The human predicament? What we think is an angel (or god) is really much lower on the ontological ladder. But still "higher" than us, somehow.
Proclus or something? From the X account The Fourth Way.
Monday, April 29, 2024
Really existing Zen?
Some spiritual paths do seem to be like this. Not sure if that´s good, though...
From the X account The Fourth Way.
SD vid vägskälet?
 |
| AI-genererad bild från Richard Hananias X-konto. Ingen koppling till länkarna! |
Tobias Hübinette och Fria Tider har lite olika tagningar på SD:s senaste utspel, et cetera.
SD bryr sig inte längre om vilka de träffar
Two of each kind
Two very short pieces on “fringe cryptozoology”, one of them about
creationism in cryptozoology. While not wrong, I don´t think it really explains
why young earth creationists (YECs) are often interested in cryptozoology.
It has to do with the literalist reading of the Flood story in Genesis.
If Noah brought two individuals of every animal species (or at least “created
kind”) onto the Ark, this number must have included dinosaurs, pterodactyls, bipedal
apes and other animals usually deemed extinct by modern science. I suppose a
YEC *could* claim that they died out shortly after the Flood, but a more intriguing
possibility is of course that they are still around – hence the interest in
cryptozoology. If animals which modern science claims have been extinct for
millions of years are still around, indeed, if animals from all “geological periods”
in Earth history really live together right under our very noses, then “evolution”
becomes a problematic concept. At least from a YEC perspective.
That being said, I also suspect that the emphasis creationist cryptozoologists put on surviving dinosaurs and pterodactyls isn´t a co-incidence. Dinosaurs are sexy, pardon my French, so obviously an expedition to Africa to find a live mokele-mbembe will get more media attention than, say, trying to prove that ground sloths died out only recently (cuz who cares).
Of course, the “cultic milieu” might also be in play here, but the more fundamentalist the Bible interpretation, the less likely it is that “rejected knowledge claims” will be accepted just because they are unacceptable to the Establishment. They must be sifted through the KJV first. UFOs survive the test if they are deemed demonic. Neo-dinosaurs survive the sifting, too, but what about bipedal hairy monsters that are too human-like? But I suppose they could be fitted in somewhere in a “Biblical” worldview, perhaps as Nephilim…
Vargar och drontar
Lite länkar om hur kriminaliteten breder ut sig i Sverige, och besläktade frågeställningar. En av artiklarna är från 2023. Visste förresten inte att "honungsfällor" kunde vara män, det ordet används väl enbart om kvinnliga lockbeten? Men ordvalet är en petitess i sammanhanget...
"Tjejer har rätt att få veta om dejten är våldtäktsman"
Polisläckorna ett tecken på ökad korruption
Infiltratörerna är ett hot Sverige
Poliskvinna som hjälpte Rawa Majids kusin fick nytt jobb - på Brå
The real Langoliers?
A strange and almost Langolier-like story about a confused German tourist who mistook Bangor for San Francisco. A bit hard to believe, tbh. But then, the small town of Bangor does have an international airport...
Scaring the little girl
Some fun facts (or factoids?) about "The Langoliers".
The behind the scene footage is almost priceless. Yes, most of the mini-series was taped at an actual airport, Bangor International in Maine. You can see the actors and crew surrounded by (perhaps annoyed) airline passengers! The plane used was apparently sold to a Swedish airline at one point, but eventually ended up on a scrap heap in Burma.
The actor starring the crazy Mr Toomy, Bronson Pinchot, was apparently quite the mad hatter IRL, as well. Weirdest of all is that Bangor is Stephen King´s hometown. Never been to Maine but, dude, is it really *that* scary? Even during rush hour?
Raisinette
The word "raisinette" sounds both fake and gay, LOL, but it´s apparently real.
Weirdly, I didn´t realize until now that the raisinette guy in the video of "Neutron Dance" is the same actor as Serge in the actual film, "Bevery Hills Cop". And I´ve seen this stuff since the 1980´s!
However, somewhere in the back of my skull I *did* realize that Mr Raisinette must be the same guy as the insane Toomy in "The Langoliers". I mean, the similarity is striking, not just because it´s the same actor (Bronson Pinchot) but because the respective characters are equally crazy!
