The Amazing Adventures of Meltdown Girl (Why my stuff is no longer available on Amazon)

 

This post was originally written for The Many Pen-Names of Morgan Drake Eckstein under the title--The Amazing Adventures of Meltdown Girl (How losing access to Amazon is affecting my production schedule) 

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 It is official. After twenty-five years of peace among the leaders of Denver’s Wiccan community, the Second Denver Witch War has started. And I am the first causality of DWW2. Happy, happy—joy, joy—right? 

Yes, it is going to affect the production schedule—as in “Everything is on hold until further notice.” 

Why? Because some witch thought that it was a suitable punishment for me to have my Amazon author account terminated. Me and my wife chose not to march in lock-step with a Big Name Witch, and now we need to be punished for our wrongful disobedience. 

Nice, right? I am guessing that this is going to be another case of putting lipstick on a pig, and claiming that it is about “Community service, and not elevating ourselves over others.” Because baby witches need to be protected from the fraudulent and predatory—and I am an evil predator. Unlike those community serving witches who are protecting you from me. 

For the one person who hasn’t heard the story yet: After enjoying twenty-five years of relative peace in the Denver Wiccan community, three and a half years ago (after the death of a prominent peacekeeping leader) a bunch of apex monopoly seekers decided that what Denver’s Wiccan community needed the most was a Gatekeeper to assassinate all the unworthy witches who had been allowed to infest the community with their pestilence and corruption during the previous twenty-five years of peace and cooperation. 

Did you know that I was a source of corruption and Covid-19? Of course, you did. You are smart like that. Too bad you are not smart enough to unsubscribe from this newsletter. You bad, bad pagan. 

But never fear, the scheme to drive me completely from the occult community is proceeding according to plan. 

The latest step of the plan was to get Amazon to terminate my author account, ensuring that seventy to eighty percent of today’s book market is closed permanently to me and my evil professional liar ways. All over less than five dollars unpaid royalty. Because my wife defriended and blocked a friend—wrongfully, for my wife was supposed to agree completely with Meltdown Girl, killing both the open-to-the-public pagan event I cohost and my author brand. 

Oh yes, you are supposed to love Meltdown Girl for her sunny personality (her blood type is Chernobyl Road Rage hot sauce), and obey her very wish and demand because she is special and should totally be in charge of all things magical and mystical. 

After all, it is not like the honored dead approve of my operation of witchcraft and shaggy dog stories. 

Maybe I need to explain that—what do you think? 

Okay, here goes . . . 

As we all know, the natural state of occult leaders is to be at war with one another. Despite the claims of community service, from the outside the war looks remarkably like self-serving monopoly seeking egomaniacs deciding that they, and they alone, deserve to receive all the bucks, fucks, and ducks that the students of esoteric traditions are willing to shell out to the bestest teacher and lineaged supreme, just to be ordered around by She Who Should Be Pope. Unfortunately, there are many pretenders to the throne—therefore, a Witch War must be fought until there is only one Witch Mother standing. And the Goddess approves, for there can only be one Witch Queen to rule all things magical and mystical. 

War is the natural state of the occult community, and anyone who says otherwise (hinting that we could do better) needs to be driven out of the community at the earliest opportunity. 

Around 1992—about the same time I entered the ranks of coven and lodge initiation—a source of pestilence arose in Denver. Her name was Alia Denny, and she was totally evil. As in, she “inherited” a community church devoted to doing public Wiccan ritual (got to honor the Official History) and changed the rules by allowing just about everyone to conduct an open pagan ritual on the behalf of the church. 

That was evil—because we all know that such nonsense needs to be stopped—the ranks of the occult, including Wicca, need to be prescreened and filtered by properly lineaged witches. Allowing everyone in, oh the horror—next thing you know, people are going to be able to claim to be Wiccans without going through the trials and tribulations of being a properly initiated coven member. 

Several people tried to stop Alia and the spread of this plague—a couple of her critics even joined the board of the church to try to correct things and put them back in their proper place and form—but Alia ignored all of them. 

Sadly, the greater Wiccan community, you know those bastards and bitches who believe that the individual should have the right to choose their own religion, decided that the performance of public Wiccan ritual was the greatest thing since sliced white bread. Oh the horror—oh the humanity—oh why is it illegal to burn a heretic at the stake? 

I was one of the misguided witches who felt that open ritual was awesome. Worse, the community leadership have failed to exile me from the witchcraft community—as in, I ignored all hints to leave the community, and kept worming my way back in, using my wallet as a tool of ultimate evil by paying to attend classes at my local occult shop. Alia was just encouraging bad behavior, and I was the poster child of the evils of an open-to-the-public religion. 

 Let me be clear—Alia Denny’s greatest crime was that she did not ban me from the community the very first night she met me. 

