The Genesis of Pretty Lady

Hello, everybody. This is Pretty Lady's author.

Those of you who have been around since the beginning have probably noticed a falling off of Pretty Lady's style and elán, lately. The truth is, I think she may have come to the end of her incarnation. At the very least, the tone of this blog will change. I could make this blog an archive and start a new one, but then I'd have to start my ad revenue programs from scratch, and I need that fifty bucks a month right now ;-). So Pretty Lady will integrate with the much more down-to-earth voice of her author, Stephanie Lee Jackson, and those of you who are enamoured with third-person singular and over-the-top affectation will have to go elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I owe you all a bit of an explanation.

Pretty Lady fell into my mind on New Years' Eve, 2006. I'd been thinking for awhile that if I'd been born in a different century, I might have been a courtesan; the more I considered the many absurd, colorful, raucous episodes of my past, the more I realized that with a slight change of context and tone, they'd be excellent raw material for a picaresque novel. Moreover, I'd been thinking about the power of the feminine. Women managed to obtain and wield power long before most of us had any political or economic status; what did that look like? Could my inner courtesan shed any light on the subject?

So, Pretty Lady arrived. Originally I conceived of her as wildly transgressive and politically incorrect, along the lines of a Camille Paglia--narcissistic, sexist, racist, trivial and vain. But the parameters I'd set soon began to take on a deeper dimension. The fact that she referred to all comers as 'dear' and 'darling' began to rub off; I soon found that the promiscuous affection she spewed everywhere was genuine. By definition, she did love everybody. And I found that affection is necessary before any communication occurs.

Then I discovered that although she had an unflappable level of self-esteem, based upon her unassailable 'prettyness,' she had no ego whatsoever. She greeted all attempts at personal attack with blithe acceptance, and undiminished affection for the would-be attacker. This proved to be incredibly disarming. It obviated a lot of unwinnable, pointless arguments, because when someone is defending an identity, they're unable to absorb any other perspective. Since I wasn't trying to change anyone's mind, and was operating without fear, I was as free to consider radically different perspectives as other people were to consider mine.

I think that a lot of what she wrote, particularly in the first year, was channelled. A force that I might call the Holy Spirit took hold of my mind, my history, my ideas and my fingers, and poured itself out without too much direction from me. Sometimes I look back at old posts and can't believe I wrote that; I rather think I didn't. The ideas are with me still, but the force that wrought their expression is beyond anything I consciously set out to achieve. This is also why I relentlessly stuck with the third person singular, despite the fact that it often seemed forced and annoying. Pretty Lady was written by me, she had my ideas, experiences and sometimes my face, but she wasn't me. She was both more than me, and nothing at all.

The process was an extraordinarily healing one for me. It allowed me to lay to rest a lot of ghosts from my past, and move forward without so much baggage. It allowed me to articulate a lot of things that bothered me about gender politics in particular--namely, that feminist cant is often used against women, by selfish and unscrupulous people who then claim the moral high ground for it. It allowed me to clarify the fact that the dividing line is not between 'left' and 'right,' liberal and conservative, feminist and anti-feminist, religious and secular; it's between egoism and basic decency. Any ideology can be used to beat people up, and just about any ideology can liberate them. So many of the quarrels we expend our energy on are smokescreens for fear, anguish and desperation.

It also allowed me to bridge the gap between my religious upbringing and my transpersonal perspective. For the last twenty years or so I have considered myself 'spiritual, but not religious.' The bigotry, rigidity and dogmatism of the Christian religion as it is practiced by millions today is something I can't swallow, even in the tempered Anglican version; yet I acknowledge that the best parts of Christianity have formed my outlook and dwell at the bedrock of my soul. Now I believe that dogmatic, rule-based morality is a necessary phase in the development of human moral reasoning. It provides the first solid step out of egoistic chaos, and the first intimation that other people are more than just objects to be used, attacked and defended against. We can't combat bigotry by attacking religion.

We can, however, do extensive damage control by defining and maintaining boundaries. A lot of harm would be avoided if we simply did our best to establish a clear, universal understanding that the rules of any religion apply to the voluntary adherents of that religion, not to random bystanders. Evangelism at its best is just rude; when it becomes political, it violates the tenets of spiritual equality on which all major religions are based. The only truly transformative discipline is self-discipline. It would be nice if religious institutions generally acknowledged that.

As most of you know, Joe and I are expecting a daughter in February. I find that pregnancy has sapped the vast majority of my creative energy; mothers and healthcare providers assure me that it will come back after the baby is born, but for the moment I have not had much inspiration to spare. That is, I think, as it should be. Narcissists make terrible mothers.

And the election perhaps marks a turning point as well. Something about the reality-denial, dogmatism, solipsism and incompetence of the Bush administration years seemed to call out for the creation of a whimisical mask self, if only as a way of whistling in the dark. Now that it looks like the adults are finally in charge, a lot of the exigency has gone out of the pose.

