How Germans view America

"America´s new gurus - in search of enlightenment" is a German documentary with English narration, available on YouTube. I admit it´s extremely entertaining (up to a point), although it´s not clear whether it really gives an objective look at the "spiritual landscape" in the United States. Probably not, since whatever passes for "the United States" in DW´s production is a privileged sub-section of the White salaried middle class in LA and Las Vegas, with a quick detour to a neo-hippie camp in coastal Oregon! Is this how *Germans* view America? OK, come to think of it, Area 51 is in there somewhere, too...

First, we get to meet a "gender-non-conforming" boy-dressed-as-a-girl who claims to be a space alien, leads a weird sect called Unicult, and has tens of thousands of followers on the web. It´s not clear to me why he burns the star spangled banner in the middle of Cali suburbia, while having a portrait of beloved Saint Germain on his living room wall (I´ve been reliable informed by Michael - the archangel, obviously - that Mr Germain is the True Founder of Amerika, but I suppose that little detail about the "real" star spangled banner being golden-striped could explain Unicole´s act of sacrilege).

Next, the German dream team takes us to meet the lover of Norwegian princess (and New Age guru-ess) Märtha Louise, one Durek Verrett, a self-proclaimed "shaman" who openly brags about his huge house in LA, and all the celebs he hobnobs with. "The gurus have all the power around here", he says. Well, the man´s not entirely wrong, it seems! 

One thing that surprised me is that the current New Age/alt-spirituality scene seems so diverse, at least in terms of the wide variety of personality types drawn to it. I had expected everyone to be either an ugly middle-aged woman who knows everything about every bizarre primal therapy since Carlos Castaneda, or some kind of hippie. Instead, the milieu regroups pretty much everyone, from attractive young females (and ditto males) to middle-aged women, soy boys, trans-people and "basement dwellers". But no hippies! There do seem to be two lowest common denominators, though. One: they are all nuts. Two: most of them are White. (Durek is one of the few Black guys interviewed.) 

After this, the docu becomes progressively less entertaining, featuring a "therapy session" during which poison from a South American frog is administered to open wounds, making the participants vomit or worse. There is an interview with cult-buster Rick Alan Ross (author of "Cults Inside Out"). DW has also met a former member of a torture sex cult. 

Very eclectic, and probably a somewhat unfair look at the spiritual scene (except maybe in Vegas), but perhaps still worth watching on a cloudy afternoon. And yes, I´m considering buying "Cults Inside Out" and review it here on your favorite blog spot...  

Huns: the model minority?

I recently watched a documentary about Attila the Hun on Swedish TV. The documentary is really French, produced by Pernel Media for a number of English-language channels. The version I´ve seen was 50 minutes long, and it´s not entirely clear what the English title might be. Perhaps "In the Footsteps of Attila the Hun". 

I´m not a world leading expert on the Huns, but at least on one point, I think the documentary-makers pulled a fast one. They actually claim that the Norse god Odin is based on Attila, and that the Huns somehow reached Scandinavia?! Naah, unless you chose to believe some ancient tall tale á la Snorri Sturluson...

Otherwise, the documentary seems to be scholarly, with a number of "talking heads" from various academic institutions and museums. Somewhat unexpectedly, they don´t really tell the full story of Attila in the usual chronological fashion, instead concentrating on the archeological, linguistic and genetic evidence. It´s actually quite intriguing. 

Apparently, the name "Attila" isn´t known from any Asiatic language. It´s actually a Goth (Germanic) word, meaning "Little Father", presumably a term of deference to the great leader. But why would an Asiatic conqueror be widely known by a Gothic name? Perhaps Attila was of mixed race? The Huns had Goth vassals, but in the documentary, Asiatics and Whites are depicted as equal. The Huns were a multi-racial band of marauding brothers, not an example of henious Asian oppression of the fair Goths. 

Further, the documentary claims that DNA tests show that the "Hun elite" came from northern Mongolia and Lake Baykal, so presumably they were Asians and related in some way to the Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu), after all. (Otherwise, it´s interesting to note that Indo-Europeans also roamed the same area in ancient times, see the "Celtic" mummies in Xinjiang!) There are also archeological sites in Kazakhstan that are related to the Huns. Their golden artifacts are a perfect match. 

Attila and the Huns have a *very* bad reputation in European historiography, except in Hungary (Hun-gary) where nationalists to this day claim descent from the Huns and regard their leader as a Hungarian hero. Several modern monuments celebrating the scourge of God are shown in the documentary. Apparently, the theory in vogue is that the Magyars (the ancestors of modern-day Hungarians) were somehow related to the Huns, or indeed *were* the Huns at a later stage of development. I´m not sure what Viktor Orbán thinks of all this, I mean, there seems to be a contradiction between claiming to be "the defender of Europe against the barbarians" and celebrating descent from one of the barbarian tribes! 

After Attila´s death, his vast "empire" (or whatever is the correct term) soon split and was dissolved, but that´s normal steppe politicking, and the moment Russia breaks up around the year 2500, well, here we go again, with new Attilas...  

Hopefully more Germanic ones, this time.

Årets mest väntade avslöjande

Ingen är väl särskilt förvånad över det här...

"Kulturmarxistisk ikon våldtog arabiska småpojkar"

Pinnipeds are verily food

Not a pinniped 

 

I´ve read some more in "Wilderness and Political Ecology", a semi-technical scientific work edited by Charles Kay and Randy Simmons, published by the University of Utah Press in 2002. This time, I tried to digest the contribution by William R Hildebrandt and Terry L Jones, "Depletion of Prehistoric Pinniped Populations along the California and Oregon Coasts: Were Humans the Cause?". After analyzing archeological sites and later eye witness reports, the authors reach the conclusion that the answer is indeed yes. This is controversial, since the humans in question were pre-contact Native Americans (American Indians), who according to received wisdom were supposed to be deeply spiritual and live in perfect balance with Mother Nature. In reality, the coastal Native tribes hunted and killed sea lions and fur seals to such an extent that it impacted their numbers and breeding habits. 

Originally, there were pinniped rookeries (breeding colonies) on the actual coast, but after sustained Native hunting, the sea lions and fur seals abandoned the mainland and instead established themselves at offshore islands. Or left the area altogether! Natives living in areas that lacked offshore islands had to switch from hunting sea mammals to killing terrestrial game instead. In one particular area, permanent coastal settlements were abandoned as the Natives moved inland to hunt land mammals or harvest acorns, which permitted the pinnipeds to re-established rookeries along the coast. 

In areas where pinnipeds were breeding on islands to escape the human hunters, the Natives developed their technology to go after them. This included harpoons, which gradually become more sophisticated. Above all, it included the building of large canoes. This in turn led to increased stratification within the Native tribes, as only an elite could afford to invest in such an enterprise. The person owning the canoe was expected to distribute food and drink to the canoe-builders and the crew members. An 18th century Spanish explorer reported that the canoes carried a crew of about 30 people, and Native informers apparently have a tradition that the boats were about 30 feet long. The concept of private ownership seems to have developed among the Tolowa, Yurok, Hupa and Wiyot tribes. Wealthy elite families owned boats, acorn collection groves, eddies for netting fish, and shares in offshore rookeries. Native groups which concentrated on hunting terrestrial animals had less social stratification, perhaps because this could be done without the elaborate organization needed to hunt marine mammals. 

According to the "optimum foraging model" of hunter-animal interaction, hunters should take the most nutritious specimens first, regardless of whether it´s ecologically sound to do so. Cultural or religious ideas about "sacred animals" should have no power to stop this. In other words, the model predicts that Natives aren´t "natural conservationists". Hildebrandt and Jones believe that the archeological record proves the model. Native hunters seems to have primarily killed female and juvenile pinnipeds, which makes no sense if the mission is to conserve resources, but makes perfect sense if the goal of the hunt is to obtain optimum food with the smallest expenditure of energy possible. When the pinniped populations were depleted, the hunters switched to sea otters, a pelagic species which is more difficult to hunt down and kill. There is even an example of a Native group which switched to sea otters after first having depleted the elk population! The archeological record from the Channel Islands in southern California show that the pinniped population fluctuated in response to the density of human settlement. Life on these particular islands was always hard, leading many human sites to be abandoned, at which point the pinnipeds came back - once again, an inexplicable fact if you think American Indians were "natural" or "spontaneous" conservationists. 

