AI imagines Christian Rosenkreutz searching for esoteric knowledge in the Middle East...
Monday, September 16, 2024
God´s word unmasked?
A weird Afro-centrist-type video from YouTube, trying to solve one of the more original Bible contradictions: if everyone except Noah´s family and the animals on the ark were killed in the Flood, how could the Nephilim have survived? After all, the Bible mentions giants in post-Flood narratives, for instance Goliath or the Anakim. So where did they come from?
The narrator reaches the conclusion that one of Ham´s wives must have been part-Nephilim, and off we go into la-la land. Note also the bizarre theological consequences. If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, how come he didn´t spot the fact that one of the women onboard the ark was carrying the Nephilim genes? According to the narrator, the point of the Flood was precisely to expurge the Nephilim and all humans carrying their genes!
So God the Nephilim-slayer had to start all over again, this time commanding the Israelites to genocide the Canaanites, which in this scenario were carriers of the contaminated DNA. And as we all know, that didn´t work either...a lot of Canaanites in later chapters...
And yeah, it´s a bit peculiar that almost everyone is depicted as Black, including the fallen angels! Also, the headlines on this particular channel are *extreme* click-bait. Unless we´re dealing with an actual heresy. OK, maybe I will watch a few more of these clips!
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Typology
Solomon inherited the kingdom from the "Messianic" figure David. All Gentile nations of the Earth participated in the building of Solomon´s Temple. But then, the king became overbearing, lusted after foreign flesh, dabbled in pagan worship, and demanded 666 golden talents in tax.
So after his death, the kingdom split and the northern tribes created their own polity, even setting up their own cultic places of worship.
It just struck me that this sounds...vaguely familiar. Isn´t this actually the story of the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation?!
Nothing is new under the sun. As Solomon himself would no doubt put it.
Frihet att svälta
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| Glada EU-byråkrater uppmanar arbetarklassen att äta pizza istället |
EU är uppenbarligen inte "marxister", verkar det som...
Insurance fraud
.jpg) |
| Credit: Tim Kennedy |
Trump´s assassination insurance doesn´t seem to be working. Maybe he should demand a refund?
The wisdom of Solomon
Lifting the Lamp explains the basics of Solomonic magic. I assumed stuff like this was supposed to be secret?
The system apparently includes both instructions to contact demons, ambivalent spirits and good angels. Hmmm...so how do we *know* that the angels are really the good guys?
Most funny detail: the containers used to trap the demons and force them to do the magician´s bidding! You can see one in the thumbnail above.
Not exactly my path, but still quite interesting...
Golden entryism
The Golden One, who used to be an Alt Right/far right posterboy during the wild 2010´s, changes his tack and calls for deep entryism in established political parties. Not sure why I even link to this, but there you go...
The path of the lion
The mysterious personage who goes by the moniker Consciousness Research Center (OK, I know who he is, so you don´t have to tell me) discusses various more or less mystical or esoteric topics in this short video. It seems Gnowly (as I call him) is temporarily back in the form-world, discussing the "lower" version of the Path of the Sun, which leads to the Pure Creation, where the realized devotees spend an eternity with various god-beings. Not sure why anyone would want to merge with the formless Brahman under such conditions?!
Gnowly also mentions his ishta-devata, which seems to be Narasimhi, the female and highly secret counterpart of Narasimha, the Man-Lion avatar of Vishnu. Except that in this version, Narasimha/Narasimhi is seen as an avatar of Shiva, instead.
Brahman becomes many to realize *himself* in and through his creation, but if so - again - why would anyone want to merge with his unrealized formlessness? Is there some secret we´re not being told here, Mr Gnowly? Especially since the highest form of bhakti is said to be "conjugal love" with a god-form...
With those somewhat esoterick reflections, I end this little blog post.
Thanks for noticing
The Pope (you know, Francis) recently said that all religions are paths to God. Thanx for noticing, dude!
Friday, September 13, 2024
Lies, damned lies and translations
An almost one-hour lecture on Bible translations. I kind of knew most of it before, but still...geezus, can´t translators just stop lying? Or creatively theologize. Note the irony that the Bible translation commissioned by Pius XII, the NAB, is one of the better ones?! Wtf....