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Fear of flying
“The Langoliers” is a two-part horror fiction series based on a novella
by Stephen King. It scares the hell out of some people, but personally I just
found it weird and incomprehensible the first time I saw it decades ago. I
recently watched it again (strangely, it´s available on YouTube for free) and found
it to be extremely dragging, although perhaps a bit more comprehensible. The
only interesting characters are Dinah, Toomy and Nick.
The plot revolves around a group of airline passengers on route to Boston
who wake up mid-flight only to find that everyone else on their plane has
mysteriously disappeared (Rapture-style). After landing in Maine, the group discovers
that everyone else in the world seems to be gone, too. The group somehow
manages to deduce that they have travelled back in time after their airplane
flew through a mysterious light phenomenon. Much of the plot (such as it is)
revolves around the blind girl Dinah, who has telepathic abilities, and the
clinically insane Toomy, who fears a group of demonic beings he calls Langoliers.
Toomy strikes me as an unrealistic character even for a science fiction story! His
karma is remarkably bad, too, since he is eaten by the demons despite not really
being responsible for his mentally ill condition.
There are some philosophically interesting aspects of the story. For
instance, time travel is said to be (almost) impossible, since the past is
devoured by the Langoliers. This atheist and almost nihilist scenario is balanced
by a religious reverence towards the mysterious time rift, which is said to be
the crucible of creation and so forth – in other words, God. Stephen King
presumably got the idea from the Rapture of Dispensationalist fame. That obviously
raises the question what happened to the people who disappeared from the airplane:
did they actually go to Heaven, merge with Brahman, or what?
But, as already indicated, I found “The Langoliers” quite uninspiring. Fun
trivia: when the novella was published, one negative reviewer said that the
story reminded him of a bad television movie! A somewhat ironic prophecy, that
one.
Blame the Demiurge
The memes above are from the X account "Esoteric Philosophy Memes East and West". The best one? The Demiurge meme...
The small text on the third meme can be difficult to make out. It says: "Philosophy is about truth and meaning, not peace of mind. If you want peace of mind try drinking toilet bowl cleaner". The response reads: "This is the most eurocentrist thing I´ve ever heard, try reading eastern philosophies".
Oh, and I never heard the hoofbeat argument before. I mean, if you live in Africa or outside a safariland zoo, surely the hoofbeats could be from zebras? LOL.
Saturday, April 27, 2024
The everpresent prince of Rosh
I already linked to this (last year), but the present political situation seems to have made Ezekiel´s supposed prophecies about Gog, Magog and the prince of Rosh popular again, so here we go again...
Short form: probably not a prophecy by Ezekiel in the first place, the speculations about "Gog and Magog" attacking Israel have little or no resemblance to the geopolitical situation in 2024. "Prince of Rosh" is a mistranslation and has nothing to do with Russia. And nobody knows what on earth "Gog and Magog" refers to anyway, the references being contradictory even in the Bible (not to mention different manuscript traditions).
But sure, there *are* similarities between Biblical prophecies and the general trend of history in the Middle East, but that is easily explained by geopolitics being ever the same. And even that might change in the future due to the climate crisis...
The Tall Whites
Some "alternative history" pieces from Thomas Sheridan´s Substack. Surprisingly moderate for this guy!
Capitalist cocaine
A bizarre meme. But isn´t the coca trade controlled by Latin American leftists? :D
The King and the President
A somewhat strange piece by Irish occultist and chaos magician Thomas Sheridan, arguing that Elvis and Tricky Dick were the true rebels fighting The Man.
Greta Thunberg contra universum?
No idea what the Latin should be, but I was thinking of the expression "Athanasius contra mundum". It seems Greta isn´t just fighting the whole world, no, she is up against THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.
The clip above features a message from "Kryon", presumably one of the Space Brothers who channel teachings through the human brother speaking. Kryon says that we will be faced with a new Ice Age instead, and that we must therefore develop free energy through gravity and magnetism to heat our homes in the near future.
Regardless of what you may stand on these issues, I find it weird that people in the commentary section uncritically accept Kryon´s messages as authentic. It´s not even a good channeler. He just closes his eyes when pretending to be the alien, speaking with an entirely normal human voice?! Ahem, shouldn´t he at least go into a trance or something...
Maybe next week Kryon could weigh in on the war in Gaza, I mean why the heck not.
