Wednesday, July 31, 2013

"to traffic freely with angelic forces"

I'd read about the cross-dressing berdache tradition of shamanism, and decided I could do a glossy, chaos magic, nineties version of that as a way of shaking out my identity and becoming my own complete opposite. A few fetish-wear catalogues later, and I'd assembled a shiny disguise … The clothes and makeup allowed me to transform into a female alter ego I now created to stand in for me during the darker magical operations I was undertaking. … [T]he 'girl' was smarter and more courageous and could more easily negotiate with and fend off predatory 'demonic' entities. … Dressed in black vinyl with six-inch heels, showgirl makeup, and a blond wig, I began to traffic freely with angelic forces …
That's Grant Morrison in his memoir / essay on superheroes, Supergods: what masked vigilantes, miraculous mutants, and a sun god from Smallville can teach us about being human.

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