But then, I heard that before, too. :D
Thursday, September 12, 2024
Revelation on the road to Emmaus
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| Credit: Studio Harcourt Paris |
There is none righteous under heaven...not a single one....
French priest accused of sexual abuse 17 years after his death
New abuse allegations emerge against once-revered French priest
No connection
Two videos about Orthodoxy from a Catholic YouTube channel. The first is about Andrew Tate, who apparently created some stir when he participated in the Eastern Orthodox Easter celebration earlier this year (Tate claims to be a convert to Islam). Not sure why *anyone* would claim Tate, tbh, but there you go.
The second clip deals with an ongoing organizational schism within Eastern Orthodoxy, with the Russian Orthodox Church breaking communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. It seems the Russian Church is trying to take over African parishes sorting under the (Eastern Orthodox) Patriarchate of Alexandria, which is still in communion with "Constantinople", essentially creating a parallel structure to the "official" ones.
Make of this what you wish.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
You don´t say
Actual news item at YouTube c/o The Telegraph: "Moscow has warned the United States it will destroy any long-range missiles that are fired into Russia as Washington mulls changing restrictions on the use of the weapons by Ukraine".
No? Are you sure?! Are you *seriously* telling me that the Rooskees will *shoot down missiles targeting their territory*???
Wow. But then, the EU were visibly surprised when Russia took counter-measures when their oil exports were "sanctioned", so maybe some idiot really needs to hear this message...
Goddess is psycho, too
This guy´s midnight rant is even more "far out" than mine! Left Hand Path Tantrism at its bizarre worst. Think Kali, Tara, orgies, blood sacrifice, suffering and death.
The relevant section is (more or less) at timestamps 01:21:20 - 01:46:00.
Demons? A Satanic cope? I´m almost tempted to become a Christian after this...
"Alla vet att hon är marxist"
Har inte orkat kolla på debatten mellan Trump och Harris, men den roligaste repliken verkar ha varit när Trump sade "alla vet att hon är marxist". Eh?
Antagligen p.g.a. ett utspel från Harris om prisstopp. Richard Nixons osalige ande harklar sig besvärat...
Socialfascism?
Svårt att dubbelkolla, eftersom källan är Fria Tider...
Tyskland stänger gränsen för invandring
Tyskland vill fredsförhandla med Ryssland
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
The cat killed curiosity
Come and meet Larry, the cat-scholar who killed science. And replaced peer review with, I don´t know, purr review? But it´s not really funny. As some of us already know. The second clip is Sabine´s diss of a trash paper in a non-purr reviewed on-line journal.
The compassionate exorcist
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| - Go away, or I´ll call a Hindu exorcist next time! |
From Quora, a contributor named Parama Devi writes this in response to a question about Hindu exorcism.
>>>
The concept of exorcism that is found in abrahamic cultures is drastically different from the Vedic-hindu perspective.
In Hinduism we know that people “possessed” by hostile spirits are troubled by “hungry ghosts” who are stuck between dimensions and unable to enter the dynamic of reincarnation, due to some serious karmic problem. Therefore they are LESS POWERFUL than a human being and try to suck the energy of the human and use his/her body to perform actions it would not be able to do otherwise.
Hinduism offers the solution to APPEASE (tarpana) the poor confused and suffering soul by elevating its level of consciousness, presenting sacred water (usually from Ganga), sanctified food (pinda, etc), and reciting glorification of divine Personalities of Godhead, from Puranas etc. It is not an act of war, but an act of compassion comparable to the recently developed “secular” concept of “ghost whisperer”.
In Hindu tradition there are rituals to oppose demonic forces, but they are fundamentally different, because they do not involve a “possessed” human.
Such demonic forces are not interested in possessing the body of a poor human being, as these demonic beings are by nature much more powerful than mere human beings. For them, trying to possess the body of a puny human would be like an eagle trying to ride a bicycle to move around - it would just make no sense.