Our alien overlords
I never heard of Charles Hall before. If I understand the Why Files correctly, Hall wrote a string of science fiction novels about 20 years ago. Later, he claimed they were all true. Hall started promoted himself as a "contactee" at various UFO-themed conferences.
It´s an intriguing story about how Hall befriended three Tall Whites, as the aliens are called. The alien race has a secret and sinister deal with the US federal government and military, but the Tall White family who interacted with Hall seemed friendly enough, adding another strange twist to the already strange UFO saga.
Note that the Tall White female is called "The Teacher". Hall´s story (at least as retold by AJ) comes across as a strange mix of the benign Theosophical contactee stories of the 1950´s and 1960´s, and the more malign conspiracy theories which became more prominent later.
Most sensationally, there seems to be *some* kind of evidence for parts of Hall´s story, since Google Earth enthusiasts did find strange UFO-shaped objects at exactly the locations they were supposed to be...deep in the Nevadan desert. Or perhaps not so sensationally, since one of Hall´s claims is that the military is manufacturing UFO-like objects according to Tall White specifications. But if so, a more natural explanation is that the military is solely responsible. The aliens are a myth.
The UFOs mentioned by Hall are supposedly similar to the TicToc UFO in one of the sensational disclosure videos, a video which wasn´t released until after Hall´s books were published. But...it could still be a purely man-made object without alien input. What if the military got the idea for a disinfo campaign from reading Hall´s books?
Questions, questions...
Ignorance is strength
Ministry of Truth commissioner explains...something. Or something else. Word salad with totalitarian implications? Or just world salad?
This woman used to be the CEO of Wikipedia, and is now the CEO of the NPR.
Viral just now.
Latinx neo-dinosaurs?
| Real neo-dinosaurs from the Amazon |
Some mystifications. Neo-dinosaurs in Latin America?
Cajones
Somewhat surprisingly, the Xwitter troll Richard Hanania actually says some interesting things in this article on why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is unlikely (albeit not impossible).
Too gay to rebel?
As usual, it´s difficult to know whether this guy is merely trolling, or if there is something serious beneath it all. And how does he explain the pro-Hamas Muslim students? Are they also "gay"?
Friday, April 26, 2024
Gottes Wille
The article linked below is from 2005, but was recently referenced on X. Apparently, Tucker Carlson said something positive about the Amish on Joe Rogan Show recently, and now the knives are out...
From the article:
>>>But their children have medical conditions so rare, doctors don't have names for them yet, reports correspondent Vicki Mabrey. The Amish make up only about 10 percent of the population in Geagua County in Ohio, but they're half of the special needs cases. Three of the five Miller children, for example, have a mysterious crippling disease that has no name and no known cure.
>>>The three Byler sisters were all born with a condition that has no cure and mysteriously leads to severe mental retardation and a host of physical problems. Last year, doctors figured out the girls have the gene for something called Cohen Syndrome; there are only 100 known cases worldwide. Since then, more than a dozen other cases of Cohen's have been discovered in Ohio Amish country.
>>>But for so many years, the Amish have had no names for these disorders. It was simply a mystery why half the headstones in Amish cemeteries were headstones of children.
Comrades, listen to the FBI
FBI fears that White supremacists may team up with Islamist terrorists. Is this the way to make the left anti-Islamist? They already hate Andrew Tate, so who knows!
Xwitter
I´ve been locked out of X for a couple of months (my fault), but I recently managed to log in again and guess what guyz...nothing much have changed.
The big things this week is the Ukraine aid package and Joe Rogan´s interview with Tucker Carlson, with the latter saying some really crazy shit about UFOs, creationism and the Amish.
But who knows, maybe Tucker is right about the UFOs!
It´s OK to say gay
Stephen Miller was one of Donald Trump´s most extreme appointees, so I somehow doubt that he is pro-gay. Yet, he can´t help using the gay/lesbian issue in a recent statement on transgenderism.
Miller makes the point that transgender ideology actually targets gays and lesbians (and their powerful lobby groups) in favor of a myriad of entirely new and arbitrary "identities", which will then be "administered" (and defined?) by the federal government apparatus.
He isn´t entirely wrong. Lesbians have long felt targeted by the transgender ideology. How long before gays will be the next group? Unless they embrace the new Social Justice (?!) gospel, of course...
