Busy Busy Busy

And here I thought I would have more time to update the blog now that fall is here! So much for that idea.

The good news is that I'm in the process of working out publishing deals for both Operant Magick, my textbook on ritual magick that I've mentioned here before, and Arcana, a fictional novel about magicians. Unfortunately that plus working full time means I have less time to update the blog that I would ideally like. I'm also working on getting the archive stories put together and posted, and hopefully I'll have time to get some of that done soon. In the meantime, here are some recent news stories that touch on religion, spirituality, and in one case just plain Fortean weirdness. Enjoy!

Nepal suffers a goat shortage just days before a major religious festival honoring the Hindi goddess Durga.

"Kathmandu city faces a shortage of goats during the festival, which always brings a high demand for goat meat," Bijaya Thapa, deputy general manager at the Nepal Food Corporation, told AFP.

"We are bringing goats in to ease the supply and to control dramatic price hikes."

Goats and other animals are traditionally slaughtered during the 15-day festival, which begins on September 19, to appease the Hindu goddess of power, Durga.

Officials have been tasked with persuading farmers to sell their livestock in rural areas, where the government has posted adverts calling on people to sell their goats.

Thapa said the price of the animals had risen by around 25 percent in the capital as the festival approached, and the government was hoping to bring in around 6,000 of them.

Here's a question for anyone who might happen to know - how do I go about starting my own banana sex cult?

A cult leader in Papua New Guinea fled naked into the jungle after being confronted by police over allegations that he'd forced followers to have sex in public, with the promise that it would boost the banana harvest.

The man, identified as Thomas Peli, told his followers that the banana harvest would increase every time they had sex in public, according to the Parpua New Guinea Post-Courier - and he reinforced his demands for public fornication with threats of violence.

Maybe this next story means there's somebody in Cameroon who can finally teach me how to cast a lightning bolt!

A lightning bolt that struck a school, killing five children has been blamed on witchcraft by a traditional ruler in northwest Cameroon.

State radio said that 58 other children went into shock after the lightning bolt hit the small village school on Tuesday. A teacher said the bolt hit at the beginning of the school day.

The Virgin Mary has apparently visited Samoa. Unfortunately for believers, it's very possible for normal weathering and thermal effects to create images that vaguely resemble the traditional representation of the Virgin Mary, but since no picture accompanies the story I'll reserve judgment for now.

The image caused by weathering on the outside of the six-storey office building in the capital Apia has been the focus of prayer vigils on Monday and Tuesday night.

Although the image has not been officially recognised by the South Pacific nation's Catholic Church, which especially reveres the mother of Jesus Christ, a church spokesman said it represented an important message.

"This is something people should look deeply into," said Father Spatz Silva, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archbishop.

Forteans want to know: what the hell is this thing?

A slimy, glob-like creature dubbed Gollum has terrified children after it slithered out of a lake and clambered over the rocks towards them.

The young teenagers were playing by the waterfront in a Panama lake near Cerro Azul when the bald beast emerged from a cave behind a waterfall. They started screaming as it shuffled out "as if to attack them".

Locals told Panama news the monster was like "Gollum from Lord of the Rings".

Experts believe that the strange animal could be some sort of sloth, but whether it's a bizarre mutation, a new species, or even the result of some sort of magical experimentation is hard to determine without further investigation.

Finally, Salon has an amusing write-up today listing many of the failed predictions regarding the time and date of the Apocalypse that have been made over the last several centuries. I had heard of most of these previously, such those made by the Millerites, but there are also a few more recent ones on the list that I wasn't aware of.

In a poll from earlier this decade, 17 percent said they expected the world to end in their lifetime. Perhaps that's why, even though Jesus may have admonished that no man knows the day and hour, so many people can't resist making a pseudo-educated guess about the day and hour.

One of the more popular theories making the rounds lately has centered on the Mayan calendar, which runs out in 2012. You get the drift -- don't make any plans for 2013. The New Agey claptrap is popular enough that it inspired Roland Emmerich's upcoming apocalypse-porn blockbuster "2012," due in multiplexes everywhere this November.

With a hat tip to the citizens of New Jersey, Roland Emmerich and the ancient Mayans, we present this honor roll of doomsday panics and false messiahs -- a whole lot of past predictions that didn't pan out, and a few more current revelations that are looking iffy. This is the way the world doesn't end. No bang, lots of whimpers.

