Rigged

 

Steve Bannon has something to say about the new pope. Apparently, Bannon served in the US navy with the future pope´s brother! His other comments are more interesting...

Not sure who Sean Spicer is. 

Allegations

 

This article contains allegations that Prevost, the future Pope Leo XIV, mishandled sexual abuse cases in both Chicago and Peru. However, there is also an interview with a Mexican author who believes that Prevost *did* try to investigate the abuse allegations in Peru, indeed, that he was one of the few local bishops who tried to do so.

Not sure if that´s more re-assuring, tbh.

Otherwise, I´m intrigued by Prevost´s strong connection to Peru. He seems to have been a cleric in that particular South American nation for decades. Not sure if I find *that* very re-assuring either, but that´s me... 

Victims´ groups alleges Prevost mishandled sexual abuse cases 

Smekmånaden slut?

 

Credit: Aftonbladet 

Det gick snabbt...

Opus Dei

 

Intressanta rykten. Observera kopplingarna till Peru! Och såklart Opus Dei... 

Svensk hade blivit påve - om de konservativa fått bestämma

Looking for trouble

 

Credit: Alessandra Tarantino/AP

So the new pope is a pro-immigration White American based in Peru who is opposed to Trump and Vance (the latter being a Catholic)? Somebody is looking for trouble! Note also that Robert Francis Prevost´s papal name is Leo XIV, a nod to the imposing 19th century pope Leo XIII. And perhaps Leo the Great? 

Good luck with that, boys. But sure, I suppose reading the reactions of "tradCaths" might be entertaining...

Before becoming pontiff, Pope Leo levied criticism of Trump and Vance  

The wrath of the world

 

 

I can´t let this go. The final scenes from Werner Herzog´s films "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and "Cobra Verde" are disturbing allegories of the end of the world. Or humanity. Or - at a minimum - modern civilization. Especially the last minute or so of the "Aguirre" climax, where the sun (God?) looks down on the pathetic raft of the mad conquistador (Earth? Homo sapiens?) as it´s invaded by monkeys in the middle of a completely indifferent wilderness. Note also the sharp contrast between his hubris and the actual state of affairs. What kind of vibes I got from the ending of "Cobra Verde", I won´t even tell you...

Wrath of God, fall of Man

 

 

The entire film "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" is available on YouTube in an English-language version, but I can´t help linking to the two shorter clips above from the German version. The Aguirre character actually comes across as even crazier with Klaus Kinski´s original voice intact! The first clip shows Aguirre´s original descent into madness, while the second is the climactic ending of the film.  

Who else is with me?

 

So I discovered "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" on YouTube. Werner Herzog´s 1972 quasi-historical drama, featuring Klaus Kinski, used to be something of a cult movie. I saw it on TV when very young, but only remember the opening scene and the ending. Now, I´ve seen it again. "Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes" (the original German title) comes across as a peculiar blend of B-movie and surrealist work of art. It´s *very* loosely based on the life of rogue conquistador (more rogue than usual) Lope de Aguirre and his debased exploits in search of the famed kingdom of El Dorado. 

I have no idea what Herzog wanted to say with this production, but it does come across as yet another story of how civilized White men go crazy in the jungle. Except that in this case, the colonialists aren´t very civilized to begin with, enslaving people as they frantically search for gold or "converts" to their hypocritical Christian faith. 

To some extent, the whole thing comes across as parody. A self-proclaimed "emperor" has a sumptuous meal in the wilderness, attended to by a Black slave, while bragging that his "kingdom" is already six times larger than Spain. Yet, he really just eats fruit from the jungle, drink river water and have no salt, his "empire" being no larger than a raft. All kinds of allegorical meanings can be imputed to this, obviously! It´s pretty obvious from the start that Aguirre´s expedition will end in failure.

More disturbing are the hints that Aguirre has an incestuous relation with his daughter, and his sudden descent into madness. (Bizarrely, the actor Klaus Kinski was half-mad in real life and was later accused of abusing one of his daugthers!) The idea of a hubristic conqueror who fancies himself being "the wrath of God" can also be interpreted in various allegorical ways. At one point, Aguirre claims to be able to control the birds. Is Aguirre modern or faustian man, who thinks he can rule over Nature, while actually being mercilessly destroyed by it? Note also that he is a traitor, leading a mutiny, while trying to reach an edenic city. Is he a fallen Adam or a Cain, trying to stage an inverted exodus to the promised land?

Or is it just a failed, borderline turkey movie? But then, that´s how much of world history also comes across...     