Followed by the fact that the idea of lineage as ultimate proof of quality was ignored by the rabble in favor of how friendly you were and how entertaining your public rituals were. Oh dear, High Priestesses had been stripped of their right to be abusive to one and all—Wicca had become a Free Market Economy. 

Enter the Amazing Meltdown Girl. 

Meltdown Girl has never believed in a Free Market Economy. Meltdown Girl feels entitled to fame, wealth, and absolute obedience—and allowing customers to decide who they like the best is the Eighth Deadly Sin. You are a horrible person if you believe that Meltdown Girl might have to do some hard work to earn the mega-star success that she so desperately craves. 

And Meltdown Girl believes that she is entitled to the fame, wealth, and influence that such authors as J.K. Rowling and Stephen King have. 

With just one book. 

Yes, Meltdown Girl believes that she should be earning mega-star prestige with just a single book. 

Not a series of books. No need for an author platform. No need to improve her output—it is perfect in every way. 

And she might be earning even less as a writer than I am. 

If so, lying to Amazon and getting my author account terminated is JUSTICE and just something that I had coming for being a monster. 

Now, I am not saying that I shouldn’t lost my author account, but let’s be honest about my real crime—it wasn’t about paying Meltdown Girl her just dues (royalties); it was the fact that I allowed this person to remain in my life for twelve years. 

And I had plenty of warning that Meltdown Girl was a little bit of a Bleep since the first day I met her. 

We met at my Second First OFM (Open Full Moon ritual)—the first one I did was years earlier and no one knew that I was actually the author of that ritual (I had self-confidence issues at the time). And like every first unrehearsed public performance, the performance was a burning dumpster fire. It wasn’t completely my fault—my volunteers had bolted at the last minute—leaving me to create an one-person ritual as I performed the OFM. (I would later realize that the abandonment of me was the first step in the Bast Temple schism—but that’s a story for the Initiation Book.) Somehow, I managed to survive. 

Well, mostly. I had made a major mistake at the ritual that would burden me to this very day. You see, I am a Wiccan in Golden Dawn—and I don’t try to disguise that fact. So, public ritual—public performance of the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram; isn’t that what supposed to happen? Turns out “No!” One of the audience members that night was Gertrude . . . who got a little upset that a mere man with a dodgy lineage, not properly trained and vetted by a “real Wiccan,” and who preached the radical idea that paganism could be a Free Market System—there should be no way in Hell that I was more powerful than she was. 

But I was. 

For the next twelve years (and counting), I would be punished for this unforgivable pagan sin—mainly because Gertrude really believes that she is the smartest, most knowledgeable, and most powerful witch in the city. And any evidence that says otherwise has to be destroyed. 

Which is why the Official History of the Denver Wiccan community now says that I never once contributed to the community when people were needed to step up. 

It is also why my medical marijuana status had to be weaponized, Alia Denny recast as a villain, and why it is totally ethical, legal, and good business sense to have someone lie to Amazon and get my author account terminated. Hell, the Honored Dead would totally approve of this much needed Witch War—even Alia Denny herself would ban me from the community if she was still alive today. 

(Ethical—“benefiting the Uber-Witch who should be in complete control of the community”; Legal—“what you can get away with when you have a free lawyer”; Good business sense—“Morgan and Khari are morons who will gladly bled out and disappear from the community—they have no independent way to reach the greater pagan community”; Endorsed by the Honored Dead—“History can be rewritten and competition memory-holed 1984-style.” Anything else I should define? Oh, yes: Uber-Witch—“She was has the most greed, the biggest ego, and sharpest knife—she who deserves to receive all the bucks, fucks and ducks that aspiring witches are willing to shell be instructed in the One and Only True Way of Wicca.”) 

Anyways, back to Meltdown Girl—and yes, that tangent ties into the mess later—Gertrude will be empowering Meltdown Girl before it is all over. 

I had plenty of warning that Meltdown Girl wanted to be an Apex Witch Queen. For instance, when she first moved here from Dogsville, she was obsessed with a psychic friend of hers who was attempting to get producers interested in a ghost-chasing television show. 

“Becky doesn’t deserve her own show. All the ghosts she is talking about, all those wonderful spiritual experiences, she stole those stories from me. I am the real talent—not her. Where is my f***ing TV show?” 

It should be noted that as a man and a former business manager, I had opinions about what Meltdown Girl should do next. 

“If you want to have a TV show, you need to build up your portfolio. People need to see past evidence that you know what you are doing. Without it, why would the producers ever consider giving you your own show?” 

This advice to build up her portfolio was also given regarding her children book series, and her failure to get invited to the community church Council that Gertrude serves on. 

“Why did Bunny get invited to join the Council? Why not me? I am more talented and ethical than Bunny is. I deserve to be on the Council that rules all things magical and mystical in Denver.” 

