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| Credit: Picabuzz |
Den store lyckobringaren (Jupiter) är i konjunktion med den lilla lyckobringerskan (Venus), men jag har mest bara haft problem de senaste dagarna, så vad fan är felet? Funkar inte fucking astrologi, eller vad?
Konjunktionen är i Fiskarnas stjärntecken, som ju förknippas med illusioner, droger, spiritism och annat sattyg. Kan *det* förklara saken?
Eller har det helt enkelt blivit för mycket av det goda?
Did you know that there was a Jewish temple in Upper Egypt, at the famed island of Elephantine in the river Nile, and that the scrolls found there are older than our oldest Bible manuscripts?
Even more sensationally, the Jews at the island seem to have been polytheists and worshipped strange alien gods! Just an ancient syncretistic heresy from the true Mosaic faith? Or something else entirely...?
An article from Paul D´s blog "Is that in the Bible?", in which the blogger argues that the Gospel of Luke regards celibacy as an "angelic condition" and as a *precondition* for salvation in the form of resurrection. A rather extreme position, and one that contemporary Christian theologians are very unhappy with (if they notice it at all).
Note also Paul D´s criticism of evangelical attempts to "harmonize" the differences between the Gospel writers concerning divorce. When isn´t an inerrant text inerrant?
The article has a number of "lose ends" which may be worth the while to follow in their own right. Also read the commentary thread.
The idea that some Jews had an angelic view of the resurrection is interesting. I´ve long wondered about the similarities between the resurrected Jesus and the Biblical view of angels. They are both "spiritual" and "physical" simultaneously, just like Jesus. Note also Paul´s distinction between heavenly bodies and earthly bodies in this respect.
Luke´s surprising and oft-ignored views on marriage and resurrection
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| Credit: Jacqueline Poggi (?) |
This quote from a book by Thomas F Matthews (I don´t have the book), "The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art" recently caught my attention (quoted by Paul D´s blog "Is that in the Bible?"):
"Appearing in Gaul, Rome, Ravenna, and Thessalonica over a stretch of time from the mid-fourth century to the beginning of the sixth, [the feminine Christ] cannot be written off as a regional or transitory development. At the same time, the variety of contexts in which the feminine Christ appears suggests that there may not be any single explanation. (p. 135)".
Er, wut?
The linked articles below are non-scholarly (one is from a gay magazine!), but they do touch on this intriguing topic. The Montanists may have believed that Christ sometimes appeared in the form of a woman, and there are apparently sculptures of Jesus with female breasts. Even apart from this, he is often difficult to distinguish from the female characters in artistic depictions, due to his long hair and lack of a beard.
Another topic to explore on a boring Monday evening...
Christopher Wallis is a scholar and practitioner of “Non-Dual Shaiva Tantra”. In this video, he criticizes Christianity and contrasts it negatively with the “Dharmic traditions”, here a reference to Hinduism and Buddhism. It´s mostly a criticism of “literalist” Christianity, which in Wallis´ opinion simply can´t become consistent. For instance, the contradiction between the peaceful Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount and the decidedly less peaceful deity described in the Old Testament. There are also errors in the Bible, such as the clear promise of Jesus to return during the lifetime of the apostles (which didn´t transpire). This in turn is connected to the Christian truth being contingent on actual historical events. If these can be demonstrated not to have transpired, Christianity falls with them.
Wallis believes
that Dharmic traditions don´t have these problems, since they don´t *really*
consider their scriptures to be literal history, or literally true at all. The
real “canon” is the guru or the lineage, directing his disciples to the
scriptures considered most beneficial for his spiritual development. Wallis believes
that the literalizing of Hindu scriptures is a modern development. A Hindu
tradition or Buddhism could be true even if historians would somehow prove
that, say, the Buddha never really existed. Its practices aren´t dependent on
contingent historical events (the existence of a certain prince named Siddharta
Gautama, of Krishna´s earthly kingdom in northern India, of Lanka being ruled
by an actual person named Ravana, etc).
Wallis
admits that there is some crazy shit in the Dharmic religions (such as the Bhuta
Tantras – whatever that is exactly!), but this is true of all religious traditions
and hence doesn´t affect the overall picture.