The daimonic world

 

“Aliens – striden om utomjordingarna” is a two-part series shown on Swedish public service TV (SVT). It deals with the UFO phenomenon, or rather the very human actors who believe or disbelieve in it. The narrator is an ethnologist named Kalle Ström. Both episodes are rather slow-paced and could even be seen as frankly boring, unless you are a UFO buff (or perhaps Skeptic ditto) with an undying interest in all aspects of the problematique. An American covering exactly the same material would have made it more dramatic, I´m sure!

“Aliens” contrasts two groups of people with entirely different perspectives on UFOs. The organization UFO-Sverige is something as peculiar as the world´s only Skeptic UFO-logy group. Its longtime leader Clas Svahn more or less dominates the “serious” UFO discourse in Sweden. At the other end of the spectrum are the true believers, who unironically try to contact the space brothers through the CE-5 protocol, see evidence for ancient aliens everywhere during a visit to Peru, or look for “portals” in the Swedish woods together with a masked “whistle-blower”. Naturally, they see UFO-Sverige as “the gatekeepers” and suspect that Svahn is an agent working for the CIA or Swedish military intelligence. Is there really no middle ground in this dogfight? At one point, the staff at UFO-Sverige´s archives at Norrköping seem to deny *any* kind of UFO-related conspiracies, surely an absurd proposition! There simply must be “secular” conspiracies around these topics, unless you have a very naïve view of, well, military intelligence. See my reviews of John Michael Greer´s “The UFO Chronicles” and “Project Beta” by Greg Bishop.

There are two twists in the second episode of “Aliens”. One is that Ström actually observes a UFO himself, which creates quite a stir in the alternative crowd. Svahn eventually debunks the alien craft as a bright star, Capella in the constellation of Auriga. The other is that Svahn admits that he had a dramatic UFO observation he has never been able to explain, featuring three luminous x-shaped objects flying through the night sky. He speculates that maybe UFOs are something unknown, strange but nevertheless terrestrial. Which is probably true in some cases (think earth lights).

Ström eventually reaches the conclusion that the real difference between the two camps isn´t really feeling versus facts, but rather whether or not you want to live in an enchanted or disenchanted cosmos (although somebody might argue that *is* feeling versus fact). After all, even some of the true believers are looking for empirical facts: stone walls in Peru, portals in the woods, or footage of strange objects in the sky. But they also suggest – quite explicitly – that the official explanations bore them half to death! They are searching for the daimonic, to borrow a term from Patrick Harpur. It´s therefore quite ironic that one of the few people who truly encountered it, might have been the skeptical Clas Svahn…        

A new look at Easter Island...or maybe not

 

DNA studies supposedly confirms the new take on Easter Island, a kind of best blend of post-colonial political correctness and crypto-Hancockite pre-Columbian contact. 

Or maybe not. 

Note the critical remarks hidden away in the two last paragraphs! Did they test the wrong skeletons (all 15 of them)? Something tells me this controversy will continue for another seven decades or so... 

Easter Island population never collapsed, but it did have contacts with Native Americans

Many are called

 

This is ridiculous...

An ode to Däniken

 

So I recently watched “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. I reviewed it before, and I haven´t really changed my mind about the film. Sure, it´s great fun if you´re into the Indiana Jones concept, no doubt about it. All the usual plot elements are there, except ten times better (or worse)! Paranormal archeological artefacts, extremely exaggerated stand-offs with the bad guys (or situations in general), meetings with ancient spirit-beings and, yes, Indy´s bad love affairs. The Nazis have been replaced by Communists, and Dr Jones works with his son rather than his father, but these feel like logical changes since the plot takes place during the Cold War rather than the 1930´s. The film contains one major gaffe: Indiana says at one point that he wants to move to Leipzig to teach, but at the time, this particular location was controlled by Communist East Germany! Hardly a good hang-out for an American guy in a cowboy hat and a “I like Ike” bumper sticker.

Fanboys of Erich von Däniken or really insane alternative history scenarios might also appreciate this flick, which often comes across as an extended episode of “Ancient Aliens”. Indeed, the speculations of Indiana Jones and his long lost friend Oxley are just as confused and absurd as those in “Ancient Aliens”. Indy supposedly learned Quechua (a Peruvian Native language) while riding with Pancho Villa in Mexico, space aliens marooned in the Amazon speak Mayan (a Central American Native language), and what have you. Heck, it seems everyone in Peru is Mayan, LOL. There are tie-ins to the Roswell UFO crash, the search for El Dorado, the Mitchell-Hedges skull, elongated skulls, Nazca, the legend of Akakor, and God knows what else. Entertaining? Well, yes, unless you think Hollywood films should be proper science education (or basic geography)! Somewhat ironically, real archeologists *have* found a lost civilization in the Amazon, although not nearly as dramatic as the one depicted in this production. Last time I looked, they hadn´t found the Holy Grail or the Lost Ark, though.

