Peter Lamborn Wilson’s (Hakim Bey) half-serious proposal for a political movement to uphold and propagate the ideals of Green Hermeticism:
“At least half the year belongs to Endarkenment. Enlightenment is only a special case of Endarkenment—and it has nights of its own.
**
During the day democracy waxes, indiscriminately illuminating all and sundry. But shadowless noon belongs to Pan. And night imposes a “radical aristocracy” in which things shine solely by their own luminescence, or not at all.
**
Obfuscatory, reactionary and superstitious, Endarkenment offers jobs for trolls and sylphs, witches and warlocks. Perhaps only superstition can re-enchant Nature. People who fear and desire nymphs and fauns will think twice before polluting streams or clear-cutting forests.
**
Electricity banished shadows—but shadows are “shades,” souls, the souls of light itself. Even divine light, when it loses its organic and secret darkness, becomes a form of pollution. In prison cells electric lights are never doused; light becomes oppression and source of disease.
**
Superstitions may be untrue but based on deeper truth—that earth is a living being. Science may be true, i.e. effective, while based on a deeper untruth—that matter is dead.”
“Imagine running up to the bakery around the corner and coming across bread shaped like body parts. Sound yummy? Artist Kittiwat Unarrom creates just that; gruesome works of art out of bread. Kittiwat Unarrom has a master’s degree in fine arts and creates bruised and battered heads, feet and other internal organs at a bread shop in Thailand.”
Author Jennifer Stevenson along with her pals from Derby Lite and The Windy City Rollers will be rolling for the cure for the American Cancer Society this Sunday, and they need your help. If you can afford it, please become a sponsor.
“Walk & Roll is a fundraising event to benefit the American Cancer Society. Celebrating its 36th anniversary, Walk & Roll has expanded to four locations. Chicago participants can select from a five-mile walk, 10-mile skate or 15-mile bike ride along Chicago’s Lakefront.”
Cancer Facts:
*Everyone is at risk of developing cancer.
*This year, the ACS estimates that 555,500 Americans will die from cancer - more than 1,500 a day.
*In the U.S., one out of every two men and one out of every three women will develop cancer in their lifetime.
*Since 1946, the American Cancer Society has contributed nearly $2.5 billion towards understanding the causes of cancer and identifying ways in which to prevent and treat the disease.
References to The Prisoner in comics are many, but to my knowledge only two licensed Prisoner comics have been attempted: one, a four-part sequel by Dean Motter and Mark Askwith, published by DC in 1988-89; the other, an unpublished adaptation from Marvel Comics, written and drawn by none other than Jack Kirby! This unfinished, seventeen-page story, what was to have been the first in a series, was created by Kirby and partially inked and lettered by Mike Royer in the Summer of 1976 (to be published in Nov. ‘76, with a Feb. ‘77 cover date). Since Marvel scrapped the project, this single episode is all that remains of Kirby’s plans for the series.
Sad news: Shannon Larratt will no longer be working for BME, or writing about body modification online at all, after a lengthy dispute with his ex-wife and BME co-founder:
After a personally difficult legal dispute over BME, I’ve had to face the potentially insurmountable reality of being massively in debt, and I have chosen to transfer the business to Rachel (the details of this deal are sealed, so please don’t ask). Within the month my role at BME will come to an end, and new staff (made up largely of people who’ve been working on BME for some time as well) will be taking over. I will no longer be writing online about body modification, although I will be maintaining my regular blog and other projects of course, as well as working on several body modification book projects which I am eager to complete.
They each have paid $1,680 to spend nine days at Souther’s Blue Morpho lodge in the Peruvian jungle and to sample the plant potion for themselves.
But this is not some Amazonian Kool-Aid Acid Test and these are not Merry Pranksters.
LSD and other recreational drugs are not for them, and many shun alcohol. Ranging in age from early 20s to late 50s, they work as university professors, marketing executives and environmental activists. Then there’s Heather, a tall, muscular woman who competes in Ironman races.