Curiously, the ethnographic record *does* suggest that the Natives actually were conservationists. However, the authors believe that these are biased samples, showing how one particular group acted at one particular point in time. Archeology looks at the broader picture, including chronologically, and then a very different scenario emerges. Also, there is a difference between "conserving" certain plants and doing the same thing to animals. The plant species most often used as examples of Native conservation ethics are the ones that reproduce and spread most easily and swiftly, often benefitting from large scale human-induced burning. Thus, seemingly paradoxically, increased human use of such a plant can permit it to spread even faster, for instance by causal dispersal of seeds or bulbs, regardless of the ethical convictions of the humans involve. Game animals, alas, don´t follow such a pattern...

The article also points out that pinniped populations have virtually exploded during the 20th century, as large scale (Euro-American) hunting of these creatures ceased. The pinnipeds have even conquered areas where they haven´t lived historically. The most ironic fact is that some elephant seals have established themselves at coasts with archeological sites, destroying them in the process! These would be sites of Native settlement. Remove the apex predator, and soon you have pinnipeds dancing on your grave...

With that somewhat bizarre observation, I close this little blog post.  

Fan också

En *något* nedslående nyhet om klimatkrisen. Från Aftonbladet. Helvete också!

Trädplantering kan inte stoppa klimatkrisen

Defensive Imperialism and Roman Capitalism

The Roman Empire was capitalist

The link above goes to an incredibly rambling article by Richard Carrier. Since I can´t find his book on the subject right now (I have it somewhere in my well-stacked private book collection, well, I think!), I might as well link to said article, for all its worth.

Carrier´s main point is that the Early Roman Empire was "capitalist" and in general much more advanced than modern scholarship have usually given it credit for (until at least the 1990´s). For instance, the Romans had banks, machines, a kind of industries, and a relatively sophisticated science. Nor did aristocrats look down on artisans or money-making enterprises, with the possible exception of some grumpy old men. 

Carrier also attacks the idea that the Roman Republic was merely defending itself against other polities and hence ended up having an empire almost by mistake!

Well, that one *is* hard to believe...

The deeper point, not seen so much in this piece, is that Christianity destroyed it all, etc etc. But that´s another show, as they say.

Of course, if you believe in a simplistic historical schema of "progress" or "slave society - feudalism - capitalism - socialism", I suppose the capitalistic character of the Roman Empire is something of a problem. 

And if you don´t, you don´t. 

Welcome to the Anthropocene

"Wilderness and Political Ecology: Aboriginal Influences and the Original State of Nature" is a book edited by Charles E Kay and Randy T Simmons. I haven´t (yet) read all of it, so this blog post is mostly based on William L Preston´s contribution "Post-Colombian Wildlife Irruptions in California". Yes, folks, it´s time to bash the myth of the noble savage again!

California´s so-called Colonial Period streches from 1769 to 1848. Before 1769, no permanent White European settlement existed in the area. However, European expeditions did reach the area several times. For a long time, the established view of pre-colonial and colonial California was...well, very strange indeed. The future US state was depicted as a virtual Eden, in which a large population of Native Americans (American Indians) lived peacefully and spiritually alongside an abundance of deer, elk, antelope, fish, fowl, sea lions, bears, cougars and bob cats. The game animals were tame, huge and fat. The Natives weren´t the apex predators, that role instead being taken by grizzlies, which (strangely enough) were extremely aggressive, roamed the land in large packs, and hunted humans. Indeed, the Natives were so fearful of the bears that they initially felt nothing but gratitude to the Spanish colonialists, who helped them kill the murderous beasts! (I wonder what John Muir would have said about this.) 

Of course it´s too good to be true. Indeed, it strikes me as strange that anyone could have believed this Edenic vision in the first place!

The author doesn´t doubt the eye witness accounts of the European explorers, per se. There are several problems with the accounts, however. One is that they don´t reflect the situation in the rest of North America, where research has shown that the Natives had considerable impact on their living environments, including by over-hunting animals and burning the forests. Another is the archeological evidence, which seem to indicate large-scale Native hunting and foraging before the 16th century (when the Spanish conquered Mexico). It also indicates over-exploitation of the "resources". The size of mussels and abalone (marine snails) found at Native sites progressively diminishes with time, suggesting that the large-sized specimens had been nearly exterminated. There are also indications at certain sites that the large game species had been depleted, at which point the Native hunters started exploiting more abundant smaller game instead. 

Sheer common sense also militates against the idea of Native-animal harmony, since we now know that the Native settlements in California were larger than in the rest of North America. We also know where they were situated - at the exact same places where Colonial eye witnesses saw an enormous abundance of game animals. The idea of Natives and game animals somehow dancing around each other in such circumstances is simply too hard to believe. (The Natives would also have to dance around a huge amount of carnivorous animals preying on the herbivores.) 

Preston and the other contributors to this book believes in the so-called optimal-foraging model of hunter behavior, which in turn is supposedly rooted in our evolutionary past as explained by sociobiology. I happen to be skeptical to sociobiology sensu stricto, but in this case, a rather common sensical "biological" model does seem to fit the format. In plain English, if forced to chose between ideology and eating, most people chose eating, and there is no particular reason to think that Native Californians were any different. Hunters and foragers will pick the most nutritious animals first (often the largest ones), even if they are pregnant females or have become scarce, and when these resources are depleted, they will continue further down the food chain with smaller, less nutritious but more abudant species. Indeed, hunters are even more motivated in killing large game in rich environments where they can easily switch to smaller game if necessary. In other words, nutritional needs rather than cultural or religious ideas about "sacred animals" control Native foraging behavior. Indeed, what makes us think that it would be otherwise? While American Indians do have religious ideas about hunting, these usually don´t constrain it. If hunting becomes less succesful, the explanation given is usually the lack of moral purity of the hunter, rather than in the prey animals actually being less abundant due to overkill. 

So what actually happened in California? The answer is: more or less the same thing that happened in the rest of North America. A variety of exotic diseases reached California centuries before the first White settlers entered the area in 1769, diseases first introduced to Mexico by the 16th century Spanish conquistadors. During the "proto-historic" period between first contact and actual settlement, these diseases (smallpox, malaria and so on) would have reduced California´s Native population. At first, this didn´t lead to an increased number of herbivores such as elk, deer or antelope. Rather, the number of carnivores such as bears or cougars increased sharply, since they no longer competed with so many human hunters. The herbivores were still kept in check. After 1769, during the Colonial Period, the Native population crashed due to epidemics spread by the Europeans, who had now settled permanently. The remaining Natives increasingly turned to breeding domesticated animals and growing new kinds of crops, both introduced by the settlers. The carnivores preyed on Native-owned livestock, rather than on the wild herbivores, which therefore could increase their numbers considerably. Also, the herbivores opportunistically started feeding on Native agricultural land, increasing their numbers even more. This created the situation described by Colonial-era writers, who were baffled by the abundance of both ungulates and carnivores, and the seeming inability of the Natives to do something about the latter. What seems to have happened, in other words, is that European diseases crashed the Native American populations below carrying capacity. This - and this only - created an "Eden" with abundant wildlife. The "Edenic" conditions are really irruptions of prey species which are no longer kept in check by predators (neither human nor beastly ones). In other parts of the North American continent, the well-known super-abundance of bisons and passanger pigeons is believed to have come about in the same way. One Colonial eye witness account from California cited by the author actually describes how animal life becomes almost absurdly abundant after a malaria epidemic has wiped out the Native tribe in a certain area. 

Before the White settlers reached America, animal numbers were kept in check by Native hunting, fishing and gathering. As already indicated, research suggests that resources were overexploited. (Another article in this book describes how coastal tribes built large boats to hunt sea lions at offshore islands, the boats apparently being owned by Native chiefs and thus leading to increased stratification - hardly an Edenic classless idyll.) Nature became supposedly paradisiacal (really fundamentally unbalanced) only after a massive die off of Natives caused by Old World germs. 