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Where is the teleology?
| Synapsids born to rule? |
Previously posted on April 11, 2023. Reposted here a propos a recent ironic post about "non-avian" dinosaurs...
Synapsids were the dominant land animals during the Permian, only to be replaced by the sauropsids during the Mesozoic. Then, after an unfortunate meteorite impact, synapsids became dominant again.
Humans are synapsids. So are all other mammals (of course) and various groups considered ancestral to mammals, or closely related to them. Reptiles and birds are sauropsids.
In other words, synapsids and sauropsids have alternated as the dominant land animals for the past 300 million years or so.
So where is the teleology? Asking for a friend named Ashtar Command.
Have no fear, earthlings
A propos the doomeritis surrounding the green full moon. Have no fear, earthlings, it´s just the Buddha´s enlightenment day!
Mean Green...Moon
This was presumably posted back in 2016, but a similar rumor was spread just the other day or so! Compare blood moon, rare blue supermoon, and whatever whenever.
Hangover after the solar eclipse, guys?
Alyoshenka
This Russian story (or perhaps tall tale) is fascinating for one reason: the way it´s open to several completely different interpretations, each one just as "logical" as the others.
The Japanese film team - clearly inspired by US and Latin American UFO-alien lore - expected the strange "Alyoshenka" creature to be an extraterrestrial entity of some kind. The local population, on the other hand, connected it to folklore about "the Little People", presumably trolls or fairies.
The narrator, finally, claims that it must have been a mutant fetus badly damaged by radioactivity. Not impossible, to be sure, but also a kind of modern folklore where every strange birth defect can be attributed to the "mysterious" forces of nuclear power or ditto explosions...
The third time as burlesque
After Queers for Palestine, we now have Drag Queens for Palestine. We´re being burlesqued in real time. But sure, the left and the feminists (and perhaps even the Muslims) are being burlesqued even more!
Tartan Muslims?
| Picts on the march towards the Wall. Hate speech? |
It´s not going very well for the Scottish National (!) Party and its Muslim (?) First Minister...
Scotland: Less than 1% hate speech reports deemed legitimate
Första månaden i NATO
Har vi verkligen inte viktigare problem? Men okej, den hamitiske debattören verkar vara assimilerad. Av woke-vänstern...
Observera sammanhanget: ingen kallade honom "neger". Han reagerar på att ordet uttalas *under en debatt om själva ordet*. Och Aftonbladet försvarar honom...
Debattören lämnade efter n-ordet: "Flashback-liknande"
Det var hennes jobb att säga ifrån mot n-ordet
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
HA HA HA
This is only a preview, but it seems the biggest controversialist on YouTube, crankster-prankster Edward Dutton, had to disable the commentary function on this one!
For a moment, I thought he was losing his sting, but apparently not.
Ascension to INNER Earth
Peter Mount Shasta (Peter Mt. Shasta) is not only a spiritual teacher in
the I AM tradition actually living in the town of Mount Shasta, California. He
is also a UFO contactee. I previously linked to a video in which he claimed to
have met Semjasse (as he spells her name), the alien female from the Pleiades mostly
associated with Billy Meier.
In this interview, Peter continues his story. If I read him right, Semjasse
took him on a tour through the Hollow Earth by an entrance at the North Pole.
Admiral Byrd is explicitly mentioned. There is an apocalyptic undertone in the
interview, Peter claiming to have heard a prophecy by Ascended Master Saint
Germain that cataclysmic events will make it necessary to evacuate the Earth
surface. However, the chosen ones will not be beamed up to spaceships, but
rather taken to the interior of the planet, which is paradise-like, these
conditions being the result of the Inner Earth vibrating on a higher frequency.
One intriguing feature of Peter Mount Shasta´s message is that it sounds
less negative than similar channeled messages about an impending “world
evacuation”. Everyone is called upon to meditate and cleanse their karma,
forgive their enemies, and in general spread compassion and light around. By
thus avoiding negative energy, more people can perhaps be saved from the
destruction at the last moment.