I find linking 2012 with the end of the world especially silly. We have very little information about Mayan religion and magick and what we do have doesn't address why they drew out their calendar in such a way that it ends in that particular year. There are no Mayan prophecies, predictions, or anything else associated with 2012 - it just happens to be when their calendar runs out. We can probably blame much of the current hysteria on the Spanish conquistadors who decided that it would be a smart move to burn the vast majority of Mayan codices, some of which might have explained why the calendar was set up the way it was. In my opinion it is this very lack of information that fuels most of the New Age speculation about the Mayan calendar and civilization.

I suppose if the world really does end in 2012 I'll owe somebody an apology for my skepticism, but then if we're all dead I'm guessing the whole question will be academic.

UPDATE: There's this idea that the entire Mayan civilization disappeared, but that's not true. There are still plenty of Maya in parts of the Yucatan peninsula to this day, and according to them there's no apocalypse on its way. If that doesn't settle the question I don't know what will.

Your Own Dan Brown Bestseller

Author Dan Brown unveiled his latest novel, The Lost Symbol, this week. The novel is a sequel to The Da Vinci Code and continues the adventures of Robert Langdon, the "professor of symbology" featured in both the aforementioned book and Angels and Demons. Have you ever wished that you could write your own Dan Brown bestseller? Well, now you can, thanks to modern technology. Slate introduces the Dan Brown Sequel Generator! Just select your city and a nefarious group up to no good and the computer does the rest. It's too bad that it only writes plot summaries, not full novels, since one well-received book of this sort can make an entire writing career, just like The Da Vinci Code did for Dan Brown. I've heard that prior to the media frenzy surrounding that particular novel none of Brown's books had sold more then ten thousand copies, but as we all know that one bestseller changed everything for him. His older books have now sold in the millions as well and Angels and Demons was made into a film. With its pre-Da Vinci sales numbers that never would have happened.

Years ago students at M.I.T. developed a romance novel generator, but I haven't heard anything about that particular technology in many years and am left wondering what became of it. Especially with today's more advanced computers it should be possible to build a much more complex program that could produce something akin to a Dan Brown novel. It's not as if the computer's fact base needs to be all that accurate - Slate also points out that there's no such thing as a "professor of symbology" and that the new novel set in Washington DC gets a lot of things wrong about the city. To be fair to Brown I did enjoy both The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons for what they were, so it might be a bit of challenge to program a computer with the necessary language skills to build suspense and keep the story moving along at a brisk pace. As a writer I know there's a lot of nuance involved that very well might still test the limits of artificial intelligence, and as a software developer that strikes me as pretty compelling problem to solve.

By the way, is it just me or does the cover of The Lost Symbol look suspiciously similar to the cover of Rhonda Byrne's The Secret? If the resemblance isn't coincidental, maybe it's a teaser for Brown's next novel in which followers of The Secret and that What the Bleep? movie kidnap a famous quantum physicist and threaten to banish one fundamental particle from reality by the power of concentrated attention each hour unless the National Academy of Sciences issues a proclamation declaring that all objects in the universe are constructed from thought rather than matter. In the climactic scene, Robert Langdon could defeat the cultists by demonstrating that positive thinking can't stop a bullet fired at the group's leader and then taking advantage of the ensuing confusion to escape with the physicist and Marlee Matlin. Matlin could even play herself in the inevitable film, and maybe we could give Byrne and that "messages in water" guy bit parts.

Hey, that sounds like a winner to me! Now where's my royalty check?

UPDATE: I finally came across a review of The Lost Symbol that summarizes the plot, and it sounds like the teaser is for this novel, not the next one. The plot actually does have to with "water memory" and that What the Bleep? nonsense, except with Freemasons. So much for my great idea - but maybe they can still get Marlee Matlin to be in the movie.

Research Idea: The EMF Meter

I've been watching a lot of Ghost Hunters lately and one of the paranormal investigation tools that I find fascinating is the EMF meter. The theory in paranormal research is that the presence of a spirit can be measured by this device, and if an EMF spike is detected in the course of an investigation that has no physical source such as unshielded electrical wiring it can be taken as evidence of the possible presence of a spirit. Paranormal investigators even have a type of EMF detector called a K-II meter that can sometimes be used successfully to communicate with spirits at a haunted location.

One of the issues that we discussed on this blog awhile back is the way in which many traditional evocation practitioners look for some sort of objective evidence of the spirit's presence rather than relying on subjective mechanisms such as intuition or a psychic sense of its manifestation. I'm in agreement that some sort of objective measurement would be useful even though my psychic sense is generally pretty good, but I also am not interested in the spirits I summon burning up the energy that could otherwise be put into manifesting my magical intent on silly parlor tricks like moving objects or making noises.