She didn’t like my answer: “Bunny has done an annual children ritual for a decade. Bunny has proven that she contributes to the community. You have never done a single open ritual. Build a portfolio and you will be asked to do things too.” 

Meltdown Girl did not like that answer. 

And she really didn’t like it when I asked, “Why didn’t you volunteer when the Council put forth their call for new Council members?” 

Yeah, I don’t have too much patience for people who want to be asked to be leaders, but don’t want to contribute to the community without getting “paid” for their service. In other words, “I want to be worshipped and I don’t want to have to work hard to become a living goddess.” You know—the attitude problem that drives all witch wars and trademark lawsuits. 

And I knew that there was another person besides Bunny that Meltdown Girl was upset with—Me! 

You see I also got asked to join the Council (despite engaging in Active Avoidance). Why? Because I had a visible to the public portfolio: Former Inner Order officer for a branch of Golden Dawn, a blog where I periodically talked about abusive occultists, a couple dozen newsletter articles, and several open-to-the-public pagan rituals written and performed by little old me. In other words, I had portfolio. 

Well, I had portfolio clear up to three and a half years ago—history has been rewritten since then. 

Please note, I would have never joined the Council if I would have known that someday the Council would be dragging my reputation through the mud, rewriting history to justify taking over four events/services (and counting), and would encourage others to damage my author platform. 

And yes, I am positive that the Council encouraged this whole mess. Let’s be clear—this is all about several witches believing that they have the right to boss around the entire Wiccan community. As in I was supposed to ask permission to write the Public Ritual as Community Growth Tool book—so that Gertrude and the rest of her Righteous Council could deny me permission to preach a philosophy that they pretended to support for a quarter of a century, but had just really wanted to burn the person who came up with the idea at the stake for ruining their chances of being the boss of every witch living in the city. Oh yeah, these are nice people focused on “Community service, and not elevating ourselves over others.” Pay no attention to how my resignation was accepted: “I feel that the best way for you to honor Alia and her legacy is for you to leave the community.” In other words, allow the Second Witch War to happen (and Denver’s history and Alia’s philosophy to be rewritten) while killing my own open event and my author brand—without me saying a single word about it. Because righteous actions should always be veiled by a cloak of secrecy. 

One can only hope that Meltdown Girl’s manipulation of Amazon finally gets her invited to the Council—because Meltdown Girl would be a perfect addition to the Great Gherkin Collective. So how did Meltdown Girl get my account terminated? And why? 

Let’s deal with the Why first. 

Last year, Meltdown Girl approached the Council after hearing that another Big Name Witch had threaten to go to the Council, arguing that no pagan (not alone a community leader) should be allowed to be on medical marijuana, and that I should be kicked off the Council and my slot given to her. Meltdown Girl heard me complain to someone about this below-the-belt maneuver and decided to use the gambit herself. Oh yes, last year’s drama was triggered by Meltdown Girl. 

Oh yeah, Meltdown Girl ran screaming to the Council that I was trying to take over the entire Wiccan community. 

Result? 

The Council weaponized my medical marijuana, memory-holing my thirty-five years (now thirty-six) years in the Denver’s pagan and magical community, and forcing me to hand them a resignation that was in direct violation of a promise I made to Alia Denny. 

Why try to get me burned at the stake? 

Because Meltdown Girl realized that my wife, Khari, wasn’t going to kill the Occult Garden Parties “Celebrating with successful writers, artists, and witches.” No, my wife decided that she loved the OGPs and that they were not going to go away—no matter how much Meltdown Girl tried to sabotage the parties. 

“I would not serve those people chicken and ribs. They only deserve hot dogs and hamburgers. You shouldn’t be wasting money on those people.” 

I want it on the record that my Occult Garden Parties were started before Alia died (she was part of first stage testing of the event) and Alia was okay with me doing them despite my medical marijuana status. 

So what set off Meltdown Girl? 

Khari paying attention to someone else. 

Yeah, just that. 

And this is a person who thinks that they should be asked to lead the whole damn community—say what?!? 

Please note that Meltdown Girl came back into our orbit earlier this year—bitching about the horrible stuff that the Council was doing. Mostly she was upset that she was not asked to join the Council to replace me. 

Well, clear up to the moment that she realized that I thought that I still had a chance to influence people through the Occult Garden parties. Oh, and I thought that I could be a partial replacement for Alia in the community. 

