Not Magick After All

Back in May I commented on a story regarding what appeared to be a platform of skulls discovered at an archaeological dig in India's Dharwad region. When the skulls were initially found experts suggested that they may have been assembled for some sort of magical ritual, and as I noted in my previous article casting a spell while standing on top of a platform of skulls would look seriously awesome. Alas, further investigation suggests that the skulls were not part of a magical ritual at all, but rather those of famine and epidemic victims who died during the so-called "Skull Famine" of 1789-92, a natural disaster that is estimated to have killed approximately eleven million people over four years.

The huge number of skulls — about 600 — makes this the largest single human burial in India or elsewhere, said the team, which started excavation works on January 12. Quoting experts’ opinion, sources told Express: “It is the rarest of the burials executed for the victims of a natural calamity. It was a community burial. All other theories, like large-scale massacre of traitors, slaughter of prisoners of war and religious homicide, cannot be validated.”

The experts also dispelled the theory that it was a collection of remains made by occult practitioners of Vamachara (witchcraft). The experts said one ghastly natural calamity that happened in the Deccan in particular, and south India in general — and well-recorded in the history of the region — was the severe famine of 1789-92. This famine is remembered even now in folklore as ‘bones lay unburied, whitening roads and fields. The ground was covered with skulls of the unburied’.

So rather than the skulls being related to some magical purpose, it would appear that the mass burial was a response to the concurrent deaths of many people who needed to be buried quickly. That's a lot less over-the-top than the image of an evil sorcerer standing atop the heads of enemies conjuring the malevolent powers of the universe, but in the end probably much more believable.

Education and Religion

Last week I commented on a study which seemed to show that both Christians who consider themselves "born-again" and unbelievers suffer from greater degrees of atrophy in the hippocampus, an area of the brain crucial for processing memories, in old age. Several hypotheses to explain these findings have been suggested by the researchers themselves and also by various commenters. Without more information it's hard to say what might be the mechanism behind this difference between the affected groups and members of more mainstream churches, but another study posted today by CNN may help shed a little more light on some of the factors involved.

This latest study links education level and religious belief. The reason that this link is important in the context of the previous study is that there is a great deal of research showing that higher levels of education tend to help counteract various forms of cognitive decline. These findings on the protective effects of education line up prettty well with basic common sense - the more you develop the connections in your brain the longer they take to start falling apart are you age. Educated people also tend to have a greater understanding of methods that have been found to stave off cognitive decline to some degree such as working with puzzles and brain teasers.

So if it turns out that better-educated people are more religious in some particular way that is not shared by "born-agains," it may be that the additional brain connections cultivated by education and mental exercise are the real key rather than characteristics of particular spiritual beliefs. Furthermore, if more educated people gravitate toward mainstream churches the same mechanism could be in play. This means that the findings of this latest study are quite important in terms of understanding the results of the previous one.

When "Warlock" Means "Douchebag"

As anyone with access to TMZ should be aware of by now, a campaign is currently underway to rehabilitate the word "warlock" as a positive and acceptible term for a magician, spellcaster, or witch. This campaign is being led by certain eyeliner-abusing Salem witch who is far too well-known around these parts, and probably everywhere else as well. The term also gained media prominence back in February when Charlie Sheen claimed on national television that in firing him from "Two and a Half Men" over his bizarre comments and behavior the network had "picked a fight with a warlock."

In many television series "warlock" has been used to mean "male witch," while the Wiccan community has insisted for years that the word is not gendered and instead derives from a term meaning "oathbreaker." In a previous thread it was suggested that another possible derivation was from a Norse word meaning "spirit-caller," which could properly be applied to practitioners of many magical paths. However, the wikipedia article on the word's history and usage references the Oxford English Dictionary, which does not accept the latter etymology.

The commonly accepted etymology derives warlock from the Old English wǣrloga meaning "oathbreaker" or "deceiver." A derivation from the Old Norse varð-lokkur, "caller of spirits," has also been suggested; however, the Oxford English Dictionary considers this etymology inadmissible.

The Oxford English Dictionary also provides the following meanings of the word: Warlock v1 Obs. (ex. dial.) rare, also warloke: To secure (a horse) as with a fetterlock. Warlock v2: To bar against hostile invasion.

