Happy May Day!

Beltane - The May Day Festival

© The Weirding, 2018

The Book Test

Gladys Osborne Leonard

Invented by famed English medium, Gladys Osborne Leonard (and her spirit guide, Feda), The Book Test was popular around the time of The Great War (WWI).  A dead "communicator" would send a message to the living by way of a medium, who would direct the listener to a book in a location to which the medium had never been.  The dead spirit's message would be found in the text on a page number specified by the medium.  Like many fads of the American Spiritualist Movement at the turn of the 20^th-Century, the practice was inauthentic and short-lived.

A 1921 analysis of The Book Test found no merit to the practice, though a handful of cases proved inexplicable.  Of 532 tests, 17% were successful, 18% were partially successful, but 38% were total failures.  It was dismissed as providing any proof of life after death.

Russian medium Nina Kulagina presented a unique twist on The Book Test phenomenon, by naming the first letter of each paragraph on given pages of randomly-chosen books.

© The Weirding, 2016

Christ, the Magician

A bowl dated between the 2^nd-Century BC and 1^st-Century AD uncovered by archaeologists may contain the oldest known reference to Jesus Christ.  It calls him a "magician."

This may prove that early Christianity and pagan religions were intertwined.  The inscription, "DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS" has been translated literally to mean "Christ, the magician."

Many books in the Bible refer to magi who practiced various forms of magickery.  The bowl was likely a tool for divination. According to the discoverer, whoever owned the bowl may have been invoking the name of the Christ as "the primary exponent of white magic."

Other researchers have translated the inscription differently, associating it instead with various religious sects in the area at the time.  "It should be remembered that in Alexandria, paganism, Judaism, and Christianity never evolved in isolation.  All of these forms of religion (evolved) magical practices that seduced both the humble members of the population and the most well-off classes," one researcher noted.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

Japanese Dog Seeks Salvation

Conan, Spiritual Chihuahua

Joei Yoshikuni was just trying to get his pet chihuahua, Conan, to be still while he prayed. Conan decided he might as well make good use of his quiet-time -- so he, too, took up the priest's ritual!

Attendance at the Buddhist Jegenin temple has risen 30% since then, with many followers attending services just to watch the little pooch pray. But, while he clasps his forepaws to his head, "It's not like we can teach him to cross his legs," Yoshikuni said.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

Photo swiped from dogonews.com

Was Moses ON DOPE!?

An Israeli professor of cognitive psychology has forwarded the theory that Moses may have been under the influence of hallucinogens when he saw the burning bush and received the Ten Commandments atop Mt. Sinai.

Benny Shanon mentioned his own psychedelic experiences, taken as part of religious ceremonies, which led to religious-based hallucinations and allowed him to "see sound."  He also noted that the use of psychedelics in religious ceremonies is a time-honored tradition in many religions around the world.  In fact, concoctions made from the bark of the acacia tree, oft-mentioned in The Bible, have hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of ayahuasca, an hallucinogen still in use in religious ceremonies in the Amazon.

Like the acacia, ayahuasca is a plant with hallucinogenic properties.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

Mt. Sinai is listed as "E 101st St, New York, NY 10029, USA" because Israel's current borders are rightfully unrecognized by the entire world outside of the US MIC (and Israel).  This may be the address of AIPAC/religious -backed, legal representatives.  Mt. Sinai absolutely never existed in North America; it is located in disputed areas in the Middle East.  I just had to include this to point-out the incredible overreach of the US military industrial complex (operating in this case under the name Google, Ltd.) and its continued terrorist activities.  That is fucking crazy. - 2018

Emotional States and Chemical Changes

As I mentioned over to The Rundown, I am amazingly disorganized. And I use that word specifically; I am not unorganized - I am disorganized, meaning that I have "A System" and I have files and folders and cabinets and shelves, they're just in such a state of disarray that I can never find what I am looking for when I want it, and tend to come across stuff I've completely forgotten I even had at random times.

Today was one of those days.

I was (and still am) looking for notes on the S.A.F.E. RPG system for the website, and I came across a page of notes from some research I was doing a year or so back which I found interesting and pertinent to the recent conversation, re: poltergeists, Dæmonic infestation, Elementals, and so forth.

I was apparently thinking along the lines of the sometimes controversial and thoroughly modern scientific belief that emotions are caused and controlled by chemical changes within the body - something with which I stringently disagree. The priests of the great god, Science, have been trying for years now to reduce human life to a binary code - a series of chemical processes and switches in which there is no spirit, no real free will, no such thing as "being." I disagree with this in principle, and not necessarily on any socio-psycho religious basis, though those beliefs I hold cannot be completely divorced from the matter; suffice it to say that I believe people have a soul or spirit - even if you just want to call it a “personality” - which may have some scientific structure and can certainly be pondered from a scientific standpoint, but is not a fully scientific matter.

In my notes, I say, “If an agitated state at the time of death is associated with prolonged spiritual attachment to the prime material plane - and a haunted site is said to be likewise emotionally impacted - this proves that emotions are not chemical reactions. Unquestionably, emotional states result in chemical changes, but these chemical changes are the result of emotional status, not vice-versa. This then points toward emotional status and emotions [in general] being atmospheric in nature - occurring naturally on their own [separate from any internal chemical influence], but affected by other atmospheric influences.”

What this means is that, for example, you don’t get mad because your body suddenly dumps a load of Testosterone (that didn’t come out exactly right, did it?); your body produces Testosterone because you get mad. This sounds basic, but Science has been trying for a very long time to posit the reverse. Science is trying to tell us that we have no soul, no spirit, and no real individual personality; we are nothing more than a series of chemical reactions, and this simply is not true.

We are each possessed of an individual spirit which, though affected by our environment and experiences throughout life, are somehow formed when we are born. You can see this in the individual actions of children! This is important for many reasons, but goes a long way in proving the existence of Evil as a force unto itself.