Now, when I say that I am in the running to be Alia’s replacement, I don’t mean that I am going to be the Apex Witch Queen ruling the entire city. No, what I mean is that in Colorado, there are fifteen medical marijuana patients per one thousand residents. Fifteen people who are not going to like the libel (slander) that the mere presence of a medical marijuana patient at a no-power open pagan ritual can result in the entire audience having to live in a padded cell for the rest of their lives. I do not see how any medical marijuana patient is ever going to trust the Council to be their pagan clergy ever again. I know that I would never trust someone who used dirty tricks to eliminate a rival, and tried to impose health, business, and personal decisions on someone (decisions that only benefited the Council, and actually increased the person’s chance of hurting themselves and others—yeah, you know, that type of good advice.) 

I knew I was in trouble the instant that Meltdown Girl said that she dreamed of Alia and she had a message for me. 

I knew that whatever the “message” was, it was going to boil down to “cease and desist—just do whatever makes Meltdown Girl happy.” 

In self-defense, I avoided contact with the Amazing Damsel of Righteous Road Rage for several days. I also very quickly finished the section of the Public Pagan Ritual Planning Workbook that I had been working on. The feeling that someone was going to drive me straight into the weeds, if not into an extended bout of panic, low self-esteem, and close to suicidal depression—that caused the professional writer to hurry to the next logical break point in the project. 

And I wasn’t wrong. 

Please note that I cheated—it wasn’t a great feat of precognition and divination to know that trouble was coming. After all, I have known this lunatic for twelve years—and we were long overdue for Ms. Amazing to have a nuclear meltdown. 

Let’s be clear. This is a woman who once accused me of concealing hundreds (perhaps thousands) of dollars’ worth of sales—robbing her of much needed royalties (reality: I couldn’t give her writing away). This is the person who blackballed all applicants to Bast Temple after the schism (“I am getting a bad vibe from them”). This is the person who gave Cos-Neo “Community service, not elevating ourselves over others” the idea of using my health problems to justify their secret banning of me. Not that I am supposed to know about the true extent of that backstabbing—I am supposed to believe that the resulting secret exile of me was merely the church misusing private information—and that Meltdown Girl was innocent of getting me kicked out of the community. And most of all, this is the person who still thought that she deserved superstar treatment (must be the center of attention at all times) and a sweet ass community church board membership with a bad attitude and a portfolio that still echoed from its emptiness. 

Oh, I so knew this was going to be a bad “Alia is spinning in her grave” cease and desist message. 

After all, I have seen the three eye flashes the weekend before. 

Let’s count off the “If looks could kill,” shall we? 

First, there was the glare when I pointed out an artist tip that I learned by watching Bob Ross. 

The second flare was when I a small joke about being more qualified to be Alia’s replacement (more pro-open ritual) than any of the current crop of Apex Monopoly Seekers. 

And the third attack of Medusa Eyes was when I laughed that I would have to decide how much of a discount that I would give her when I was ready to teach my upcoming Marketing For Pagan Community Leaders workshop. 

Yeah, those are the horrible things that I did that triggered the latest round of drama; Meltdown Girl running back to the Council to complain some more, and the urgent need to get my Amazon author account terminated. 

All of which, along with the righteous weaponization of my medical status, should prove to the Imperious Trio once and for all that Meltdown Girl needs to be invited to join the Council. 

Oh, and why does she want to be a member of the Council? So she can ban people from the community simply because they give her a bad vibe. And someday, I was sure to be one of those banned—because I kept thinking that I was better than she was. 

Now, at this point, it might be helpful for the reader to know that I belong to an esoteric tradition that reserves Tier Two training (think—Inner Order Golden Dawn/Second Degree Wicca) to those who can pass three tests—Tier Two cannot be opened without at least one student who can pass all three parts of the challenge. 

One, you have to show a concern about acting ethically. This does not mean that you have to restrict yourself to only spiritual development—no, you can do practical magic. And it does not mean that you are a doormat in the real world either. You can be a bastard and still be ethical. All Tier Two members have to pass the ethics threshold. 

Two, at least one student has to gain (learn) the ability to reach into someone else’s sphere of sensation and adjust their energy. Translation—someone who will be able to initiate others, and not be restricted to handing out placeholder degrees and grades. 

Three, and the most important of them all, you have to be able to detect magical and mystical energies well enough that when you encounter someone bullshitting that they are a High Grade, powerful in magic and ritual, that you can see how often there is absolutely no energy while they are lying about hearing the advice of the Secret Chiefs and the Honored Dead. 

By the way, no one who broke away during Bast Temple schism had passed these tests—not even a single part. 

And Meltdown Girl had constantly failed all three parts—despite thinking that she was a top shelf healer and psychic. 

Which is why when my wife, Khari, passed a second part of the Tier Two challenge a couple of years ago, I started trying to warn Meltdown Girl to knock off the fake medium act. Please note I am not allowed to just come out and say, “I have known that your on/off ratio as a psychic is 10:90 at best, and I have known this for twelve years. And Khari has progressed to the point where she might be able to see what you really are the next time you say, ‘The spirits are telling me you need to do it this way, and you can believe me because I am a psychic’ and I am quite sure Khari will not be pleased once she learns your actual truth to lies ratio.” 

