Tibetan Buddhists Protest Dalai Lama

There's a headline you don't see every day. The Dalai Lama is one of the most respected Buddhist teachers in the world, and while members of other religions don't necessarily see eye-to-eye with him, Tibetan Buddhists generally rally behind him. However, his reign has not been without controversy, one of which is his ban on Buddhists worshipping a deity known as Dorje Shugden. Shugden practitioners see the ban as an attack on their tradition, and have been protesting the Dalai Lama's recent tour through southern California.

Among those protesters was Len Foley, a Buddhist who is also a Shugden practitioner. He was in Santa Clara on Monday morning along with others protesting the Dalai Lama for "abusing basic human rights." "The Dalai Lama is posing as a man of peace and a man of wanting to unify different cultures, but in reality he's creating vast divisions throughout the Tibetan community," Foley said.

The Dalai Lama spoke this morning about compassion and business at the Leavey Event Center Santa Clara University. He himself was a Shugden practicer, but has since banned the practice from his formal religious teachings. The Dalai Lama has stated the Shugden spirit "arose out of hostility to the great Fifth Dalai Lama and his government," according to advice posted on his website. The post also outlines the Dalai Lama's concerns that worship of the deity could create sectarianism among Tibetan Buddhists and devolve the practice into a kind of "spirit worship."

"It is not at all on the basis of a change of mind arising from a new thought that I have restricted the practice of Dolgyal Shugden," the Dalai Lama stated in a March 2006 speech to a Tibetan-dominated audience. "... Gradually I came to have many major doubts about the external, internal and secret aspects of it and about developments concerning it. Finally I looked up the works of the previous Dalai Lamas and for the first time came to realize the error in practicing Dolgyal; as a result I stopped it."

The problem is this - Dorje Shugen is seen as a "dharma protector" specific to the Dalai Lama's Gelugpa lineage, which is only one of four Tibetan Vajrayana traditions. Part of Shugden's function is to protect the Gelugpa school from "corruption" by ideas said to emerge from the Nyingma school, the oldest tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

One of the Dalai Lama's longtime goals has been to bring the four traditions into harmony with one another, which he eventually decided doesn't sit well with a practice aimed at protecting one school from the "evil teachings" of another. Shugden practitioners, on the other hand, see it differently, and claim that they have been ostracized by some members of the Tibetan community in response to the Dalai Lama's decree.

The Poor Oppressed Christian Test

Let's say that you're a Christian who enjoys reading Augoeides. One of the groups I like to make fun of on here is what I dub "Poor Oppressed Christians." These sad individuals are a small subgroup indulging the ridiculous belief that even though they belong to the dominant religious tradition in the United States they are somehow being denied their religious liberty. But how can you, as a Christian reader, be sure that you're not one of these pathetic folks? First off, enjoying this blog is a pretty good sign that you're a normal Christian rather than a Poor Oppressed one. But if you're still wondering, let me direct you to this Huffington Post article with a simple quiz that will tell you for sure. It's from September of 2012, but due to the ongoing whining of the Poor Oppressed crowd it remains relevant.

It seems like this election season "religious liberty" is a hot topic. Rumors of its demise are all around, as are politicians who want to make sure that you know they will never do anything to intrude upon it.

I'm a religious person with a lifelong passion for civil rights, so this is of great interest to me. So much so, that I believe we all need to determine whether our religious liberties are indeed at risk. So, as a public service, I've come up with this little quiz. I call it "How to Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions." Just pick "A" or "B" for each question.

The quiz itself follows those introductory remarks. The gist of it is quite simple. You're being denied religious liberty if you personally are being prevented from exercising your beliefs. You're not being denied religious liberty if you're simply being prevented from forcing those beliefs on others. This is simply religious freedom being applied across the board to everyone, including those who don't share your tradition or beliefs - because religious freedom isn't free. The mere existence of different perspectives is not an attack, not a war, and most certainly not oppression. Thinking otherwise is so irrational it shouldn't even be up for debate, but it seems as if the Poor Oppressed folks are too busy playing the victim to realize it.

No Muslims on Mars?

In an effort to spur interplanetary colonization, Dutch company Mars One is planning a mission to Mars in 2023. The catch is that while the technology exists to get travelers there, without some major breakthroughs between now and then it will be a one-way trip. Mars doesn't have the infrastructure that would allow colonists to build a return rocket, so anyone who opts to go may very well be stuck there for the rest of their lives. This doesn't sit well with the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the United Arab Emirates, which has issued a fatwa against Muslims participating in the Mars One mission.

Promoting or being involved in a one-way trip to the Red Planet is prohibited in Islam, a fatwa committee under the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the UAE has ruled.

“Such a one-way journey poses a real risk to life, and that can never be justified in Islam,” the committee said. “There is a possibility that an individual who travels to planet Mars may not be able to remain alive there, and is more vulnerable to death.”

Whoever opts for this “hazardous trip”, the committee said, is likely to perish for no “righteous reason”, and thus will be liable to a “punishment similar to that of suicide in the Hereafter”.

The committee, presided by Professor Dr Farooq Hamada, said: “Protecting life against all possible dangers and keeping it safe is an issue agreed upon by all religions and is clearly stipulated in verse 4/29 of the Holy Quran: Do not kill yourselves or one another. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful.”

The one-way nature of the mission would give me pause as well, but as a Thelemite my opinion is that if somebody wants to go its their own business. It also sounds as if the fatwa may be lifted once a suitable technology is developed for a return trip. But until then, the result is likely to be fewer Muslims in the initial wave of colonization. That is, of course, if the mission manages to get off the ground at all. Nothing like it has ever been attempted, and it remains to be seen if the organizers can really meet their commitments by the target date.