I believe that the “evil spirit” in “demonic possession” cases among abrahamics are actually very angry (not just hungry) ghosts of deceased abrahamic believers, who after death have discovered that they had been very wrong in their behavior and choices during their previous life, and become frustrated, full of hatred and malice, and try to take revenge in whatever manner they can. This explains why they have reactions against abrahamic religious symbols, that HAVE NO MEANING TO NON-ABRAHAMICS (including non-abrahamic ghosts).
>>>
God is psycho
Trust me, bro. Everything always turns out for the best in the best of all possible worlds! Enough of Internet for one night?
Midnight rant
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| - Yeah, I´m real bro. What about it? |
Can we *not* be direct realists? Isn´t indirect realism really self-refuting?
For instance, how does the indirect realist *know* that the sky isn´t blue?
Presumably, because he is a direct realist about the wavelengths of light, the
existence of brains, the latest advances in color-theory, and what not. Or is
it indirect realism all the way down? But if so, how can we be sure of anything?
If we can never know the thing in itself, we can´t even know that it´s real.
But anti-realism doesn´t really work either. The anti-realist either becomes a postmodernist,
and that way, madness lays. Or he has to become a direct realist about the
phenomena in the mind of God.
Isn´t indirect realism or anti-realism really a kind of weird
anthropocentrism turned inside out? A certain kind of direct realists want to
believe that humans can know everything, while the opposite position is that we
can´t know anything – but that still makes us *special* somehow, the only
creature that doesn´t really belong here. Maybe the truth is too hard to bear:
that we can know absolutely that we cannot know absolutely…except a few things
that are truly terrifying in their absoluteness. For instance, that humans
won´t exist forever, and that we´ll never leave this rock…
Monday, September 9, 2024
Whatever
So Mario Draghi´s recent report on EU competitiveness wants to centralize the union and invest heavily in the defense industries, the green transition and digitalization (including AI), all financed by massive debt.
Oh. Or LOL? It´s as if the worst ideas of the right met the worst ideas of the left.
Why is Europe *really* lagging behind the US and China? Here´s an idea: there is no "Green transition" in the United States and the PRC. And until recently, the "Green transition" in Europe was compensated for by cheap Russian oil and gas. Or maybe more expensive nuclear. That´s no longer the case, so here we are.
So the only way to really get economic growth would be a brownlash extraordinaire. So I suppose we have to choose: saving the planet (forever) or saving Europe (for now).
I suppose those defense industries might come in handy, though.
Knapphetens rike
Man undrar onekligen vilken den tilltänkta målgruppen är för artiklar som denna? Och vad medicinen beträffar, så verkar ju lösningen på problemet vara ganska enkel: producera mera!
Eller minska halten av ämnen i maten som gör folk överviktiga. Genom regleringar. Vilket Fria Tider är mot. Cuz marknadsliberalism.
Sunday, September 8, 2024
I also remember Dolores Cannon
But...
After listening to Doreen Virtue´s almost one hour long Christian fundamentalist denunciation of poor Dolores (pun intended), I *almost* got some kind of sympathy for the old mama. Strictly speaking, only the first half of the video is about Cannon (apparently, she was a friend of Virtue during the latter´s New Age period). The second half is an extended sectarian pitch for the particular brand of Christianity Virtue believes in now. Her sidekick is even more strident and sounds borderline crazy.
I agree that Cannon preached a "false Christ", but if Virtue & Co channels the real one, I probably don´t want to get involved!
In leopard country
"The Leopard Rocks" is a documentary about leopards living in the Aravalli mountains of Rajasthan in northwestern India. I´m not an expert on leopards, but apparently the big cats in this particular region are unusually gregarious. They live in caves in the hills and supposedly never attack the humans in the area.
The documentary tries to paint a picture of primitive shephards living in balance with Nature, but this is obviously a truth with some modification. The area is advanced enough to have a large dam providing water during the dry season, the lack of suitable prey animals for the leopards suggests human impact on the surrounding environment, and when leopards sneak into the villages to abduct and kill farm animals, the local business community pays the poor farmers money in compensation so they won´t hunt the leopards. Why? Because of tourism, that´s why.