In the second clip, Peter shows pictures of the UFO-shaped clouds around
Mount Shasta (the actual mountain), claims that the aliens created us, and discusses
the recent “disclosure” in Washington DC.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Ufological Euhemerism
“`Ancient Astronaut´ Narrations: A Popular Discourse on Our Religious
Past” is an article by Andreas Grünschloss, first published in the Marburg
Journal of Religion in 2006 (vol 11, no 1). The article does contain some interesting
information on Erich von Däniken and the Ancient Astronaut milieu, although I
suppose it´s possible that aficionados (or critics) of said milieu knows
everything already! The main thesis of the article is familiar to me, however.
The author points out the seemingly paradoxical fact that while the ancient
astronaut “theory” could be seen as a “broken myth”, in the sense that it
de-enchants and explains the mysteries of the past in terms of modern
technology and humanoid space-farers, it has also re-enchanted the very same
past and made it mysterious again. The “discovery” that humanity´s gods are
really alien astronauts is turned around, making the aliens the new gods!
Däniken´s supporters organized themselves in the Ancient Astronaut Society
(AAS). I´ve heard somewhere that AAS later developed in a New Age direction. This
is not confirmed by Grünschloss, who claims the exact opposite. In order to
sound more “scientific” and respectable, the AAS changed its name to Archeology,
Astronautics and SETI Research Association (AAS RA). The author doesn´t seem to
have noticed that Ra is also the Egyptian sun-god, so perhaps there is a pun in
there. The membership of the AAS back in 2006 was surprisingly small: only
about 800 members worldwide, of which about 600 were from German-speaking
nations in Europe. However, the influence of ancient astronaut “theory” must
have been far wider, since Däniken had managed to open a theme park in
Interlaken in Switzerland dedicated to his ideas (the town is a popular tourist
destination). Add to that various popular Hollywood films. Today, there is also
the popular TV series “Ancient Aliens”.
One thing I wasn´t aware of is that Charles Hoy Fort wrote about UFOs
decades before the term was coined and the phenomenon “really” born. He also
speculated about alien visitations in the past, and wrote that humans might be
somebody else´s “property”. Däniken is of course well aware of Fort, and also
borrowed extensively from a French archeo-astronaut writer named Charroux.
Grünschloss believes that one can discern clear similarities between the books of
Däniken and the two aforementioned writers.
The AAS tries to put themselves forward as scientific, as a kind of
Paleo-SETI. Needless to say, the article author isn´t terribly impressed by
their “research”. Däniken and his associates simply repeat, over and over
again, all the old claims from the 1960´s and 1970´s, including those that have
been convincingly debunked (like the Mayan “astronaut” from Palenque). I also
get the impression that Däniken is strongly down-playing the more “esoteric”
side of his speculations, which include a belief in extrasensory perception and
an interest in Theosophy. Instead, he says that “everything is technology”. The
AAS, while criticizing establishment science for policing its boundaries against
the likes of AAS, engage in boundary policing themselves. The group strongly
condemns “UFO cults”. The author also wonders why the only aspect of modernity
projected onto the ancient aliens is technology. Why not something else? I
assume he has in mind such things as politics or social relations. What attracts
followers to speculations about ancient aliens is precisely their simplicity,
alongside a longing for the exotic and mysterious. Opposition to establishment
science is (of course) also a strong driving motive.
The author then briefly discusses the bizarre Raëlian religion as an
example of the esoteric-religious tendency within ancient astronaut discourse. What
makes the Raëlians to peculiar is precisely that they are nominally “atheist” and
“materialist”, deconstructing the ancient gods as humanoid space aliens, while
nevertheless being a new religion worshipping said aliens. The author ends on a
somewhat pessimistic note, arguing that it´s difficult to convince adherents of
ancient astronaut “theory” with purely rational arguments. Ancient alien
conspiracies will always be more exciting and easier to understand than
traditional religion or the complex theories of science. The continued
proliferation of this narrative has proven the author correct.
El Bandido Generoso
An interesting YouTube clip about Jesús Malverde, the supposed "narco saint" of Mexico. His real history (or mythology) turns out to be more complex. As usual!
Non-avian kind
They were big, they were bad, they were the dominant life form on land for 134 million years...and now they´re gone. In fact, they´ve been gone for 66 million years.
But we can beat them to it, right? Right.
The problematic problematique
Breitbart News are trolling the Greens. They are not wrong, though. Opposition to mass immigration (and overpopulation) used to be a thing in the environmentalist movement. At least in the United States.
