasons Why Magic Fails

Golden Dawn Rituals--Three Officer Neophyte Script*

Rite of the Magical Images of the Wiccan Sabbats*

Witchy Rants (the Collected MDE Heaarthstone Community Church Newsletter articles)*

Denver Witch Quarterly: To Curse, Or Not To Curse--The Big Cursing Issue (Samhain/Yule 2016)

Denver Witch Quarterly: Wealth and the Lucky Witch (Imbolc/Ostara 2017)

Denver Witch Quarterly: Evil Witches Bind President Trump and His Administration--also Occult Writers and Payment (Beltane and Lithna 2017)

Gaius Corbin: Light Out of Darkness--Lux E Tenebris (Thelema and the Necronomicon)



Free ebooks on Smashwords

Denver Witch Quarterly: A Modest Magazine Proposal

MDE Hearthstone: Pizza Boxes on the Floor (2010)

MDE Hearthstone: Bad Monkey (2011)

MDE Hearthstone: Lunatic With a Soapbox (2012)

MDE Hearthstone: Biggest Witch on the Block (2013)

MDE Hearthstone: Thirteen Signs That Your Occult Teacher is Rotten (2014-2015)

MDE Hearthstone: Hex the Vote--Mad Uncle Morgan Talks About American Politics (2016)

Shakespeare's Monkey (a fiction and poetry collection)*

Esoteric Comedy Show: Assault With a Deadly Taco (Mad Uncle Morgan, I am--Your Face is Going to Freeze Like That)

Esoteric Comedy Show: Free Guns For Everyone--Lap Cats Are Good Too (A Big Gun Control Show)

This is one of my favorite book covers.

No thanks to FTC issues

Can you spot the potential FTC problem here?

 One of the things that you have to learn as a book reviewer is what the Federal Trade Commission wants you to disclose. The FTC rules governing bloggers is simple: One, you must disclose any money, discounts, or free products and services that you recieve from the author and their representatives; two, you must give an honest review. That is it--it is that plain and simple.

Unless someone decides that they want to see you burnt at the stake. Then, the rules can become a living nightmare. Ok, maybe the person I am about to talk about doesn't want to see me burnt at the stake; but they still want to see my authority as a book reviewer and Golden Dawn expert burnt to the ground--which feels the same to a book reviewer and writer.

At the root of the problem is the fact that a certain GD writer a few years ago started to brag that their masterpiece was selling on eBay for a thousand dollars apiece. Now, the book had officially been out of print for several years. But I figured considering that he was claiming that it was selling for such a high price that it would be worthwhile to do a review of it. After all, I had a copy of the book that I brought when it first came out.

Besides when the book first came out, the author got a wheel barrow full of bad reviews--as in a dozen one star reviews. The positive reviews that he got were all five star reviews. Yes, one is correct to suspect that maybe everyone reviewing the book was biased. I figured that the book needed a review from someone that was neutral--as in someone that had no stake in the Golden Dawn trademark lawsuit.

So I gave the book an honest review. I found that I did not believe the author's claims that such a book was needed; it is designed for a magician to use without a lick of training; that cost the book one star. And I found the book to have enough mistakes in the rituals that it could not be used for the purpose of allowing completely untrained magicians to use it out of the box; every ritual needed to be doublechecked; therefore I took another star from my final assessment. Bottom line, I did not think that the book belonged on every magician's shelf, and that there were too many mistakes to trust the book without having enough training where the book would no longer be needed in the first place.

For those keeping score at home, this means that I gave the book a three (out of five) stars review. As I said before, he recieved a dozen one star reviews. But out of all his reviewers, he has spent the most time trying to overturn my review. In fact, I have never seen anyone spend this much time and energy trying to prove that a review was part of a conspiracy against them--ever!

Now, part of it may simply be the fact that it was one of the articles that I used when testing the waters of the pageview markets. I used the same dozen articles on several sites to gauge how good (as in "what will I earn here") various pageview sites were. But I suspect that a large part of it is simply the fact that as a neutral, without any connection to anyone in the court case, my review was actually the most damning of the reviews.