Another myth laid to rest. Welcome to the Anthropocene. 

Called it

I know this is highly subjective, but I´m beginning to like cladistics. You know, that annoying shit which has created havoc in the evolutionary tree we all learned in senior high science class circa 1985. With some help, I might add, from the phylogenetic species concept (still don´t like that one) and the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy of birds (which does make sense). 

I always suspected that starlings were really a kind of petty crows, and yepp, you guessed it, Sibley and my man Jon did prove that sturnids and corvids should really be treated as the same family. Indeed, if Anatomically Modern Man disappears, the next intelligent (and highly destructive) ruler of this space rock will probably be...Sturnus vulgaris, hell bent on a campaign of extermination against crows, gulls and, I suppose, anatomically less modern men. Of course it´s a bloody corvid. 

As for cladistix, one clade that certainly makes sense is the Eufalconimorphae, within which falcons are grouped with passerines and parrots, meaning (of course) that falcons are *not* closely related to hawks, eagles or the highly aberrant stork known as "California condor". No surprise there, I always thought falcons looked more similar to said parrots, rather than to raptors of the diurnal persuasion. 

Now, it has come to my quality attention that some prominent cladisticians have proposed the existence of a *huge* clade known as Pancrustacea, regrouping both insects and crustaceans. Bingo! All my life, I wondered about the sinister similarity between the half-dead crayfish at my parents´ dinner table and the Insecta in our backyard, now I know the reason why, thank you. 

I have stopped worrying, and learned how to love cladograms. Yeah, really. 

Förbanna inte mörkret

Jag är ju inte någon varm anhängare av Osho, men i hans maffiga tegelsten "The Book of Secrets" (tokgubbens kommentar till den tantriska meditationsmanualen Vighyan Bhairav Tantra) säger han faktiskt något intressant. 

Nämligen att Gud inte är ljus. Gud är snarast mörker. Eller rättare sagt: mörker är en bättre metafor för det gudomliga än ljuset. 

Varför tror vi att Gud är ljus? För att vi är *rädda* för mörkret. Men egentligen är det mörkret som är gudomligt. Ljuset är tillfälligt, det kommer och går. Mörkret är evigt. Mörkret är vad som alltid finns kvar sedan ljuset försvunnit. Mörkret existerade innan ljuset. Ljuset "skapar" våra personligheter och hela vår (synliga) värld, medan mörkret är det ursprungliga, det som fanns innan "skapelsen". Det upplöser våra personligheter, och det är därför vi är rädda för det, men om vi bara kunde meditera i mörker skulle vi inse att allt är OK...

Så långt Osho. (Infoga kraftigt avståndstagande här!) 

Det slog mig förresten att metaforen "Gud är ljus" bara kan användas av fullt seende människor. En person som är blind sedan födseln kan inte använda det. Vi skulle också kunna tänka oss en intelligent art som lever på en mörklagd planet och därför aldrig utvecklat normalt seende (kanske är den istället telepatisk eller vad som helst). Ändå hävdar många inte bara att Gud är ljus rent metaforiskt, utan att uttalandet faktiskt ska tolkas bokstavligt! Antropocentrism, eller vad? 

Ortodoxa kyrkans mystiker beskriver Gud som "det bländande (eller lysande) mörkret". Kanske kommer detta närmare sanningen...  

Förbanna inte mörkret. Och tänd INTE ett ljus. 

Simulation´s end

 

"Meta Rising" is an interesting YouTube channel, but I have to disagree with them/him here. The idea that we live inside a Matrix-like computer simulation is so obviously connected to the Western quasi-religion of Progress, that it´s highly unlikely to be true. The *real* appeal of the argument isn´t that we live inside somebody else´s simulation, but rather that *we* can create such simulations ourselves with the help of highly advanced IT technology, and hence cheat death, both our own and that of the entire cosmos. And, just as an afterthought, prove that IT geeks and science nerds based in California (US forever) really are the pinnacle of world civilization (and, I suppose, all life on Earth). Indeed, in Meta Rising´s clip, he explicitly mentions a version of the simulation argument in which it is *us* who are projecting our own consciousness into the simulation, while simultaneously forgetting our true identity (a secular techno freak version of the Hindu view of Shiva´s cosmic dance). So we are either Christ Almighty or Shiva Nataraja, OK, do you understand why I´m a bit skeptical to this entire line of reasoning? 

Fermi´s paradox does have a rather obvious solution: while intelligent life *is* common in the vastness of the universe, it is not *our* kind of intelligent life. We could speculate that an entire species of intelligent whale-like creatures live in the oceans of some distant planet, completely uninterested in solving mathematical equations about their supposed rendez vous with a "destiny in the stars", indeed completely oblivious to any notion of technology at all, instead preferring to chill and socialize in the hot water for 100 million years sharp... The idea that all civilizations in the universe must be interested in, say, building Matrix-like simulations of 2021 California seems conceited in the extreme!

Meta Rising says that we live in a unique period in human (and Earth?) history. Here´s another take: no, we don´t, that´s just another conceit, the idea that all civilizations in the vast expanse of the cosmos go through a "great filter" which looks suspiciously similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 (AD). Instead, we are simply dealing with another cycle of overshoot, decline and fall. Sure, maybe the fall will be harder this time, but life on Earth survived even the mega-scale Permian extinction event, so chances are it will survive again. In the bigger scheme of things, the rise and eventual disappearence of a somewhat intelligent species of bipedal apes isn´t really *that* important (except, of course, to that species itself) in the bigger scheme of things. Indeed, it could just as well be argued that a *really* intelligent species of simulation-creating demi-gods might be more interested in some other aspect of Earth history, the emergence of blue-green algae for instance. Why simulate some shitty event in 2021? Unless, of course, we are once again assuming that the demi-gods are really *us* in the Tomorrowland future. 

To sum up, the Simulation is really an attempt by New Atheists to both have their cake and eat it, too. They can discard God, yet create another God in their own image. The similarity between the Simulation and Intelligent Design (or even pop Hinduism) probably isn´t a co-incidence...  

The secret supreme

Hmmm...

According to Kashmir Shaivism, there is a state of grace known as madhyamadhya shaktipata. It essentially entails the following. 

First, Shiva (or the guru?) grants you the bliss of Shiva´s state while remaining in the world, but you can (and will) simultaneously also enjoy all worldly pleasures at your satisfaction. 

Then, you will reach Paradise (svargaloka) and *continue* enjoying the worldly pleasures, but now to the maximum! Then, Shiva will finally initiate you *while you are still in Paradise* into the even higher bliss of perfect divine consciousness.

Are you fucking kidding me, kiddo?

So you´re essentially saying that I can have anything I like, both here and in heaven, and *then* (when I get tired of all the material-astral ecstasy) reach liberation by "becoming Shiva"? 

What ay religion. Seriously, where do I sign up???? :D 

Come and take it

"Engelbrekt och bondeupproren" (Engelbrekt and the Peasant Uprisings) is a book by Swedish history professor Dick Harrison, unfortunately only available in Swedish. Harrison must *like* to write about the 15th century Swedish civil wars and unrests, since this is probably the third or fourth time he does so in book format. Or even more, if you count all his partially overlapping popularized books published by Historiska Media. 

1434 was the year when Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson started a rebellion of peasants and miners in the Swedish area known as Bergslagen. Engelbrekt acquired legendary status already during his lifetime, and became a virtual martyr after his death in 1436 at the hands of an assassin (ironically, there was no direct connection between the murder and the rebellion). He was worshipped as a saint by many Swedish peasants during the Middle Ages, and is still regarded as a national hero by virtually everyone in Sweden from left to right. The meeting at Arboga in 1435 where Engelbrekt was appointed supreme commander of all Swedish military forces was long regarded as "the first Swedish Parliament". Engelbrekt´s uprising was directed against the unpopular union king Erik of Pomerania, who ruled both Sweden, Norway and Denmark, usually promoting the interests of the latter, but above all his own family interests, at the expense of both the Swedish nobility, clergy and the common people. What began as a peasant uprising soon turned into a general war of liberation against Erik and his foreign bailiffs. The details need not preoccupy us here. 