Many might
find Wallis´ criticism pretty basic, but it´s nevertheless interesting to hear
a criticism of Christianity from a Hindu-Buddhist perspective, although hearing
it from a “native” might be even more so…
Ex-Beatle and pop icon George Harrison looks like Eric Idle and talks like Alan Watts, making morse sense than the latter (and perhaps the former) when discussing his interest in Transcendental Meditation (TM) and "Eastern" spirituality in general.
Posted on various YouTube channels, including this one, associated somehow with the Ramakrishna Mission.
Was Amazon´s fantasy series "The Rings of Power" written by Artificial Intelligence? An interesting theory from the darker recesses of cyberspace...
A few years ago, a rather obscure apocryphal Gospel from Egypt, falsely attributed to the 4th century Church Father Cyril of Jerusalem, actually created something of a stir in mainstream media.
The reason? The work, known as "On the Life and the Passion of Christ", claims that Jesus was - wait for it - a shapeshifter!
This idea apparently fascinated the Western media. It´s usually associated with Islam or Gnosticism, but as the blogger Paul D points out below, Jesus shapeshifting is actually a frequent occurence in the Gospels...
.jpg/1024px-Propaganda_of_North_Korea_(6073884618).jpg)
Ett märkligt vårtecken: Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti (alltså det gamla Moskva-partiet APK) har satt upp affischer med texten "Krigsvintern är här".
Notorious gadfly Edward Dutton ("The Jolly Heretic") explains his version of Social Darwinism. If *that´s* jolly, is perhaps another question entirely!
Why China could take over the West through the medium of "woke" individualist-globalist liberals.
.jpg/388px-Saturn_-_April_25_2016_(46435379305).jpg) |
| Old devil |
If atheism is a mere lack of belief in God, perhaps Satanism is a form of atheism?
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| Credit: Purpy Pupple, Evercat. Michael Pohoreski |
I have no idea what the Mandelbrot set really is (some mathematical shit that can be rendered in artistic form), but apparently our old nemesis Answers in Genesis claims that it proves - wait for it - God.
But apparently there is another set, a kind of anti-Mandelbrot, known as the Buddhabrot. Sure wonder what AiG makes of that?
The Cosmic Adi-Buddha is real, guys. Start chanting the Nembutsu now!
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| Men anon, missade du verkligen semmelpremiären? Credit: fantia@cosplay_maou (Twitter) |
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| Nås, not Jerusalem |
“Jerusalem”
is a Swedish drama series in four parts from 1997, directed by Bille August.
Among the many actors, Max von Sydow and Sven-Bertil Taube are perhaps most well-known.
Most of the dialogue is in Swedish. American actress Olympia Dukakis stars the
Christian cult leader “Mother”. In real life, Dukakis was apparently a Goddess-worshipping
pagan feminist! And yes, she only speaks English.
The TV
series is based on famous Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf´s two-volume novel “Jerusalem”,
originally published in 1901-1902. The novel is in turn based on real events in
1896, when 37 people from the small village of Nås in Dalarna (Dalecarlia) left
Sweden and journeyed to Jerusalem, where they joined the so-called American
Colony, really an authoritarian religious commune. This somewhat peculiar
emigration has become part of the local folklore at Nås, where a theatre play
based on Lagerlöf´s novel is still staged once a year.
In the
novel and the TV series, the preacher who turns the heads of the Nås peasants
is named Hellgum. At least in the TV series, Hellgum is depicted as a fiery
charismatic who skillfully manipulates the villagers into joining his cult. (I
don´t remember how he is depicted in the novel, since I only read it once,
about 30 years ago!) In Jerusalem, the Hellgumites join forces with another
cult, simply called the Colony, led by Miss Gordon (Mother). Both Hellgum and Gordon
are based on real people. Hellgum´s real name was Olof Henrik Larsson, a
returning Swedish expat from the United States. The Larssonites are sometimes
dubbed “Sweden´s smallest revivalist movement”. Gordon´s real name was Anna Spafford,
a Norwegian-American with a background in Christian pyramidology. An intriguing
detail is that Spafford actually purged Larsson once the latter had joined her
in the Holy Land with his Swedish faithful. Larsson was demoted to an insignificant
position within the Colony, and died under wretched circumstances. In the TV series,
Hellgum gets second thoughts about the move to Jerusalem and wants to travel
back to Sweden with his flock, and then “purges” himself by simply absconding
when his brain-washed followers prefer to stay in Mother´s authoritarian sect!