Since I have done the review, periodically I get told that I am a member of conspiracy hell-bent on destorying his Order. Now, for many years, I tried to play nice...clear up to last year when one of his Order members told me that it was ok for them to destory my reputation because I did not belong to his Order. Because of being told that, I have gotten involved in a couple of projects that support the legal defense fund that the other party in the case has set up (to recover the costs from the first case, and help defray the costs of any further case...a case that the author in question seems determined to cause).

And this brings us to the events of the last couple of months.

A couple of months ago, the author in question decided to reissue the book in question. And he openly asked for people to point out mistakes in the book. I volunteered a mistake that I found in a recent research project, but I did not provide him with a full list. After all, he wasn't paying me to be his fact-checker. I do not do free editing.

When he hears this (see the jpeg above), he "hires" me without me submitting a bid for the job. He claims that I am obligated to prove that his book is flawed. He also makes it a condition that I attend his convention in a month and a half--where the person who told me that it was ok for them to destory my reputation will be (I had already stated that even if I did not have bill collectors calling me that I probably would not want to attend).

I tell him to talk to his lawyer because there is a legal reason I can't do the job. (Go ahead and look at how he "hired" me.) His response is to tell me that his lawyer saw no legal problem, and that it must be because I signed a contract to help destory his Order.

I suspect that his lawyer did not see how he "hired" me, or that it is a legal trap to try to sue me.

Because there is no way that I can actually fulfill his conditions. One, I do have bill collectors calling me over a student loan default. Two, I am self-employed--I have better things to do with the money I collect from jobs than attend his convention (even if a certain person would not be attending). Three, he is trying to get me in trouble with the FTC.

Now, this is a man who, when the FTC came out with their rules governing bloggers and online book reviewers, claimed that he knew the FTC rules better than I did. Therefore, he should be able to see the FTC nightmare contained in his job request. Basically, he wants me to revise my assessment of his book...or at least, provide him with proof that will allow him to claim that I was dishonest in my review.

Now, legally I do not have to prove my assessment of his book to him. If the FTC wants my proof that his book is flawed, they can ask for it. And it would be illegal for me to change my mind, and my review of his first edition--a fact that I think that he knows. But he does not care about FTC rules when they are in his way, only when he can use them against someone else.

It is just too bad for him that the FTC often decides not to go after the individual reviewers, but rather after the employer (aka the person paying for the job). In his world, my refusal to do the job proves that I am involved in a conspiracy. It will never occur to him that I did him a favor by refusing to do the job. If he presses me too hard, and I do the job and then revise my review, I am positive that someone in the GD community will report him to the FTC. In fact, I am not sure that he is completely on safe legal ground even at this moment--between this and last year's events (he encouraged people to give another author's entire product line one star reviews), I think it is only a matter of time before the FTC has a good look at him.

And for the record, even if he does fix all the mistakes in the second edition, he still hasn't convinced me that the book is actually needed. After all, if magic was that easy--as in you could learn it from a book that reads like a car manual--then we would not need esoteric Orders in the first place...which would make his Order completely useless. Therefore, the best he can hope for is a four star review...and we all know that anything less than a five star review proclaiming him the greatest thing since white bread will just be a sign that there is a conspiracy determined to destory him--as if the man's actions and behavior are not enough alone to cause people to loathe his guts.

Now available on Barnes and Noble

Shakespheare's Monkey is now available on Barnes and Noble.

Revised cover for Pizza Boxes on the Floor: The Collected 2010 Hearthstone Articles.

Shakespheare's Monkey, a collection of my short-short fiction that I wrote a few years ago is now available on Barnes and Noble for $1.99. It took me awhile to get it up on B&N because I was having trouble with creating a linked table of contents--now, that I have learned the trick, I have to go fix a couple of my previous ebooks to the improved table of contents type.

Sometime, before the first of the year, I plan on assembling and uploading the 2011 collection of Hearthstone articles (Bad Monkey); also possibly the 2012 collection (Lunatic with a Soapbox).

Also available on Barnes and Noble is Pizza Boxes on the Floor: The Collected 2010 Hearthstone Articles (99 cents). In 2010, I started to write a monthly column for the Hearthstone Community Church's newletter. Recently, I had the chance to fix the table of contents. While the metadata and sample are out of date, the cover has switched to the new cover (I lost the original file, and Smashwords recently upped the suggested cover size), so I presume that it is actual the version with the fixed table of contents.

