Exposing Charlatans Appropriately - Part Two

What is more wonderful to experience visually than the rising and setting of the sun?

What is more wonderful to experience aurally than the sounds of nature as it prepares for the night if not the awakening of nature at dawn?

The transitions between the hours of darkness and the hours of light often provide a sense of wonder, at least in beautiful, relatively natural surroundings.

Yet a sense of awe may more likely occur when witnessing the grandeur of nature on the largest celestial scale, through experiences of the night sky.

It may also be experienced on an earthly scale, through the majesty of mountains and canyons and long-distant horizons.

It may even be experienced through the feeling of helplessness when exposed to extremes of weather.

But how do you feel when exposed to extremes of politics or extremes of art?

How do you attempt to cope with ambiguity?

How do you attempt to cope with the oppressive austerity of unjustified simplification?

How do you attempt to cope when someone insists on making dangerous decisions based on untruths?

How do you attempt to cope with the disrespect you experience?

How do you attempt to convey your disgust, your confusion, your fear and your dignity during and after experiencing cruelty?

How do you attempt to cope when your life is on the threshold between peace and conflict?

And how do you attempt to restore peace in your life and in your mind after it has been stolen from you?

Perhaps you are seeking answers to such questions.

Perhaps you have difficulty coping with the stress you endure.

Perhaps you are feeling abandoned and possibly even dehumanised. 

Perhaps you are feeling as though there are too many distractions and obstacles preventing you from reaching your goals.

What are your goals?

Why are you reading this grimoire?

If you read this information in a physical book, would you interpret it differently?

What is your acquaintance with its author(s))?

What is your acquaintance with forests?

What is your acquaintance with the production of paper and cardboard and timber products? 

What is your acquaintance with the printing industry and the publishing industry?

Most books ever printed have been produced for one purpose, namely to be sold.

Regardless of the quality or otherwise of the contents, the value of books, in economic terms, has often been regarded as more important to printers, publishers and book sellers, and even to authors and librarians, than the value in cultural terms.

What is your acquaintance with 'bestsellers'?

Textbooks have long been associated with advancing the reputations and careers of their authors and the profitability of their publishers. 

Reputations often help to sell more books and other products, regardless of the quality of the contents, or its non-monetary value.

Advancing knowledge is often treated as a secondary objective, even in universities. 

The marketing and selling of courses to students and their parents has become the most important goal of most 'academic' institutions, even at the primary and pre-school levels of education.

Mass market and trade-related journalism has long been mainly associated with selling advertising opportunities.

Popular culture has always been associated mainly with selling cultural products, mass produced merchandise and advertising opportunities.

Yet most people are unaware of the truth of trickery.

What do you know about the stimulation of economies?

What do you know about the stimulation of minds?

What do you know about the agitation of emotions and sensations?

What do you know about the silencing of dissent?

What is your acquaintance with secret messages?

How do you know when secrecy is associated with genuine intentions?

How do you know when secrecy is associated with deception?

Perhaps you have difficulty acknowledging the truth.

Perhaps you have difficulty acknowledging impossibility.

Perhaps you regard yourself as a fantastical witcher or imaginary wizard or claimed/acclaimed healer or a religious Wiccan or confrontational protester rather than as a reformist witch.

Regardless of how you currently perceive yourself, what do you regard as the current zeitgeist, and why? 

How do you usually define the meaning of the word spirit, and why?

Have you ever read Livre des Esperitz, the Book of Spirits?

Have you ever traced the sources of beliefs? 

Have you ever read On the Tricks of Demons by Johann Weyer?

Does the name Antoine Augustin Calmet mean anything to you?

Do you have a reputation for writing convincingly about vampires?

Do you have much knowledge of the 18th century and the centuries before it and the centuries since?

These questions are meant to test your own qualities in terms of benevolence and malevolence.

A truly good person is consistently benevolent and never malevolent at all.

But what does true goodness mean in practice, particularly in the presence of charlatans and other malevolent persons?

