Muggle Quidditch Invasion of Britain Continues

Back in March I covered the first Muggle Quidditch match played in England. As Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is British, it might seem strange that this version of her fictional game was invented in America. However, as I noted in my previous post, creating sadder, more watered-down versions of cultural treasures from other nations is pretty much what we Americans do. In the eighties it was the Croissan'Wich, and today it's Muggle Quidditch. And don't even get me started on the chow mein sandwich, invented in Fall River, Massachusetts. Given that chow mein is a sad American substitute for real Chinese food to begin with, putting it in a sandwich is a whole other level of suckage. But I digress.

Julia Rivera is a die-hard Harry Potter fan, and she is a natural athlete. So she decided to combine the two and formed the first Quidditch league at Kennett High School.

“It’s so much fun,” said Rivera, a Kennett sophomore. “There’s a lot of laughs to see everyone get so into it. After people play, they realize it’s more difficult than they were expecting.”

I don't think anyone who's ever tried to run holding a stick between their legs would expect this version of Quidditch to be easy. See, that's why the brooms are supposed to fly...

Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole

On the evening of June 12th at 8 PM EST (7 PM here in the Twin Cities) I will be appearing on Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole, an online show that runs on the Para-X Radio network. I'll be discussing Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy, Enochian magick, and ceremonial ritual forms. I've touched on all those topics here on Augoeides, but this will be your first chance to hear me discuss them live and in-person. I've never appeared on one of these shows before so I hope you'll tune in and check it out.

As an aside, May sure went by fast! I've been really busy with my new job and getting the new Enochian book, Mastering the Great Table, put together for Pendraig. Hopefully June will prove a little less hectic and I'll be able to get the posting back up to the usual rate soon. Until then, thanks for bearing with me!

Western Mystery Tradition Conference Canceled

About a month ago I submitted an abstract for a presentation at the Journal Of the Western Mystery Tradition conference, scheduled to be held this July in Milwaukee. Unfortunately, though, the conference has been canceled. This is a real downer, because it sounded like an incredibly cool event. Here's the description, which you can still view online though I suspect it will be taken down soon. The problem appears to have been that the conference was not promoted very well and had trouble attracting presenters and attendees, so if they try it again next year I'll promote it well in advance here on Augoeides. It seems like the sort of event many of us in the magical blogosphere would enjoy attending, so perhaps some of us can help make sure the next one goes forward.

My proposal was to present on my Solomonic-inspired style of Enochian magick. Here's the abstract that I submitted to the conference organizers.

"Ministering Angels: The Solomonic Roots of Enochian Magic"

This paper presents a methodology for working with the Enochian system of magic that is informed by the Solomonic grimoire tradition of the sixteenth century. Scott Michael Stenwick proposes that these Solomonic foundations of John Dee and Edward Kelley's original source material reveal a powerful method of practical magic. This thaumaturgic style of working with angelic spirits is compared and contrasted with modern interpretations and uses of the system, in which the Enochian material is generally approached as part of a theurgic structure based on scrying and complex analysis.

The Enochian magical system has inspired many modern esoteric groups, including the various Golden Dawn traditions, Aleister Crowley's A.'.A.'., and the Aurum Solis. However, much of the Enochian lore developed by these diverse groups is not drawn from and in a some cases directly contradicts the source material. A more accurate perspective may be found by approaching the system as an advanced form of Solomonic grimoire magic instead of viewing it through the lens of nineteenth-century Hermetic Qabalah. In this light the tools and temple furnishings recommended for Enochian operations can be understood in their proper context and the original intended ritual structures can be deduced in a straightforward manner.

Some of the material that I was going to cover is already published in Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy, and the rest will be included in the second book of my Enochian series that I'm still in the process of writing, Mastering the Great Table. I was really looking forward to presenting on my methods at the conference, but it seems I'll have to wait for the next one.