Remember that buying books from me helps support the cat on the cover--he likes the really tasty expensive food. Be kind to kitty--buy an ebook from me.

How not to use a PDF to advertise yourself

Isn't the value of a book determined by the amount that people are willing to pay for it?

Ok, this is one of those situations that even if you do not know the players involved, you can still roll your eyes with me.

A few years ago, someone issued a fifty dollar hardcover book. I think it was technically self-published.

It went out of print, and soon people were trying to sell it for a thousand dollars--but the highest I have seen it sell for on eBay is one hundred and fifty, and no one--I mean no one--has ever offered me more than the original fifty for the copy that is in my possession.

A couple of years ago, a pdf of the book ended up on the pirate sites. I am not sure if it is up on Pirate Bay, but I imagine that it is. I know that I could easily find a pdf of the book today if I didn't already have a copy.

There are some issues with this particular pdf. While it has all 666 pages, they are occasionally blurry and not all of them are in proper order. (The book is ok until page 505, then it has 520 & 521, then 536 & 537, then goes back to page 506, proceeds ok until page 519, then to page page 535, then goes back to 520, all is ok until page 523 when is jumps to page 538.)

Recently, the author (who refuses to publish anything new, or even reprint this book, because of the behavior of internet pirates; and brags about how much his book goes for, despite the fact that he says that resellers are a bunch of dishonest scalpers) offered a pdf of his book to people that attended a webinar of his.

Now, I have a friend who attended the webinar because they were hoping for a better pdf of the book. After all, it is simple to create a better pdf from the original files--and that what should be happening, right?

[Not a spy--a friend in this person's organization. There is a difference...or at least, in my universe, it is. I am quite sure that this author will think otherwise, but they already hate the fact that I occasionally communicate with people inside his organization. After all, this is an organization that has labeled me an enemy, and here I am still friends with people on the inside of it.]

Wrong, the writer was giving away copies of the bad scanned and formatted pirated version of their book. Oy vey. Here is a person who obviously does not know a marketing opportunity when they see one.

What they should have done is create a clean, completely readable version from their original file, added a few advertising pages (are they really married to the 666 page count?), with a linked table of contents, and gave that version out instead. You know, a version that was superior to the version already available on the pirate sites, complete with a note saying that they were giving an improved version of book to the greater community. You know--a win-win situation.

I do not know why they did not do this. But I do know that they missed a golden opportunity to advertise their expertise. A new clean version, complete with an advertising page, would get them more respect than giving out the same bad pirate version that most of us already had a copy of.

Oh well, they will still have a field day advertising themselves once they see this post...because they will come up with a spiritual reason about why what they did is better than doing this in the business-like manner that I think they should have used. After all, what do I know about spiritual matters--for god's sake, I am treating this situation like it was just an advertising campaign.

My current project list

Last week was the last of the current college semester. I am still not sure how well I did...I am not really sure that I can summon up the energy to care at this point. It may or may not have been my last semester as an undergrad; there is still that question hanging over my head (an ugly advising issue).

As I slowly recover, I am kicking around my current project list.

I have decided that I need to get more stuff up on Smashwords. I would like to get some more magical and Golden Dawn stuff up. Towards that end, I am doing a rough draft on a book on secrecy; I am using the rough drafts as posts on my Gleamings from the Golden Dawn blog. There are a couple of sections that may not be posted online before the ebook goes live...howevver long that takes to accomplish.

I should also really consider revising my Three Officer GD Neophyte Ritual book and getting it back up during this production cycle. Also in the works is an ebook on the abusive behavior that one occasionally sees in esoteric groups...yes, it inspired by behavior that I recently witnessed this last cycle (really, it is a good idea to give the entire product line of a writer one star reviews just because you think that they might be talking about you in one of their books?! and furthermore, it is even better for your entire Order to do so?!).

I will be writing more erotica...because it is the best selling stock I have in my product list at the moment. Yes, I am being driven by the need for money. Plus there is the fact that I am going to be applying to a masters program (or two); and if I get in, I will be fighting the smae lack of writing time problem that I have been struggling with for the last several years. Erotica is something that I can write that does not require extended attention.