More importantly, the success of the uprising (Erik of Pomerania de facto lost his Swedish throne) marks the beginning of a remarkable period in Swedish history, which would last for almost 100 years, during which the peasantry played a central role in Swedish politics. The peasants were well organized, armed, and quite conscious of their power to make or break kings and lords. Sweden was extremely politically unstable, with constant wars against Denmark and civil wars between different Swedish factions. Coups, counter-coups and shifting alliances were part and parcel of the political landscape. What makes the period interesting is that the various factions of the nobility were forced to appeal to the peasantry for military support. Some nobles could almost be described as "peasant-friendly", such as Erik Puke, the de facto successor of Engelbrekt as main rebel leader. But even nobles who would rather do without peasant support, such as the treacherous power-player and opportunist Karl Knutsson (Bonde), who was Swedish king three times, eventually realized the need for it. Indeed, even the Danish kings, who tried to take back control over Sweden, sometimes appealed to the peasantry to back their cause. 

The original reason behind the peasant unrest may have been high taxes and unpopular foreign bailiffs, but eventually the peasantry demanded de facto self-government in their respective communities, some kind of say in the appointments of regents, and general respect for their social class. (Harrison seems to regard the Västerås meeting of 1466 as the first Swedish Parliament, since the peasantry was heavily represented.) During some periods, taxation was virtually zero. No man could be drafted by force into the army, and in some regions, there was a lucrative cross-border trade with the territories still under Danish control. The peasants and burghers of the border regions had more in common with each other than with their respective rulers in far-away capitals. 

The beginning of the end of this "golden age" came in 1520, when the Danish king Kristian II decided to subdue Sweden once and for all, and treacherously executed about 100 nobles, burghers and others after a sham trial in Stockholm (the Stockholm bloodbath). He then turned his attention to Bergslagen, and issued a series of provocative demands, including royal control of the mines and the disarmament of the peasantry. In response to this and other outrages, the Swedish peasantry once again rose in rebellion, this time under the leadership of Gustav Eriksson (Vasa). Unfortunately, Gustav Vasa was no Engelbrekt or Puke. As regent and later king (1521-1560), he turned on his earstwhile allies and created a centralized monarchy financed by heavy taxation of the peasantry, state control of mining, and massive confiscations of Catholic church property (Sweden became Lutheran during this period). Attempts to unseat Gustav Vasa were met by hard repression. The last "medieval" peasant rising in Sweden was the Dacke War (Dackefejden) in 1542-43. This time, the peasants really did fight alone, with no noble faction supporting them. 

During the 17th century, Sweden became a heavily centralized, autocratic and militarized state, in which the peasants were expected to obey, pay their taxes and get their sons drafted. During the 100-year long "great power period" (circa 1618-1718), Sweden lost one third of its male population due to constant wars! Yet, there were no peasant rebellions anymore. This is remarkable, since constant peasant uprisings (and other civil wars) constantly plagued the rest of Europe. It´s also remarkable given the fighting traditions of the Swedish peasantry and certain other groups. What on earth happened? The explanation favored by the author is that the Swedish high nobility was pragmatically smarter than many other European elite groups. Even Gustav Vasa, no friend of seditious commoners, permitted the peasants to have a certain amount of representation in Parliament. Sweden´s "peasant estate" was almost unique in Europe, and gave the peasantry a certain amount of room to voice their grievances. On the local level, the organ of local self-government known as sockenstämma (a kind of parish council) was often dominated by the peasants. Both the peasant estate in the Diet and the parish councils functioned as a kind of safety valve. Somehow, they did manage to blow off sufficient steam to avoid active armed resistance against the regime. Of course, there was also a lot of passive resistance to the early modern state, including a wide-spread refusal to be drafted in eastern Finland (where escape into the woods was relatively simple). But no actual uprisings. The last large-scale peasant uprising in Sweden was "the Great Dala Dance" in 1743, at a time when the Swedish regime had become less repressive, and the nobility was split into warring factions. Yet, it too failed.

Dick Harrison ends the book by pointing out that the 19th century saw a transition from peasant violence to urban-worker violence. Weirdly, he mentions the Fersen murder of 1810 as an example of the generally unsafe and riotous conditions of the capital, Stockholm. Ahem, surely a history professor should at least suspect a conspiracy in this case? Axel von Fersen was a prominent noble who belonged to the "wrong" faction in an internal elite power struggle. I´m not the only one to suspect that the mob who killed Fersen was at somebody´s payroll (not to mention the "guards" who didn´t lift a finger to defend him). That being said, Harrison is of course right in a general way. The 19th century saw the dawn of new struggles. As the peasantry became increasingly more conservative, the fallen mantle of Engelbrekt was taken up by...the working class. 

Imaginary Muslims

 

"Imaginary Muslims: The Uwaysi Sufis of Central Asia" by Julian Baldick is an scholarly study of a Sufi scripture from around 1600 AD, "History of the Uwaysis", written by the otherwise unknown Ahmad of Uzgen in Kirghizia. A large portion of the book deals with East Turkestan, better known as Xinjiang. Today, Xinjiang is under Chinese control. At the time, portions of East Turkestan (the "historic" name of the region) was ruled by the Yarkent Khanate. The khanate was ethnically Mongol and religiously Muslim. The writer of "History of the Uwaysis" takes a positive view of the Muslim rulers of East Turkestan. The particular Sufi school with which Uzgani was affiliated enjoyed royal patronage in the Yarkent Khanate. 

Baldick´s book is not just scholarly but *heavily* so, so this is not light bedtime reading, not even for fairly advanced students of the subject-matter in question. Baldick summarizes all 40 chapters of the "History", and unless Sufi hagiography is your thing, you probably won´t enjoy this material! Still, I suppose it´s a good thing that something associated with East Turkestan has been translated to English! Or at least summarized in this particular barbaric tongue...

A few intriguing facts do stand out, though.

I happen to think that many religious founders have either been heavily mythologized, or simply didn´t exist at all. Did Jesus really exist, for instance? What about the Buddha? Or Lao-tse? Nobody thinks Don Juan Matus was real, nor did Guy Ballard actually meet Saint Germain on Mount Shasta in 1930. I therefore read the introductory chapters of "Imaginary Muslims" with some interest. Here we go again, apparently...

The mysterious Uwaysi or Uwaysis turn out to be a anarchistic current within Sufism, the adherents of which claim to have supernatural contact with the spirits of dead Sufi masters, and even with the spirit of Muhammad himself. The Uwaysis claim a certain Uways al-Qarani as their founder. Uways was a contemporary of Muhammad and hailed from Yemen in southern Arabia. Curiously, Uways never actually met Muhammad in person, yet he knew long before it happened that Muhammad would become the last Prophet and founder of Islam. Uways is venerated by both Sunnis and Shias, and he is said to have been killed in combat at the battle of Siffin, where he fought for Ali against Muawiya. Siffin is close to Raqqa in northern Syria, and recently Uways´ tomb was destroyed by ISIS. But then, nobody really knows where Uways is buried - several other locations in the Muslim world claim to host his tomb! The truth is, that no real evidence exists for Uways having been a real historical person at all. The story of his life is obviously hagiographical: Uways is the role model for every Uwaysi, since - just like them - he was a Muslim without having any physical contact with Muhammad, relying instead on supernatural (perhaps telepathic) inspiration. Also, just like many later Sufis, Uways is depicted as poor, naked and mocked, living on the fringes of society, while in reality being highly favored by God, a secret not to be disclosed to the unworthy. 

The first written sources on Uways are from the mid-9th century. It´s not clear when a more distinct Uwaysi current emerged. A certain Kharaqani (dead 1033) from Persia is considered an important figure in Uwaysi history. A Persian text known as "Memorial of the Friends" from the early 13th century claims that there is an entire group of people known as Uwaysis, who all get their instructions from Muhammad through spiritual means. During the 14th century, the Uwaysi tradition acquires a stronger position, due to the emergence of the powerful Naqshbandi order of Sufis. The Naqshbandi brotherhood seems to have incorporated both Uwaysi ideas and followers into their organizational structures. On the other hand, it also seems as if it becomes more difficult to really define what an "Uwaysi" is supposed to be, since all Sufis who claim to have supernatural contact with dead masters were now classified as "Uwaysi". 

