Darque Fluff (and why AGILE Magick is Different)

Once upon a time, the British Empire colonized the subcontinent of India, and then all these trust-fund Brits went to these “exotic” destinations and got excited about: YOGA! HINDUISM! BUDDHISM! MEDITATION! ALL THE ELEPHANT GODS AND BLUE-SKINNED GODS AND DEATH GODDESSES OMG!

But then, somewhere along the way, a bunch of Puritanical Americans decided to make Eastern Esotericism really…bland? Like, strip any blood and sex and rock’n’roll and turn Eastern mysticism into a bunch of meditating and avoiding all your bad feels in the name of “ascension.”

So much of the vocabulary was appropriated, funnily enough, by late-stage capitalism as a way to make YOU a more well-adjusted consumer. Isn’t that crazy, that all the deeply anti-material messages of the East became the ultimate balm for the hyper-materialism of the West?

One of the funniest appropriations is the whole concept of “mantra.” Taken out of its spiritual context, a mantra becomes an affirmation, a word or phrase you repeat again and again in order to survive the anxiety of modern society.

"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."

Mantras as Prayers

At least in America, which is predominantly Christian, a lot of people take what they already know (praying, relying on God to grant their prayers, etc) and overlay new costumes and decorations on top and call it “witchcraft.”

As a witch, I have been guilty of this myself. Because, let’s be honest, the majority of spells witches cast are desperate attempts to get mantras to come true.

Pre-witchy conversion, most people have done the journaling and daily affirmations of things like “I am rich.”

“I am rich I am rich I am richI am richI am richI am richI am richI am richI am richI am richI am richI am richI am richI amrichIamric hIamrichIamrichIamrichIamrichIamrichIam richIamrichIamrichIamrich…”

Write it down enough times in your journal, obsessively think of this mantra / affirmation, and the energy will naturally, effortlessly, bring your wishes in your reality.

Until it doesn’t. And that’s when you go out in the spiritual marketplace, and start looking for a better option.

Ah, yes. Free market capitalism is definitely alive in the la la lands of the esoteric. Just like you keep upgrading your microwave, keep on upgrading your spirituality, babe. You know that latest IG post and viral TikTok gave you FOMO and you just gotta try it out…

What Modern Spirituality Actually is…

In a world dominated by Western materialism and secularism, modern spirituality’s succor isn’t about the numinous, the liminal, the consciousness-expanding, the divine. Not really.

Instead, it’s about trying to soothe your nervous system through hopium, copium, and prosperity gospel. Life is increasingly isolated, too fast, too chaotic, and all that rising anxiety will be resolved if you get that new iPhone, or get a ton of followers on social media, or go on luxury vacation after luxury vacation.

And spirituality will get you there! Wheeeee!

The same way that aspirin temporarily gets rid of headaches, but doesn’t take you out of the nuclear sludge that gave you the brain cancer, modern spirituality temporarily relieves your anxiety, but doesn’t address how modern “civilization” is designed to short-circuit your nervous system.

How you used to pray in church? Now you’re praying in witchy ritual or “manifesting” in your journal. All the cool girlies are doing it. It’s more aesthetic. Pick me up mom, I’m feeling a vibe.

The late great Jake Stratton-Kent, notorious necromancer, once called it “Darque Fluff.”

Misguided Religion in Witchcraft

So, a lot of witches think, “Hekate/demons/angels/some other god or goddess will take care of the manifestation. I’ll petition them and they will grant my wishes.”

But wait, didn’t you leave Christianity because God didn’t grant your prayers? But now you think another traditions deities will actually pull through?

Why? Because now you’re chanting “mantras” and mantras sound way more elevated than old-fashioned “prayers” that those little old church ladies with their perms are doing?

Hot take: so much of current witchcraft is Christianity cosplaying as Halloween. Most people unconsciously bring over their religious baggage into witchcraft, because they haven’t deconstructed their brainwashing enough.