And yes, I am hoping to get some regular fiction done this cycle (either science fiction or urban fantasy). It is what I would prefer doing...except that it is hard to write an entire novel when the time between writing the chapters tends to be three months (it is hard to maintain the flow...or even a single plot point with this type of temporal gap involved).

So that is what I have planned...outside of taking regular pottery and jewelry photos (which is what I should have been doing today). Wish me luck.

Let me use some vile language

As many of my regular readers know, I occasionally comment on the doings of the modern Golden Dawn on one of my other blogs. And someone just informed me that in one of my recent posts that I used the vilest language to describe one of the players and their esoteric Order.

The first thing to go through my mind? This person has never worked on a construction site.

If he thinks that my language is vile now, he should have heard me a couple of decades ago. I guess ghost-writing Russian Bride adcopy, dabbling in the erotica market, and the language my father used to use makes me insensentive to what other people consider vile. Several years of restaurant management has cleaned up my language...but I am capable of much worse.

Of course, I must admit that I think some pretty vile language when I think about this particular person and their friends. I cannot help it. My fellow writers will understand---this is a person who asked his friends to give a writer a bunch of negative one-star reviews on Amazon because the writer's opinions did not match his own.

But we are not supposed to use the words "fool" and "cult" to describe this person, their friends, or their behavior because they are the vilest words in the English langauge. Especially because people like me have been busy trying to destroy his Order for twenty years.

(I honestly didn't think he needed to be destroyed before last week...now, I am deeply offended as both a book reviewer and a writer, so I might have to change my mind.)

Let's just say, I have a whole bagful of vile langauge that I have not started to use yet.

On the bright note, I plan on using this to officially renounce my Golden Dawn membership...if the local lodge will accept my notice (they have told me to stick my resignation in my ear on a couple of occasions).

How much can an occult writer make?

One of my favorite quotes by Pat Zalewski, a Golden Dawn writer, is that he has never even made grocery money from writing books. Nevertheless, there are people who think that he is lying about this fact. As a writer, one who also does occult writing, I tend to believe that he is writing because he wants to share information and not because he is making a good living at it.

For those who do not believe this, consider the fact that Llewellyn Publications, who is perhaps the biggest dog on the occult publishing block, thinks that a mere five thousand copies sold is a successful occult book. And some occult books are lucky to sell a couple of hundred copies. Obviously occult writing is a niche market, and those of us who try our hand at writing Golden Dawn stuff are operating in a niche of a niche.

So how much does a successful writer makes writing an occult book?

[I have been informed that my figures are wrong---see end of post.]

Assuming a ten percent share (royalities) and a twenty dollar price tag and five thousand copies selling, the successful occult writer would make a mere ten thousand dollars for their time and effort. Presuming that they are a quick researcher and writer, they will have spent nine months researching and writing their book---and that is not counting for all the changes that the publisher is going to insist on; it is also not counting how much time and energy and cost that the author is going to have to sunk into personally advertising their book. Realistically, an occult writer can make more money per year flipping burgers in some dungy restaurant. That is right, I am saying that a successful occult writer is only going to make thirteen or fourteen thousand a year. No wonder so many of them sell magical dragon blood and love magic kits to make ends meet.

The moral of this story is that occult writers are not making money hand over foot; and if you want to make money as a writer, you are better off writing something else.

(The inspiration for this post was a blog post on Llewellyn was about the true cost of piracy of occult books. In other words, occult writers cannot afford their occult books being pirated.)

[And now the update---less than ten minutes and I have already been told that my figures are wrong. Thanks to my writing friends on Facebook for pointing out my mistake.]

Ok, I have been informed that it is actually the wholesale price and not the retail price that the percent is coming from. Therefore, it is not ten thousand for a sucessful book; rather it is five thousand. Furthermore, not all publishers give ten percent royality...which drops the figure to below five thousand for a successful occult book. That makes flipping burgers for a living look even better, doesn't it?

Watching my ads

I am not sure about other bloggers who use adsense, but there are days I just have to wonder how they are picking my ads. Looking over my Golden Dawn blog, I noticed that I had ads about buying gold, invisible dog/cat fences, American Girl mini-dolls, and Babies R Us. Only the ad about invisible pet fences make any sense to me---after all, I do talk about my cats a lot, besides posting more than my fair share of cute kitty pictures there.