Baldick points out that some phenomena associated with Uwaysis are actually relatively common in the Muslim world. One is the idea that a Muslim can recieve supernatural revelations from God or Mohammad in his dreams. This used to be connected to the practice of visiting and sleeping at holy places in the hope of getting a supernatural revelation from some dead prophet or holy man. Another example is the belief in a mysterious character called Khidr, not explicitly mentioned in the Quran but associated with an anonymous teacher of Moses therein. Khidr is often seen as a supernatural character who can appear at will to instruct or aid the believer. Many Sufis claim to have recieved teachings from Khidr himself. In the legends, he often appears as a physical man of flesh and blood, and reveals his true identity only later. There is also some suspicion that the Uwaysi tradition (or even Sufism in general) represent a Shiite influence on Sunnism. 

In East Turkestan, an "Uwayisi" brotherhood is said to have been formed during the 16th century by one Muhammad Sharif, who enjoyed the patronage of the Mongol ruler Abd al-Rashid (reigned 1533-1560). I get the impression that this was really the Naqshbandi order, incorporating some slightly wilder strands. Sharif is portrayed as being closely involved in the politics of his day, aiding Abd al-Rashid against his Kirghiz enemies by getting advice and blessings from Khidr, dead kings and equally dead Sufi masters. Or rather their living spirits at their respective tombs. After Abd al-Rashid´s and Sharif´s respective deaths, there seems to have been a split between the crazier mystics (the "real" Uwaysis) and the more organized "regular" Naqshbandis. Abd al-Karim (reigned 1560-1591) was associated with the wild men, while Muhammad Khan (1591-1609) favored the regulars, and was indeed their leader. But even the official Naqshbandis had certain "Uwaysi" traits, thus the father of Muhammad Khan´s spiritual master Muhammad Ishaq supposedly took instructions from "the men of the unseen", and at one point Ishaq´s deputy conjures up the master´s spirit to get some much needed advice! 

As for "History of the Uwaysis", most of its hagiographies are evidently of completely fictitious people. Baldick has diligently searched for them in other written sources, and in some cases visited the locations of their supposed tombs, and found nothing. One of the few exceptions is Satuq Bughra Khan, a 10th century Turkic ruler in East Turkestan, and a member of the so-called Karakhanid dynasty. Satuq may have been the first Turkic ruler to convert to Islam. Yet, even his biography is heavily mythologized, with the future bughra khan carrying out impossible feats of conquest (and a few miracles) at the tender age of 12. Muhammad saw him during his Ascension, when he encountered the spirits of many dead prophets. Although Satuq was not a prophet, he was nevertheless counted among them, and Muhammad prophesized that Turkestan would one day become Muslim thanks to Satuq. Some say Ali made these predictions. He was instructed by the spirit of Muhammad in Uwaysi fashion, and also encountered Khidr and a Sufi master disguised as a hare (sic). But we´re supposed to take the Bible or Buddhist traditions seriously, right?

An interesting observation made by Baldick is that the Sufi-Uwaysi practices have "pagan" elements. One example is "incubation", most famously associated with the ancient Greeks and their practice of sleeping in temples dedicated to Asklepios, hoping to see the god in their dreams. How is this different from sleeping at the tombs of dead prophets or Sufi saints, hoping to get guidence from them? (Indeed, how is that different from necromancy?) The Sufi masters often resemble antinomian Hindu gurus, who combine asceticism with libertinism, meditate on charnel grounds, walk around nude, and so on. The Sufis prefer dunghills to charnel grounds, obviously because Muslims bury their dead. I have a faint memory that one of the Uwaysis in the "History" was handling a human skull, again like fringe Hindus. There are even some "shamanistic" traits in the Uwaysi tradition, which is intriguing given its connection to Turkic and Mongol converts from shamanism. Muhammad´s Night Journey and Ascension could be given a shamanistic spin, and so can the idea that humans get instruction from animals (the hare which turns out to be a shape-shifting Sufi teacher). Baldick even believes that Khidr ("the green one") might be connected to the Green Man from European and Mideast pagan mythology. 

The main take away from "Imaginary Muslims" is that an entire religious tradition can be mostly based on fiction, including fictitious biographies of fictitious people. Which doesn´t necessarily disprove that there is *something* real behind the veil. But whatever that might be, it´s probably not an imaginary Muslim... 

Before Xu Xiaodong, there was Steven Morris

In 2017, Chinese MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong defeated "Tai Chi master" Wei Lei, which I believed took about ten seconds. The clip went viral, and even I saw it shortly afterwards. Full disclosure: I´m not *that* interested in martial arts! The Chinese government supports "traditional" martial arts and wasn´t amused. They have harassed Xu, for instance by lowering his social credit rating (in effect, putting him on a kind of national black list). In response, the MMA fighter has become something of a dissident, for instance by supporting the Hong Kong protests. Xu has also fought and defeated other martial arts "masters", strongly suggesting that Chinese martial arts (whatever else they might be) aren´t a serious system for actually *fighting* anyone...

Which brings me to the article linked below, recommend to me by a regular commentator on this blog. Steve Morris seems to have been a "Xu before Xu". In his autobiography (which is *very* unpleasant reading unless you´re a born street fighter), Morris reveals how he defeated essentially every Chinese, Japanese and Okinawan "master" already during the 1960´s and 1970´s. Karate, kung fu, Fujian boxing...nothing could withstand the "no holds barred" of the "Morris method". After watching some YouTube clips of this man in his prime, I´m ready to believe him - he looks like a cross between an animal and a barbarian. Morris is openly contemptuous of "spiritual" approaches to martial arts, and also to martial arts that are too rule-based and de facto coreographed. To him, it´s all about raw fighting. The masochistic attitude of being beaten up by a great East Asian "master" and feeling grateful (something Morris claims is common among Western practitioners), or the constant quasi-military marching drills (popular in Japan) are also alien to his mentality. Morris eventually left the karate world, since almost no leaders within that community want to change their ways, and probably not their trainees either. Personally, I have no particular problem with martial arts that are a form of spiritual training, performance or competition-only, but if you claim that you can take down an MMA fighter and falls short (or trips over), well, aint that just tough! 

An interesting peak into a subculture I usually don´t comment on this blog. 

Pedigree: An incomplete martial arts autobiography

Kung fu dancing

"Path to Shaolin" is a documentary about a Canadian kung fu practitioner, Tim Mrazek, who wants to become a Shaolin monk. On YouTube it´s called "How to Be a Shaolin Monk". The documentary is somewhat peculiar, and there seems to be an entire culture war on the web about how "authentic" Shaolin really is. Although Mrazek´s trainer is a disciple of a Shaolin kung fu master, I have to say that "Path to Shaolin" gives plenty of ammunition to those claiming that the temple isn´t what it used to be. (In case you really don´t know, the Shaolin monastery or temple is a Zen Buddhist center in China famous for its "warrior monks" and martial arts. Not to mention the near-supernatural feats carried out by said monks.) 

At the start, we are told that Mrazek is going to Shaolin "to become a monk" and wonders whether the Chinese warrior-monks will accept him. Yet, he spends most of his time in China at various kung fu schools for children and teenagers. They teach "wushu", here interpreted as the competition form of kung fu, with little or no spiritual content. When Mrazek finally manages to visit the Shaolin Temple, it turns out to be closed...with only a bunch of kids in the temple grounds. In the end, Mrazek and his trainer simply take their picture with the children outside the "sacred" temple doors?! 

At a later point, the team visits the Pagoda Forest, where Mrazek´s trainer pays homage to his dead master, the former abbot of the entire Temple. He finds it difficult to do so, since the entire area is filled with pretty disrespectful tourists. The idea that the Canadian is going to be initiated into the "brotherhood" is quietly dropped somewhere along the way, and we are told that the old traditions died with the former abbot. Finally, the new master (?) gives a speech filled with commonplaces, and finally tells Mrazek that he might as well go back to Canada and spread Shaolin culture there!