Mind Flex

Every year my wife goes to a big sale called Munchkin Market here in the Twin Cities. It's a pretty good concept; since kids are always outgrowing some things and getting bored with others, you can sell stuff that your kids don't need anymore and then buy new things that are more age-appropriate. This year she came home with a Mind Flex, which is a toy based on a simple brainwave scanner. You put on a headband with sensors, which then communicates with a base station that lights up and runs a small fan according to your average overall brainwave frequency. You can put a little foam ball over the fan, and it will float in the air higher or lower depending on the frequencies being measured by the headset.

I though this looked like a neat concept back when it came out, but wasn't sure how well it would work. At the time it was also almost $100 for the thing, which seemed like a bit much to spend on an experiment of this nature. However, at Munchkin Market my wife found it for $8. Looking online it seems like it's now down to about $50, but $8 is still a whole lot better. So anyway, I now have a brainwave measuring device, albeit a very simple one. Since the sensors only run around the headband my guess is that the Mind Flex is not all that sensitive, certainly not up to what a cap covered in sensors could measure. After playing around with it for a bit, though, I found what it did measure interesting at the very least.

Near-Death Experiences

Salon posted an interesting article over the weekend on near-death experiences. The subject has been studied for decades by neuroscientists who claim that the similar features of experiences reported from people all over the world has to do with what we experience when our brains are in the process of shutting down. However, the biggest challenge to this idea remains that some of these accounts have independently verified. The feeling of rising out of the body can be explained by a number of different neurochemical processes, but in a number of cases patients have been able to observe and give accounts of objects that they could not have possibly seen unless their consciousness was indeed elsewhere. An example of this is the case of a woman named Maria, who seemed to leave her body while medics worked to save her life following a heart attack.

Maria was a migrant worker who had a severe heart attack while visiting friends in Seattle. She was rushed to Harborview Hospital and placed in the coronary care unit. A few days later, she had a cardiac arrest but was rapidly resuscitated. The following day, Clark visited her. Maria told Clark that during her cardiac arrest she was able to look down from the ceiling and watch the medical team at work on her body. At one point in this experience, said Maria, she found herself outside the hospital and spotted a tennis shoe on the ledge of the north side of the third floor of the building. She was able to provide several details regarding its appearance, including the observations that one of its laces was stuck underneath the heel and that the little toe area was worn. Maria wanted to know for sure whether she had “really” seen that shoe, and she begged Clark to try to locate it.

Quite skeptical, Clark went to the location described by Maria—and found the tennis shoe. From the window of her hospital room, the details that Maria had recounted could not be discerned. But upon retrieval of the shoe, Clark confirmed Maria’s observations. “The only way she could have had such a perspective,” said Clark, “was if she had been floating right outside and at very close range to the tennis shoe. I retrieved the shoe and brought it back to Maria; it was very concrete evidence for me.”

In other cases, patients have awareness of events that happened in their presence during surgeries, but from times when their brains were registering no activity. According to standard neuroscience that should not be possible, as without neural firing the brain should have nothing to process and therefore nothing will be experienced.

Paganism in British Schools

Here's some good news for generational pagans and druids in the United Kingdom. The new religious education syllabus adopted by Cornwall Council schools includes paganism and druidry alongside more mainstream religious such as Christianity, representing the first time that pagan beliefs have been made part of the study of world religions by any British school.

The syllabus, put forth by Cornwall's advisory group, makes it clear that students ages 5 and above will learn mostly about Christianity, but 40 percent of the other religious material will be devoted to non-Christian and pagan beliefs.

"It is clear that Christianity should predominate at each key stage and should feature in no less than 60% of the religious education taught. The other religious traditions should occupy no more than 40% of RE time over the key stage," the syllabus reads.

The study materials will also help children "understand the basic beliefs" of paganism and recognize children of pagan parents who are also following the religion.