“Jerusalem”
isn´t just a story about a revival gone dangerously wrong, but also contains a
number of other plot elements. How much of these are true, I don´t know. The
main characters aren´t really Hellgum and Miss Gordon, but the farmer and
saw-mill owner Ingmar and his on-off love interest Gertrud. Ingmar´s sister
Karin is also important. Both Gertrud and Karin joins the cult. As a
counterpoint to the crazy revival and its contretemps in Jerusalem stands Ingmarsgården
(the Ingmar Farm) back at Nås, presumably a symbol of stability and tradition,
since the farm is said to have been in the possession of the Ingmar family since
time immemorial, every male head of the family being named “Ingmar”. The
Ingmars are depicted as the local strongmen in the community. For various reasons,
the current Ingmar loses control of the family farm, and his attempts to regain
possession forms a kind of intertwined parallel plot to Hellgum´s rabble-rousing.
Perhaps the revival represents the “new” or “modern”, while Ingmar stands for
the old way? In the novel, the various storylines are even more complex than in
the TV series.
What
strikes me most in the TV series is its negative depiction of religion, except –
somewhat ironically – the Lutheranism of the Swedish establishment. Ingmar is
depicted as a near-atheist skeptic and rationalist. The local priest and the schoolmaster represent common sense and civic virtue. All other religious types are dangerous
firebrands (Hellgum), authoritarian cultists (Mother), gullible and emotional
(Gertrud), fanatics (Karin) or easily led (Karin´s husband). Jerusalem turns
out to be filled with eponymous madness. The increasingly delusional Gertrud
mistakes a bizarre Dervish sect for Jesus and his disciples, and is attacked by
fanaticized Russian pilgrims when she by mistake aborts one of their penances.
Order is restored when Ingmar unexpectedly shows up in Jerusalem, deprograms
Gertrud and forces Mother to let her return to Sweden. At the very end, the Lutheran
priest baptizes skeptic Ingmar´s newly born son (of course also named Ingmar),
while Karin remains behind at the Colony in Jerusalem, fervently thanking God
for deliverance while surrounded by the graves of dead Swedish emigrants at a
cemetery, including her husband and little daughter…
I would
like to say that we are wiser today, 127 years later, but alas, we are not. We
simply live out different delusions to those of the Nås Jerusalem-farers.
Jerusalem Madness has been replaced by Clown World.
Samma typer som stödjer den här typen av dumheter hade aldrig föreslagit att Koranen ska skrivas om. Och att bränna Koranen är givetvis också otänkbart. Inte för att undanröja eventuella hinder för en NATO-anslutning, utan för att...ja, jag vet inte. Vet de ens själva?
Welcome to Clown World.
Svensk kulturkvinna ska rensa ut vita män ur Norges historia
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| What do you mean, anon, no utility subsidy?! Credit: Azey@azeycoser (Twitter) |
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| Credit: Debanjon |
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| Credit: Sage Ross |
“Dogs in
the Wild: Meet the Family” is a 2022 BBC nature documentary. Everyone knows about
the domestic dog, but here we are indeed invited to meet its “family”. I admit
that the diversity of the Canidae is pretty staggering. Some live in unexpected
places: the Tibetan fox in the Himalayas, the Arctic wolf at the Queen
Elizabeth Islands and the diminutive fennec fox in the Sahara desert. And yes, many
red foxes live in London!
Some canids
are embroiled in intricate near-symbiotic relationships with other organisms.
The dingoes at Fraser Island survive in part by eating eggs of sea turtles, but
they inadvertently also protect hatched turtles from further predation, since no
other predators dares to approach the beaches if the dingoes roam there. The Fraser
Island dingo population is also considered important since these specimens are supposedly
very “pure”, genetically speaking, while dingoes in other parts of Australia
have interbred with domestic dogs. To stop further racial mixing, domestics
have been banned from the island (sure wonder why humanity meddles into the
love lives of feral canids, but there you go).