It seems to me that using an EMF detector in conjunction with a magical ritual might be a happy medium between these two perspectives. So long as you can verify that your temple is free of electrical interference and spirits really do produce small electromagnetic fields, an EMF detector should be able to sense the presence of a spirit when it manifests without the spirit expending any additional energy. This model seems perfect - it is inexpensive and unlike the EMF detectors generally used by ghost hunters it has an external probe connected to the detector that could be placed within the triangle or on top of the Sigillum Dei Aemeth.

If this method turns out to work to detect summoned spirits it opens up a number of new avenues for paranormal research. In particular, the next test I would try is to see if the strength of the electromagnetic field corellates to the probability shift produced by the ritual. If I can show some sort of relationship between the two, it would give the aspiring magician the ability to predict the effectiveness of a spell as it is cast and would also constitute a pretty significant breakthrough in terms of understanding the nature of conjured spirits and how they work.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm going to pick up one of these detectors soon and try it out and I'll keep you all posted on how it goes. In the meantime, has anybody else out there tried this or something similar? If so, did it work?

Deconstructing Harry

In the film Adaptation, Charlie Kaufmann's fictional alter-ego jokingly suggests to his also fictional twin brother that the serial killer in the brother's screenplay should cut off pieces of his victims' bodies until they die, and that he could call himself "The Deconstructionist." If you haven't seen the film that probably doesn't make much sense, but it was the first image that came to mind when I happened upon this literary deconstruction of the Harry Potter series over the long weekend. The author of this little treatise has done an enormous amount of work going through just about everything that could possibly be linked to certain aspects of the novels, and while a number of these associations seem like pretty unbelievable stretches to me the piece still makes for some interesting reading.

The most glaring misconception of the whole thing, to my way of thinking, is in treating the Harry Potter series like serious literature in the first place. As one critic commented, the series is essentially "Tom Clancy for kids," a collection of adventure stories that are mostly plot-driven and involve navigating the main characters through a long series of extreme events interspersed with shallow character development and a bit of comic relief. It strikes me as profoundly unlikely that much thought went into the possible deeper interpretations of the book as it was being written aside laying out the basic plot and integrating various concepts from Western esotericism without much understanding of what they imply. Still, literary criticism does not end with the author's intent, and it may be that a plot-heavy saga like the Potter series actually absorbs more from the surrounding culture than a more intricate and introspective work might.

Our would-be Deconstructionist begins with a Preface that sets the foundation for the literary criticism that is to follow. The basic premise seems to be that the fundamental problem he or she will be examining is that while the Potter series is a work of fantasy it preserves much of what is wrong with the real world and simply "amplifies" those problems by infusing them with the device of magick. My take on this is a little different - in essence, it sounds to me like the criticism here is that the series is not escapist or utopian enough. But is escapism really such a good thing? One point that I think the Potter series does make well is that by itself magick doesn't necessarily fix anything, and if it's used in the wrong way it can make things a whole lot worse.

In CHAPTER ONE – Psychology and Injustice, the author puts forth the thesis that the character of Harry Potter displays many symptoms of what in the real world might be called mental illness. For me this is a real non-starter in that the same criticisms could be applied to just about any action hero. Harry is narcissistic - but the whole plot really does revolve around him. Harry has a tendency to resort to violence - but look at most action stories and you will find a hero who does the same. Furthermore, a number of the examples of this that the author uses involve children of Junior High School age, and let me tell you, I was on the receiving end of plenty of violence at that age and so were most of my nerdy friends. In a lot of cases that really is how kids are. It is true that anyone who believes all the things found in the wizarding world to be real could reasonably be considered schizophrenic, but those things are the reality of the world detailed in the series. In addition, I think that Harry's apparent lack of introspection is due to the plot-heavy style of the books that limit character development rather than some sort of social or political commentary that was either deliberately inserted by Rowling or unintentionally absorbed from the culture around her.

In CHAPTER THREE – Nature and Technology, the author's criticism turns to one of the few things about magick that I think the Potter series gets right. Contrasting the series with the works of Tolkien and Lewis, one of the main differences in the Potter series is that magick is not treated as "natural" and positioned as the enemy of "unnatural" technology. Instead, it goes with the perspective that I consider to be essentially true in the real world - magick is a kind of technology. By limiting the role of consciousness in the casting of spells the Potter series does make a different kind of error, in that spiritual realization has a lot to do with how effective real magick is, but at the same time the division of "natural" and "unnatural" is even more ridiculous. Isn't it true that everything in existence, including both magick and material technology, is a part of nature?