The Communists are actually quite fascinating. For starters, doesn´t their female commander Irina Spalko reference “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers”? Probably not a co-incidence. It´s also intriguing that “Stalin´s favorite” believes in the paranormal quasi-religious scenario even more fervently than Indiana Jones himself. I always suspected that all kinds of more exciting or downright crazy ideas were pursued in Red Russia and its satellite states behind the smokescreen of strictly scientific socialism. I mean, Erich von Däniken´s books were legal in Leipzig, yes?  

With that, I close this little review. 

Mystery or mystification?

 

“Easter Island Origins” is a very recent documentary about the mysterious Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the Pacific Ocean. The island is almost isolated from the rest of the world but famous due to its large stone statues (“moai”), remnants of a vanished high culture. But perhaps Easter Island isn´t really that mysterious. Maybe its people and culture have simply been mystified by outsiders? Judging by this documentary, the answer is “yes”…but some of the new research on the island have led to sensational results anyhow.

Controversially, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl claimed that Easter Island had been inhabited by migrants from South America. While this is disproven (the earliest settlers on Rapa Nui were certainly from other parts of Polynesia), DNA research suggests that there actually might be a connection between the island and the South American mainland. The documentary is somewhat unclear on this point, but if I understand it correctly, the idea is that the *Polynesians* sailed to South America, rather than the other way around. 

Genetic markers typical of the Zenú people in Colombia have been found among the peoples of the Tuamotu Islands, the Marquesas Islands, Mangareva and Easter Island. The idea seems to be that the Polynesians first colonized the two former, then reached the South American mainland, only to return home (presumably with Zenú wives and/or mixed race children). Some of these people with mixed descent participated in the somewhat later discovery and settlement of Mangareva and Easter Island, explaining why the Zenú marker is found there too. The sculptures in “medieval” Colombia had a strong resemblance to those found in the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Mangareva and Rapa Nui (although the moai at Easter Island are much larger in size).

The usual Western picture of Easter Island is that of a downright irrational population who cut down all trees and used up all rock (which could be used as fertilizer) in a vain and manic pursuit of building larger and larger statues. War and civilizational collapse promptly followed, and when the Europeans arrived, the native Polynesians had already forgot their great traditions, lived in caves and drank sea water. 

“Easter Island Origins” contain interviews with archeologists who deny this traditional picture. They believe that the population of the island was always relatively small (and hence couldn´t dramatically “collapse” in the first place), that there is no evidence of warfare, nor of settlements being abandoned by people taking to the hills. There *is* evidence of wide-spread deforestation, but this was due to rats, which lacked natural enemies and hence proliferated en masse, consuming the seeds of the trees in the process. 

The real (human) population collapse took place after the arrival of the European colonists, when various diseases to which the natives lacked immunity killed off most of the population. *This* led to the great statues being abandoned or destroyed during the 19^th century. Easter Island was also attacked by slave-raiders from Peru. The handful of survivors who were able to return to the island carried smallpox with them and infected the rest of the population. At its lowest, the native population was only 40 people! Today, it´s back around 3000, approximately the same number as before Western colonialism. The island has been controlled by Chile since 1888.

It´s a tragic story of a people that actually reached the American mainland centuries before Columbus made a landfall in the Caribbean…

And no, no evidence of Lemuria!

The Nazca alien mummies

 

This stuff is still making the rounds in the media and the alternative milieu. In 2017, some Latin American UFO-logists claimed to have obtained a number of mysterious mummies from the Nazca desert in Peru. The mummies were - surprise - of alien origin. As in extraterrestrial. A truly sensational claim, this one! In 2023, two of the supposed aliens were shown before the Mexican parliament during a hearing on the UFO problematique. And just the other day, there was apparently a press conference on the topic in Hollywood of all places. According to the hype, a "catastrophic disclosure" was going to happen at the presser. So how come we haven´t heard anything yet?