The balance around the Leopard Rocks seem very precarious.
Other highlights include Hanuman langurs (yes, they really do live around a temple on one of the rocks), the striped hyena (they, too, are gregarious in this particular region), the mongoose, peacocks, parakeets and antelopes. Frankly, the langurs and the temples were more interesting than the big cats, but that´s me!
End of reflections.
He´s got the swagger, yo
An interesting new poll gives Trump a one point (or two points) lead over Harris. The full breakdown is the most interesting part of the poll (see first link). Note that 14% of Black respondents support Trump?! Yet, the most obvious polarization is between White and Black voters.
The "typical" Trump voter seems to be an elderly White male registered Republican in a rural setting without a college degree. Harris is in the lead among both college graduates, women, non-White ethnics, urban voters, the youth and (obviously) registered Democrats, but also independents.
Very few surprises, except perhaps that Trump does so well *for a Republican* among African-Americans. But then, we knew that already, too.
Trump tops Harris in New York/Siena national poll (link to pro-Trump site)
Hjärnvägar
Gorillan har ordet. Jan Guillou har ju en viss poäng här. Dags att *verkligen* nationalisera järnvägen!
More boring than MonsterQuest
"Expedition Dogman" (available at YouTube) is supposedly a "cryptid hunters documentary", but the cliffhanger makes me suspect that it´s really fiction. Indeed, that cliffhanger (about two minutes long) is the only good thing about the entire production, which is otherwise even more dragging than the average episode of MonsterQuest!
The plot? A team of intrepid cryptid hunters get in touch with one Kyle, a pseudonymous witness never shown (except with his face blurred out) in the Appalachian region of Kentucky. Kyle had an encounter with a werewolf-like creature in the woods, the famed Dogman (a very modern cryptid). The team investigates the area. Several strange things do happen...but all of them off the camera. At one point, a mysterious white figure supposedly walks right across the desolate road on which the team´s car is driving. Weirdly, the team-members react by claiming that there is a "killer bee" inside the car and then starts giggling very loudly?!
One of the hunters supposedly gets a glimpse of the Dogman, but the description is very vague. Large, grey and with some kind of face. OK, sure, no such creature seems to exist in the Appalachians.
What about the cliffhanger? Well, it turns out that Kyle and his family had a nocturnal visitation, not from a Dogman, but from an antlered Skinwalker, a creature *even more dangerous* (and even less likely) than an upright-walking wolfie. Unless demons are real. And show up on cue from Stash Movies. Which I kind of doubt...
October surprise outed?
Some speculations about what the October surprise might be. Will Trump fire J D Vance and replace him with RFK Jr? I admit that RFK would be an even better "assassination insurance" than Vance...unless they kill the Kennedy first! And no, nothing can October-surprise me neither. Weird and weirder.
Saturday, September 7, 2024
Wisdom
- Yes, my dear raven, the humans are denying direct realism again. They apparently think we don´t exist, or that we can´t see them.
- Nor do they know that we´re not really dinosaurs at all, but descendants from the Great Eufalconid in Asgard, which only *we* can directly perceive!
- Exactly, my dear raven, exactly.
The Future Police
An article from 2022 about a bizarre new cult in California. It seems to have exactly two members, both of whom are pretty kookish while fancying themselves to be Übermenschen. Still, there is something disturbing and familiar about "House Collins" or "The Future Police", as they style themselves (all two of them).
Yes, there seems to be a connection to more "respectable" views held by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the so-called longtermists. That, and more! Think elitism, eugenics, pronatalism, AI worship, transhumanism...
Is this the actual new "religion" of the super-rich of late capitalism/modernity?
Konkursen
Motsägelsen mellan klimatkrisens krav och det moderna samhällets behov utvecklar sig som förutsagt...
The mystery of the Solarian plasma and the Luciferic counter-initiation in the light of Anthroposophy
Good luck with this material, a one-hour long discussion about Anthroposophy on (perhaps) middle level.
