The trouble with book lists — like this list of “27 essential Pagan books” — is that no two readers’ lists are the same.
On the other hand, I am pretty pleased with number 16.
And I am happy to see Michael Strmiska getting some recognition too.
My Son “Was No Zombie”
So says the mother of the man shot by Miami police while eating the face of his victim.
But catch what the girlfriend says: ” ‘ That wasn’t him, that was his body but it wasn’t his spirit. Somebody did this to him,’ WFOR quotes her as saying.”
Isn’t that pretty close to the pop-culture definition of zombie? (Professor Davis, no need to call your office.)
Should we consider Rudy Eugene to be Patient Zero in the zombie outbreak—unless that dubious honor should have gone to this woman, three years ago?
UPDATE: Music for the Zombie Apocalypse.
And remember, even the Obama Administration wants you to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.
The Ayahuasca Jungle Village
A visit to an intentional community devoted to Santo Daime, more often known as the entheogenic drug ayahuasca, complete with authoritarian spiritual leader and chorus of virgins.
Experiential Archaeology Fail
It must be humiliating to copy a 3,500-year-old rowboat design, only to have yours sink.
The Purity, the Honesty . . .
Indian filmmaker decides to reinvent himself as a guru in America. It looks as though unexpected hilarity results.
The only question is, does pretending to be a guru actually transform him into some sort of guru? “I fake so much, I forget who I was before.”
Not available on Netflix yet, but I have it on my wish list.
Pictish Writing Discovered?
Some researchers now think that decorative carvings on Pictish memorial stones in Scotland may actually represent a form of writing.
The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, instead concludes that the engravings represent the long lost language of the Picts, a confederation of Celtic tribes that lived in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland.
“We know that the Picts had a spoken language to complement the writing of the symbols, as Bede (a monk and historian who died in 735) writes that there are four languages in Britain in this time: British, Pictish, Scottish and English,” lead author Rob Lee told Discovery News.
“We know that the three other languages were — and are — complex spoken languages, so there is every indication that Pictish was also a complex spoken language,” added Lee, a professor in the School of Biosciences at the University of Exeter.
I have known some people who claimed to be practising Pictish Witchcraft. If the carving is indeed writing and is deciphered, then they will have to go back and revise their greatnth-grandmother’s Book of Shadows.
Dr. Taverner and the Dreamer’s World
Not Sherlock Holmes, it's Dr. Taverner
Robert Moss, novelist and noted writing on dreaming, has a series of posts on his blog about Dion Fortune’s Secrets of Dr. Taverner. Supposedly, the occultist/psychiatrist Dr. Taverner is based on a real doctor whom Fortune knew in the early twentieth century, and the “secrets” are retellings of actual cases.
In my opinion, she succeeded beyond her ambition. The Taverner stories are both gripping and entertaining, and a valuable source of practical guidance on psychic protection and spiritual cleansing and many other facets of psychic well-being that are missed in our standard approach to healthcare and therapy. In its fictional wrapping, The Secrets of Dr Taverner is a practitioner’s casebook, of the greatest value to subsequent practitioners. It is perhaps the most accessible of all Dion Fortune’s works for the contemporary reader.
I once suggested to Stewart Farrar that he adapt them for television—how perfect for PBS’ Mystery series—and he agreed that they would work well on “the box.”
Only, he said, the current leadership of her Society of the Inner Light was very protective of the copyrights. Too bad. Stewart would have brought both his writing talent—which had included dramatic scriptwriting—and a Witch’s experience to the job.
Shamanism in Detroit
Photo: Detroit Metro Times
Michael Harner, cover your ears. Despite the new interest in shamanism since the 1970s, the real shamans on the American religious scene (and elsewhere) are certain Pentecostal Christian preachers.
Contacting the unseen world while in an altered state of consciousness? Check.
Faking when it they have to because the audience expects it? Check.
Healing people, sometimes? Check.
Frequently having deep problems of illness or bad behavior in their own pasts, problems that went away once they acknowledge or were granted their “spiritual gifts”? Check.
Identifying spiritual causes of mundane misfortune? Check.
Putting on a good show, a spiritual spectacle? Check.
It all sounds like shamanism to me. Read this story about the Triumph Prophetic Worship Glory and Deliverance Center.
Some in the audience spin off from the circular march and sit alone in their seats, praying intensely, with heads bowed. Others are crying their eyes out, standing along the wall, sobbing with their whole bodies, as others lay their hands on them, exhorting them to give in, to let the self melt away and allow the voice of the spirit to break through in the same unreal language being shouted by the woman on the stage. Everything is now a swirl of loud noise and quick movement and sheer intensity, and it feels like something’s about to give, the room’s about to burst, and everyone’s just waiting to finally exhale or collapse in surrender.
Read the whole thing. Tell me if all the essential elements of the spiritual technology that we call shamanism aren’t there.
Lucid-Dreaming Mask
Anyone ever try such a gadget? I could be tempted to buy one.
MAPQVEST
How long the journey and how much the cost for a private traveler going from Roma to Londinium in January?
Click the “Using Orbis” menu button first.
(Via Borepatch.)