Okay, I did not foresee that Khari’s reaction being quite this bad—surprise, not only did Khari learn that you are a bullshitting psychic, turns out that she is still a little upset that you weren’t more sympathetic when her mother committed suicide [bad health issue]. 

My wife defriended and blocked Meltdown Girl on Facebook. 

Which is why Meltdown Girl ran back to the Council, got egged on by them to use a dirty trick to terminate my Amazon author account (a test balloon to see if the Council can use a quote of forty-three words and a claim that they are the only ones legally allowed to write about public goddess worship and its history to block the publication of my entire OFM support series), and all this because Meltdown Girl believes that Alia Denny should have handpicked her to be the next ruler of the Denver Wiccan community. 

By the way, Alia (despite what the official history now claims) only controlled one event. Not four and counting. Alia never claimed the right to shut down other people’s events and projects—and she would have been horrified that someone was trying to destroy someone else’s business and livelihood. 

Not that I was making money yet. But I had high hopes for my rebranding and relaunch. Especially my science fiction. A relaunch which can never happen now because there is no point in me finishing anything now—how would the readers ever find it? 

I mean it is not like I spent twenty years blogging about abusive occultists—watchdog work I did for free—because I truly believe that the students of the esoteric traditions deserve better leadership than Meltdown Girl, the Righteous Trio of the Cos-Neo Council, the Great Gherkin and the dozens of other monopoly seeking Big Name Witches and Magicians that believe that the world of the occult exists only to serve as their own personal ATM (cash point), sex dungeon, and personal shooting gallery. 

High-fives all around for Meltdown Girl and the legitimate guardians of the One True Wicca, for finally succeeding where so many others have failed—a big round of applause for permanently silencing my voice and exiling me from the occult community forever and ever. Oh yeah, these guardians of all things magical and mystical deserve a big round of applause. 

Applause. 

Not what I think they deserve. 

My fans know what is about to happen—yeah, I will continue writing (both esoteric and fiction); the only difference is that I do it for free, rather than attempt to make money doing it. 

And before anyone asks, the chances of me being able to use facts like “Payout threshold was five dollars; Contributors were being credited according to ereader page count of their submission: and Meltdown Girl had an advertisement for her children book series as part of her payment” to regain my Amazon account is relatively low, as in “Satan will be skating to work.” Amazon is notorious for capricious enforcement of their rules and business standards. Odds are very much that Amazon is permanently closed to me. 

A big round of applause for Meltdown Girl. Hopefully, this deed of excellent community service, unselfishness, and supreme business sense earns her that place on the Council that she so feverishly desires. And if not, well, my wife has banned her from our property—Meltdown Girl is not coming back here. 

So exactly how is all this drama, including the termination of my Amazon author account, going to affect my production schedule? 

First, all projects are on hold. Mainly because of the emotional turmoil that the events of last year and a half has unleashed in my brain. It is hard to make process on writing projects when every draft turns out to be a rant about how I didn’t agree to be a board member just to undo everything positive that Alia Denny ever accomplished as soon as she was dead. 

Secondly, all projects are on hold because I have absolutely no idea how far Meltdown Girl, the Cos-Neo Council, and the other three dozen or so Big Name Witches, intent on restoring Denver’s Wiccan community back to its pristine one true way state that existed during the Denver Witch War years—you know the ideal society that Alia Denny ruined by allowing portfolio (in the form of open pagan ritual done by the unwashed masses) into the community (undermining the ability of one simply to make a lineage claim to be able to boss others around)—I have absolutely no idea how far these fine pillars of the community will go to ensure that my opinions are silenced once and for all. 

Let me be clear: These righteous reformers have blown past all the normal limits that govern ministers. The weaponization of my medical marijuana status to justify (secretly) banning me from a community church that I attended for a quarter of a century—as well as other events controlled by the eager monopoly seekers, the rewriting of history to memory-hole my thirty-six years in the local community, the voiding out of my contributions by claiming that the deeds don’t count because my actions were not done at the right time and for the right purpose (the glorification of She Who Wants It All). The recasting of Alia’s philosophy to make the claim that Alia herself would endorse the antics of the monopoly seekers, the claim that Alia would have banned me from the community herself (stripping me of my right to be a pagan minister) once she learned of my medical status, the lying to Amazon (massive unpaid royalties, my ass) to get my author account terminated, the invoking of Alia’s ghost to try to make my wife kill her (and my) open socializing and ritual event, and all the efforts to stop me from becoming a successful author—so far, from where I sit, not a single one of these Big Name Witches (all of whom claim to be so worthy of being Alia’s handpicked successor), none of them have exhibited any human decency or ethics. 