Yes, it´s Lucifer versus Ahriman, the Consciousness Soul, the Saturn period, the Solarian (?) and Lemurian periods, and so on. Fun fact: the guy who looks vaguely like Rudolf Steiner himself is actually *not* an Anthroposophist but rather a kind of Whitehead-Jung-occultic best blend. The female mystic Gigi Young, who looks vaguely Pre-Raphaelite, is the Anthroposophist.
Also contains some criticism of current American spirituality, including its weird combination of the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. As in: use technology to transcend the world! Final point: is the plasma physicist mentioned the same person as the author of "The Sirius Mystery"? No idea.
As I said, good luck to ya. (Yes, my headline is somewhat ironic.)
The stakes could not be higher
A short but interesting piece on indirect realism and its discontents. Or malcontents? Note the weirdly strident tone: "The stakes could not be higher". Dude. Note also the mention of the old hippie (?) philosopher Gibson. Never heard of him before!
Friday, September 6, 2024
Krigskrediter
Okej, min rubrik är "click bait", men jag kunde inte låta bli. Dock lite överraskad över att La France Insoumise tillhör den anti-ryska vänstergruppen i EU-parlamentet. Trodde de var pro-ryska?
Thursday, September 5, 2024
Atheist pinko aliens
First, I thought that this was a *very* crude hoax, bordering the outrightly ridiculous. There is *no way* this can be a real interrogation of a space alien made by Project Blue Book. And, of course, it isn´t. It´s posted on YouTube by a film production company. In other words, it´s science fiction.
The alien is an atheist materialist (albeit with some New Age ideas), while the interrogator is presumably a Christian creationist (with traits of a Cold War anti-Communist). The conversation between them resembles a debate between atheists and Christians on the web, with the script-writer clearly being on the side of the former.
There is a thinly veiled attack on Donald Trump in one of the episodes. Apparently, he started the nuclear war which exterminated most of humanity. The few surviving humans evolved into space aliens! There is also an explicit attack on AI, perhaps inspired by "Terminator 2".
The mini-film ends with the interrogator´s assistant saving the alien from being killed by the Cold Warrior. The alien boards his UFO and swiftly steers it out of the hangar and away from prison planet...
Not the most interesting production around, perhaps, but still kind of funny watching.
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Encounter at Farpoint
Copilot Designer has huge problems imagining the Socorro UFO case. This was the closest proposal...
Home to Socorro
I always considered the Socorro incident to be one of the best UFO cases on record. However, it´s also one of the most "physical" UFO cases, which is compatible with both the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (nuts-and-bolts) and some kind of earthly explanation. The fact that the military were so keen on investigating the case can likewise be given both sinister and more mundane explanations, the most obvious being that what police officer Lonnie Zamora saw in 1964 was a classified NASA test flight. The White Sands Missile Range is in the same general area of New Mexico.
The explanation favored by the content-creator who posted the video linked to above is that it was all a hoax, orchestrated by students at the nearby New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Zamora had previously worked at this university and was apparently not popular there. The problem with this scenario, as even the content-creator admits, is that it would have to be the hoax of the century!
As far as I can tell, none of the "natural" explanations can give a credible account of how the UFO could move away from the area with incredible speed, once it was up in the air...
Fairies?
Ironic lawfare?
The shenanigans around Robert F Kennedy Jr never end. After first trying to keep him off the ballot, the Democratic Party now tries to keep him *on* the ballot in certain states. The irony.
And yes, I know that the GOP threatened to keep Joe Biden on the ballot in some other states.
Democracy, American style! Ever new since the 19th century...
Finders Keepers
An interesting presentation about the Finders, a shadowy American group somewhere midbetween counter-cultural collective, child trafficking ring and CIA front operation. They were briefly featured in the media during the late 1980´s, but the police investigation against them was quickly dropped, the media changed their narrative (apparently, the Finders were weird but not Satanists), and very little was heard of the group...until previously classified FBI files were released in 2019. With all the concrete CIA-related allegations redacted out, obviously. Which kind of proves the point anyway...