The first clip above is an uncommitted but relatively sympathetic look at these extreme claims from the YouTube channel INCREDIBLE HISTORY. It features interviews with the main players, some of them made on location in Peru. It should be noted that the Peruvian authorities have always opposed the UFO-logist claims and even attempted to confiscate the "mummies". 

The next three clips are Russian (!) but with English voice-overs. Apparently, a group of Russian skeptics analyzed footage (including X-ray scans) of the alleged mummies already in 2022 and came to the conclusion that it´s a gigantic hoax. 

The most authentic-looking specimen, nicknamed Maria, is a real (human) mummy from the ancient Nazca culture, but has been tampered with to make it look more "alien". The ET-like figures shown to the Mexican Congress are assemblages of human and animal bones, and make no anatomical sense whatsoever. The DNA tests are inconclusive, but they do show traces of Latin American human DNA and ungulate ditto, perhaps from llamas. Which is at least compatible with the hoax explanation.

I´m not surprised. American contactee Steven Greer promoted an "alien skeleton" from Chile already in 2013. This seems to be the same kind of story, but on a much bigger scale. May I guess that Nazca-UFO stuff will be promoted by somebody somewhere still around 2040? 

   

The Nagas of Brazil

Credit: Dick Culbert 

I´ve heard of the Pachamama, but never the Sachamama. Any connection? Note the claims that this is an actual unknown animal! Rather than, say, a very angry nature spirit come to life...

Sachamama

Minhocao

Truth in the toad

 

This is painful to watch. In fact, I didn´t watch all of it. The man is "tripping" on DMT extracted from the California River Toad (a.k.a. the Sonoran Desert Toad). Apparently, he met God...  

A prophecy cancelled

James Redfield´s "The Celestine Prophecy" is a best selling novel from the 1990´s. According to Wiki, the last time somebody bothered checking it had sold 5 million copies worldwide - but I think Wiki until recently gave a much higher, two-digit, number! 

Be that as it may, "The Celestine Prophecy" has even been translated into Swedish ("Den nionde insikten"), and I actually heard about the book during its heyday. I say "actually" (with some surprise), since at the time I was almost entirely uninterested in the New Age, and certainly didn´t bother with the finer details of it (such as who´s who in the new agey publishing business). So I suppose James Redfield´s book really was extremely popular, since even I got to know about it! I did read it around 2000 or so, and recently re-read it (after the film adaptation *purely by chance* showed up in my YouTube recommendations). I admit that I wasn´t particularly moved, but then, I´m still not a New Age believer...

The plot and characters of Redfield´s novel are very weak, and the real point of the story is obviously to convey the New Age spiritual message (or at least part of it). The main character and first person narrator, who remains unnamed but has some similarities to the author, travels to Peru in South America in search of a mysterious manuscript which contains nine "insights" about the human condition. The Catholic Church and the Peruvian military want to destroy all copies of the manuscript. Through various incredible chance events, the narrator meets other seekers looking for the lost document, and these people expound at some length on various New Age themes. The semi-dramatic climax comes at the (wholly fictitious) ruins of "Celestine", an ancient Mayan (!) settlement in the Peruvian jungles, where the narrator and his new friends temporarily gain supernatural powers. 

While Redfield apparently said explicitly that his story is "parable" (it´s a novel, after all), there is no doubt that many New Age believers take scenarios such as this one quite literally. Hidden scriptures, lost civilizations, Catholic conspiracies to suppress The Truth...we heard it all before. Typically New Age is also the complete disregard for archeological or anthropological context, not to mention the heavy anachronisms. The ancient prophecy is written in Aramaic by Mayans in Peru around 600 BC - an impossibility - and yet sounds 100% adapted to 1990´s California! (This is also a form of Anglo-American cultural arrogance, in which the colored races exist only as raw material for Anglo-American fantasies and projections.) While the parable probably works for a New Age audience, it sounds extremely weird to those of us who care about that context thing. Why would the Catholic Church (or the military) in Peru bother with some New Age fluff peddled by gringos? Why would ordinary Peruvians give a damn? 

That being said, I admit that "The Celestine Prophecy" could work as an introduction to some aspects of the New Age. It discusses synchronicity, "energy", mystical experiences, and cosmic evolution towards the Divine. There are also long expositions on pop psychology, sometimes touching on gender relations and child rearing. Jesus is said to have been the first person who could really open up to the evolutionary energies of the Divine. Beauty, especially natural beauty, is seen as central for spiritual enlightenment. The perspective is optimistic. If people learn to practice the nine insights, Earth could become an Utopia, in which a much smaller human population than today live in harmony with nature, while also having access to cities with high technology. Indeed, all production and distribution is automated, making it possible for the utopians to fully concentrate on spiritual evolution. There is constant tension in the book (as in real life New Age) between attempts to sound "scientific" (as when the occult "energy" is used to make plants grow faster under controlled conditions) and a more forthrightly supranaturalist worldview.  

