RO dropped a ‘blink and you missed it’ truth bomb the other day. He said that if a spirit working doesn’t result in what you asked for, go back and look for any missed opportunities. This is so important that it could almost be the yardstick between talking the talk and walking the walk.

Those who talk will happily tell you how skilled they are in getting the spirits to work with them, sometimes using faux Edwardianese to describe this for whatever reason. Those who walk the walk know that all magic works dickishly but this is doubly the case with spirit work. Spirits teach algebra to dogs. I would go so far as to say that you can measure the fidelity of spirit contact by just how weird the response to your pact/agreement/request actually was. It is inevitably, nay likely, that you will have missed something.

That’s listening, though, isn’t it? Passivity. Awareness. The opposite end of the spectrum to wands and ‘true wills’ and all the other poorly-disguised Freudian covers for frustrated penises that are found in abundance in western magic. Listen and your only response is to re-wild witchcraft. That is the only response to listening to the spirits. (And that is all I am going to say on ‘that’ matter. Because civility.)

Listening is awareness. Magical listening is kissing cousin to awareness meditation, which is basically where you sit, become aware of your body and then gradually expand that awareness to the sounds, smells and impressions of the world around you.

I’ve now been asked more than a few times whether I am a spook because, for instance, the archonology series sometimes appears to be the showrunner’s bible for whatever reality tv nightmare we have incarnated into. But I’m not. I’m listening to the world.

And I hear a kingdom creaking.

Scottish Independence

Possibly not doing much to dissuade your spook suspicions, I discussed the looming Scottish Independence vote with a relatively senior French mandarin in a castle the other month. (Relax. Sister’s wedding. But it sounds cool, doesn’t it?) Let me lay out some of the competing agendas and perspectives for the benefit of those not in either the ‘United’ Kingdom or the EU.

A faction in Brussels would love Scotland to secede because it would weaken Britain inside the EU. And Britain, to its great credit, is always getting up in the business of the un-elected technocrats who think Europeans are too stupid to govern themselves and that their superior intelligence means they should rule by centralised diktat.

Another section in Europe really, really does not want Scotland to leave the union because it will give the dozens of separatists movements, such as the Basques and the Catalonians, hope that such things could actually happen.

The Queen clearly does not want to lose Scotland because she fucking loves the place. I mean who doesn’t? The old girl’s got taste.

The Tories, however, are a bit more ambivalent. Scotland leaves the union and England will vote blue and stay blue forever. Without that block of traditional Labour votes that Scotland brings they could eat babies on live TV and still win. The wealthy Scots I speak to are particularly concerned about this.

So is Scottish independence a good idea? No, it’s objectively disastrous. Their current plan is to join the EU, keep the pound and keep the Queen. Why move out of a shitty apartment and deliberately take the bed bugs with you?

Not having control of your own currency means you’ll end up just like Spain, with no ability to value or devalue it in response to macroeconomic headwinds, meaning your only choice is internal devaluation… and that’s how you get a youth unemployment rate of 50%.

The EU has repeatedly said that Scotland would not get automatic entry and would never get entry at all without a central bank. See above about the Basques and the Catalans.

Britain won’t consent to a currency union. Ever. So Scotland will run on GBP the way Guam runs on US dollars. Really, really badly.

Let me be clear. If actual independence, rather than rejoining the same supranational control mechanisms on much weaker terms, was on the table, I would not only be pro-independence, I would move to Scotland. But actual independence isn’t on the table so is it worth it for Scotland to go it alone?

Maybe.

In the US, they have probably the worst president in fifty years, starting wars they can’t afford and killing citizens with a militarised police and flying deathbots. Here in the UK we have the shitty knock-off version of that, as we can’t really afford all those police tanks and drones. The EU? Are you fucking kidding me? Anti-EU parties won the day in the last election and off goes Brussels punishing savers with negative interest rates so their zombie banks can survive till Christmas while collapsing Ukraine and pissing off the source of all their gas just as winter approaches. France just dismissed its own parliament. Marine Le Pen would outright beat Hollande in a presidential election right now.

So I find myself wondering whether Scottish independence is a good thing. To be sure, it will be disastrous for Scots, it will be disastrous for the rest of the UK, it will be personally financially punishing (although I’m hedged)… but, but, but… what if it is good for the world? Is that worth it?

For two years I have been saying that the old archonic regime is literally breaking up. This is what that looks like. It looks like US states seceding, it looks like an independent Catalonia. It is a scathing indictment of the efficacy of today’s ruling powers. I would love to be a fly on the wall of the palace when Daisy Cameron goes in for his weekly confab with Lizzy: “You had one job, Mr Cameron.”

As for the suggestion that the world needs ever more centralisation and bigger and bigger organisations, the mathematics simply do not bear this out. Decentralisation and localism prevent errors cascading through the entire system. We would not have had a financial crisis in a decentralised world. A few local banks would have gone bust and the rest of the system would adjust… In fact, it would have emerged stronger. This is Taleb’s Antifragile in action. And as for the notion that smaller countries will be ridden roughshod by Monsanto and other global corporations I call bullshit on that. It’s the small countries that stand up to the bullies. Look at New Zealand staring down the US about nuclear warships. Centralised government suits megacorporations because they only have to bribe a few people, not hundred and hundreds of them, some of whom are bound to still have their soul. Beginning the process of sovereign decentralisation will be hugely painful and I just can’t shake the feeling that it might be worth it. That maybe the pain is the cure. Or are you happy with this guy?

Inevitably, it appears likely that Scotland will pull a Quebec. The devil you know has a tendency to rule these things. But by then the damage will have been done. It will be a model for secession from the archonic powers the world over. I hear the kingdom creak but I don’t yet hear it break, and I am not sure how I feel about that. I want to say “good luck Scotland” and start packing for a move north of the wall.

But then, Catalonia has much better weather. I may well be spoiled for choice before long.