What makes the Finders interesting is (of course) that they came to temporary prominence during the "Satanic Panic", which according to Skeptics was just a mass hysteria based on baseless conspiracy theories. But here, we have a group with Satanic overtones abusing children while working for the CIA. And since nothing ever happened to them, it´s plausible that somebody in the Agency had their backs...
Must be some kind of anomaly, right?
Listen, Ashtar: A letter to my younger self
HA HA HA. An old Amazon book review? Previously posted here in 2019, it seems.
I speak in love
Time for some tuff talk.
Why will Hamas defeat Israel? Think about it. The Palestinians have lost at least 40,000 people in the ongoing Gaza War. Most of Gaza is rubble. Hamas doesn´t care and are probably prepared to sacrifice just as many. And many Palestinians still support Hamas. Indeed, the "moderate" Fatah is willing to form a coalition government with them!
Israelis can´t take it when six hostages are killed.
So who do you think will win in the long run? Or even the shorter one...
Kommunal demografi
Snart kommer det här att bli det "bästa" eller "enda" argumentet för massinvandring. Alltså att "folkutbytet" faktiskt är nödvändigt. Från vår ofrivilliga grannblogg.
Allvarliga saker
Att få bort antisemitismen från Vänsterpartiet är ungefär lika svårt som att få bort afro-fobin från Sverigedemokraterna. Eftersom vänsterns antisemitism är kopplad till en viss regional konflikt.
Och så vidare.
Så antisemitskandalerna inom Vänsterpartiet kommer att fortsätta. Förstås.
Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Brott mot mänskligheten
Vill Aftonbladet alltså att Sverige ska bli *mindre* som Dumpen? Har inte orkat lyssna på podden, cuz what´s the point?
Den tröttsamma strasserismen
Det är inte 2016 längre, och det verkar som att de amerikanska "strasseriterna" och trollen har blivit både trötta och tröttsamma.
Jag är inte förvånad, eftersom alt-högern alltid var ett märkligt postmodernt nätbaserat fenomen som likt ett bubbelgum inte kunde vara för evigt. Även om det iofs var rätt roliga att följa "när de begav sig".
Så jag vet inte vad my man Mathias Wåg egentligen tror att han "avslöjar" här. Men okej, thanx for sharing.
Nightmare in the dark
Sabine Hossenfelder argues that dark matter particles (and therefore dark matter) might be impossible to detect even in principle, since their only effect is the gravitational pull they are supposed to explain. No independent confirmation is possible. This is apparently known as "Gravitationally Coupled Dark Matter".
Maybe.
But another possibility is of course that dark matter doesn´t exist in the first place...
Monday, September 2, 2024
The first one thousand years
“Olympiska spelen: De första tusen åren” (Olympic Games: The first one
thousand years) is a book in Swedish, written by classicist, archeologist and
tourist guide Allan Klynne. It was published this summer – obviously to
coincide with the Olympic Summer Games in Paris (which many Swedes follow on
TV). Despite only being 180 pages long, it´s packed with information, and even
feels a bit unwieldy! And no, it´s not primarily about the modern unwieldy multi-sport event known as the Olympic Games, but rather about their ancient precursors.
In Olympia in ancient Greece, Olympic Games were organized every four
years between 776 BC and 389 AD. In 393 AD, the Christian Roman emperor Theodosius
ordered the “pagan” games to close down, and the planned event that year was swiftly
cancelled. At least, that´s the traditional view. Klynne believes that the real
story is more complex (obviously). Some kind of athletic competitions may have
existed in Olympia even before 776 BC, and there is no real evidence that
Theodosius banned the games (as opposed to de-paganize them). Perhaps the games
continued to be held until some unspecified point during the 5th
century AD when the temple dedicated to Zeus at Olympia burned down, never to
be restored? The “Isolympic” Games in Antioch weren´t banned until 524 AD by
Emperor Justin after sports fans had staged a massive riot in the city! (The
term “Isolympic Games” means “equal to the Olympic Games” and was part of the ancient
Olympic “brand”.)