I can´t say I liked "The Celestine Prophecy". It feels very American, White, and privileged middle class. In Peru, the narrator constantly meets upper class people, sometimes foreigners, who own spacious latifundias and are sympathetic to the metaphysical message. While a few of the seekers are poor and/or "Indians", most seem to be well-educated Western scientists or equally well educated Peruvian priests (who live at large missions). No ordinary Joe goes to Peru to cavort with the local smetanka, perhaps telling us something about the intended readership of the novel? And what about the (weird) advice to generously give money to spiritual people? 

But the most obvious problem with the nine insights today is, of course, the strong belief in progress and modernity. The similarity between dreams of free energy (through fusion and so on) and the "energy" from the Divine Source is perhaps not a co-incidence! The utopian vision was difficult to believe in already 30 years ago, and is completely impossible today. There may be this or that spiritual insight even in New Age, who knows, but in general, I´m afraid the Age of Aquarius have been cancelled...

The New Age has never been so boring

 

"The Celestine Prophecy" is a 2006 film, based on James Redfield´s blockbuster book of the same name from 1993. I haven´t read the novel and its sequels for decades, but I didn´t like them when I did. But then, I wasn´t particularly "spiritual" at the time, nor have I ever been attracted by the New Age. After watching the film, I have to say that the New Age has never been so boring! 

In contrast to Redfield´s novels, the film tanked at the box office. It has very little plot development or real suspense (despite the heroes being chased by the military half of the time!). Above all, it´s probably incomprehensible unless you alreday read the original novel, or is very immersed into a New Age worldview. The underlying concept (at least as presented in the film) doesn´t make any sense either: why would the Catholic Church, the Peruvian military and the US Deep State be chasing a bunch of naïve spiritual types who just want to "open up" and feel the "flow"? The New Age message doesn´t threaten the establishment, indeed it has *become* the establishment! 

Another peculiar feature of the message of the Celestine Prophecy is the way it blends trivial pop psychology about interpersonal relations with a grand perspective of spiritual evolution towards the Divine, an evolution which seems to include magic, the unification of all the world´s religions, and so on. The main insight is that the world is bad because of the inability of humans to "open up" to the "energy", which is available in super-abundance. And while the film doesn´t preach a simplistic prosperity gospel, I think it´s obvious that the New Age can (and have) been given this spin. This in turn is connected to the evolutionary perspective, with its constant progression upwards. This may have been easy to believe in 1993, less so in 2006, and absolutely not in 2022. 

Perhaps the real "insight" to be gained here, is that the Age of Aquarius have been cancelled, and that we can´t just all "open up"...  

The microvita paradigm

 

Ananda Marga is a controversial new religious movement, founded in India by Shree Shree Anandamurti. The group combines a Hindu-derived spiritual perspective with left-wing politics. At least during the 1970´s, they were also accused of terrorist acts in India, Australia and elsewhere. (The group denies involvement.) Ironically, in India (were they were briefly banned), the Anand Margis were sometimes accused of being on the CIA payroll! 

The above clip is from a "Tantric" channel on YouTube, which is affiliated with Ananda Marga. It gives a very basic introduction to the spiritual worldview of the group. 

The "scientism" of the "microvita" concept is probably connected to the fact that Ananda Marga was founded during the 1950´s. The idea is clearly non-scientific and occult, the microvita being a kind of vitalist monads that supposedly form carbon atoms. However, the microvita seem to be unaffected by material factors such as impetus, inertia, entropy, and so on. They are affected by "love", however, which is important for Ayurveda (alternative Hindu medicine). 

It´s obvious that the microvita can´t make up material carbon atoms, at least not in any sense that makes scientific sense. Apparently, luminous bodies of angels and strange spirit-bodies of merpeople are all made up of this mysterious substance. Today, when science lacks the authority it once had, I would suspect that a NRM could and would sound more openly science-critical. An intriguing detail in the clip is that the dada seemingly denies the existence of ghosts (presumably a common Hindu superstition). He believes that ghosts are really projections of our own minds! 

Not sure what to make of this content overall...

The left hand path

 

A "left-wing" version of Tantrism. Ananda Marga-related. I like the guy´s hair...