With the help of ayahuasca, they hope to address persistent emotional, physical or psychological afflictions that Western medicine has failed to alleviate. Others seek more spirituality in their lives.
A slight majority (54%) believe the warming measured over the last 100 years is not “within the range of natural temperature fluctuation.”
A slight majority (56%) see at least a 50-50 chance that global temperatures will rise two degrees Celsius or more during the next 50 to 100 years. (The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cites this increase as the point beyond which additional warming would produce major environmental disruptions.)
Based on current trends, 41% of scientists believe global climate change will pose a very great danger to the earth in the next 50 to 100 years, compared to 13% who see relatively little danger. Another 44% rate climate change as moderately dangerous.
Seventy percent see climate change as very difficult to manage over the next 50 to 100 years, compared to only 5% who see it as not very difficult to manage. Another 23% see moderate difficulty in managing these changes.
Like Ronald Bailey says “Science is not done by voting, but these results are pretty interesting. ” This helps put to rest the idea that anthropogenic theory of global warming is believed by only a minority of activist scientists who bully others into signing off on papers saying they support it. Looking at the statistics, it’s slightly more common for scientists to be pressured to deny or downplay warming than to overplay it (though neither is very common).
“In 1996, Tom Wolfe wrote a brilliant essay called “Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died,” in which he captured the militant materialism of some modern scientists. To these self-confident researchers, the idea that the spirit might exist apart from the body is just ridiculous. Instead, everything arises from atoms. Genes shape temperament. Brain chemicals shape behavior. Assemblies of neurons create consciousness. Free will is an illusion. Human beings are “hard-wired” to do this or that. Religion is an accident.
In this materialist view, people perceive God’s existence because their brains have evolved to confabulate belief systems. You put a magnetic helmet around their heads and they will begin to think they are having a spiritual epiphany. If they suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy, they will show signs of hyperreligiosity, an overexcitement of the brain tissue that leads sufferers to believe they are conversing with God.
Wolfe understood the central assertion contained in this kind of thinking: Everything is material and “the soul is dead.” He anticipated the way the genetic and neuroscience revolutions would affect public debate. They would kick off another fundamental argument over whether God exists.”
With the all the current heated debates going on about the links between vaccinations and autism, I found this film to be thought provoking. Let me state for the record that I am “neutral” on this issue. There are just too many conflicting factors to consider when looking at both sides. So, I’m posting a link to this film along with a site focused on articles defending vaccines. If nothing else, this film will make you THINK about some issues you may have not thought much about.
“This feature length documentary about medical madness, cloaked in bioterrorism preparedness, will awaken the brain dead. It exposes health officials, directed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), for conducting a “War of Terror” that is killing millions of unwitting Americans.
[..] This monumental film exposes the agents and agencies behind: Hollywood films and the media creating a profitable culture of bioterror; the “War on Terrorism” used to control populations; the most lucrative war in history—the “War on Cancer;” the onslaught of dozens of new immunological diseases and deadly flus; the “War on AIDS” triggered by contaminated vaccines; the anthrax mailings resulting in restricted freedoms, and sales of toxic drugs, deadly vaccines, and more.”
Above: Vera Meyer performs various songs on a glass armonica.
The glass armonica’s ghostly notes will cause insanity in its musicians and listeners! At least this is what was thought to be true in the 18th century. People were frightened by the armonica’s sound due to it’s strange interactions with the human brain and ears (more on this later). Benjamin Franklin invented the glass armonica (above) in 1761 after being profoundly moved by the sounds of the glass harp (below).
[…]
The glass armonica’s sound is perceived by human ears differently than other instruments because its range is between 1,000 and 4,000 hertz. When sounds are below 4,000 hertz, the human brain compares “phase differences” between the left and right ears to triangulate the origin of the sound rather than comparing volumes. This causes hearing disorientation and a “not quite sure” feeling about where the sound is coming from.