Obviously, the games at Olympia had their ups and down over the
centuries, but it *is* intriguing that they were organized in some form for about
one thousand years. My impression is that the religious character of the games
had something to do with it. The games were held in honor of the Greek high god
Zeus. The idol of said god in the local temple was regarded as one of the seven
wonders of the world. Large sacrifices of cattle to Zeus took place during the
championships. There was also a female “competition”, the Heraean games, which
may have been an explicit worship service of Zeus´ divine consort, the goddess
Hera, although the question is apparently controversial. It´s precisely these
connections to pagan cults that made many historians suspect that the Christians
suppressed the games for religious reasons. However, the Christianized population
of the Roman Empire loved sports just as much as the pagans, so the real reason
for the decline of the Olympic Games and similar competitions was the general
crisis of the Empire, which made it difficult to sustain large-scale events of
this kind.
When the French baron Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games in
1896 in Athens, historians had very romantic and frequently erroneous views of
the ancient games. For instance, there was a widespread misconception that the ancient
Greek athletes had been amateurs and only competed for the glory. But as Klynne
demonstrates in this book, money or other gifts (from olive oil to mules) were always
part of the picture. So were bribes, cheating and all kinds of scandals. During
the second century AD, when Greece had long been part of the Roman Empire, an
enormous bureaucracy around the Olympic Games and other sport championships was
created and the prize money sums became even larger. Sounds familiar? Klynne
even compares the sports bureaucracy to the modern-day International Olympic
Committee! And no, the ancient athletes weren´t “amateurs” by any stretch of
the imagination.
Sports at the ancient games included running, discus, javelin, boxing,
wrestling, pankration (could be compared to modern MMA), horse-races and more. The
horse-races were considered to be competitions between the owners of the horses,
many of the actual riders being slave-boys. One sport *not* included was marathon
– the sport is named after an event following the Battle of Marathon in Greece
in 490 BC, but the sport itself is wholly modern and seems to have been
invented especially for the 1896 revival games. In ancient times, only males
were allowed to compete in the games at Olympia (but see below), and both
athletes and trainers were nude. During Greek times, only male spectators were
allowed, but under the Romans, at least unmarried women were also allowed to
watch. There was one partial exception to the rule prohibiting female competitors:
female horse-owners were allowed to participate, since the actual riders were
male. But as already mentioned, the prize money and recognition went to the
owners. The first female to win an Olympic prize in this way was Cynisca, a
Spartan princess.
Klynne discusses the various ancient Olympic disciplines in some detail.
The running competition known as “stade” (about 200 meters) was considered the
most ancient one and seems to have had the highest status, at least nominally.
The most popular sport among the spectators, however, was the pankration. The
most dangerous may have been boxing. It´s not clear to me why the athletes were
nude, but I doubt that it had anything to do with equality or democracy! The
Greeks themselves claimed that the runners originally wore garments, but one
day, a Spartan realized that he could run faster without it and simply dropped
it during the race, winning naked. To me at least, this suggests that nudity may
have been the most practical “outfit” for an ancient athlete, making his
movements unhindered. After all, this was long before modern aerodynamic sport-related
clothes. At Olympia (but nowhere else), trainers also had to be nude,
supposedly because of a famous incident involving a boxing trainer who turned
out to be woman dressed as a man!
But what about the results? How good were the ancient Greco-Roman athletes?
The simplest answer is that we don´t really know, since the ancient sources
almost never discuss such matters. Everyone could see who was the winner, so
why bother with details? In all likelihood, ancient athletes were at least
technically speaking worse than modern ones, but I assume that “worse” is a
relative term. Throwing a discus a certain distance may be “good” or “bad”
depending on what technique you use, your physique, and so on. The most
original Olympic disciplines were contests for heralds and trumpeters. Or
perhaps not so original, since these were a necessary part of the program. The
winners´ name, for instance, was announced by a herald, and obviously this
person needed to have a voice both strong and beautiful.