The next chapter, CHAPTER FIVE – Odds and Ends, contain what I consider to be some of the more dubious associations of the whole piece. Tolkien and Lewis are certainly influences on the Potter series, but given the degree to which the series steals from just about every fantasy trope it would be difficult to imagine a similar story which did not. Furthermore, trying to compare Rowling with James Joyce is just plan ridiculous. Granted, a few of the character names are similar between the works of Rowling and Joyce and there also appear to be a few structural similarities, but when you get right down to it the "talent gap" between the two writers is pretty vast, at least from a literary perspective.

In the final section, EPILOGUE, the author notes that whether or not the criticism leveled by this series of articles is correct, it still constitutes a thought-provoking analysis of the series. In this I agree - I wouldn't be responding to it here if I didn't. I furthermore agree that critical thinking is a vital part of childrens' education that is often overlooked in our culture and the lack of it among adults is a real detriment to our society. Where I part company with the author is that I don't necessarily think it to be a problem that a lot of media entertainment doesn't teach those skills. Media, even reading, is to some degree a passive experience and as a student of psychology I have doubts as to whether or not the deepest and most introspective story in the world could really teach such skills. What is necessary for that is to reflect upon the concepts brought up in any piece of entertainment in a dynamic conversation that engages the mind of the reader. Media can't do that, only people can.

Did Witchcraft Spawn Zimbabwe Goatman?

As a few of you know several years ago I traveled to Prince George's County, Maryland, and shot some preliminary footage for a documentary film on the Goatman, a particularly amusing urban legend that sprang up around an agricultural research facility near the town of Beltsville. Supposedly, a scientist working there was somehow partially transformed into a goat, became insane as a result of his transformation, and still roams the countryside with a fire axe looking for courting couples. While there are no reports of any people killed by the Goatman, he is said to be responsible for the deaths of a number of pets over the years whose bodies were coincidentally found near railroads or highways looking more like the victims of speeding cars and trains than an inhuman monster whose very existence defies the laws of science.

Now a report from Zimbabwe suggests that the African nation may have its own infant Goatman. According to the story, a goat in the Lower Gweru region apparently gave birth to a human-like creature. Scientists denounced the claim as impossible, as no goat-human hybrid has ever been witnessed by a credible researcher.

In an interview with Chronicle yesterday, Midlands Provincial Veterinary Officer, Dr Thomas Sibanda, said it was scientifically impossible for a man to impregnate any animal.

“As far as I know it is not scientifically possible for a man to impregnate a beast unless of course it’s a miracle. A sheep and a goat can mate but they will never produce any product out of it,” he said.

Dr Sibanda said it was unfortunate that veterinary officers did not manage to travel to Lower Gweru to witness the strange “goat”.

Sibanda went on to suggest that creature may have been a goat born with some sort of deformity that altered its appearance rather than a half-human monster.

“It is common that an animal can be born with the hydrocephalus condition, a condition that causes an animal to have an abnormally big head full of water. This condition can cause the normal positions of the chin, nose and ears to shift,” said Dr Sibanda.

“We could have confirmed that the creature was a goat if we had seen it since we are experts in animals. To confirm whether it was a human thing you need medical doctors.”

Local residents, however, believe that the strange creature may be the result of witchcraft.

“We have heard stories of snakes with human heads, cows or donkeys that have given birth to goats or chickens. All such things are products of witchcraft,” said Mr Louis Nyathi of Mambo.

An inyanga who refused to be named said the strange goat could either be a product of a man and a goat or a result of witchcraft.

“There is a certain muti that only works when one is instructed to sleep with an animal or even your daughter. We do not know exactly the circumstances surrounding this issue but anything is possible.

Whatever the creature is, more light could be shed on the situation by allowing medical personel to examine it. So far this has not occurred, and no scientist has even laid eyes upon the supposed Goatman. It remains only a story told from one person to another, only a few of whom actually claim to have seen the bizarre beast. Science demands hard evidence, preferably a DNA test to settle the issue once and for all.

Perhaps like the Goatman of Prince George's County this one will survive in the years to come as a legend rooted in oral tradition with no clear basis in fact. First, though, the infant creature will have grow big enough to haul around that fire axe.