Meanwhile
in South America, the wolf apple is the preferred diet of the maned wolf, a
bizarre canid that looks like a fox on stilts. The maned wolf´s bad eating
habits help spread the wolf apple, with some assistance from leaf-cutter ants! The
canid literally shits out the seeds of the wolf apples it consumes, and the
seeds are then saved from the scorching sun by ants, which takes them to shaded
and moist places around their nests (the ants are interested in remaining fruit
fragments attached to the seeds). There, the seeds sprout and a new wolf apple plant
can wet the appetite of the maned wolf…
I don´t
think “Dogs in the Wild” has any deeper purpose or meaning. The point is to
show the viewer some interesting animals, and perhaps to show off the technological
prowess of the BBC. But sure, I admit that “the family” was pretty wild!
“The Silent
Revolution” is a German film somewhat freely based on Dietrich Garstka´s
autobiography “Das Schweigende Klassenzimmer”. The author, who passed away five
years ago, was a high school teacher in Essen.
The plot of
the film is set in Communist East Germany in 1956. A senior high school class
in the town of Stalinstadt (“City of Stalin”) regularly listens to
anti-Communist radio broadcasts from West Germany and eventually decides to
stage a political protest in school by standing in silence to express
solidarity with the anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary. The protest is duly
reported to the Communist authorities, and none other than East Germany´s minister
of education, Fritz Lange (an old Communist cadre and anti-Nazi resistance
fighter), is called in to investigate the “counter-revolution”. After various
complex intrigues involving both the students and their parents, the class decides
not to betray the instigators of the protest, at which everyone is expelled
from school and forever barred from higher education. Despite this, the story does
have a “happy ending” of sorts, since most of the students simply leave for
West Berlin and freedom! (The Berlin Wall wasn´t built until 1961.)
While the
storyline is interesting, I think it´s obvious that many of the characters are
somewhat stereotypical. What are we to make of the sociopathic female “comrade
Kessler”, the convinced but simplistic Communist Erik, the virginal Christian
girls, or the nerdy Paul? There is also Theo´s cowardly father, and Kurt´s
opportunistic ditto. The weak mothers were more convincing but equally
stereotypical. One of the scenes is suspiciously similar to the “captain, my
captain” climax in “Dead Poet´s Society”. A more interesting feature is that
the heroic student Kurt turns out to have a problematic side, since he constantly
visits his Nazi grandfather´s grave in West Berlin! And I still don´t
understand what character (if any) is supposed to be Dietrich Garstka…
Stalinstadt
still exists, now called Eisenhüttenstadt. It seems its local color is still
somewhat “DDR 1956”, since the events Garstka describes in his book really took
place at another location, Storkow, but that place has changed so much that the
producers decided to tape the film in Eisenhüttenstadt instead.
No idea
where you can find a copy with English titles. I recently saw the film with
Swedish titles, my German being somewhat rusty (I mean, I can hardly pronounce “Eisenhüttenstadt”).
Since I actually visited East Berlin before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, I
found it very interesting on a purely personal level, despite the
fictionalization.
With that,
I close this little review.
Who killed former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and why? The answer may surprise you...
The
mini-docu isn´t about this, however, but about a somewhat more piquant problem.
In northern Sichuan, Tibetan Buddhists still practice the ancient custom of “sky-burial”,
during which a dead person´s body is exposed at a charnel ground to be literally
eaten by vultures. Often, the corpse is “prepared” so the vultures can eat it. The
birds are seen as a kind of compassionate spirit-beings helping the soul of the
deceased to reach the afterlife.
The problem
is that Chinese tourists often travel to the region to see the sky-burials and take
photos of the custom (which they clearly see as pretty bizarre) without
permission from the Tibetans. Local Chinese authorities gladly take bribes to bus
the tourists to the charnel ground. Some of the tourists seem to enjoy their
exotic little trip and laugh rather profusely, while others vomit just as much!
The Tibetans obviously see the entire situation as disrespectful and as another
example of Han insensitivity to their native culture…
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| Credit: ESA |
They found a ring around Qu...Qu...Quaorar...Quaoar, or something. That pesky little dwarf planet that robbed Pluto of its planetary title (and made all astrologers reel even more than the astronomy nerds).