While the idea of rehabilitating the term may have an appeal to some, it strikes me as a pointless distraction. There are so many better and more effective things that magicians could be doing besides waging public relations campaigns over the meaning of a single word that the mind boggles. Furthermore, it should be obvious that if you're pretty much the only person out there calling yourself a "warlock" and you go around acting like a douchebag, that's the association people are going to remember.

Prayer - You're Doing It Wrong

So I'm back from NOTOCON VIII. The convention was great as usual, with lots of fascinating presentations and awesome folks from all around the country. Saturday was our formal banquet, and on that same evening it so happened that Texas Governor Rick Perry was holding a big stadium event in Houston inviting Christians to "pray for the economy."

"Pray for our economy!" says Doug Stringer of Turning Point Ministries. "Pray for our country! Pray for our businesses, for jobs!"

His sermon reverberates from the stage into the seats and bleachers of Reliant Stadium. Thousands of Christians—many of the 30,000 who've made it inside—get up and take his advice. They break into small huddles and start praying about the economy. Walking past them, I hear incredibly specific words like "investments" and "9.2 percent unemployment" and "downgrade." I see people tearing up, dabbing their eyes, praying even more. They have to finish quickly, before the next round of songs and prayers. They've already sat through three hours of them; there are four hours left to go.

The irony of this event going on in Houston at the same time that I was busy celebrating with my fellow accused "Crowley cultists" in Detroit strikes me as rather amusing, though I'll freely admit it's unlikely that the Order is even on Rick Perry's radar.

Off to NOTOCON!

This weekend I'll be attending the National Ordo Templi Orientis Convention, also known as NOTOCON, in Detroit, Michigan. This the eighth biannual conference in a series that started in 1997, and I'm one of a small group of initiates who have attended all of them. I still remember back in the late 1990's when the idea of having a conference was being discussed, and apparently at the time there were some who worried that if initiates from all over the country ever got together for a big event afterwards half of them would resign and never be seen again.

This possibility was apparently discussed seriously at the time, though given the ongoing success of the national conferences it seems laughable now. In fact, most of the order members who attend the conferences are pretty cool people despite the contentious reputation that Thelema has acquired over the years and I always come away having enjoyed my weekend immensely. In general I'm not that fond of traveling, but for NOTOCON I'm always willing to make an exception.

One of the things I really appreciate about these conferences is the excellent overall quality of the various presentations and rituals. Two years ago the one that impressed me the most was Colin Campbell's presentation on John Dee's Sigillum Dei Aemeth, in which he laid out a pretty convincing case that Dee made a couple of errors in constructing his Sigillum to the Enochian angels' specifications. Normally when people make "discoveries" like that about the Enochian system they wind up being a matter of interpretation and conjecture, but Campbell's presentation was particularly solid. His whole argument was published in The Magic Seal of Dr. John Dee which was unfortunately a limited edition that is now out of print. I picked up a copy as soon as I got back from the last conference, but for the sake of Enochian studies in general I hope that at some point a mass market version becomes available. It's really good stuff.

I'm leaving tonight after work and will be back home late Sunday evening. Next week I plan on picking up a few of the stories I missed during the Mercury afflictions of last month. Have a great weekend, and if any of you are going to be attending NOTOCON I suppose I'll see you out there.

What to Make of This?

One of the advantages of living in the modern era is that we have access to scientific techniques far beyond those available even a few decades ago. This is particularly true as far as brain research goes, in that neuroscience has exploded over the last twenty years. Breakthroughs in brain science have been facilitated by more advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning techniques which have revolutionized the field. Back when I was in college the best functional scanning you could do used positron emission tomography (PET) which was a fantastic method of monitoring brain activity for about 45 seconds and then you were done.

This recent study came out back in May, and to a spiritual practitioner like myself raises more questions than it answers.

According to the study, people who said they were a "born-again" Protestant or Catholic, or conversely, those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinkage (or "atrophy") compared to people who identified themselves as Protestants, but not born-again.

As people age, a certain amount of brain atrophy is expected. Shrinkage of the hippocampus is also associated with depression, dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

In the study, researchers asked 268 people aged 58 to 84 about their religious affiliation, spiritual practices and life-changing religious experiences. Over the course of two to eight years, changes to the hippocampus were monitored using MRI scans.