Maybe Psychics Get Rich After All

One of the most common criticisms of alleged psychic powers is that if you really can see the future you should be rich. While the argument includes some inaccurate assumptions about how precognition really works, the central point is still somewhat valid - anyone who can perceive the future in enough detail should be able to use that ability to make money. Even beyond obvious things like lottery numbers, a genuine precognitive should be able to read the future behavior of markets and economies and act accordingly. If insider traders can make millions based on having a pretty good idea of what a stock is going to do a day in advance, just think of how well an effective precognitive could do.

The Washington Post has an article up today about Shari Arison, one of the richest women in the Middle East. What makes Arison more interesting than your run-of-the-mill oligarch is that she does in fact claim to have the power to see the future.

But the biggest jolt comes from the woman in the executive chair: Arison -- billionaire ($2.7 by Forbes's most recent estimate), perhaps the richest woman in the Middle East, a major force in Israeli philanthropy -- claims that she can see the future.

This is much bigger than a parlor trick. In her new book published this summer in Israel, the 51-year-old Miami native says she felt the Indonesian tsunami sweeping over the land two months before it happened and sensed Hurricane Katrina pummeling New Orleans. In an interview, Arison says she also "saw the writing on the wall" before the global economic crash.

Such psychic powers would certainly be useful to any high-rolling business executive. In fact, if you really had the ability to look into the future far enough to see the results of any business deal it seems unlikely that you would ever fail. Much of Arison's wealth was inherited so it's hard to see how her alleged powers could have influenced her overall station in life, but it is true that she has done very well for herself, substantially better than many of her economic peers.

Still, one wonders how much of this is really rationalization after the fact. We don't have any evidence that would allow us to determine how effective Arison's predictions are since she has never publicized them. It certainly would have been nice of her to notify somebody about the Indonesian tsunami or Hurricane Katrina or the recent economic crisis.

Reading about Arison's extrasensory perception makes you ache for a heads-up, maybe a blog entry or a tweet or a phone call to Brownie or Greenspan or somebody who might have helped.

The honest truth, though, is that without a solid track record she probably wouldn't have been believed anyway. Psychics, even rich ones, are not taken seriously by the powers that be in our society, and it's understandable that Arison hasn't come forward with her claims before now. However, according to her recent book this reticence regarding announcing her predictions may be changing soon. If she indeed starts making her predictions public it will become possible to get some idea of whether or not her powers really work or if she is simply a good guesser.

Arison explains that she has finally dropped the fear that has held her back from doing more about what she has perceived. Armed with the insight gained through work with Florida-based psychiatrist Brian Weiss, a proponent of regression therapy and the exploration of (take your pick) deep memories or past lives, she says she is ready to go public with her visions and bring together her spiritual and business goals.

As a magical researcher I'll be on the lookout for any of Arison's predictions that are announced in the media ahead of time and are testable. If they turn out to be accurate, maybe the skeptics are right and psychics really do wind up rich - at least if they have enough working capital to start with.

Door-to-Door Atheists

Seeing as my last article was a real downer, I figured it was about time to post something a little sillier and came across this video over the weekend.

An independent filmmaker, tired of being bothered by door-to-door Mormon missionaries, decided to turn the tables on them. He and a friend dressed up as "atheist missionaries" and went door-to-door in Salt Lake City, the headquarters of the Mormon church, preaching the beliefs of atheism - or, I suppose, the lack thereof. The results are pretty much what you would expect. Even the Mormons, who themselves spend a year or two as young adults going door-to-door, don't much like it.

From a spiritual technology standpoint I've wondered for years about churches that try to recruit by going door-to-door. It amazes me that anything so generally annoying to most people would be even marginally effective at bringing in new members. But I suppose it's a little like spam e-mail - even though I've never met anyone who will admit to responding to ads for penis enlargers or letters from Nigerian princes looking to launder illegal funds, the scammers wouldn't keep doing it if there was really no money to be made there.

Human Sacrifice in Uganda

Here's one of those stories that seems too ridiculously lurid to be true, but apparently police investigators have turned up a more evidence than one might expect for an outright hoax or another incident of hysteria-fueled persecutions. Apparently authorities in Uganda have identified a cult originating in West Africa that is practicing human sacrifice.

Police are investigating a religious cult of predominantly wealthy people linked to human sacrifice in the country.

The Observer has learnt that Police earlier this year, acting on a tip-off, sanctioned an investigation into claims that some wealthy people in the country are responsible for the spiralling acts of child human sacrifice in the country.

The Acting Commissioner of the Police Investigations Department, Moses Binoga, told The Observer in an interview last Thursday at CID headquarters in Kibuli that the Police are taking these allegations seriously.