Well, at least *some* good news this side of the Wyrms Of Andromeda!
The universe, it seems, is fine tuned for Quo...never mind.
_Flock_gathered_near_carcass_Photograph_by_Shantanu_Kuveskar.jpg) |
| Credit: Shantanu Kuveskar |
Does the New York Times "want out"? They seem almost a bit anti-woke here...
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| The convent of Gebchak. Credit: Gyulama |
“Tibet, the path to wisdom” is a slow-paced documentary about a Buddhist nun who leaves her convent and becomes a pilgrim. The nun´s name is Ani Rigsang. According to an ancient Tibetan tradition, a huge female demon is lying across Tibet, her evil energies being the cause of the world´s suffering (!). The demoness is said to be contained by twelve Buddhist temples, and Ani´s pilgrimage takes her to these very temples. Her ultimate goal is Gebchak in eastern Tibet, right between the “eyes” of the imaginary ogre. During her peregrinations, Ani asks several (male) masters about “the yoga of magic heat”, presumably a preliminary stage to the highly esoteric practice known as Dzogchen. One of the masters tells her to go home to her nunnery, another says that you can accomplish everything without wandering, since enlightenment (surprise) can only come from within. A third guru turns out to be dead and worshipped by his followers in the form of a wax effigy, so he obviously can´t tell the nun anything either!
Finally,
Ani reaches Gebchak, which turns out to be a collective of female mystics or
yoginis, living like nuns in a convent. They gladly show Ani (and the camera crew)
some of their peculiar practices, such as wandering in winter cold with a blanket
soaked in cold water wrapped around your body (to generate “inner heat”) or
sleep in upright position while doing “dream yoga”. The abbess claims that a
dying nun recently attained “the body of light” (in other sources called “rainbow
body”) and that this miracle was witnessed by the other mystics. The end-point
of Dzogchen is the transformation of the physical body into a body in all the
colors of the rainbow. According to Wiki, Gebchak is affiliated with the Kagyu
branch of Vajrayana Buddhism, but Dzogchen itself is a practice associated with
the Nyingma branch.
The story
ends with Ani deciding to leave Gebchak and continue her pilgrimage indefinitely,
in effect becoming a perpetual wanderer circumambulating Tibet so as to save our
world from the demoness…
As already
mentioned, the documentary is slow-paced and perhaps not suited for the average
watcher (who may not know the Buddhist-Tantric context of the story). Trigger
warning: “Tibet, the path to wisdom” actually shows a traditional Tibetan sky-burial.
The corpse is placed at a charnel ground and broken into pieces, after which
large flocks of vultures simply eat the remains! You heard me. A bit weird to
see such a gruesome scene in this particular production, but there you go…
Available
on YouTube in all its luminous splendour.
Haven´t double checked this, but this is a mini-documentary (20 minutes) about St Valentine, but not so much about his connection to love and romance.
Rather, the narrator is fascinated by the supposed relics of the saint, which seem to be diffused all over the world. Or at least Italy! And, somewhat surprisingly, Missouri...
Relics as in skulls, skeletons, that kind of stuff.
Happy Valentine, somebody?
The clip above
is from Hammerson Peters´ cryptozoologically oriented YouTube channel, which frequently
promotes his book “Legends of the Nahanni Valley” (a location in Canada´s
Northwest Territories). I haven´t read it, but I have previously reviewed some other
books on Canadian folklore. In this clip, Peters expounds on some length on the
Waheela, a mysterious creature known from Native mythology and the yarns of
White hunters and sensationalists. Unfortunately, it´s not known to science!
The Waheela
is apparently particularly associated with the previously mentioned Nahanni
Valley, but Peters have found similar stories from the US West, including a supposed
encounter at the notorious “Skinwalker Ranch” in Utah. The Waheela is often
described as a super-sized wolf-like creature, or an animal with both canine
and ursid characteristics. “Cryptozoologist” Ivan T Sanderson was interested in
the reports, and I suppose some enthusiasts within that particular subculture
still are. Speculations about the Waheela´s real identity abound. Are they
actual wolves suffering from gigantism, misidentified albino bears, or prehistoric
survivals? Sanderson proposed that it could be a Amphicyon (a “bear-dog”
believed to have been extinct for over 2 million years) or a Dire Wolf
(believed to have gone extinct around 10,000 years ago).