The Olympic peace is well known – the idea that the constantly warring
Greek city-states should lay down their arms during the Olympic Games – but it
wasn´t always successfully upheld (surprise). Elis and Pisa even fought for
control of Olympia itself, and in 364 BC Elis and the Arcadian League fought a battle
in Olympia during the actual games! The sources don´t mention how the spectators
survived the melee. The “treasure houses” in Olympia were filled with trophies
the Greek states had stolen from each other during various wars. The previously
mentioned Spartan princess Cynisca may have entered the games on behalf of the
Spartan king as a diplomatic sleight to Athens. It´s also interesting that the
Athenians organized their own multi-sport event, the Panathenaic Games, as an
alternative to the Olympic Games. Think Ionians versus Dorians. Under Roman rule,
the worst scandal took place when Nero (yes, *that* Nero) forced the organizers
to accept him as a competitor. The tyrant did indeed “win” every discipline he
chose to enter, from playing the lyre to racing with a chariot with ten horses
(despite falling off the chariot during the race).
I already mentioned the 1896 modern revival of the Olympic Games several times and will end on that note. Judging by Klynne´s description, Coubertin´s invention comes across as a gigantic LARP: modernized versions of the original sports, no women allowed, only amateurs, and Athens in the modern nation-state of Greece as the venue. Later Olympic Games also added artistic competitions, which had been on the program in other Panhellenic games in Antiquity. They also allowed women to compete, however. The strange ritual among the ruins of Olympia where the Olympic flame is lit before the games came later, but fits the picture.
Coubertin´s games weren´t the first during the 19th
century to use the name “Olympic Games”. For instance, a large sports event in
Athens in 1870 for Greeks from all over the world used the same designation. But Coubertin
had created a larger apparatus around his idea and…well, here we are. Of course,
today the Olympic Games have almost nothing in common with either Coubertin´s
1896 version or the ancient version, the latest edition in Paris even including
breakdance! Note also the Winter Games, unknown in ancient times since (of course)
there were no winter sports in the Eastern Mediterranean. Paralympics would
also have been impossible in ancient times, since the rules expressly forbade
disabled males from participating. *Sometimes* there really is progress.
But will the modern Olympic Games last for one thousand years? That
would be until 2896. Somehow, I doubt it…
With that reflection, I end this review.
N.I.C.E. Satanists
A kind of sequel to the anti-Satanist videos from the YouTube channel Lifting the Lamp. Also discusses the relationship between Christianity and esotericism.
The immortals are laughing
HAH HAH HAH, this is supposed to be a criticism of Buddhism from a Christian (?) viewpoint. The guy doing the criticizing does know *something* about Buddhism, but certainly not very much! He claims that Tibetan Buddhism is the real orthodox dharma, that Buddhism is really Hinduism, that the Buddha was a very selfish man who only wanted to liberate himself, and so on. And yeah, it´s because of Hinduism and Buddhism that India is poor (sure wonder what he thinks of Japan or Singapore, but whatever).
If you listen very attentatively, the Christian activist even says that Tibet became modern when invaded by the People´s Liberation Army and that he lives in Hong Kong?! Hmmm...
Operation Sunray: When Baba Vanga met the aliens
This story gives an entirely new meaning to the expression "it didn´t lose anything in retelling". Indeed, that seems to be literaly true.
While the original talltale is from the early 1990´s, recording an event that supposedly happened in Bulgaria in 1990, the current versions seem more recent. This may explain the (obvious) similarities to films such as "Prometheus" or "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull".
That being said, this fakelore presumably have roots further back in both science fiction, ancient alien narratives, and conspiracy theory. The presence of psychics strikes me as a bit "old fashioned". And while most of the urban legend concerning Operation Sunray sound very American, some local Bulgarian color has been added (after all, the story *is* from Bulgaria originally).
Baba Vanga was a well-known soothsayer in that Balkan nation who is still quite popular, decades after her death, with (probably forged) prophecies in Vanga´s name making their rounds around YouTube and perhaps elsewhere. Naturally, the baba has been included in the operation, uttering dire warnings about what awaits the unsuspecting soldiers who are digging to unearth the Philosopher´s Stone...
Yepp, it´s aliens all the way down!
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