Since the start of the year, his department has gathered information on this cult whose activities are mainly concentrated in Kampala. He says the cult originated from West Africa.

These latest charges come right on the heels of a series of trials related to a criminal gang operating between neighboring Kenya and Burundi. Members of the gang were convicted of killing albinos for their body parts and selling them unscrupulous folk magicians who used them in traditional African witchcraft rituals.

The cult appears to have connections to Nigeria, where a number of groups claiming to practice "black magic" have recently been involved in a variety of crimes, prompting a crackdown by law enforcement.

Authorities in West Africa have in the recent past fought running battles with cult members. On August 6, cult members shot and killed a policeman in Nigeria who was considered a threat to the cult’s activities in Adigbe area.

In the same country, 13 students were killed in clashes between cults calling themselves the Black Axe and the Black Eye, all said to be practising black magic. Some of their activities include killing, rape, extortion and theft.

Nigeria Police also clashed with the Boko Haram cult, killing 700 people and arresting hundreds of members of the group.

It sounds like the mass arrests in Nigeria have forced cult members to relocate to the city of Kampala in Uganda, perhaps hoping to go unnoticed there. However, one of the reasons human sacrifice is comparatively rare is that even in a country with lax law enforcement it's hard to keep it secret for very long. When people go missing their relatives usually start asking questions, and one big arrest can break the whole scheme wide open.

In December 2008, the arrest of businessman Godfrey Kato Kajubi in connection with the kidnap and ritual killing of 12-year-old Joseph Kasirye, brought to light many other cases totalling 318 in 2008 – up from 230 in 2006.

Kajubi is accused of buying the head of the boy for witchcraft to boost his wealth. Soon after Kajubi’s arrest, another man, Abbas Mugerwa, was arrested in Masajja after he beheaded his twins.

Mugerwa told The Observer that a rich man had asked him for his twins in exchange for Shs 50million, a deal Mugerwa agreed to; prompting him to behead the three-year olds.

In Nakibizi, Mukono District, one Emmanuel Kironde, a toddler, was found dead with his neck and wrists missing. The toddler had gone missing from his grand mother’s home, Namwandu Wamala, in Njeru Town Council.

Police arrested Moses Kimbowa, a witchdoctor and his accomplices Muzamiru Mukalazi and Anthony Ssendikadiwa. Kimbowa confessed to killing four people.

In addition to the shocking nature of the crimes themselves, what makes the whole situation even worse (if that's possible) is that this sort of magick doesn't necessarily even work particularly well for many sorts of spells. It is possible to raise magical energy by killing living things and killing a human being releases more energy than killing an animal, but at least according to the energetic models found in both the Western and Asian esoteric traditions substantially more usable power can be summoned by a magician who knows how to work with the energy of his or her subtle body. According to Qigong, all living animals have a certain amount of spiritual energy running along what is called the central channel. This is a flow of energy that unites Heaven and Earth Qi, which in the Western ceremonial system corresponds to Active and Passive Spirit. It's like the poles on a battery, where electrons flow between the cathode and anode. When an animal is killed in the context of a magical ritual the energy that is in the central channel at the moment of death is liberated and can be directed into a magical spell.

A number of traditions make use of animal sacrifices under specific delineated circumstances, as the spiritual energy liberated at the moment of death behaves kind of like a static charge. It can produce a momentary powerful surge of energy, but is of limited use for sustained magical work unless you have a continuous supply of living creatures to sacrifice. On the other hand, a magician who knows how to draw energy from his or her own central channel has a practically unlimited source of energy available, much like the current traveling across the electrical grid, and should rarely need to "boost" this current by sacrificing anything, let alone a child. When sacrificial methods are used in votive traditions there are other considerations involved such as the power of the specific spirit or deity to whom the sacrifice is offered, but in my experience there are plenty of powerful spirits that can be called upon to get a job done without requiring any sort of blood sacrifice.

Part of me wonders if this cult has anything to do with someone who read the chapter on "The Bloody Sacrifice" in Aleister Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice and misunderstood it, thinking it to be a literal description of a magical practice. However, similar sacrificial methods have been part of African magick for a very long time so I'm sure that stories of the original traditional practices inspired Crowley's innuendos rather than the other way around. Also, the charges are horrifying enough that they may contain some moral panic elements and not be entirely true, like what went on here in the United States with the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare of the late 1980's and early 1990's. As the investigation is pending only time will tell, and here's hoping that justice will be served.