On the surface it would seem like the two groups associated with greater hippocampal shrinkage have little in common, and in fact are often genuinely hostile to each other. But apparently they experience some similar outcomes in old age at the neurological level.

Rate Your Priest!

It seems like you can find a site on the Internet that will let you rate just about anything. Thanks to a new web site in Germany, priests can now be added to that list. The site allows parishioners to rate their priests according to various factors and makes those ratings available to the public.

"Pastoral work should be qualitative," Andreas Hahn, one of the founders said of the original idea behind the site, adding they hoped "to stimulate dialogue to improve pastoral work."

Also, "many parishes work well but their performance doesn't become public," Hahn said of the platform's function.

He hoped the site could also contribute to some kind of an early alert system, so that potential problems might be recognised before they become actual problems.

Launched in April, the site has been well received by users. "We are overwhelmed by our own success," Hahn said. With 25,000 parishes and some 8,000 priests registered so far and the option to add more, the site's reach is growing.

One might think that churches would welcome such feedback, and the number of priests signing up for the site certainly seems to bear this out. However, the response to the site shows a real split between Catholic and Protestant authorities.

But while the site has proven a hit with users, reaction from the Roman Catholic church, which has been rocked by abuse allegations in the past year and witnessed a record number of parishioners leaving the church, has been more muted.

Neither the archbishopric in Berlin nor the German conference of bishops wanted to comment on the website.

The protestant church said that it found the rising interest in public feedback as embodied by the hirtenbarometer concept a "positive development," according to a recent press release.

From the standpoint of the hacker ethic information wants to be free, and these sorts of ratings constitute a great tool for anyone looking around for a congregation to join. There are real differences between individual priests in terms of attitude, outlook, competence, and spiritual realization, and all of those factors contribute to the experiences of individual congregants. Not only does the rating system provide some insights into particular churches without anyone having to walk in the door, it also seems likely to inspire those members of the priesthood who choose to participate to strive for greater excellence in their vocations.

Mercury in July

You probably have noticed that the number of articles posted here declined dramatically in July. This was partially due to my being away for Convergence over the weekend of the 4th, but mostly because Mercury essentially unloaded on me over the course of the last couple of weeks. Now, problems related to Mercury do manifest from time to time, but I found it odd that so many of them seemed to hit at once.

1. My PC died. This turned out to be pretty easy to fix - the problem was the CPU fan went out and the machine was overheating.
2. I took my car in to a mechanic because it was making a noise that I thought was from something in the exhaust. It turned out that the problem was inside the engine and would cost substantially more to fix than the car is worth. I decided I would be better off buying another car with a lot fewer miles, since in my experience replacing or rebuilding an engine isn't worth it unless you can do the labor yourself.
3. My Internet router died. Replacing it wound up being a serious pain. The first one I got was nice but I couldn't get it to connect to my ISP for some reason that tech support couldn't help me with. I returned that one and picked up the recommended model, which worked at first but died the next day. I exchanged that one for another of the same model and that one appears to be working.
4. The one issue I'm still having is that my phone, which is on a VOIP router, is still down. For some reason it seems like the VOIP router can't connect properly to the new Internet router. I'm still in the process of getting that fixed, but at least I have Internet back.

I would say that some of this was related to the record hot weather here in Minnesota, and maybe that had something to do with the car. But the thing is, my home is air conditioned and there's no reason to think that the heat would have affected the various electronics. Even during the big heat wave the temperature stayed the same inside my house.

I took a look at the astrology and my best guess is that Mercury was in sextile with both Saturn and Mars, the major and minor malefic. Sextiles are not normally considered negative aspects, but one of the things I realized is that as I replaced these various failing components I found that I liked the replacements a lot better. The old CPU fan that came with my PC was rather loud when it ran on full and the new one is whisper-quiet. The car I bought, a Chrysler Sebring (I'm a convertible enthusiast), is much nicer than the Sunfire convertible it replaced. The router seems to be working about the same, but we'll see how that goes over the next couple of months.

So the normal interpretation of a sextile, as an opportunity for positive action, seems to fit my situation pretty well. I just wish it hadn't been quite so expensive to take advantage of it.