Monday, April 22, 2024
Anti-Krists mirakler
En mycket bisarr sekt i USA och Latinamerika. Något slags framgångsteologi, fast med väldigt egenartade och delvis självdestruktiva drag.
Inför offensiven
Ryssland planerar en sommaroffensiv i Ukraina. Under tiden i NATO-landet Sverige...
Perpetuum mobile
The first time I heard about the above conspiracy theory (?) was during the 1980´s, when I listened to a Hare Krishna broadcast at the public access channel.
I´m skeptical, since the US military-industrial complex surely would want a source of free energy to beat the Russians or Chinese...
Make of this material what ye wish.
Time out of joint
Not sure what this even means. If light would be conscious, it would experience a 100 billion year-journey throughout the universe as happening in one instant? But the journey would *still* take 100 billion years.
I think...
Now, apply the above to God, a being OUTSIDE time and space.
Das Kleinod von Babylon
“The Occult Roots of Religious Studies”, edited by Yves Mühlematter and
Helmut Zander, is a scholarly volume published in 2021. It´s interesting, to be
sure, but the title is (frankly) click bait. (The subtitle is more correct: “Influence
of Non-Hegemonic Currents in Academia around 1900”.) The contributors don´t
really prove that religious studies have occult roots, and frankly don´t even
try. I get the impression of a comfy scholarly conference where everyone made a
presentation on their favorite obscure topic, had a quick snack in the bar, and
then went home to Paris, Heidelberg, or wherever these people have their
domicile! What the book proves is simply that many scholars of religion had “non-hegemonic”
side interests. In plain English: they actually believed in Spiritualism,
occultism, and the like. But that´s hardly news today. A more edgy volume
(which will have to wait another 50 years) would detail which scholars *today*
have religious connections and how that influences their academic research
(Tibetology cough cough). It´s also somewhat weird that the two biggest fish in
the occult/religious studies interface pond are hardly even mentioned. Yes,
that would be Carl Gustav Jung and Mircea Eliade. Oh, and what about Henry
Corbin?
But sure, “The Occult Roots of Religious Studies” isn´t bad, if you take
it in the right spirit (pun intended). The chapter on Britain shows that both
the Victorian and Edwardian periods were steeped in occultism, indeed,
occultism (at least in the broad sense) was near-respectable. Even after the
separation of science and “superstition”, many scientists were interested in
Theosophy and Spiritualism on a purely personal level. So nah, Alfred Russell
Wallace wasn´t unique. Chances are *Darwin* was! One thing that surprised me
was that some Theosophists were members of the SPR even *after* the latter´s
conflict with Madame Blavatsky. And SPR´s social base was near-upper class! The
scientist Sir William Crookes, inventor of the TV tube and discoverer of
Thallium, was a President of the SPR, a former President of the Royal Society
and…a member of the Theosophical Society. He is even mentioned in the Mahatma
Letters! It was also interesting to note that US philosopher William James was more
into Spiritualism than I had expected, and that he was the son of a
Swedenborgian minister…
One interesting chapter deals with John Woodroffe alias Arthur Avalon. Or
perhaps not, since “Arthur Avalon” was really a collective pseudonym,
encompassing both Woodroffe and a number of Bengali intellectuals. I never read
Avalon´s works (an unfortunate lacuna, I know), but we´re apparently talking about
a very late “reform” Tantra, paradoxically proposed to save India and Hinduism
from modernity, while simultaneously claiming to be “scientific”. And speaking
of India: one contribution deals with W Y Evans-Wentz, the man behind “The
Tibetan Book of the Dead” and a lifelong Theosophist, who never left his occult
ideas very far behind. He even saw evidence of reincarnation and other Theosophical
doctrines in Celtic fairy lore!
