Anthony Rella

10/17/2025

This weekend I will be doing the first of three public workshops for witchy folk on topics based on my book “Slow Magic.” This first one is free, and you’re welcome to check it out if you’re friendly to that worldview. Those who would be offended are encouraged to not attend.

NEW CLASS

This is the first of three classes I'm offering for the public under Morningstar Mystery School's banner, a presentation of material inspired by my book Slow Magic.

"Being powerful in magic does not mean you never experience hardship, illness, or adversity in life. Instead, magic offers us a perspective through which we can understand and work with these inevitable experiences, and call upon the aid of our spiritual allies to fortify us and support us so that we can continue expressing the divinity within us regardless of what is happening. This two-hour workshop will include lecture and discussion about magical perspectives on adversity, and an experiential practice to support participants in connecting to their personal divinity."

To register:
https://www.morningstarmysteryschool.com/about/classes/magic-to-strengthen-us-in-difficult-times-adversity-and-aid/

10/08/2025

10/07/2025

APA Position Statement on Conversion Therapy and LGBTQ+ Patients https://ow.ly/xv2U50X7LqS

09/25/2025

I have been in practice for twelve years as a mental health therapist who also provides gender affirming care when it is clinically relevant to the client’s presenting problem. I have known transgender people my entire life, as some people I knew in school 30 years ago transitioned later in life.

Experiencing gender dysphoria is not an ideology or a condition that causes antisocial behavior. It is something a small percentage of the population will experience significantly to the point that it becomes debilitating socially and emotionally if they do not have access to the ability to transition.

There are many horror stories from back in the day of people harming themselves in botched attempts at gender affirming surgery. Like abortion, banning this care doesn’t make it disappear, but does drive desperate people to make dangerous choices.

I have known and worked with many transgender adults. I don’t work with minors so I can’t speak to their care. When adults have the space to consider their options and needs and become who they are the change is life affirming and heartening.

I am deeply concerned by the rhetoric demonizing all transgender people, implying a transgender identity makes a person more violent, and suggesting extreme measures to deny care or harm transgender people. These claims go against the recommendations leading healthcare organizations including the American Psychological Association.

There appears to be an effort to portray all transgender people as responsible for the increase in mass shootings and political violence, instead of confronting the harder questions of what in our society is causing individuals to commit such horrific acts, and what increases polarization between our citizens such that we do not mourn the same horrors. Making all transgender people into a scapegoat for this problem won’t solve the problem nor will it lead to a democratic and harmonious populace.

When specific transgender people commit crimes, it is appropriate to respond to that person as we respond to any person committing a crime. When specific healthcare providers behave unethically, it is appropriate to discipline that specific provider. This effort to generalize and ban an entire population and medical treatment is manufactured and will lead to no good end.

09/24/2025

For those interested in witchcraft and magic, the mighty T. Thorn Coyle is preparing to launch a Kickstarter to create a 20th anniversary edition of their influential book, Evolutionary Witchcraft. This book has truly been a profound influence on me and I am very excited to see what has changed and evolved in their relationship with the material. Please support their Kickstarter!

This potent magical classic, reworked and re-envisioned, plus a brand new companion book, Stars of Power. Foreword by Mat Auryn.

09/23/2025

APA Statement on White House Announcement on Autism https://ow.ly/P6k850X0zCi

09/22/2025

NEW CLASS

This is the first of three classes I'm offering for the public under Morningstar Mystery School's banner, a presentation of material inspired by my book Slow Magic.

"Being powerful in magic does not mean you never experience hardship, illness, or adversity in life. Instead, magic offers us a perspective through which we can understand and work with these inevitable experiences, and call upon the aid of our spiritual allies to fortify us and support us so that we can continue expressing the divinity within us regardless of what is happening. This two-hour workshop will include lecture and discussion about magical perspectives on adversity, and an experiential practice to support participants in connecting to their personal divinity."

To register:
https://www.morningstarmysteryschool.com/about/classes/magic-to-strengthen-us-in-difficult-times-adversity-and-aid/

09/21/2025

I wrote this prayer-poem back in 2016.

09/13/2025

When reading polarizing news about a political group, consider replacing the name of the group with the words “some as****es” and see if it changes your response.

“Some as****es call for retribution”
“Some as****es are celebrating murder”

There’s as****es in every movement and if it’d be weird for you to have to be accountable for the actions of the as****es on your side, consider that other groups also have as****es just as much as they have people you could actually work with. You still have to worry about the as****es, of course.

09/12/2025

When you lose someone who means a lot to you, the grief is so big—and grief includes anger—that it feels like the biggest thing in the world and it’s impossible to understand that others don’t feel the loss as you do. Sometimes you try to convince others of the enormity of the loss because we want to grieve in community.

And it feels shocking and hurtful to hear that others had a relationship with the lost one that might be indifferent or hostile, that they might be relieved by the loss instead of shocked. But that’s normal. Most of us will be on both sides of that dynamic in life. Because grief is about your connection—you lose something meaningful to you, but it doesn’t mean the same to others. So you should circle with those who share your grief.

When there’s a trauma attached, that almost intensifies it. I remember after the Pulse shooting in Florida I spent the following week, alternating fear and rage, and I live nowhere close to Florida. I just felt that sense of how it could’ve been me if I had been at that bar. I imagine a lot of people are feeling that way after the shocking assassination this week. And what might be more shocking to them is to be surrounded by a world that is indifferent because it doesn’t have the same relationship to what feels like for them an enormous tragedy.

It is simply impossible to care about the same things and feel the same way, and the efforts to do so result in these fruitless debates of each of us trying to elevate or besmirch each other‘s idols as though any of this is rational.

It is best to grieve with those who share your grief and then later to try to connect and figure out what’s next.

09/04/2025

This is a really interesting study. It's become clear to me over the years that extreme left and right wing perspectives are having parallel if not identical emotional responses to things, but they are rationalizing their emotional response using their political framework and perspective.

But since we are not surfacing and exploring the emotional dimension -- "I feel unsafe and worried about being controlled" -- we end up arguing about the content and trying to invalidate the other side's as though our perspective is clearly correct and theirs is coming in bad faith.

I keep thinking of writing a long article about this through putting left and right wing memes or reels side by side and showing how they're both expressing the same feelings and using the same structural logic but applying it to different content. But I'm not sure that will accomplish much other than leave me feeling tired and sad.

New research shows political extremists’ brains sync up when exposed to inflammatory debate, offering clues to the psychology of polarization.

06/24/2025

"The contempt comes from people who have worked very hard to educate themselves, who sharpen their opinions and perspectives to a razor’s edge, who have come into a sense of righteousness and now find themself in a minority compared to the bulk of people who mostly want to enjoy their weekends because life is hard enough. Young idealism that thinks if we could only get these folks on board we would win a revolution that would make the whole world better sours into bitter disdain for the people who can’t be bothered to care.

And it’s sad, because these are moments of opportunity and energy. But what they tend to bring up most is resentment and contempt. How can you organize those for whom you have contempt?"