So I will still be here; I will still tell you what I think; I will still love you. I'll just be a bit more muted about it. Thank you for the three years of bliss! Let's have many more!

A Conservative Christian Case for Civil Same-Sex Marriage

Pretty Lady could not possibly say it better. Please read the entire thing, then if you live in California, please vote No on Proposition 8.

It is high time that we grow up and learn to play fair. Freedom for us means freedom for someone else too, even our fellow Americans in the gay and lesbian community. Is that too high a price to pay? Of course not. Civil liberties is what gives Christians the freedom to pursue our moral convictions in this country in the first place. It is what guarantees a future for ourselves and our children in which we will be able to practice our religious beliefs free of harassment and fear. It is what paves the way for us to make a true moral impact on our culture, not by trying to legislate the Bible as if that will change people's hearts, but through leading by example as Jesus commanded us: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).

How will this help forward the gospel of Jesus Christ? A wise Christian minister once said, "It is quite useless to approach a man with both a club and an argument. He will very naturally be in no mood to appreciate our argument until we lay aside our club."

It is no wonder that nobody listens to us anymore. For too long we have been trying to persuade people with the gospel while wielding the club of political authoritarianism. What a contradictory message this presents to the world. Does not our gospel say that God is love, and that he has come down to earth, stretched out his hands, and allowed himself to be nailed to a cross for our sins, so that the gates of paradise might be freely opened to anyone who believes? When will we lay aside our club so that this message may be heard more clearly, and felt more poignantly?

We often think being a witness for Christ means doing some extraordinary thing. But sometimes the best witness to the gospel is as simple as being civil enough to respect people's legitimate freedoms, and being decent enough to put aside the name-calling and treat people like human beings. Supporting the civil liberties of homosexual American citizens is decent, civil and, yes, loving. Loving at least in a way that gays and lesbians are more likely to understand.

How to Be Safe from Demons

Pretty Lady never ceases to be shocked at the amount of ignorance, superstition and misinformation she finds, surrounding the subject of Demonic Possession. In this day and age! For shame! She cannot understand why there seems to be such a popular dearth of basic, practical information on how to cope with your standard negative entity, whether it be a full-fledged demon, a pissed-off Displaced Soul, a random thought-form, the slimy, tentaculate extrusions of a Possessive Roommate, or Satan himself.

Moreover, the amount of fearful disinformation being spread on this crucial issue is nearly as harmful as the entities themselves. Imagine, that some persons actually shy away from the demon-banishing practice of Yoga, under the mistaken delusion that this wholly benign and helpful exercise actually summons demons! Or, worse, that demons themselves are a fictive superstition, not worthy of even so much consideration or precaution as one would take to guard one's home from, say, mice, or cockroaches.

Although Pretty Lady herself is by no means an expert exorcist, or a regular traveler in the Occult, she sees clearly that it falls upon her shoulders to rectify this abominable cultural oversight, until such time as practical techniques of psychic self-defense are taught in kindergarten, alongside the alphabet.

Now, Pretty Lady confesses that she has stumbled upon many of her theories by experiential anecdote, which, indeed, given the psychically ignorant society in which she was raised, was nearly her only means of acquiring such information. Thus, a great many of her points are ad hoc and observational. If any of her dear readers have advice to the contrary, please do not be shy about calling her out.

At any rate, these are the primary principles one must take under consideration:

1) Remain within one's own body at all times.

To some individuals of 'scientific' persuasion, this may appear to be a tautology. It is not. If you take the trouble to observe the persons around you, you will quickly notice that many of them have a tendency to absent their souls from their physical manifestations, whether it be to avoid guilt, pain, trauma, social interaction, or mathematics examinations. These persons may have a 'blank' look in their eyes; they may make inappropriate, disconnected comments; they may continue casually chatting about fashion design while their four-year-old is making mud pies on their neighbor's brand-new grand piano. They may go hiking on treacherous terrain without appropriate footgear. One notices that these individuals appear to float above the earth, rather than walking upon it.

It is crucial, then, for any person who wishes to avoid an unwelcome demonic intrusion into their corporeal space, to occupy this space at all times. The primary technique for occupying one's own body is called grounding.

To ground:

Feel the earth under your feet. Feel that this earth is holding you up. It will not allow you to fall. Allow your weight to rest entirely upon floor, upon soil, upon bedrock, upon molten magma extending a thousand thousand fathoms deep. Feel that there is a line connecting your core to the core of the earth; feel that this line is made of light. Feel that the fire in the core of the earth connects to the fire at your core; feel that these two fires are one. Allow yourself to be supported.

This is not a joke; this is not a load of horse droppings. One of the ladies whom Pretty Lady knew personally, who was most distressingly possessed by the displaced soul in Pretty Lady's house in Mexico, was unable to do this. Her body, when Pretty Lady went to do a healing, was a mass of hysterical knots which only tangentially resembled the human anatomy; Pretty Lady told her, gently, "Sophia, the earth is holding you up."