Oh wait, these supreme Wiccans have showed that they have ethics—morals and business practices—it is just too bad that perhaps they are ethics worthy of a whorehouse madam. 

Yes, that is my personal opinion. 

An opinion that is totally worthy of screaming libel, slander, and character assassination—oh yeah, these Big Name Witches will be suing me in court, proving that Alia left detailed instructions on how she wanted these pillars of the community to deal with critics who think that occult monopolies are a bad idea, and showing a judge that their rewritten of history is what really happened and not what some Arkham asylum escapee claims happened. 

And the BNWs will definitely be proving beyond all shadow of doubt that Alia Denny herself would have stripped me of my minister certificate, my community, my own open event, and my right to write about witchcraft and the occult the instant that Alia learned that I was taking medical marijuana to treat my complex PTSD, bipolar, panic attacks. 

After all, Alia Denny knew the dark truth; she knew that the mere presence of a medical marijuana patient at a low power (nay, no power) open-to-the-public Wiccan ritual would result in dozens of attendees having to spend the rest of their lives in padded rooms. 

And the BNWs will prove all this in a court of law, along with ensuring that their official rewritten history is the only one that historians are allowed to remember, as well as proving the Meltdown Girl is a real psychic, and that the religious laws of Wicca says that a single witch is allowed to micromanage (including shutting down) the religious and business activities of all who call themselves Wicca. 

By goddess, they have historical documents to prove all these points—and by goddess, they are going to use them. 

Easy peasee, once they find a free lawyer willing to swap legal services for a Wiccan degree in the bestest lineage (in fact, the only real Wiccan lineage) that the world has ever seen. And that will be easy to do because any lawyer will be able to instantly see that I am committing libel, slander, and historical revision (worthy of major life-crippling monetary damages) while their clients are a hundred percent innocent of wronging me in a similar manner. 

Oh yes, any and all actions taken to destroy me are ethical, legal, and good business sense. 

Fuck limits—let’s burn Morgan at the stake in the public square to show one and all that Morgan is the wickedest magician living today, and to make sure that everyone knows who Alia Denny’s rightful successors are and what happens to those unwilling to kiss their papal ring. Us Wiccans like to talk about how Wiccan clergy should be better than the Christian fundamentalists. That’s rich. Someone please explain to me how abusing me is serving the Lord and Lady. 

Worse than the potential legal problems, and far more responsible for causing all of my writing projects to be put on hold, is that Meltdown Girl has already proven that she is willing to lie, omit, and resort to dirty tricks to punish anyone who doubts that she is the one that Alia would have personally chosen to be succeed her. And there is also MDG’s rage when she learns that someone is doing better than she is as a writer, that’s some real sweet poison. 

If I somehow negate the death blow that Meltdown Girl dealt to my author career—oh how do you survive as an indie writer without Amazon—will MDG hunt down and visit similar dirty tricks on each and every pen-name that she knows of? 

Now that Meltdown Girl knows how easy it is to manipulate a book retailer into terminating another writer’s author account, will she ever stop? 

Do I need to abandon every pen-name and project that I ever admitted to? Do I need to create completely brand-new pen-names, new fictional universes, and a totally different writing voice—projects that I would never be able to mention to anyone—do I need to go unbelievable lengths just to protect myself from this fucking lunatic? 

*sigh* 

Even if I somehow figure out how to bullet-proof the parts of my author platform that Meltdown Girl hasn’t destroyed yet, there will still be some deep changes to my production schedule and output. 

For instance, the oral history project (of the “Golden Age Open Goddess Worship Peace Years”) that I wanted to do, that’s off the table. I can’t begin to imagine the type of copyright usage paperwork that I would require from the participants to make me feel safe from similar sabotage. That and sure as god makes little green apples, the Council (egged on by Meltdown Girl) will be taking me to court to make sure that the forty-three most important words are not usable by me, as soon as the Council locates the trademark paperwork and the Last Will and Testament which gives them not only complete and total control of Alia’s intellectual property (and not Doug, her husband)—but everything they need to prove to a judge that I am evil professional liar—a judge who will reward them by giving them the exclusive business right to close down the events and projects of other Wiccans. Yes, the Council will be able demand that others cease and desist—all in the name of community service, and not self-enrichment. 

It will be awesome legal justice. Oh, they are so going to prove that I am a dirty filthy mouthed liar who does not deserve the basic legal protections that all other historians and journalists normally enjoy. Meltdown Girl, the Kosher Coven and their band of Merry Minions, are so going to have that judge wrapped around their little finger. It will be glorious—and at the end of the day, only the Council will have the legal right to call themselves Wiccans. The Imperious Threesome wants it—and therefore, it will happen—they will be the only Wiccans legally recognized in the whole damn world. 