But gold? None of my readers have enourgh money to invest in gold. American Girl mini-dolls? I am not sure how any of my posts gets there---are we perhaps using the mini-dolls as poppets for voudoun? And Babies R Us---oh, that must be commentary by adsense about my latest rant post where I talk about the annoyance I felt about a post about proper employment for a Rosicrucian getting read as a criticism against someone else's Order and about my lack of belief in their promises of spiritual immortality (I have yet to figure how they are actually getting to that conclusion, especially about my beliefs about spiritual immortality, which bears no resembalance to what they are saying that I believe.)

Counting the subscribers

One of the things that I can't help to notice is the number of subscribers to my blogs.

Honestly, I try not to notice this number. Noticing it leaves me open to the doubt "What did I do wrong?" when someone choses to unsubscribe.

Like yesterday, I noticed that someone unsubscribed from my Golden Dawn blog. Instantly, I was wondering what I posted that they did not like.

Then I looked over the latest set of posts, especially the last one, and decided that if they unsubscribed because of them, they were probably going to unsubscribe sooner or later anyways. Bottom line, I am a man of strong opinions; sooner or later, I will say something that annoys you.

I try not to let a sudden unsubscription get me down. Besides as some of the "blog building" blogs I read say "If you are not upsetting people, you are probably not passionate about your subject in the first place."

Arrgghhh! Facebook bites!

I am not good at self-promotion; but when I try to self-promote, I would like websites to work. Unfortunately, Facebook is not playing nice at the moment.

I just posted the last scan of the 2000 color scale and Vault study to my Golden Dawn blog. While attempting to post a link to it on Facebook, I kept getting a line error (as if I can fix the website).

Sadness, and a possible omen that the god(dess)s(es) do not want me to practice self-promotion.

Then again, maybe it is just a hint that the color study was not worth sharing (it was the first one that was done for Bast Temple).

Either way, it makes me feel annoyed. I hate doing self-promotion; so when I do try, I want it to work effortlessly. *sigh*

Claiming my blogs---Technorati ranks

I slipped over to Technorati today, and realized that I still had some blogs unclaimed. And some of them are blogs I occasionally think about updating. So I put in my claim form for them.

(I do not claim my blogs on MySpace [which I no longer upadate] or on LiveJournal; they are wastelands as far as I am concerned. Same goes for my blog on Multiply.)

So as of now, my Technorati ranks for my blogs are:

1,112,328 for Gleamings from the Dawn (my blog about Golden Dawn). Interestingly enourgh this is also the rank for the now hidden lulu (MDE) storefront blog.

1,603,173 for Musings from the Pen (this blog).

And my now newly claimed blogs (with absolutely no authority behind them) Dreams of TARDISes, Warp Engines and Stargates (a science fiction blog that I plan on posting Doctor Who fan fiction to...someday when I complete the stories) and Bag Full of Tricks (a political blog that I really should consider updating more often) are at 3,197,294.

Whole three days lost

Well, just in time for the three day weekend, my wife got sick. So I ended up doing no writing this weekend, and next to no work on preparing for June 5th Open Full Moon Ritual that I am leading. And true to form, having dealt with her being sick for three whole days, and getting nothing accomplished, today all I have really done is to stroll around a new Golden Dawn forum. Hopefully, tommorrow I will get back into work mode. As for the rest of today, I think I am going to go read and nap with my familiar.

Writing short descriptions of Egyptian gods/goddesses

Making progress on getting ready for the June 5th OFM. Wrote out ten 25 (give or take a couple) word descriptions for some of the Egyptian gods/goddesses I plan on using.

I am glad that I have started working on this project already, rather than waiting until the last minute. Given the amount of work that I did on it yesterday and this afternoon, I can see that it is going to take a lot more work to get ready for.

The short descriptions may be the easiest part of the whole project. After all, I just need to tell the name of the god/goddess and their baseline Golden Dawn function. It is not like I am actually trying to condense three thousand years of Egyptian and Hermetic lore into twenty-five words.

A couple of samples of what I ending up with:

There are two forms of Anubis used by GD: one in the hall, one outside. One functions as a guide; the other as a protector.

In her aspect as goddess of wisdom, Isis was the patron of the first GD lodge. Her function is fertility.