Sophia replied, incredulously, "Really??!!" She genuinely did not believe it so.

2) Avoid extreme drugs.

Methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, morphine, angel dust, acid, and enormous doses of marijuana are Right Out. All of these substances are toxic, negative, and leave the aura wide open for evil influences to enter. Large amounts of hard liquor are ill-advised, as well. Pretty Lady is sorry to say that her own personal habit of downing straight tequila and listening to American Music Club, in times of great emotional duress, is an extremely risky one. But being an exceptionally grounded soul, Pretty Lady occasionally walks that line. She survived the house in Mexico with soul intact, when many lesser persons fled, at any rate.

3) Visualize a tough eggshell of white light around your entire body, extending into the ground.

When one sees this eggshell in one's mind, one must really see it. One must be grounded, first; otherwise, one's energy system is inadequate to mount an effective barrier. When you are good and grounded, visualize the eggshell. It allows good things in, but mean, nasty, spiky or slimy things bounce right off of it. Get your eggshell very firmly established; examine it for holes or thin places. If you cannot get this solid in your mind, it is not protecting you. If you have breaks, blocks, patches, or weak places, you will be able to sense them.

Pretty Lady has used this simple defense to great effect upon innumerable occasions, most notably when her roommate was psycho, and her antiquarian co-worker was irrationally obsessed with her. It is your basic all-purpose psychic shield, and is effective on all forms of negative energies, whether they emanate from the living, the dead, or the in-between.

A very strongly grounded individual may be able to place a shield of this nature around family, home, child, or car, as well as self. This can be very useful in avoiding parking tickets.

4) Yoga, prayer, and martial arts help immeasurably with this sort of thing.

Grounding and defending should be Step 1, in any decent yoga or martial arts instruction. Any good Christian who avoids these disciplines out of provincial religious squeamishness is an effete yahoo, who more than deserves the burden of those negative entities who will undoubtedly attach themselves, taking advantage of both the physical disconnectedness and psychological evasion that such notions encourage.

5) Chanting and vegetarianism, however, not so much.

Pretty Lady is All For meditative and purifying practices--in moderation, and under the supervision of an adept. However, she has noticed that the vast number of friends of hers who have ended up passing out or screaming obscenities in the streets, under the influence of greater or lesser demonic entities, have nearly all been ungrounded vegetarians who chanted to excess and smoked recreational marijuana.

Pretty Lady rather suspects that she survived her two-year stint in her House with Ghost unscathed, largely upon the strength of her cooking. Steak quesadillas, pea soup with chorizo, goat cheese sandwiches with grilled veggies, and huevos mexicanos were all mainstays. She hiked, she jogged, she swam in muddy dams, she biked round the panoramica, she performed aggressive dance aerobics; this, and her basically phlegmatic temperament, all seemed to keep her resident surly Inquisition ghost more or less quiescent, except for the time he set fire to her altar.

When the vegetarians moved in, however, all Hell broke loose, quite literally. Eventually the local clairvoyant got rid of him, but it was not an easy battle. Much simpler to keep that barbecue grilling, and the stereo cranked.

6) Sea salt, baking soda, sage, and ethanol--all good.

Pretty Lady once exorcised a Cursed Apartment with four bowls full of rock salt burning in ethanol, four candles, and Arvo Pärt at full volume. She re-painted the apartment after the exorcism, to make it habitable, but she is certain that she would not have even been able to remain in that place long enough to rinse her rollers, if it hadn't been for the initial cleansing.

Sea salt baths for one's person, and sage smudges for one's surroundings, can never go amiss. If one's house happens to be inhabited by an exceptionally stubborn Inquisition victim, the sage will not get rid of him, but for clearing space of residual toxicity born of grief, arguments, poverty and drug abuse by prior tenants, it is a tool of standard efficacy, obtainable at your local spook shop.

7) Toxic emotions and attitudes attract their own kind.

If you are addicted to rage, misery, paranoia, blame, suspicion, ill-will, aggression, narcissism, manipulation, parasitism, passivity, and egotism, and you wish to keep your personal space clear of negative entities--well, good luck with that.

8) If you suspect you or a friend may be possessed, seek expert assistance.

Catholic priests and gypsy psychics, in general, will only make matters worse. The priests will officially deny you have a problem, while unofficially quavering in their vestments; the psychics will try to charge you a large sum of money for passive-aggressive assistance. What you want, ideally, is an adept with the practical skills of a midwife and the aura of a linebacker, who has no personal axe to grind. Make discreet inquiries round your local community; if a prospective exorcist gives you hives, run away. Trust your intuition, and not glib rhetoric or psychic perspicacity. Remember, 'psychic' does NOT equal 'benevolent.' Character is All.

And Pretty Lady is very sorry to tell you that garlic and crucifixes, in her experience, have no anti-demonic efficacy whatsoever.