The most intriguing section isn´t even about a scholar of religious
studies sensu stricto: the famous German archeologist Walter Andrae. It turns
out that his Babylonian exhibition at the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin (the one
featuring the Ishtar Gate) is inspired by Anthroposophy! Apparently, Andrae
both arranged and interpreted the exhibition according to doctrines he picked
up from the Christian Community, the Anthroposophical “Church” founded by
Friedrich Rittelmeyer under the inspiration of Rudolf Steiner. Apparently, it´s
supposed to resemble an initiatory path. This also explains a weird anomaly in
the exhibition: its two sphinxes aren´t Babylonian but Hittite. Yet, Andrae
assumed that there simply must have been sphinxes present based on some hard-to-understand
Anthroposophical doctrine. Indeed, Andrae believed that the Babylonians were
carrying out a ritual created by a certain Zaratos, an earlier incarnation of
Zarathustra, and the spiritual teacher of Nebuchadnezzar II. There are also
speculations that the exhibition halls were painted according to
Anthroposophical principles, Steiner having a complex theory of color supposedly
derived from Goethe. While this is all very interesting, what conclusions are
we supposed to draw from it? For instance, why did Andrae get away with it? Was
it *only* because of his elevated position at an important institution, or did his
take on ancient Babylon speak to some more widespread Zeitgeist?
The introduction to the volume does make some points worth pondering. For
instance, it asks whether esotericism or occultism is really “non-hegemonic” to
begin with? If a worldview is widely shared and discussed in elite society,
isn´t it really hegemonic? Further, the introduction points out that the nouns “occultism”
and “esotericism” are modern inventions and become common during the late 19th
century. Why? What made it necessary to distinguish occultism/esotericism from
everything else during that period? Many of the ideas co-existing under those
headers are, after all, much older. Protestant theologians apparently started
denouncing esoteric ideas much earlier than Catholics. It struck me that this
may explain why many esoteric groups are drawn to Catholicism and even end up
creating a kind of pseudo-Catholicism themselves. Conversely, there doesn´t
seem to be any esoteric groups obviously drawn to Protestantism, albeit more
Protestants than we imagine may have been influenced by “heretical” esoteric
ideas.
With that observation, I close this little discussion.
Sunday, April 21, 2024
If only Ukraine was in Judea...
On a day like this, I feel nothing but contempt for the likes of Breibart News, who oppose aid to Ukraine but support Israel 110%. I support both. What Breitbart think they are doing is less clear. I assume that they are trying to cater both to Old Testament-thumping Evangelo-Cons and isolationist Paleo-Cons at the same time. As I said, contemptible.
Betrayal complete: Mike Johnson passes 61 billion dollar Ukraine aid
But 61 billion dollars for Israel is OK, right?
Democrat Gerry Connolly: "Ukrainian-Russian border is our border"
But the Israeli borders actually are our borders.
Democrats wave Ukraine flag on House floor
The Republicans should wave the Israeli flag instead!
Ukraine´s Zelensky personally thanks Mike Johnson for 61 billion dollar gift from US taxpayers
But I´m sure if Netanyahu personally thanked Johnson for any handouts of taxpayer money, that would be OK?
Saturday, April 20, 2024
WE CONTROL EVERYTHING
| - Welcome, seeker, let me teach you comparative religion! |
Two quotes from the introduction to "The Occult Roots of Religious Studies" (2021), edited by Yves Mühlematter and Helmut Zander. The entire book seems to be available free at Academia.edu, so I might read all of it when I get the time. Another contribution to the genre "everyone was really an occultist", apparently. Bingo!
>>>For example, the anthroposophical milieu has not been researched sufficiently. One could think of the anthroposophist Uno Donner, a Finnish industrialist, who donated a chair for religious and cultural history to the University of Turku/Åbo and and also donated/held one of the largest book collections on religion in Northern Europe.
>>>Another would be the German Diether Lauenstein, priest of the Christian Community, who learned Sanskrit from the Marburg indologist Johannes Nobel, habilitated (presumably) in 1944 at the University of Greifswald, where he subsequently received a teaching assignment for Indo-European Studies and Sanskrit. He was involved in the founding of the Herdecke community hospital (a nucleus of the University of Witten-Herdecke) and died as a supporter of apartheid in South West Africa (modern-day Namibia). We thank Robin Schmidt for the clues.
(...)
>>>However, this problem is not specific to representatives of the cultural sciences; rather, these blurred boundaries can also and especially be found in the “hard” natural sciences, where an even clearer distinction between science and pseudo-science, or religious studies, is often assumed.
>>>Such examples include Marie Curie, who not only stood in the laboratory, but also attended spiritual seances, or Albert Einstein, who was not only a theorist in the field of physics, but also read Blavatsky and attended lectures by Rudolf Steiner.