Scientists have created what is believed to be the first genetically modified (GM) human embryo.
A team from Cornell University in New York produced the GM embryo to study how early cells and diseases develop. It was destroyed after five days.
The British regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has warned that such controversial experiments cause “large ethical and public interest issues”.
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture has won an international competition to design the Masdar Headquarters, the first building in the zero waste, zero carbon emission Masdar City outside of Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates. The Masdar Headquarters will be the first mixed-use positive energy building in the world. AS+GG worked with MEP engineers Environmental Systems Design and structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti on the design.
“There are wars going on in London to get the oil,” said Tom Lasica, who runs Pure Fuels, London’s largest refiner of vegetable oil. “Spanish and German companies are moving in to buy up British used vegetable oil. People are stealing it from each other and selling it abroad. We heard that one fish and chip shop in Southend was broken into just to steal the waste oil.”
Last week, Lighthouse Trails was contacted by two other ministries who brought up issues regarding the use of their material in Steele’s book. Upon reading Steele’s work ourselves, our editors discovered that the 80-page book was filled with verbatim passages copied from other writers material, which was presented as Steele’s own authorship. Because of the sensationalistic overtones of the book (e.g., comparing Oprah to Jim Jones who gave poisoned Kool-aid to over 900 people), and because plagiarism most often ignores the original context and authorial intent of the material copied but is not ethically credited, Lighthouse Trails cannot, in good conscience, promote Steele’s book.
Here’s an interesting blog on the esoteric symbolism of Star Wars:
“Star Wars is religion. In many ways it could be said that Star Wars is my religion. I grew up in an environment that fostered free thinking and self-determination on metaphysical matters. I was four years old when the film that became “Star Wars Episode I: A New Hope” was released. Not only is seeing “Star Wars” amongst my earliest memories, but the anticipation of seeing Star Wars, because my older brother saw it first, and his reaction led me to believe it was something very special (he was seven). Maybe the greatest thing ever. And when you’re four its easy to have your expectations met and even exceeded.[..]
[..] I am by no means the first individual to delve into the deeper philosophical aspects of Star Wars. Many have done so and many more will, some from a position of irony and some dead serious, some scholarly and academic. Various insights, observations, interpretations and even parodies will be addressed in what takes place here, those I find interesting, pertinent or otherwise noteworthy that is, and I will always credit and link to my sources to the best of my ability. [..]
[..] If you’re not sure what I mean by “esoteric symbolism”, I use it to refer to symbolism that is hidden, secretive or otherwise not readily apparent. These are my observations and insights, and a lot of what I talk about may not be deemed “canonical”. You very well may disagree with me. Sometimes esoteric symbols are purposeful and sometimes they are a matter of happenstance. It’s not always possible to tell the difference, and to my way of thinking the intent is not the primary point of interest in all cases. What will become clear, and I hope to make this case, is that George Lucas utilized many story telling techniques in crafting his epics, including occult symbolism to a degree that does not allow for the accidental.”
“If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last 30 years I’m pretty sure you know who Bruce Lee was. If you have, then you may be interested to know that Lee was a very famous martial artist and actor who sparked the first big interest of Chinese martial arts in the West in the 60’s and 70’s. But besides being an awesome fighter and iconic figure Lee also had some very useful things to say about life.
Here are 7 of my favourite fundamentals from Bruce Lee.
1. What are you really thinking about today?
“As you think, so shall you become.”
Perhaps the most basic statement of how we work. Think about what you are thinking today. What do those thoughts say about you? About your life? And how well do they really match your plans for your life and your image of yourself? It’s easy to forget about this simple statement in everyday life. It’s easy to be quite incongruent with what you think on an ordinary day compared to how you view yourself and your goals. A simple external reminder such as a post-it with this quote can be helpful to keep you and your thoughts on the right track.”
t’s believed that more than 3,000 cults exist in America today. But as recent news events of a polygamist sect in Texas have reminded us, we seldom get to see what exactly goes on inside — from the benign to the abusive. Who joins cults or renegade sects? What drives their beliefs? How is sex used to ensure devotion to cult leaders? And is it all just a pretext for more earthly desires?