So this can only be a good thing, right? Any child raised by pagan parents is going to want to see their own beliefs included in a class that purports to teach the beliefs of world religions, and from a social perspective this sounds like a pretty good way to explain to their classmates that just being pagan doesn't make them evil devil-worshippers. Predictably, though, some conservative Christians are lodging complaints, I suppose because that's just what they do whenever the word "paganism" crosses a public official's lips.

Brain Scanner Breakthrough

If anybody out there happens to be wondering what to get me for my birthday, one of these would be truly awesome. The iBrain is a personal, portable brain scanner with a USB connection that lets you record data over a period of time and then download it into your computer. This is exactly the device I've wanted for years, since it would finally allow me to perform a magical ritual and then go back over the brainwave changes produced at various phases of the ritual.

KGTV reports that the device, created by San Diego-based NeuroVigil, and dubbed the iBrain, fits over a person's head and measures unique neurological patterns connected to specific thought processes.

Low says the goal is to eventually have a large enough database of these brainwaves that a computer could essentially read a person's thoughts out loud. One person who has already tried out the iBrain is famed physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking.

"We'd like to find a way to bypass his body, pretty much hack his brain," said Low. This past summer, Low traveled to Cambridge, England, where he met with Hawking, who was asked to think "very hard" about completing various tasks while wearing the device.

NeuroVigil says the device could be used at home by individuals and worn during sleep. It comes equipped with a USB port for transferring the recorded data to a local computer.

At the risk of seeming pedantic I will point out that the idea of "reading thoughts" out loud is probably not going to work any time soon because thoughts aren't made of language or even symbols. Mine are odd collections of what I suppose I could describe as multimedia streams with strong visual components. However, if Low is talking about pre-vocalizations (and he probably is) it might very well be possible for the device to allow someone who is unable to speak normally, like Steven Hawking, to communicate using his mind rather than a slow and awkward computer interface.

From the article it sounds like the device is still in the prototype stage, so you're probably not about to find one on Amazon or eBay. Nonetheless, as soon as it becomes available I plan on picking one up and trying it out. There are several hypotheses I have about magical operations and brainwaves that I'm just dying to test.

Snake Transformations

So has anyone reading this blog ever transformed someone else into a snake? My guess is no, even though a South African pastor was recently accused of performing that very feat. While witchcraft accusations are common all across Africa, it seems that the current round of accusations against Stephen Zondo of River of Living Waters Ministries has struck a nerve - even here in the United States.

“People actually believe this is going on”, says Pastor Bob Houston of Charlotte, of Precious Blood Church group in Charlotte, N.C. that investigates cases of Satanism in the US. There have been violent protests outside that particular church, with community members vowing they will burn down the church”, he said.

Pastor Zondo blames local radio station, Thetha FM, for “spreading lies”. “Satan is a murderer and the father of lies”, according to the bible in John 8:44. “They have been doing it since last year when they came up with these allegations, in which they also claim that people have lost their lives", he said.

“If they strongly believe I’m guilty, why have they not gone and registered a criminal case against me at the police station, but instead they go to the radio station?” a defiant-sounding Zondo said.

But here's where the story gets really weird. Houston claims that in Saudi Arabia a woman really did transform into a snake - and he has a video provided by the dreaded anti-witchcraft squad to prove it. Of course, whatever is on the video doesn't move and looks more like the infamous Fiji Mermaid than any living thing, but I guess it's not like actual evidence is about to deter a true believer.

“We have investigated claim of people turning into snakes before and we attribute that to demons and witchcraft”, said Pastor Bob. “One case in Saudi Arabia there was multiple witnesses. As the story goes during theHajj a women on her way to Madina turned into a snake in front of a lot of people. The Video is taken by a Hajji after the women was taken to custody. Saudi government has kept it a secret”, he said.

I'll put the question out, though, just in case my natural skepticism has gotten the better of me. Does anybody out there happen to know this spell? If you'd like to share, I can think of a few people that I would be willing to try it out on. It's reversible, right?