While
nothing´s impossible, the fact that modern science haven´t found any Waheela
suggest another possibility: the beast doesn´t really exist at all. It seems to
occupy a mythological Native landscape also populated by dangerous humanoids,
ghostly monsters, deadly giant beavers, and creatures that simply can´t exist
(such as the Otter-man). In the American West, a large white wolf is called “medicine
wolf” and seems to be explicitly supernatural. The Inuit story retold by Peters
is also clearly mythological in character. Indeed, do even the super-sized
timber wolves mentioned in the stories of White hunters exist? They may just be
yarns. And how are we to interpret the claim, mentioned by Peters in another
video, that the main enemy of the Waheela is a “lion”, here interpreted as a Smilodon?
Judging
from John Warms´ book “Strange Creatures Seldom Seen”, Native tribes in Manitoba
– another part of Canada – claim that many different species of gigantic
animals live in their territories. My point, of course, is that some of these
creatures would have been found by now had they actually existed in
flesh-and-blood fashion. A single and rare cryptid could (perhaps) hide out in
some remote part of the Northwest Territories, but that an entire armada of over-sized
Animalia could do so staggers the imagination…
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| Yes, anon, over Lake Huron apparently! Credit: John Benson (Hardbody) |
*Another* one?!
Lite lustigt att *den här* sajten skriver om skalbaggar på Madagaskar. Djupekologi? Metafor? Något om "generalister" versus "endemiska arter"? Fast ibland betyder "skalbagge" faktiskt "skalbagge"...
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| Dark Brandon: real prez of Kwa after all? |
Washington Post claims that Trump knew (kind of) that he had lost the elections, but buried the findings of his own research group.
Trump campaign paid researchers to prove 2020 fraud but kept findings secret
A less
alarmist view on the excess death situation than that of John Campbell (which I
linked to before). I don´t quite understand this man´s take on the vaccines,
but his views on cancer and cardiovascular disease are pretty clear.
Part of the
excess deaths after the COVID pandemic are due to cancer, since screening for
various types of cancer went down during the pandemic, and has failed to go up
afterwards. Less people are therefore diagnosed with cancer even if they
actually have it, leading to more cancer deaths. Cardiovascular disease could
be another factor leading to an increase in deaths, perhaps because COVID weakens
people´s resistance to heart attacks and the like. Also, these deaths happen during
the winter months, which is to be expected.
As for the
vaccines, the argument seems to be that during the pandemic, excess deaths were
substantially higher in US states with lower vaccination rates until the
Omicron wave, when the curve evened out, excess deaths being about the same in
low-vaccination states as in high-vaccination ones. If vaccines caused the post-pandemic
excess deaths, the curve should start climbing steeply in vaccinated states,
but this haven´t happened.
Well, let´s
hope MedCram is right!
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| Credit: Paul Massaro@apmassaro3 (from Twitter) |
Based as fuck! This tweet has 3 million views as we speak. Escalation?
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| Credit: Natsume@natsume0v0 (from Twitter) |
I´m running out of pics of well-endowed Asian girls, come on, when will this stop?
Nothing to see here, as usual...
Seriously, though, this really does need to be investigated. To put it very diplomatically!
An entertaining dressing down of contemporary particle physics by our very own Science Mama, Sabine Hossenfelder (yes, she is a real German).
This is a defense of the "standard model", but personally, I suspect that the universe is even more complicated. Or simple. Or maybe both.
I mean, if they can´t find the dark matter, maybe it doesn´t exist at all, right?
A good introduction to the ancient Chinese concepts of yin and yang, often associated with Taoism, but actually having a broader application, from cosmological speculations to base politics. And, of course, alternative medicine and alchemy (we are promised future videos about these).
The "naturalistic" slant of yin-yang is fascinating, but it seamlessly blends with pantheism and even magic. Which may or may not rub you the wrong way, depending on your most basic philosophical presuppositions.
Or perhaps the level of yin in your meridians...
"What do you mean by race"? A good contribution by our favorite "autist", Professor Edward Dutton. He is surprisingly calm and composed here!