>>>Georg Cantor, the inventor of set theory in mathematics, who was interested in both Catholic theories of infinity and the existence of the “true” Rosicrucians, may be added to this group, along with the mathematician Jan Arnoldus Schouten, the explorer of differential geometry, who was also interested in Theosophy, or Thomas Alva Edison, who not only invented the light bulb and the two-way telegraph, but was also a temporary member of Theosophical Society Adyar (partly for economic reasons, e.g. to better sell his products in India?).
>>>The separation between the humanities and the natural sciences, which was established in university practice – though always criticised in theory of science – never disappeared on an individual level.
Being awkward
These guys talk too much, and this isn´t *the* most exciting content around, but if you can spare 45 minutes or so - and are obsessed with all things JW-related - I suppose it could be of some passing interest.
Michael Jackson was a former Jehovah´s Witness, and the first clip deals with his first Christmas at Neverland c/o Liz Taylor. The second clip comments a line in song by Taylor Swift, attacking the old fashioned dressing style of the JW´s.
Enjoy!
Bush & Brianna
Anti-Gamergate hero(ine) Brianna Wu seems to have been disavowed by the left.
The main reason is presumably her support for Israel against Hamas, but perhaps there are deeper disagreements in the background.
In the unlikely case that you like flame wars that will be forgotten next year...
Internationellt vatten
Svaret ingen vill höra
Tänk om det finns ett svar, men ett svar ingen vill höra? Skribenten verkar i vart fall inte ha några alls. Anmärkningsvärd kulturkrönika i Aftonbladet.
IQ
Ingvar Persson har ju alltid varit en härligt senildement ledarskribent, men nu har han nog överträffat sig själv. Såvida inte detta är något slags väldigt svårbegriplig ironi...
Från Aftonbladet. Om sanningen ska fram.
Friday, April 19, 2024
The biggest secret
Overheard on the web: Mahayana is a death cult disguised as a life cult, Vajrayana is a life cult disguised as a death cult!
Amazingly high
This must be the craziest druggie on YouTube, a guy who calls himself "The Amazing Atheist". His arguments are the usual ones, but his way of putting them forward...LOL. And yes, he has almost one million followers?!
Only in America
The latest conservative moral panic, or the most recent outburst of Woke nihilism? Or just an April Fool´s joke that came a bit too late?
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Fairy aliens
Staffan Stigsjöö´s book “Tefatsfolket – vänner eller fiender?” contains
a number of UFO experiences that predates Kenneth Arnold´s famous observation in
1947. Two of the more interesting are Finnish.
In 1942, a schoolgirl in Finland had what can only be described as an abduction
experience. She encountered a female human-looking alien who led her inside a
strange “machine”. A boy had already been involuntarily taken onboard the
craft. He was hysterically screaming throughout the experience, while the girl
felt completely safe. The female alien told her that it´s important to believe
in Jesus, that his word is true, and that the human soul is eternal. So is the
universe. The alien apparently had maps on her table. After the experience, the
girl felt sick, couldn´t eat, went blind and was hospitalized, where the
doctors couldn´t find anything wrong with her. She was at the hospital for a
month and stayed home from school the entire semester. For a year afterwards,
she felt intense fear every time she approached the location of the “machine”.
The boy went mad and ended up in a mental asylum.
Another account deals with an event in 1939. It took place in Ingermanland
(Ingria), an area in the Soviet Union which at the time had a large Finnish
population. Two kids, aged three and four, were out walking in the forest and got
lost. They then observed a white “hat-shaped” object that hovered above ground.
A man dressed in a white outfit approached and told them that their parents
would soon find them. When the parents approached, the mysterious man withdrew
to the flying hat, which then disappeared. One of the witnesses later said that
she had interpreted the man as a guardian angel, but as an adult realized that
it must have been “a real person”.
Both these pre-1947 encounters were presumably reported to ufologists
after 1947, so one cannot rule out that they have been colored by the
post-Arnold UFO/alien hype. They are still fascinating, since they sound like
hybrids of modern UFO lore and pre-UFO folklore. The Finnish report has traits
of a fairy encounter, while the Ingrian report does sound like a meeting with an
angel. Which just shows us that we´re dealing with an evolving cultural phenomenon.
Fairy lore and folkish Christianity morphs into “alien abductions” and “UFO
observations”.
Unless it´s fairy glamour.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)