World Not Ending in September

Absolutely nothing like this will be happening in September

Apparently we now live in a world where this proclamation or something similar has to be made on a regular basis. A meme has recently been going around the Internet stating that a large asteroid is due to strike the Earth in September of this year.

Now NASA has identified a number of near-Earth objects, some of which could do serious damage if they struck our planet, but as it turns out this prediction has nothing to do with science. As usual, it's being circulated by "biblical theorists" who think that this time, for sure, they've come up with the date that the world will end.

Among the latest crop is this one reported by the Huffington Post. A so-called "online community of biblical theorists" believes a huge asteroid will strike the planet sometime in the Sept. 22-28 window, wiping us out.

For reasons unexplained, some of these crackpot predictions gain more traction than others. This one reportedly caught the attention of NASA, which responded with a statement, according to Yahoo News.

According to Yahoo News, a NASA spokesperson said: "NASA knows of no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth, so the probability of a major collision is quite small. In fact, as best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years."

I'll say it one more time. Biblical theorists are wrong about this. They always are wrong about this. And, when the alleged date passes without anything happening, the most inexplicable thing about it is that some people will still take them seriously. How many times does it take, folks?

The fact is that NASA does track all known near-Earth objects, and none of them will pass close enough in September to pose even the slightest threat. And if it were going to happen in just a few months, we would know about it. Not only that, we'd be getting the warning through channels more reliable than Facebook.

How Do They Do It?

I know, the answer to that question is "by being total huckster con artists," but it still never ceases to amaze me how much money some fake psychics are able to bilk from their clients. Huffington Post has a story up today about a New York man who was apparently scammed out of more than $700,000. That's not a typo - I didn't accidentally hit a couple of extra zeros in there. It's almost three quarters of a million dollars. Meanwhile, real practicing occultists like myself make due with a couple thousand a year in book sales.

While I have neither the inclination nor the people-reading skills to go into the fake psychic trade, and I make a lot more money at my day job than I ever could as a legitimate occultist-for-hire, the difference in earnings between the real and the fake seriously does amaze me. Now it is true that this particular faker is in the news because she went overboard and is being charged with fraud, but still. Had she been a little less greedy she might have gotten away with it.

The 32-year-old Brooklyn man told police he consulted Delmaro in August 2013 who told him that evil spirits were keeping him from a woman he claimed to love and wanted to be with who did not share his same affections, The New York Times reported.

In a statement he and a private investigator presented to detectives last month, the man said that the 26-year-old psychic told him that he and the woman, Michelle, were "twin flames" being kept apart by negativity. Delmaro told him spirits talked to her, so he made multiple payments to her over 20 months, he told investigators.

According to the man, those payments included $80,000 for an 80-mile bridge she said would trap evil spirits into another realm, a $30,000 Rolex she claimed would cleanse the sins of his past and $40,064 for a Tiffany diamond ring to "protect his energy," along with other payments totaling as much as $40,000.

The man— who has not been identified in court documents —told police he had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars before finding out in February 2014 that Michelle had died. But, the man wrote, Delmaro said she could be reincarnated.

More payments and a trip to seek out the "new" Michelle followed before the man said he decided to go to police. By then, he said he was out $713,975.

This is a case where I think the whole Skeptic movement may just be making things worse. They out a lot of phony psychics, but the problem is that since they think the paranormal is bullshit they also don't want anybody knowing about genuine occultism. If this guy had any idea how magick works, he never would have fallen for a lot of this nonsense.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Spotted in New Zealand

For a religion that started off as a joke lampooning creationists, Pastafarianism has sure come a long way. But maybe the reason that the religion has done so well is that the deity of the Pastafarians, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, really exists. At least, that's what this video from New Zealand seems to indicate. It's clear unlike a lot of paranormal footage, and you can see the noodly appendages and everything right there.

Pastafarians have always been vague about where their deity lives. Generally speaking, they maintain that this is because he doesn't exist. But if you think about it, New Zealand is a pretty logical place. It's humid, so his noodly appendages won't dry out, and not so hot that they might run the risk of becoming too mushy. And especially from the air, New Zealand has some of the most beautiful terrain in the world.

So will the theology of Pastafarianism change now that his secret place of residence has been discovered? Will New Zealand become a new place of pilgrimage for all who follow his noodly ways, or at least have a thing for full pirate regalia? I suppose only time will tell. Perhaps he will now be seen all over the world to reveal his teachings, including the sacred recipe for his secret marinara sauce.

It seems that whatever happens next, all those who wear colanders should now rejoice. He is among us!