Hence legally, I no longer have the right to write about local Wiccan history. Only the Council enjoys that right. And it is righteous. Can I get an “Amen!” 

So that history project is never going to happen now—one can only hope that the Council writes and publishes their totally true account (with supplementary historical documents) of why they were more important to the development of the local Wiccan community than Alia ever was. 

Also gone is any future participation by me in anthologies, journals and magazines (including guest blog posts) organized by other people. Thanks to Meltdown Girl, I am now off-limits; no one is going to want to take the risk of working with someone who has been blackballed by the greatest witches and magicians in the world, and is now being hunted down by a horde of angry witches determined to root out my brand of heresy once and for all. Meltdown Girl is a lunatic, as are her Righteous Council friends, and they will probably feel perfectly okay with destroying the literary and publishing careers of anyone crazy enough to work with me. After all, it is about “Community service, and not elevating themselves over others.” 

But the most important change brought about by this fun and games is the addition of several new “Great Gherkin Collective” projects—all starring these wonderful ladies who totally deserve to rule all things magical and mystical with a bad attitude and an iron fist. 

Oh yes, let’s celebrate the great business and religious wisdom of Meltdown Girl and the Cos-Neo Council. Just don’t ask me what I know that they don’t know. Because I may not be a top shelf witch like they are, but I do know how to get information to people through non-paid channels. I blogged (unpaid) for twenty years about the antics of the Golden Dawn Trademark War. What would make this situation any different? 

I have opinions about how occult teachers and leaders should act—and have shared these thoughts openly with the greater esoteric community since 1996 in a variety of media (blogs, newsletters, small press publications)—more often than not for FREE. 

Why would I shut up now? 

Between the weaponization of my medical marijuana status, the rewriting of history, and the termination of my Amazon author account—this has become personal. 

And we all know how I get when things become personal. If the Council, Meltdown Girl, and their obedient minions, thought that I was a danger to the community before, they haven’t seen anything yet. 

It is Game On Witches! 

Sign up for The Many Pen-Names of Morgan Drake Eckstein to receive the monthly Essay of Doom (the 13th of very month)

Year half over and I have accomplished all of nothing

Egads! The year is half over, and I feel like I have accomplished nothing so far this year.

But if I am being fair to myself, and not being super-critical of myself, I must admit that at least, I am making progress---it is just none of it is actually visible.

The project that I am currently working on is a rather nonsensical one that was inspired by a comment from Nick Farrell back in October. He complained that Necronomicon rip-offs sell better than regular occult books. And being curious, I went and looked. He might be right.

So when Novemeber rolled around, and I thought about doing National Novel Writing Month for the millionth time, I decided that a Necronomicon rip-off was a suitable project...because I am poor, and would love to get my hands on some of that sweet, sweet Necro-RipOff money.

Unfortunately, the project was more complicated than I thought it would be (something to do with being an actual occultist who decided that a dollop of actual occult lore would be just the secret ingredient needed), and I had a problem with my meds.

And by problem with my meds, I mean that the insurance decided that some of my meds were not covered and they needed an act of Congress to get them approved. So I ended up spending two months without the anti-drepressant...which, well, just turned me back into the constantly blocked and panicky writer that gets nothing done because they would make more money working in fast food, but so does not want to. The quickest way for me to be blocked is for me to look for big money projects; it causes me to second guess everything that I do (and hello writer's block!).

Once I got back on the pills, it took time for them to re-stabilize me. So I lost about a four month block of time. I managed to do some work on the first Harmic Barrows story, but I ran into some plot problems, and the sneaky fear that perhaps I was copying too much stuff from other people. There is nothing like watching movies and realizing how much they inspired your current work to make one question one's ability to write.

So doubt over whether I should even bother to finish the first Harmic story was killing me.

Fortunately, I read an article about how someone gamed the Amazon best-seller system by picking super niche of niche categories, and had the urge to do the same myself. (One of the categories was Secret Societies--Freemasonry...hey, that could be one of mine!) And my mind stabilized, thanks to the yummy drugs.

So the last couple of months have been chewed up by a project designed solely to allow me to try to create a Amazon best-seller in a super niche category where three whole sales will make me a best-selling auther (hey, it could happen). In all fairness to myself, the project should have only taken a month at most, but I keep adding stuff to it (and I have notes for several other related projects--egads!).

Now, before anyone whines and says that I am cheating, I would like to point out that I am doing this little project (it is only going to be ten thousand words when finished) under a completely brand new pen-name, so it is not like it is going to help me sell books under my regular pen-name (that should make my critics happy).

So anyways, the year is half over, and I have accomplished nothing. Or something, depending upon whether or not, working on a nonsensical project is actually an accomplishment.

Yay me!!!

A hint of things to come!