I get the impression that the entire Shaolin concept is heavily commercialized these days, and perhaps also politicized. (Just watch what happens every time an MMA fighter beats up a Shaolin monk!) The wushu might be real, what do I know, but it seems Shaolin sensu stricto is just another legend we should lay to rest... 

Breakfast at the bungalow

Mount Shasta 

"The Magic Presence" is the second book in the so-called Saint Germain Series, authored by Guy Ballard under the pen name Godfré Ray King. It´s arguably even worse than the first volume, "Unveiled Mysteries", and I frankly only skimmed it. Even that took hours! 

Ballard was the founder of a peculiar religious group in the United States, usually known as the Mighty I AM Activity. Later, it changed its name to the Saint Germain Foundation. The group still exists, but its activities have been eclipsed by the more well known "Church Universal and Triumphant" founded by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, which also claims the mantle of Ballard and Saint Germain. The best exposé of the Ballard group was published already in 1940, "Psychic Dictatorship in America" by Gerald B Bryan. 

In 1930, Ballard claimed to have met the "ascended master" Saint Germain at Mount Shasta in California, and later in the Tetons in Wyoming. These meetings are detailed in his first book, "Unveiled Mysteries" from 1934. "The Magic Presence", published a year later, is a kind of sequel. The real count of Saint Germain was a 18th century alchemist, but in the Ballardite scenario, the old joker has been transformed into a semi-divine and mystical being with supernatural abilities, of which immortality is the most obvious. The notion of Saint Germain as an ascended master comes from Theosophy, but at least in the main line version, he played a subsidiary role, whereas in Ballard´s group, the count takes centre stage. I´m not sure why, but perhaps his aristocratic background might have something to do with it? 

"The Magic Presence" is even more tedious and dragging than Ballard´s first book, and often comes across as a failed novel. It´s as if the author tried to develop a plot featuring everything from Arab sheiks to Communist spies, with some attempted murders thrown in for good measure, but lacking essentially any skill of the novelist, simply couldn´t take it beyond the bearest outline. Instead, the book is filled with interminable discourses on "the I AM Presence", delivered by Saint Germain or some other ascended master who appears out of thin air just for the occasion. But OK, it *is* supposed to be a sacred scripture, so perhaps I´m making too harsh demands on the writer?

It´s interesting to note that the milieux in which the story takes place are upper class. We get to meet American billionaires who own Arabian race horses and large bungalows, mine-owners used to the miners following their every order, accomplished singers and musicians, international diplomats, and the previously mentioned sheiks. Ballard (a former treasure hunter and mining engineer) seems infatuated with gold and gemstones. In the book, he gets the supernatural ability to find gold deep inside mountains. Another thing that struck me was that the main characters constantly eat sumptuous meals, including a seven-course dinner! It´s therefore ironic to read that Ballard advocated an ascetic lifestyle, combining a strict vegetarian diet with almost complete sexual abstinence... 

The message of the I AM Activity is somewhat more developed in this second book than in the first (if you can find it somewhere inbetween the gold coins and creamy coffee drinks). The goal of the activity is "Ascension", during which the "Electronic Body" unites with the "I AM Presence" (or Magic Presence) and becomes an imperishable body of Light, which can operate both outside time and space, and inside it. The Magic Presence is said to be situated above the head, and from this point divine energy pours down into the brain and body. I think it´s obvious that the I AM Presence is really kundalini. The goal, evidently, is to become a siddha. The point of vegetarianism and sexual abstinence is to hoard the life energy and use it for this end. While this suggests that Ballard was familiar with the kundalini concept, his "yoga" seems breath-takingly simplistic. Those who wish to ascend should visualize themselves surrounded by violet fire, while chanting certain "decrees". In this way, a mysterious force known as the violet flame can be called down and accomplish the ascension by burning away negative karma. The role of the ascended masters, apart from teaching, is to act as conduits of these supernatural forces. Saint Germain in particular is associated with the violet flame. Ballard even claims that there is a machine, known as the Atomic Accelerator, which can transform a human´s body into pure light. Unfortunately, only the ascended masters have access to this contraption in one of their subterranean cities. 

While the first book sounded more typically New Thought, this second volume thus comes across as more weird and mystical. The metaphysic is nevertheless similar to New Thought: God is pure love, and all suffering and limitation (including physical ageing and death) must therefore be the result of literal wrong-think. Ballard says that absolute forgiveness is necessary to attain the higher state, but both his books rather suggest that the author was more interested in power than compassion. Would-be assassins are stopped by supernatural force, spies are exposed by mind-reading, and so on. There is also a paranoid streak in the book, since the Great White Brotherhood (the good guys) operates in strict secrecy due to the risk of treason and infiltration. 

Of course, Ballard died in 1939 without ascending, which apparently created a crisis within the cult. During the preceding years, the Mighty I AM Activity had been relatively succesful, holding mass meetings in many American cities, but the 1940´s saw the rapid decline of the movement. Perhaps its fascistic sympathies also had something to do with it. 

I will probably not read the rest of this series... 

Blimps and spindles

The Royal Teton Ranch?

So I decided to read the supposed revelations of Saint Germain... 

"Unveiled Mysteries" is the first book in the "Saint Germain Series". It was originally published in 1934. Its author, US national Guy Ballard, used the pseudonym Godfré Ray King. Guy and his wife Edna had founded a sect or cult known as The Mighty I AM Activity. It was surprisingly popular during the 1930´s, but gradually faded into obscurity already during the 1940´s, perhaps because Guy Ballard died in 1939. Strictly speaking, the group still exists, now under the name Saint Germain Foundation. A similar message is preached by "the Church Universal and Triumphant", founded by Mark L Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet. 

Ballard claimed to have recieved his teachings from an ascended master, Saint Germain, suggesting that he had studied Theosophy, where Saint Germain has exactly this status. But while the Theosophists emphasize other masters, Ballard turned Saint Germain into a virtual god, making him the chief conduit of supernatural revelations in the present dispensation. The *real* count of Saint Germain was a 18th century alchemist and adventurer active in France, and would probably have been very pleased by his posthumous status as a de facto divinity within a weird American religious cult! 

"Unveiled Mysteries" tells the story of Ballard´s encounters with Saint Germain, said to have taken place in 1930 at Mount Shasta in California. He was also taken to see mysterious underground facilities in the Tetons and Yellowstone. The "plot" is very thin, and most of the book contains Saint Germain´s revelations, which are just as tedious and boring as any other channeled message. OK, maybe they are a *bit* better written, but still mostly boring. The book feels in-house, probably because it really was so: Ballard was addressing an audience relatively knowledgable about early 20th century occultism and alternative spirituality, meaning New Thought and various forms of Theosophy. The reader is supposed to know what an "affirmation" or a "ray" is, and presumably also to recognize references to the chakras or the sunken continent of Mu. Some knew too much - critics of Ballard pointed out that he had plagiarized a number of earlier books, most notably "Dweller on Two Planets" by Phylos the Thibetan!

Like many other "messages" of this kind, Saint Germain´s discourses turn out to be surprisingly contemporary, in this case 1930-ish. The hidden advanced civilizations described in the book have a distinct science fiction flavor, yet their main mode of transportation are "airships" (presumably blimps). They put their precious documents on spindles! Ballard was a former treasure hunter and confidence trickster obsessed with finding gold mines. He may also have been a mining engineer. Naturally, then, Saint Germain and the masters live inside mountains, have advanced mining technology, and constantly lecture Ballard on the spiritual and economic qualities of gold. At one point, Ballard converts a gold-obsessed confidence trickster to the religion of Saint Germain! In real life, *he* may have been the "converted" trickster. Overall, the author seems more interested in gold, yellow diamonds, marble, jade and raw supernatural power than in uniting with the mystical body of the Christ...

The factual errors (or very garbled factoids) are also funny. Saint Germain takes Ballard back in time to the Mexican rain forest, where they encounter an expat colony of Incas. Even more curiously, the Inca ruler has a throne adorned with ostrich feathers. Ostriches, of course, live in Africa, not Mexico. Another classic is the lethal fight between a panther and a mountain lion (which is said to be much larger). Ballard seems to have been unaware of the fact that "panther" and "mountain lion" refers to the same animal species! 