Alchemical Gold

The manufacture of gold from other elements, long the dream of practical alchemists, became real with the advent of the atomic age. According to the stories the material transformed was lead, but in reality the process works better with mercury, particularly the mercury-196 isotope which makes up about ten percent of naturally occurring mercury. And it's easy, too - if you have a nuclear reactor on hand. Just stick some mercury in the reactor for about a day, and it transforms. Just like magic!

The Philosopher’s Stone is the idea that you could have a magical material that could turn lead, or some very inexpensive metal, into gold. For thousands of years, kings sought out this mythical device, one that could create gold out of common metals. Scientists and alchemists for centuries have been trying to invent one. Even Sir Isaac Newton obsessed over the mystery of the Philosopher’s Stone in the 17th century. However, the English feared the potential devaluation of gold and made the practice of alchemy punishable by death.

Fast forward now a few centuries to present day Irvine. According to Michael Dennin, a professor at UCI, gold is formed due to nuclear reactions, similar to those occurring in the sun. And now, since scientists can produce controlled nuclear reactions, scientists have the ability to manufacture gold from other elements. Michael’s colleague, Dr. A.J. Shaka, conducts experiments in alchemy on a daily basis.

Mercury 196, an isotope that can pick up a neutron, is placed in a nuclear reactor, and after 23 hours, it turns to gold. A real life Philosopher’s Stone at our university! However, a days’ worth of nuclear reactions will create 3/10 of a cent worth of gold but costs $200 per hour to operate the reactor. You’ll be far in the hole.

I know what you're thinking - just put enough mercury in the reactor, and you can make the process more efficient. But the problem is that as the amount goes up, so does the necessary energy and every reactor has hard limits there. So the alchemists were right that it could be done, but apparently quite wrong that it could be done inexpensively. I suppose if we lived in a technologically modern age that maintained the feudal structure of the Renaissance, a noble could just build their own reactor and get to work. But that still would require so many resources that it would be impractical to make enough gold to ever justify the expense.

Years ago I posted a speculative article about this process of transforming mercury into gold. What I was wondering back then was whether or not it might have been possible to create even tinier amounts of gold through this process using Renaissance technology. It sounds a little silly at first, but I'm convinced that a makeshift nuclear vessel could be constructed simply by someone with access to highly radioactive material such as radium. It wouldn't be at all safe, but it might be able to concentrate enough radiation to extract some gold - and anyone seeing such a transformation might erroneously assume that the process could be scaled up to commercial quantities.

The key word there is might. Since I'm not a nuclear scientist, I don't know whether or not it's even remotely possible. There's certainly no evidence that it was ever done, such as irradiated lab equipment dating to the period. I also wonder about the magical properties of such manufactured gold. Would they be the same as for the naturally appearing substance, or would they somehow be altered by having gone through the manufacturing process? I imagine it would be pretty cool to have temple implements made from such "alchemical gold," but until I become independently wealthy there's no way that's going to happen given the cost.

Your Home in Middle-Earth

If you happen to be a magician looking for a home here in the Twin Cities suitable for use as a sorcerous lair, here's your chance. This one-of-kind house in Northeast Minneapolis looks just like something out of a fantasy novel. Better still, it's not a massively expensive suburban monstrosity like the last unique property I profiled, Poseidon's Fortress.

From the outside the house is relatively unassuming, with rich brown wood siding. The lot is lovingly landscaped, with stone paths and steps leading through a maze of carefully selected plants and shrubs. Only the wolf spirit guardian depicted on the garage door, shown below, marks this as the home of a mighty wizard.

Charlie Went Viral Because Marketing

CHARLIE CHARLIE CHALLENGE

THE CHARLIE CHARLIE CHALLENGE IS DANGEROUS.Do NOT attempt it. I'm lucky to be alive. PLEASE LIKE & SHARE TO ENSURE NO ONE ELSE GETS HURT

Posted by HowToBasic on Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Last week the "Charlie Challenge" seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Up until then it had been a relatively obscure teen party game that originated in Mexico, sort of like Ouija without the board. But according to Uproxx, some filmmaker decided to incorporate it into a horror movie and organized the "Challenge" as a viral marketing campaign.

We’ve already written about stupid social media trend #CharlieCharlieChallenge, in which stupid teenagers use stupid pencils like a stupid Ouija board based on a stupid casually-racist rumor about a “Mexican demon” named “Charlie,” because that’s a reasonable name for a Mexican demon who likes pencils.

Anyway, it was a stupid marketing campaign.

Everything is terrible.

As the video above shows, this Charlie Charlie thing comes from a scene in The Gallows, a horror movie I will say no more about, other than it filmed before this challenge started, they’re obviously behind the social media trend, and we still aren’t going to look up when this movie is in theaters or what it’s about. I feel dumber just for noticing this all existed in the first place.