I’m so grateful that the Korean-American Catholic churches were so petty and judgmental in the 1980s that my newly divorced mother didn’t want to go to church. In her time of greatest need of community and support as a single mom of two toddler girls (me and younger sister) and as a new immigrant in a country where she could barely speak the language, she instead stayed far away from the clucking disapproval of those Korean ajummas.

I never went to church. My mother never talked of religious or spiritual things. My religious deconstruction has been relatively light and quick, compared to the average person. Not only that, as I ventured into spiritual spaces as an adult, I noticed stuff that I thought was weird AF because I simply didn’t have the spiritual background that normalized certain ways of thinking.

Like, it always seemed weird to me that people kept praying to their gods, when it was pretty obvious that the success rate of their prayers was pretty low and inconsistent.

It was weird to me that people would write a check for $10 million dollars and expect it to work the way it did for Jim Carey. Ok yes, write the $10 million check, that’s a cool low-investment technique, but Jim Carrey is a huge actor, in the 0.0000001%. All I need to do is look around and see that most people will never make the money or have the fame or career success of Jim Carey.

Because they’re not doing it how Jim Carrey did it.

Jim Carrey did bona fide witchcraft. What I call AGILE Magick.

He literally went up to see the lights of Los Angeles, and opened his arms and stayed there (maybe for HOURS) until he truly believed. He wasn’t just thinking it — he was feeling it, and he was physically IN it.

AGILE Magick

AGILE Magick is witchcraft 2.0, witchcraft without religious baggage, witchcraft that is made for this modern world without the cosplay. And AGILE Magick is more than happy to bring in hypnosis, psychology, somatic world, nervous system regulation, biohacking, every and anything that has a track record of working.

In fact, the more…the merrier. Because modern human beings are complex and we’re fucked up in complex ways. How do we untangle ourselves from…ourselves? While preserving the “God-shaped” hole inside all our hearts?

All I know is my own personal path, as an atheist witch who has done lots of magick rituals for 8 years, and gone through scary aftermaths of big-dose psychedelics. But I suspect my path is a good jumping off point for a lot of people. You won’t have the exact road as me, but it would still be a helpful road to walk for a while.

First and foremost, this road I walk says: there is no external power outside of you. The gods and goddesses are only as real as YOU decide. So basically…YOU are God.

Not in a woo-woo, sweet, love-n-light way.

But in a dark, dank, almost terrifying way. Radical self-responsibility. YOU ARE GOD. Oh shit.

If I think the gods and goddesses are real and Hell is real…then it is (for me). But the person next to me, who was brought up in a different religion without Hell? My Hell isn’t real for them.

There is no objective spiritual reality.
There is no objective spiritual justice, no objective final judgment, no objective way to make this human life’s chaos make sense.

Can I handle this? Can I handle this radical self-responsibility without my brain exploding?

Right now? Probably not.

90% of the world probably can’t. It’s better they just delegate responsibility to their thought forms of religion and external deities.

But for you, I think you’re reading about AGILE Magick because you would like to expand your nervous system to accept this. Something deep inside you, underneath all that conditioning of your formative years, is vibing with radical self-responsibility. In fact, radical self-responsibility seems exciting, it feel hopeful.

If only your body could handle it.

And I’m totally there with you. I have had to go through extensive therapy (twice a week!) for the past 6 months to even get to the threshold. And I know this path is not accessible to most Americans, so I’m writing this newsletter to hopefully offer something that people can do that is more accessible. But this is all still so new, still experimental.

Because yes, I am a life-long atheist. But I was also that kid in junior high school who printed out Buddhist precepts, because the God-shaped hole in my heart was eating me alive, even as a pre-teen.

Now, that hole isn’t eating me alive. Instead, it is tasting the world, and trying to be sexy and french-kiss the esoteric (it may be too awkward and dorky for that though).

The world is delicious. There’s so much real, authentic hope out there through radical self-responsibility.

AGILE Magick is how I’m moving forward.