An Experiment

[ecosophia]

I have a favor to ask of you, dear readers... 

Several years ago, in a conversation with friends, one of them mentioned the way that their family members spent hours at a time in what amounts to a trance, staring blankly at a television screen, as though the jerky little colored shapes on the glass screen actually mattered. It occurred to me that there was a curious bit of folklore that paralleled this. 

In the folklore of the Celtic countries, glamour -- the ability to push illusions on people, which faeries are said to have -- can be combated in several ways, but the most important involves a knife or some other piece of sharp iron or steel. There are traditional reasons for this in occult philosophy, which we don't have to get into here. It struck me, though, that it was worth experimenting to see if the same thing would help counter the glamour of the television. 

The short form is that it worked. My friend put a small pocketknife, open, under the television, and the other members of his family basically lost interest in it. 

I've advised the same thing several more times, with equally good results. In one case, the television just up and quit working; in the others, though, having a sharp knife under the television seems to lead to a steady loss of interest in those jerky little colored shapes on the glass screen. It also seems to have a similar effect on obsessive interest in the internet. 

So here's what I'd like to ask. Those of you who are still unfortunate enough to live someplace with a television -- give it a try. See if you can hide a small pocketknife with the blade open under the television. Those of you who have home internet access, try hiding one under your router. Do this, and see what happens. 

If anyone wants an incantation to go with this little bit of natural magic, it's hard to beat Kipling's poem: 

"Gold for the mistress, silver for the maid,
Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade;
'Good!' said the baron, sitting in his hall,
'But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all.'"

Give it a try and let me know what results you get...

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

the problem isn't necessarily the television set. i hate television, but my wife likes it (something about helping her unwind after stressful days at work), but we've got apple TV, which means that there are fewer commercials, and she can alternate between the huge flat-screen television in the living room, and her tablet, which she can take pretty much anywhere. if it was possible for me to put a pocket knife under her tablet in a way that she wouldn't notice it, that would be great, but it's not going to happen... i did put one under the huge, flat-screen goddam-noisy-box in the living room, though.

[ecosophia]

That should work. Let me know what happens!