So apparently this was all about a movie, but aside from the video I posted above nobody seems to be asking the question they should be asking:

Is Charlie Sheen in this movie, and if he isn't, why not?

Because if he were in the movie, I expect that it would be completely batshit insane, and that would totally move those tickets. Watching that pencil move from No to Yes, and then from Yes to WINNER WINNER SHEEN DINNER would be totally worth the price of admission.

The Vatican Warlock Assassin could not be reached for comment.

Lymphatic Vessels Link Brain and Body

Back when I was in college around 1990 one of the hot areas of interdisciplinary study was psychoneuroimmunology, a field built around the experimental observation that cognitive states could affect the function of the immune system. Researchers hoped that such a connection could provide an explanation for the placebo effect, the effectiveness of alternative healing modalities such as acupuncture, and impaired immune system function in depressed patients. It was also thought that it might be relevant as an explanation for the "relaxation response" provoked by meditation, which appears to have anti-inflammatory properties.

The base hypothesis was a logical one, but the mechanism behind it proved incredibly stubborn. Especially in the case of the placebo effect, it's not that anyone doubts something real is going on. It has to be controlled for in every medical drug trial, even though it's poorly understood. Also, last year researchers studying acupuncture may have discovered a chemical pathway involving interleukin-10, an anti-inflammatory compound produced by the immune system, that seems to be activated by acupuncture treatment.

In my article, I offered up the hypothesis that this interleukin-10 pathway could work in conjunction with the lymphatic system to produce the results reported for acupuncture treatment. A chart of the acupuncture meridians follows the lymphatic system fairly precisely, and a needle pentrating a lymphatic vessel will promote an immune response. So the needle would promote the production of interleukin-10 at the point of contact, and the lymphatic system would move the substance some distance from it. This is a straightforward chemical model that involves no mysterious energies, while at the same time explaining the effectiveness of exercises such as Qigong sets that promote the movement of lymphatic fluid.

Neuroscientists have now identified that the network of lymphatic vessels connected with the brain is more extensive than previously thought, which not only supports some of my contentions about acupuncture but which may also finally provide the mechanism that psychoneuroimmunologists have been seeking for nearly thirty years. It could explain the placabo effect and many other findings that relate subjective state of mind to immune system function. The newly discovered vessels are shown in green in the image on the right.

Sympathy for the Devil

Let's face it. If the Devil is real, and that whole "war in Heaven" story actually happened, he must be getting pretty bored by now doing nothing but hanging out in the pits of Hell and basically being evil all the time. The good old days, when God allowed him to gleefully kick the crap out of Job, are long gone. So if you were the Devil, what would you do?

A new television series, Lucifer, claims to have the answer. In the series, based on a comic book character created by Neil Gaiman, the Devil abandons Hell, moves to Los Angeles, and opens a nightclub. Hey, it sounds a lot more fun than brooding around an infernal pit until the end of time. But predictably, a conservative advocacy group is circulating a petition to stop the show, because, you know, the Devil is evil.

As of press time, more than 12,000 people had signed on to One Million Moms’ petition, launched Thursday, to cancel Fox’s planned 2016 fantasy series. According to One Million Moms, the show “will glorify Satan as a caring, likable person in human flesh.” The Lucifer character will be “portrayed as a good guy,” according to the petition’s authors — a contrast to Lucifer’s biblical portrayal as the devil incarnate.

Lucifer’s official website describes the program as the story of a fallen angel who has “abandoned his throne and retired to L.A., where he owns Lux, an upscale nightclub.” One Million Moms laments on its website that previews of Fox’s upcoming TV program, “depict graphic acts of violence, a nightclub featuring scantily-clad women, and a demon.”

One Million Moms, which clarifies on its website that it welcomes people who are not moms — even if they’re “single” — is a prolific petition producer. The right-wing organization’s ongoing campaigns, which anyone can add their signature to, include a call to make Schick’s commercials for razors targeted at women less sexually suggestive and a request that Taco Bell tone down the implication in one commercial that a woman may have shown her bare chest to a man — possibly one she was not married to.

So One Million Moms is not made up of moms, and it doesn't have anywhere near a million members. But I suppose "a couple thousand uptight crazy folks" doesn't have the same ring to it. Media scolds are some of the most boring people out there, determined to reduce all of popular culture to a G-rated melange that hardly anybody wants.

As for me, I'll be happy to watch the show if it turns out to be any good. Watching the Devil run a hip nightclub has to be a lot more interesting than a lot of the stuff that airs currently.