Amseht is the humanheaded son of Horus. He is the vice-regent of the element of fire, and the guardian of the initiate's airy body.

Hardest ten pages

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that these ten pages about Willa Cather will be the hardest ten pages that I have ever written. It may just be the number of interruptions that I am experiencing: bad timing events that keep throwing me off my stride. I am going to try a couple of banishings and see if that helps.

Helium rating frenzy

One does not need a cracked crystal ball to be able to predict certain things. Last month when Helium announced that they were not only tying in one's ability to earn the daily revenue share (the pennies) to the rating star, but that they were going to give a three dollar bonus to anyone who had five rating stars at the end of the month, I could see somgthing coming.

And that was there would be a frenzy of rating occuring on Helium at the end of this month. This is the first month that the bonus kicks in, so there are a lot of writers over there rating their hearts out in an attempt to get the bonus.

I know this is happening just based on a couple of things: my own rating percentage has been dropping (bare minimum ratings on my part; I decided homework was more important) and several writers that I watch have been increasing their rating stars.

Now earlier this month, in fact this time last week, I decided that it was not worth the effort to try for the bonus this month. Instead I devoted my time to writing a set of lectures on the Grades of Golden Dawn instead. It is for the GD lodge that I belong to, Bast Temple; plus I could recycle the set on Associated Content. I thought about recycling it also on Helium, but it is too long to do so. I will have to do an abbrievated version, a summary, for Helium.

The set of lectures had to be done. And there was only so much time to do things on this Thanksgiving break. And getting my fifth rating star can wait, three bucks is not worth the time that it would take to do four hundred plus ratings, especially this first month as a swarm of members try to get across that line. There will be plenty of opportunity for me to get the bonus in the future, and that is all that counts as far as I am concerned.

And yes, I do find it comfortable that I do not need a cracked crystal ball to predict human nature.

Changed my Lulu Storefront again

It is a couple of days after the end of the spring semester, and I am busy trying to get back into the flow to tackle my business. My summer project, besides digging up the yard and trying to revive Bast Temple, is to work on my writing business.

So today, I decided to change my Lulu storefront's appearance yet again. I also chose to remove one of my products (the microeconomics term paper) because I decided to do something else with it. So the only book I currently have up there for sale is Golden Dawn Rituals Volume One: Neophyte Ritual Three Officer Version.

Ethics of book reviewing

Well, I know that someone reads my book reviews. They may not be happy about what I wrote...but I do know that they read them. It was a review of an Enochian Chess book that I did a couple months ago. Or at least, I think it was my review that the comment was aimed at.

I could be wrong about that. After all, I seriously doubt that I am the only person that reviews Golden Dawn books. Nevertheless, one of the author's comments (yes, it is the author that commented on the review) will get a response from me on my Golden Dawn blog.

But that comment is not what I want to talk about here. Today, I want to talk about the ethics of reviewing books.

There are some authors who believe that any critic or book reviewer that does not give their work a favorable review is a fraud. Alexander Pope wrote an entire essay on it--you might be familiar with a lifted line from it, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." (Though to be fair to Pope, his work is about more than just bad book reviews--he was talking about the tendency of those who can't accomplish great works belittling the accomplishments of others.)

Now, I understand the urge to call people who give you bad reviews--frauds, imposters, idiots, etc. I also suffer from that urge. It also shows up with college instructors who do not think that my work is the height of sheer brilliance. But just because someone thinks that you failed in your task, and fall short of inspiring them, does not make them a fraud.

Ask yourself this after you recieve your next bad review, bad grade, or rejection slip (after you calm down enough to stop stabbing the poppet of the person in question), "What if they are right?" I know it hard, but occasionally I must admit that my critics are right.

In my case, not only do I recieve bad reviews, I write them also. I ask myself what would I tell my best friend about the book (work) that I am reviewing. Would I actually recommend it, or tell them to save their money. And that is what gets the authors I review upset--I tell the truth.

With this particular review, I must admit that I had an ethical dilemma. I know the author, or at least as much as you can know someone from just contact on the internet. I wished that I could have given him a better review. But in the end, I didn't because I had to think about who I was writing the review for.

Do the reviewers serve the authors, or do they serve the readers? That is the big question that hangs over book reviewers. In my case, I believe that I am serving the readers.