The moon could become a final resting place for some of mankind thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers, the company said on Thursday.
Celestis, Inc., a company that pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets, said it would start a service to the surface of the moon that could begin as early as next year.
The cost starts at $10,000 for a small quantity of ashes from one person.
About twenty feet below the pavement the group emerged into an eight-foot-wide brickwork tube, the end of which was beyond the immediate reach of the lights. The sturdily-constructed tunnel was a relic from the years following the American Civil War, and it had remained virtually forgotten beneath the streets of New York since its main entrance was sealed sometime around 1880. As the men explored, they found the tunnel in remarkably good condition in spite of its age. When they reached the end of the tube, the men happened upon the wrecked remains of a unique mechanism for transport: a pair of carriages from America’s first subway, the experimental and ill-fated Pneumatic Transit System.
“Join me now, if you have the time, as we take a stroll down memory lane to a time nearly four-and-a-half decades ago – a time when America last had uniformed ground troops fighting a sustained and bloody battle to impose, uhmm, ‘democracy’ on a sovereign nation.
It is the first week of August, 1964, and U.S. warships under the command of U.S. Navy Admiral George Stephen Morrison have allegedly come under attack while patrolling Vietnam’s Tonkin Gulf. This event, subsequently dubbed the ‘Tonkin Gulf Incident,’ will result in the immediate passing by the U.S. Congress of the obviously pre-drafted Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which will, in turn, quickly lead to America’s deep immersion into the bloody Vietnam quagmire. Before it is over, well over fifty thousand American bodies – along with literally millions of Southeast Asian bodies – will litter the battlefields of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.”
[..] Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world in those early months of 1965, a new ‘scene’ is just beginning to take shape in the city of Los Angeles. In a geographically and socially isolated community known as Laurel Canyon – a heavily wooded, rustic, serene, yet vaguely ominous slice of LA nestled in the hills that separate the Los Angeles basin from the San Fernando Valley – musicians, singers and songwriters suddenly begin to gather as though summoned there by some unseen Pied Piper. Within months, the ‘hippie/flower child’ movement will be given birth there, along with the new style of music that will provide the soundtrack for the tumultuous second half of the 1960s.”
“New, controversial footage, from within the Church of Satan, has been released. It has been more than forty years since in-depth footage of the Church was shot, and a new Satanic ritual has been documented and publicly presented for the first time. It’s revealed and confirmed that public servants and various celebrities are, or have been, members of the Satanic Church, including Sammy Davis, Jr. and Jayne Mansfield. In interviews leading up to the un-cut ritual, one Satanist says, if there is a God who feels Satanists should roast in hell, “He can go _ himself,” and that all people are not created equal. Another said Christianity is “like a rabies.”
The footage was captured by independent filmmaker Joshua P. Warren. He was granted unprecedented access to the Church, traveling internationally to live with Satanists and document the most intimate aspects of their philosophy. He has now released it in his new documentary, Inside the Church of Satan.”
In these trails, subjects overwhelmingly chose to preserve equity at the expense of efficiency, Hsu said. “They were all quite inequity averse.” The findings support other studies that show that most people are fairly intolerant of inequity.
The animation, in conjunction with the fMRI, allowed the researchers to view activity in the brain at critical moments in the decision-making process. After analyzing the data, they found that different brain regions – the insula, putamen and caudate – were activated differently, and at different points in the process, Hsu said.
Activation of the insula varied from trial to trial in relation to changes in equity, while activity in the putamen corresponded to changes in efficiency, he said.
In contrast, the caudate appeared to integrate both equity and efficiency once a decision was made.
The involvement of the insula appears to support the notion that emotion plays a role in a person’s attitude towards inequity, Hsu said.