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| Credit: MaoU (@cosplay_maou), Twitter |
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| Credit: Hollger Elgaard |
Dags att damma av "Veckans Strasser" igen? Tobias Hübinette med ett kanske lite oväntat perspektiv på turbulensen inom socialdemokratin i norra Botkyrka.
Om de senaste händelserna i Botkyrka och mina minnen från kommunen
Vem låg egentligen bakom den planerade koranbränning som nu har stoppats av SÄPO och polisen? Tydligen inte Paludan, utan en "frihetlig" kulturförening med en färgad ordförande som vill stoppa Sveriges NATO-ansökan! Och det verkar egentligen inte ha velat bränna Koranen heller. Det hela var ett slags "click bait".
Oklart om "frihetlig" betyder anarkistisk vänster eller libertariansk höger, dock. Förmodligen något slags vänster, eftersom föreningen i den tredje artikeln nedan säger sig vara orolig för NATO-medlemskapets inverkan på "sjukvård, utbildning och brottslighet". Och på Flashback kallas de för "kommunistcell"!
Stoppad Koranbrännare vill hindra NATO-ansökan
Han nekades tillstånd att bränna Koranen
Kulturförening planerar Koranbränning i protest mot NATO
The intelligence services want us to post kittens when we feel worried about system collapse (a.k.a. 2023), but since I never been much of a cat person, here are some fluffy dogs (and one bloodhound) instead...
Första gången Hübinette "outar" en kommunist. Fast det verkar finnas ett antal förklaringar!
"Skansen-Jonas" skryter återigen om hur han genomförde en illegal adoption
Sverigedemokraterna sägs ju vara det för närvarande största partiet med ett nazistiskt förflutet.
Eller kanske inte? För visst fick väl liberala Fine Gael 25% av rösterna i det irländska valet för några år sedan? Partiets illustra bakgrund framgår av bilden här ovan, tagen 1934.
Fast Fine Gael kanske var "fascister" snarare än "nazister" sensu stricto? LOL.
An entertaining criticism of "scientific" materialism by a Catholic philosopher. I don´t agree with everything, but still worth reading!
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| Credit: y m k @katsurayume (from Twitter) |
“REM Theory”
is a series of three video clips explaining a new Alt Right worldview known as
Appoloism. Or kind of new, since the first clip was posted two years ago,
perhaps when Trump was still president. The most recent clip is presumably from
2022. On Twitter, Appoloism is associated with the fans of Richard B Spencer in
his current incarnation as White imperialist deep entryist into the Democratic
Party. Spencer is probably the only Alt Right personality who endorsed *Biden*
in 2020! It´s not clear whether he officially endorsed the Apollo project, though.
The second
and third clips are the most interesting. In the second, the Apolloists attack
Christianity, a line of action especially relevant today as the pro-Trump Alt
Right seems to have embraced “Christian Nationalism” hook, line and sinker. To “REM
Theory”, this is regressive, since Christianity represents a slave morality of “turning
the other cheek”, and Western civilization was created despite it, not because
of it. The pagan Roman Empire is the ideal of the makers of the video series.
It´s quite explicit that they admire the Romans for their military prowess and social
hierarchy, while also interpreting the Romans (and the earlier Greeks) in tribalist,
eugenicist and crypto-racialist terms. Other Christian dangers include the religion´s
multi-ethnic character and Jewish roots. Why should Europeans worship a “Jewish
tribal god”?
Interestingly,
the Appoloists also criticize neo-pagans who harken back to the ancient Norse
and Celtic religions. Their myths are mostly known from later Christian sources
and sometimes sound suspiciously Christian, Odin was a “trickster god” similar to
the “Semitic” Mercury, and the gods are killed in Ragnarök, replaced by the
Christ-like figure of Baldur. Nor did the Norse and Celts create great civilizations.
Emulating them today is a form of primitivism and mystical individualism.
As should
be obvious from their name, the alternative of the Apolloists is worship of
Apollo, the Roman sun-god. My general impression of Appoloism from Twitter is
that the current isn´t really neo-pagan at all, but atheist, and that Apollo is
used as a symbol of the White race. The third video is fascinated by the fact
that Apollo was associated with the mythological Hyperborea, a land in the far
north, which would have been populated by White peoples. Apollo´s associates
are said to have been giants, making them part of the good side, while in Norse
myth they are usually seen as evil!