As for the second half of this year, well, one knows that one's career path is a strange one when one starts reading tentacle erotica and calls it market research. Oh yeah! Tentacle erotica is coming!!!

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.

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.

Where my ebook sales are happening

Troll cat insists that I answer his riddles three before I start filing things.

As the result of a question on Facebook, today I looked at my ebook sales figures and figured out where I was selling the most stuff.

(Please note that I am doing business through Smashwords. This is because I started putting up ebooks during a semester that was tight on time--I had time to deal with one site and one site only. And then, I just continued to do so...because even their slowest times to complete global tasks is still quicker than the print market I first started out in.)

For occult writing, Smashwords is 61.5% of my sales. The rest is done through Kobo (31%) and Barnes & Noble (7.5%).

This is only the ebooks that I am charging for; the figures for my free ebook is incomplete.

For my sales in erotica, the hands-down winner is Barnes & Noble at 64%. The other markets that I am selling erotica in: Smashwords (14.5%), Apple (11.6%), Kobo (7.7%), and Sony (2.2%).

I have yet to earn anything through Diesel, Page Foundry, Baker-Taylor (I have had some of my free stuff downloaded through Diesel and Baker-Taylor, so maybe someday I will get some sales there).

As for Amazon, we all know the problem between Smashwords and Amazon. And besides, some of my erotica is of the Forbidden Four category and therefore, too racy for Amazon to stock in the first place. Someday, I will break down and upload some stuff directly to Amazon. Probably after I take time out to answer my cat's riddles three.

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?

Pricing ebooks

I have been thinking a lot lately about how ebooks are priced. Mainly because I just started to get back into the writing game after a brief absence.

(Not that it is a serious venture back into the field, more like a sticking my toe into a pool of slime and wondering why I did so. For those who are curious about how serious I am taking it, just slip over to Smashwords and take a gander at my little test project, Pizza Boxes on the Floor.)

Honestly, looking around the internet, it looks like the Wild West when it comes to determining ebook prices.

The traditional publishers are still secretly trying to charge the same amount for an ebook as they are for a physical copy. Actually, the other day, I saw a history book that actually cost more for the ebook copy than a physical copy. I am guessing that some publishers believe that people will be willing to pay for convenience.

In my case, I am not willing to pay for convenience. Or rather I am not willing to have to pay for a ebook and then have to pay again for a hard copy with actual page numbers that I can cite in a college paper.

On the other side of the scale, there are the pirates who believe that no one should make a penny from any ebook. I am sorry, my cats would like to eat; therefore, I need to get paid something. And yes, if I am going to be pirated, than one of the pirate is going to have to pay a copy first.

So the question will arise about why I choose a 99 cent price for a 8860 word ebook, especially one that a reader will some time can find almost the entirety of for free on the internet already.

Well,  I had three choices.

First option, the "reader names their own price"---there are two problems with this option. One, I know that a lot of readers would download the entire book and not read any more than the free preview that I am already offering; and two, there are outlets who would not carry the ebook if this option was choosen.

Second option, the "free ebook" option---I am sorry, my favorite charity is my cats, and they would like to eat. If I wanted to give stuff away, I would have choosen the first option; it would result in the same amount of income.

Third option, "pick a price that ends in 99 cents," better known as the iBookstore price force---iBookstore, if you are charging for a book, will automatically round the price to the nearest 99 cents. It is an iCommerce thing (I am sure that Apple is going to trademark that term soon enourgh).

So in the interests of greed, because we all know that occult writers only write books for the money, I went with the third option, and decided 99 cents was a good price for 8860 words.

Is 99 cents that much? Some people are going to say it is. But I do not think so. After all, that is how much a can of cat food is being sold for at Walgreens (and they label that a "great buy"). And my cats would like to occasionally eat.

First Smashwords test project up

Now available on Smashwords.

Well, I finally managed to drive myself to complete a test project for Smashwords. It is a collection of the dozen articles I wrote in 2010 for the Hearthstone Community Church newsletter, which I titled Pizza Boxes on the Floor (after the floor diagram I used that year during the annual ritual that I conduct for Hearthstone and Bast Temple).

I still want to complete another test project in a different field for Smashwords. After all, writing about Wicca and Golden Dawn is not something that looks like it will be a big seller on Smashwords. Honestly, the test project was more about figuring out the horrors of the formatting process than it was about making a buck. In theory, the formatting of the next project will be quicker (yeah, right).

It was more important today that I edited the few pictures that I took yesterday of my wife's jewelry than it was for me to finish this test project. I am not sure when she is going to get the three new items up on the Etsy shop, Celtic Soul Jewelry and Pottery, but she is liable to sell them before I sell a single copy of my little ebook.

Anyways, that was my work day today and yesterday. Fun, fun, fun.

I am proud of this bracelet photo---makes it almost look like I am a professional photographer.