But what about Saint Germain´s message? I was somewhat surprised by the fact that it was almost 100% New Thought. All the sunken continents, unknown civilizations and aliens from Venus (twelve of them) are really vehicles for promoting a kind of metaphysical prosperity gospel. God is said to be pure Love and Life, and these forces permeat the entire universe, indeed the universe is literally alive and loving. However, humans have forgotten this fact, and all limitations and strife arise from this negativity. Ballard believed in reincarnation and karma. If humans could only readjust their spiritual attitudes, so Love and Life can flow through them freely, they would be able to "manifest" anything and everything, and the world would turn into a virtual paradise. The I AM Presence is what Hindus would refer to as Atman, and this Atman is one with God (Brahman). Of course, in the Ballardite perspectiv, this is given a positive and active spin, whereby divine power is called down through the Atman and commanded by the believer. Although Saint Germain emphasizes such qualities as forgiveness, compassion and self-control, I think it´s obvious that Ballard is more interested in the sheer force he rightly or wrongly believed could be "manifested" in this way. Apart from his constant description of golden domes and jewelled lamps, he seems fascinated by the autocratic power of ancient monarchs. None of the fictitious empires described in the book are democratic or even vaguely republican. There is also a prophecy about a utopian age soon coming to the United States, during which a select elite of truly capable people will step forward and take command. (Many of Ballard´s followers, including his wife, were former supporters of the fascist Silver Shirts.) 

And yes, I´m partial to Gerald B Bryan´s classical polemic against the I AM movement, "Psychic Dictatorship in America", reviewed by me elsewhere on this blog. 

Next, I´m going to read Ballard´s "The Magical Presence". Wish me luck... 

Secrets of fractional-reserve banking

"Secrets of the Sahara" is a Dutch documentary series about various nations in or around the Sahara. In this episode, "Niger´s Rapid Growing Population" (the title used on YouTube), the team visits Agadez and some other places in the West African nation of Niger (not to be confused with its southern neighbor Nigeria). Niger is one of the poorest nations in Africa, perhaps the world, yet its population is projected to double within the next 15 years. Currently, it has 23 million inhabitants, so presumbly they will be 46 million by 2035! The average amount of children per woman is seven, and half of the population is under fifteen years of age. 

The team visits a village where the traditional Muslim leaders are actively encouraging an even higher birth rate, with the simple argument that it´s "the will of Allah", and that´s that. The marabout claims to have 13 children himself. Something doesn´t ad up, since the traditionalists also prohibit modern medicine. So how can the birth rate be so high? The village marabout actually says he fathered a total of 26 children, but that half of them died! Are the women in these villages doing *anything* else than breeding, I wonder? The villagers even proudly display a 12-year old child bride! Or maybe polygamy is the answer, since the reporter then visits a very extended family...

Most of the documentary is about Agadez, a town that became notorious during the migrant crisis as a major transit point for West African migrants from nations outside Niger trying to reach North Africa and then Europe. In fact, it seems the town experienced something of an economic boom during the migrant crisis, a boom which ended the moment migration north became more difficult. 

The reporter is explicitly on the side of the traffickers (he actually calls them "smugglers"!) and bemoans the fact that the EU somehow got Algeria and Libya to send many of the migrants back to Agadez. It seems EU even paid millions of euros to the Nigerien government, money ear-marked for the smugglers (!), in order to stop the migrant streams. Or so the smugglers claim. They also claim that corrupted local officials in Agadez confiscated most of the money for themselves, rather than giving it to the traffickers. The top bureaucrat in the town, in his turn, complains about high administration costs and what not. Apparently, *he* had to pay somebody to get the applications for EU money processed at all! 

The documentary ends with somebody almost bragglingly informing the film crew that the smuggling of migrants in the direction of Libya is still on-going. Indeed it is, and quite openly, in broad day-light and in front of the cameras... 

Personally, I can´t say I mind sending money to Niger, per se. I mean, just print the damn money and ship them off, it´s not like they will cause inflation in our back yard anyway. Or so I´ve been kindly informed by the Federal Reserve and US Congress, LOL. 

Hell´s Bells

"Mysterious Planet: Giants of the Carribean" is a spectacular but also somewhat confusing documentary about...essentially everything at the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and its oceanic vicinity. Ostensibly, though, it´s about whale sharks! And yes, the sharks are in there somewhere. 

The narrator moves back and forth between the jungle, the water-filled underground caves, and the open sea, just as freely as he crosses millions of years of deep time. It´s not always clear whether what we see is real footage, or the special effects department working overtime. But yes, "Giants of the Carribean" *is* fascinating. 

As late as two years ago, marine biologists were stunned to discover a huge annual gathering of whale sharks off the Yucatan coast, in an area seemingly devoid of plankton (their staple food). What on earth were they doing there? Apparently, there *is* a lot of plankton in the area, after all, specifically the roe of bonito tunafish. Meanwhile, other scientists are exploring the underground "rivers" in the Yucatan jungles, which may even have inspired ancient Mayan mythology about a dangerous subterranean realm of demons and spirits. The flooded caves turn out to have a connection to the Caribbean Sea! Fortunately or otherwise, the only "monsters" in the caves are peculiar shrimps, fishes and (above water level) bats and snakes. There are also mysterious bacterial formations nicknamed "Hell´s Bells". Apparently, the bacteria need neither sun light nor oxygen to propagate. (Life on Mars discovered?) 

The sink holes (known as cenotes) in the ex-Mayan jungle turn out to be the last remnants of the large crater that killed the dinosaurs (and a lot of other creatures) at the end of the Cretaceous. One of the organisms killed off in this spectacular Velikovskian manner was a fish even larger than the whale shark. At the time, the ancestors of the whale sharks were small fish living at the bottom of the ocean. And so it goes, around and around, in this crazy world (perhaps ruled by some demonic entity appeased by the Maya, but that´s literally another show!). 

Hell´s Bells indeed. 

Är det här parodi?

Är det här parodi? Eller mest bara bortom detsamma? MSB (psyk-försvaret) påstår att "främmande makt" (läs Ryssland) ligger bakom eller vill förstärka skepsisen mot AstraZenecas vaccin. Alltså det vaccin som på goda grunder stoppats eller pausats i stora delar av Europa!

Även WHO fortsätter att göra bort sig, nu genom att insistera på att vaccinering med AstraZenecas vaccin fortsätter. Det verkar som att spelet om vaccinet nu mest bara är politik. Eller, som sagt, parodi... 

"AstraZeneca utsatt för påverkan av främmande makt"

"Du är faktaresistent"

On the southern border of Europe

If I were to ask you "were is the southern border of Europe", you would probably answer somewhere around Gibraltar. You would be wrong.

The real (geopolitical) border of Europe - where European forces try to stop immigration or combat terrorism - turns out to be...the southern Sahara desert. 

Mauritania, to be exact. "Secrets of the Sahara: Mauritania´s Dark Side" tells the story. The Dutch reporter often comes across as a racist White boy asking the natives *really* silly questions ("can you keep track of time, do you know how a clock works", etc), but I think it´s obvious he´s just playing dumb in order to get access to places normally not shown to foreign correspondents. In actual fact, the "stupid" reporter is fluent in three languages (Dutch, French, English) and manages to escape his handlers in order to interview dissidents and opposition leaders! 

Mauritania comes across as the land God (or Allah) forsook. 90% is desert, there is only one railway line, and the capital Nouakchott was built by beduins forced to leave the desert after a drought. There are still dromedaries on the city streets to this very day. Otherwise, Mauritania is notorious for its human rights abuses. Slavery was abolished in 1981, Mauritania being the last nation in the world to do so. In reality, Blacks and other dark-skinned peoples are still being enslaved in the country by the Arabic-speaking "White Moors" (who are far from White by Western racial standards). 

The reporter meets Moorish families in both the desert and the capital who seem to have Black slaves. He also interviews a Black opposition leader, two freed Black slaves, and a lawyer who says that many freed slaves simply go back to their former masters, since they have nowhere else to go. Its strongly implied in the documentary that the Mauritanian government actively discourages Blacks from leaving the country for Europe. Interestingly, there are Black guest-workers in Mauritania, from Nigeria and perhaps other places. One of their churches have been attacked by Muslim thugs. (I assume the native Blacks in Mauritania are Muslims, just like the Moors.) 