The
Nietzschean overtones are obvious, but what strikes me most is the Western Idea
of Progress, obviously in a kind of heroic-racialist and fascist form. I think
Apolloists dream of a White “Roman” empire that will conquer space (and perhaps
China). The cyclical view of history is explicitly attacked. Apparently, it
really is different this time!
Personally,
I think it´s more likely that even Apollo will meet his Götterdämmerung when
the present cycle closes…
I didn´t know the Galactic Federation had been taken over by the New Thought faction. Any relation to the Interplanetary Federation, by the way?
The US air force (or was it Trump´s space command?) has shot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina, thus ending America´s new "Sputnik moment". Meanwhile, another suspected spy balloon, also made in the PRC, has supposedly been spotted over Latin America?!
We will now resume our regular programming. Now, considering drag queen hour...
Two "scholarly" YouTube clips about Manichaeism, an extinct creed which used to be a world religion during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. There were followers of the prophet Mani from the Roman Empire in the west to China in the east. Manichaeism was a "Persian" religion with Zoroastrian, Christian and Buddhist traits. It´s sometimes described as Gnostic. Mani himself was raised in a "heretical" Christian community in Mesopotamia.
It´s possible that Manichaeism´s syncretistic character was the result of its world-wide spread, with believers in, say, Egypt being more "Christian", and those in Central Asia becoming more similar to Buddhism. The most well-known (ex)-Manichean is of course Augustine, who later became a famous Church Father.
The Manichean speculations sound both very exotic and strangely familiar at the same time...
Interesting contributions!
Supposedly gentle and compassionate Buddhism (insert story of cute kittens saved by some buddha here) is actually the religion with the worst and most elaborate hell-realms?!
That being said, there are still some mitigating circumstances. For instance, Buddhist hell is temporary, you can be saved from it (kind of), and one bodhisattva even goes to hell voluntarily to ease the sufferings of its denizens!
Still sounds like a better deal than certain "Abrahamic" religions, yes?
Unless you end up in Avici, that is, not mentioned in this clip. According to all-knowing Wiki, the time spent in Avici is 3.4 quintillion years. You can´t say you haven´t been warned, buddha-killer!
“Buddhist Meditation Explained” is a short but very interesting clip addressing various misconceptions about, well, Buddhist meditation.
It turns out that Buddhist meditation isn´t about “emptying the mind” at all (at least not exclusively), but is really a sophisticated form of discursive meditation. One point of the practice is to still the mind by concentrating on one single object (which could be real or visualized) and then use this one-pointedness to explore various Buddhist ideas, such as death or impermanence. Or compassion, for that matter! In this way, Buddhist concepts “comes alive” for the meditator in a deep way. There are also forms of meditation which include chanting, walking around a prayer wheel, and so on.
That meditation as a form of stress relief for business people is modern is obvious, but according to this material, the entire shtick about making your mind go completely blank (often marketed as “vipassana” or “mindfulness”) is really also a new thing (although the terms are old). Note also that Buddhist meditation was usually performed by monks, another part of the context often missed today.
An interesting question not addressed: Where
does this leave nirvana?
Note also the positive comments from Buddhists in the commentary section!
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| Credit: Lil Maya Asian Baby Girl @lil_mayaaa (Twitter) |
Could this be the biggest mistake in human history? A map showing our location to any hungry alien that might be out there...
Let´s hope Juan Posadas was right. The aliens are actually revolutionary socialists, and will therefore only eat the rich!
A funny attack from The Jolly Heretic on Fallacy Man (or is it Trans-Man). You know, the kind of guy who uses statements such as "correlation is not causation" as thought-stoppers. Also explains "the fallacy fallacy".
Note also the following hilarious statement: "They say I live in the cellar of my mother´s house. But my mother´s house doesn´t even have a cellar!".
Exactly.
Vitamin D actually protects you from, you know, disease or something. I mean, who the fuck knew? Obviously, I´m not calling on you to do anything with this information...
Jordan Peterson makes many good points here. On Joe Rogan Show, of course. Maybe Peterson can still save the world somehow!
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