Now, I do know that there are some outlets that only publish favorable reviews. They are serving not the authors, or the readers, but rather their own bottom line. They get paid to write favorable reviews.

The catch of doing so is that the readers eventually get stung, and cease to trust that source for their book reviews. A reviewer's reputation depends upon telling the truth. If you write nothing but glowing book reviews in pursuit of the happy buck, sooner or later your readers will figure it out. And there is already enough advertising blogs and sites on the internet already; I do not need to add to that pile, nor do you.

Last final of the semester

Well, today is my last day of college this semester. I have my Political Science final today. It should be interesting to take considering that it is an essay style test (must answer five of seven questions), and use two quotes from the textbook in each answer.

Then starting tomorrow, I get to spend an entire month repairing things around the house, working on this and my Golden Dawn blog, and trying to bash out some articles and short stories. Basically, my vacation is not really a vacation; it is a month of intense work as I try to make up lost ground (opportunity cost).

And in a month, I get to start it all over again. I have signed up for one Literature class, one Humanity, one Psychology, and one History class. Should be an interesting semester, especially considering that two of the classes are going to involve lots of reading (they are taught by the same professor that I had this semester for Philosophy).

Day Four

Didn't get a lot done on the novel yesterday. A mere 411 words. *sigh* But it is not really surprising, considering that I had a lodge meeting to attend yesterday.

The issue of importance was if we were going to continue operating as a lodge or not. The vote was positive, so that means that we will continue operations. Whether we are going to change the meeting day or the focus of the lodge is still up in the air.

Plus, the lodge advanced one of the members to Zelator.

All in all, a busy day.

Forgotten Words of the Day: Lodge and Order

The word lodge is one of those words that has multiple meanings. The two meaning that we are looking at today are related, and are in danger of becoming obscure and obsolete. We will also have to peek at another word, Order, that is tied heavily to the first one. For me, today's words are not forgotten, but I can see that they are definitely endangered.

Lodge--1: The meeting place of a branch of certain fraternal organizations (such as Freemasonry and Golden Dawn). 2: the members composing said branch.

It is seriously doubtful that the Freemasons control the world considering the local lodge can not even decide what type of potato salad to bring to the picnic.

A hundred years ago, these uses of the word were nott as rare as they are today. In fact, a century ago, forty percent of the adult population belonged to at least one Order.

What is an Order?

An Order is a group of two or more lodges that share the same upper-level administration and resources.

And I am not just talking about old white men. I mean the entire adoult population. White, black; young, old; men, women--if they wanted to belong to a lodge, there was an Order that would have them as members.

Depending upon your wants and needs, there was an Order to address those needs. My grandmother was a member of the Modern Woodmen, and Order that provided insurance.

(The lodges were a way to pool resources and unite in pursuit of a common goal.)

The Orders were so much a facet of our Western culture that their presence was recorded in our modern media (aka television). Jackie Gleason on the Honeymooners made fun of the lodges. Fred Flintstone belonged to a lodge. On Frasier, Kelsey Grammer's character (Doctor Crane) and his brother were members of a wine club that for all extents and purposes was a lodge (they called it a Club).

So why are the terms Lodge and Order becoming forgotten? Simply because lodge membership is becoing a rarity.

The membership of the Orders has declined because of a combination of factors. The rise of insurance companies and the welfare system has removed much of the need behind belonging to a lodge. The political movement of the sixties caused an entire generation to become non-joiners. (The effect fo the internet could go either way--time will tell.) Today, many Orders have closed the last of their lodges and have became extinct.

Others like the Freemasons are divided into two camps, the young and the very old (I would be considered young), who disagree in what the purpose of Freemasonry is. This division of purpose is driving that esteemed Order ever closer to extinction (it may be as soon as a decade if you believe certain estimates).

Some Orders, such as the Golden Dawn based Orders, have been forced to create correspodence courses and online support groups to cope with the fact that interested individuals live so far apart that assembling a lodge is near impossible.

The concept of lodges and Orders are a distinctly Western idea, one that deserves saving, so get out there and spread knowledge of the term.

Refer to your local writer's group as a lodge; annoy your knitting circle by calling them such.

Remember it is only by keeping the idea of the concept alive that we can ensure that future generations will have knowledge of it.