At the moment, Mauritania is a democracy of sorts, perhaps explaining why this documentary could be made at all. The Western world has decided to support the Mauritanian governments and military. One reason is the war on terror. There are Islamist terrorists in at least two of Mauritania´s neighbors, Algeria and Mali. You would think the Sahara desert would stop them from entering Mauritania. You would be wrong. One military officer freely admits that the desert is like a gigantic political vacuum simply waiting to be filled by somebody, that somebody being terrorists moving freely across the poorly defended borders. 

Another reason is the migrant crisis. Still today, Spanish coast guards are aiding their Mauritanian colleagues to patrol the Mauritanian coast in case migrants from other parts of Africa try to use this particular route to reach the Canary Islands (which is Spanish territory). I assume this means there won´t be any Western pressure on Mauritania to end slavery any time soon. The problem, of course, goes even deeper: What is "slavery" anyway? Various forms of slavery also exist in the Western world, for instance sex-slavery, and very little is done to stop it here, right in our back yard...

With that little reflection, I end this review.  

The Count who never dies

 

"In Search Of..." is an old NBC series about the paranormal. The episode linked to above (which is really only 20 minutes long) was aired in 1977, and is titled "The Man Who Would Not Die". It´s narrated by Leonard Nimoy (Spock in Star Trek) and deals with the mysterious Count de Saint Germain, a 18th century alchemist and adventurer who dazzled the French aristocracy with his ability to make precious gemstones. Or maybe not, since it seems everything about this man is shrouded in mystery and urban (or is it urbane) legend. He died under the protection of the Danish-German prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel (himself an extremely long-lived man!), the royal governor of Schleswig-Holstein, then a Danish possession. Or did he? Saint Germain was supposedly seen at various places around Europe after his "death", and his legend is still alive and well.

Sensationally, "The Man Who Would Not Die" features an interview with Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the leader of The Summit Lighthouse (alias the Church Universal and Triumphant), who claims to channel messages from Saint Germain, now an "Ascended Master". Prophet is allowed to expound at some length on the weird message of her cult, claiming that Saint Germain was Columbus in a previous life, and that he somehow inspired the American Declaration of Independence! The documentary also shows a "church service" of Prophet´s group, featuring people doing the Bellamy salute while shouting "Hail Saint Germain". Everyone else had stopped using the Bellamy salute by 1977, I think, since it might easily be confused with the Nazi salute! Since Prophet´s group was inspired by the fascistic Guy Ballard, their "hailing" (or is it heiling) of the old alchemist´s portrait looks very, very bizarre... 

The NBC program features an interview with a Theosophist and a token skeptic, who (sensibly enough) regard the mystery count as a rather typical 18th century adventurer in the mold of Cagliostro and Cassanova. There are also "interviews" with Louis XV, Madame Le Pompadour and Voltaire, obviously starred by actors speaking English with a funny French accent. "The Man Who Would Not Die" ends inconclusively, Nimoy simply saying that we really don´t know what happened to Saint Germain after his (real or percieved) death in 1784, and that all further statements about him are matters of faith. 

Since Saint Germain isn´t a household name (I think), I was somewhat surprised to discover this immortal gemstone from the YouTube archives, but there you go...

An updated version might perhaps look at the idea that Saint Germain is working with the Ashtar Galactic Command, or that he is somehow connected to a certain Donald J Trump... 

The Lord came to his people, but the people comprehendeth him not

 

This was...unexpected. All this time, I assumed The Donald was an incarnation of Saint Germain, working directly under yours truly at the Galactic Federation Command. Remember Trump´s orb, my beloved? 

But are we to believe this little trinket (which is supposed to be a best seller in China), Donald Trump was actually...Maitreya! 

I´m tempted to quote Trump himself: "We are interesting people. We do interesting things". This in response to a reporter who asked Trump why the heck he quoted Mussolini in one of his tweets?!

It seems The God-Emperor was even more "interesting" than I anticipated... 

This week´s "hard to believe award"

I didn´t know Michael Jackson was an Ascended Master, or at the very least is on a first name basis with Sananda (the man you know as Jesus Christ). Hard to believe award?

Michael Jackson: Ascended Master?

Veckans "Hard to Believe Award"

Veckans "hard to believe award" går till något som kallas Ny Framtida Verklighet, och som verkar vara inspirerade av I AM Activity i Förenta Staterna. De kanaliserar bland annat...Judas Iskariot! Som tydligen blivit en hyvens kille efter att ha återfötts i astralvärlden, eller något sådant. Meddelandet nedan mottogs så sent som igår! Som sagt, svårt att tro...

Ett kanaliserat meddelande från "Sankt" Judas Iskariot

The greatest tit

"Smartast bland mesar" (Smartest of tits) is a book by Anders Brodin, a professor of biology at the university of Lund in Sweden. The book is a popularized account of Brodin´s and others´ research into the cognitive abilities of birds, with special emphasis on the Great Tit (Parus major). It does come across as a rambling college lecture at times, with the author talking about...well, everything really...but somewhere in there, he does tell us a lot about the ostensible topic of the exercise. The Great Tit, remember?

Weirdly, the tits (Paridae) are considered to be among the smartest of birds, up there with parrots and corvids. They even have *some* cognitive abilities on par with chimpanzees! This is something of a mystery, since tits are small songbirds with dimunitive brain volumes. Among the tits, the Great Tit stands out as particularly clever - and particularly annoying. Thank god I don´t live in a tit-infested neighborhood, it seems pretty taxing. 

One thing I liked about the book is that Brodin doesn´t sound particularly dogmatic, he never tries to tell the reader "what Science actually says about Reality" or expound on the "the party line". Instead, he is willing to admit that there might be differences between how tits act in nature and how they come across during weird scientific experiments set up by humans. Also, tests of cognitive abilities tend to be human-centered, such as the "mirror recognition test". Great Tits habitually fail them, despite being smart in many other ways. And while Brodin seems fairly securely anchored in Neo-Darwinism, he is brave enough to admit that perhaps there might be some evidence for group selection, or at least against kin selection, although it seems unlikely. 

Perhaps this is trivial (isn´t this how a scientist *should* sound like?), but after reading tons of cock sure symbola in other science books, "Smartast bland mesar" does feel like a breath of fresh air. Brodin is particularly fascinated by a British amateur researcher, Len Howard, author of "Birds as individuals". It seems Howard was a typical British excentric, who let Great Tits (and other birds) practically live inside her house, and she was constantly surrounded by them as she walked down the street in her home town. Several reports of Great Tit behavior in Howard´s book are apparently unique. 

Brodin ends by pointing out that the recent revolution in DNA testing has created havoc in the evolutionary tree of birds. The world´s smallest corvid, Hume´s Ground Jay, has turned out to be the world´s largest tit. (That´s actually quite funny. And yes, I´ve mentioned it before on this blog.) The genus Parus has been split into at least five new genera. More annoyingly still, the very species Parus major has been split into at least three new species, while the Blue Tit has been split into five by some over-enthusiastic researchers. The "phylogenetic species concept" is obviously problematic to the bird-watcher, since many of the new "species" can´t be told apart, except by looking at their genes in a laboratory! Brodin seems skeptical of this new wave - are Japanese Great Tits ("Parus minor") really that different from good´ ol Parus major in Europe? 

I´ll end with a fun fact. Well, not really. A Canadian colleague of Brodin had to refer to the Great Tits as "Great Tots" in an e-mail correspondence, the reason being a very strict policy against sexist language at the particular Canadian university were he was residing. It seems wokeness is everywhere! I had the same problem at Amazon.com when I mentioned Great Tits and Blue Tits in a customer review years ago (it took weeks before the review appeared), although I suppose Amazon at the time where simply trying to stop obscene language in general, rather than virtue-signalling. (Their Frank Zappa pages are apparently under constant extra surveillence.) 

But I´m digressing...

"Smartast bland mesar" is recommended lite reading if you´re first language in Swedish, and you have some kind of interest in whatever is flying around your house in Euro-suburbia on early mornings.