Do you believe wisdom is derived from nature or the supernatural or cultural practices?

Do you believe there is any proof of non-physical entities?

Painters, poets, other artists and various non-artists, have long attempted to interpret and express ideas through media of various sorts.

What have been your experiences of enchanting works of art?

How, if at all, do you compare and contrast the works of John Bauer with those of Peter Paul Rubens, Luca Giordano, Ludwig Richter, Louis Moeller, John La Farge, Henri (de) Gissey, Caspar David Friedrich, François Boucher, Rosa Schweninger, Evelyn de Morgan and various other known and anonymous artists?

What have you been learning through various comparisons, including those associated with literature?

What is your acquaintance with the philosophy of similarity and difference?

What do the 2020s have in common, if anything, with the 940s BC, and possibly even with every decade in between?

What does the 21st century have in common, if anything, with the 10th century BC?

How do you compare the politics of one time in history with another, and for what reasons?

What is the source of demons?

What is the source of forests?

What is the source of oceans?

What is the source of life?

What is the source of death?

Perhaps you believe that fantasies of necrophilia are the source of much cruelty.

What is your acquaintance with Hellawes?

What is your acquaintance with Hell?

A dead human body is an object.

A living person is a subject.

The transition from life to death is liminal.

The experience of birth is liminal.

The rising of the sun is liminal.

The edge of a forest is liminal. 

A beach is liminal.

A change in the weather is liminal.

A change in social status or economic status is liminal.

Perhaps you have written a poem or piece of prose fiction about the liminal.

Perhaps you have written an essay on the subject.

How do you usually explain your conclusions on any subject?

Perhaps you believe there is no necessity to explain your conclusions to anyone, on any subject.

What, if any, are your conclusions about exposing charlatans appropriately?

How do you compare affection, compassion, longing, passion and grief?

What is your acquaintance with unrequited love?

What do you know about a broken heart?

How do you compare a sense of wonder with a feeling of awe?

How do you compare the ominous with the numinous?

How do you identify the auspicious and the serendipitous?

How do you identify expressions of minimisation and exaggeration?

How do you identify grandiose delusions?

How do you identify comfort zones and danger zones? 

How do you know when an apparent comfort zone is actually a danger zone?

What have been your experiences of impostor syndrome? 

What have been your experiences of factual narratives and/or fictional stories and/or fraudulent accounts of events, whether as a provider or recipient?

What do you know about the Temple of Solomon and the chapel perilous?

What do you know about the history of books and bookselling?

Please be aware that this grimoire is not for sale.  Nor may it be used for any purpose other than exposing charlatans appropriately.

Using it inappropriately is likely to be very dangerous indeed.

How do you interpret real, imaginary and literary contrasts, including allegorical ones?

How do you compare the threatening with the sublime? 

How do you compare the experience of exile with the experience of a homeland?

What have been your experiences of environmental devastation?

What have been your experiences of seemingly enchanted forests and/or gloomy wood?

What is your acquaintance with political ogres?

What is your acquaintance with liminal beings?

What do you know about the concept of contrapasso?

What do you know about altruism?

What is your acquaintance with the life and career of Giosuè Carducci, especially his Hymn to Satan and Barbarian Odes?

How do you assess the meaning of skill in various contexts?

How do you assess the meaning of power in various contexts?

How do you assess the power of Shoshenq I?

How do you assess the power of Solomon?

How do you assess the power of the reclining Buddha?

How do you assess the power of Louis XIV?

How do you compare power with influence?

How do you compare one image with another?

How do you examine the influence of Héloïse?

What influence do courage, determination, adaptability, responsibility and proactivity have in your life?

How do you attempt to understand your needs, and other people's needs?

How do you attempt to maintain authenticity and empathy in your expressions of skill, knowledge, ethics and aesthetics?

How do you attempt to understand the psychology of power?

Power is meant to be used as a key, not as a weapon.

Influence is meant to express goodness, truth and beauty, not empty promises or nasty threats or unfair biases.