Mars One has issued a response to the fatwa. It can be found here.

Bigfoot Corpse a Hit at Houston Flea Market

So here's the question - is "master bigfoot tracker" Rick Dyer the reincarnation of P.T. Barnum? It sure seems like it. Back in 2008 Dyer was promoting a bigfoot corpse that turned out to be a rubber suit stuck in a freezer. As I noted in January he's now claiming to have killed the creature for real and is carting around a supposedly genuine body. But here's the thing - Dyer claims to have DNA evidence and so forth, but nobody has seen it. That should be the easiest thing in the world to obtain from a body that you have in your physical possession. And then there's the venue. Instead of taking the bigfoot corpse to a scientist who could run actual tests, he took it to a Houston flea market.

About 800 people came out to a Houston flea market for a glimpse at an alleged Bigfoot corpse being taken on tour by a self-described "master tracker."

Rick Dyer, who claims to have killed the legendary beast in 2012 outside of San Antonio, took the alleged Sasquatch corpse to Trader's Village Sunday for the first stop on his tour of the city, the Houston Chronicle reported Monday.

"We got here a day early and we just wanted to show as many people as possible," Dyer said of Sunday's unscheduled stop. Monday and Tuesday showings of "Hank" in Houston have already sold out, Dyer said. He named the corpse Hank after an investor, the newspaper said.

Is it just me, or is this starting to sound just like Barnum's Fiji Mermaid? For those not familiar with the story, Barnum hired a taxidermist to create a fake mermaid body by sewing the upper body of a monkey to the tail of a fish. The body was then exhibited at his museum of curiosities, where it could be viewed for a fee. Hopefully Dyer has put in a little more effort this time - the rubber suit in a freezer chest was a pretty sad attempt. Still, I have no doubt that this new bigfoot is a fake. A real bigfoot corpse would be worth a fortune to scientific researchers, and anyone who killed one would be able to make a lot more money by exploiting it that way than by showing it at flea markets. Of course, if it's a fake, that's not an option because the body won't stand up to scientific scrutiny.

More on the "Restored Heptarchia"

Aaron Leitch has recently proposed a revised order for the powers of the Heptarchial Princes that matches those of each Prince to the King of the respective day. His original article can be found here. In a Facebook discussion of said article, I commented that while I found this new order logical and interesting, I was not necessarily convinced that it was the only possible solution to reordering the Heptarchia. This post is an attempt to further clarify what I mean by that statement.

When I work with the Heptarchia Mystica the schema I recommend for the powers of the Kings and Princes is that of John Dee's 1588 text, which is how they appear in Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy. So everything in this post is more a thought experiment than a serious proposal. Let me be clear - I don't necessarily disagree with the idea of reordering the Heptarchia, but rather I'm at the point where I need to see more practical evidence that the new order works better than the original. I do have enough personal experience to say for sure that the original order works, after experimenting with it for many years and carefully tracking my results.

But let's say for the sake of argument that the Heptarchia does in fact need to be reordered to better line up the powers of the Kings and Princes. There are two distinct ways to do it. The first is the method Aaron outlines in his article, matching the power of each Prince to the power of the King that rules the same day. I'm not going to go over that method in detail, as his article explains it quite well. What he doesn't mention at all, though, is the second possible method, grouping the powers of the Kings and Princes by planet rather than by day.

This alternative schema is suggested by the simple observation that, in the Heptarchia, the Kings and Princes are given different planetary attributions. On Sunday, for example, the King is attributed to the Sun, but the Prince is attributed to Venus. This principle holds throughout the Heptarchia, with the complete list of Kings and Princes by day and planet as follows:

Sunday: King - BOBOGEL (Sun), Prince - BORNOGO (Venus)
Monday: King - BLUMAZA (Moon), Prince - BRALGES (Saturn)
Tuesday: King - BABALEL (Mars), Prince - BEFAFES (Sun)
Wednesday: King - BNASPOL (Mercury), Prince - BLISDON (Jupiter)
Thursday: King - BYNEPOR (Jupiter), Prince - BUTMONO (Mars)
Friday: King - BALIGON (Venus), Prince - BAGENOL (Moon)
Saturn: King - BNAPSEN (Saturn), Prince - BRORGES (Mercury)

These additional planetary attributions suggest that the powers of the Heptarchial angels could also be reorganized by matching the powers of the Prince associated with each planet to that of the corresponding King by planetary aspect, rather than by day.

Voynich Manuscript Decoded - Again?

Earlier this month I posted an article about a botanist who believes that the mysterious Voynich manuscript may have been written in some form of the Aztec language Nahuatl, based on illustrations that resemble plants found only in the Americas. This is apparently a good time to be studying the Voynich, because now British linguistics professor Stephen Bax has announced that he may have decoded part of the manuscript - and the language is most definitely not Aztec.

Professor Bax however has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic. Using careful linguistic analysis he is working on the script letter by letter.

“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax, who is to give his inaugural lecture as a professor at the University later this month.

“The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”

Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.

I've been skeptical from the beginning about the Aztec hypothesis because (A) the European-style supposed transcription matches no known system and (B) the manuscript has been dated to the early 1400's, before Europeans reached the Americas. It makes more sense that the script might be a code for a language such as Arabic, which was known in Europe at that time. Also, a compilation of Arabic astronomical and herbal lore would have been quite valuable in the 1400's, when European science was just starting to catch up with that of the Arabic world. It remains to be seen how much more of the manuscript Professor Bax can decipher.

Ready for Ragnarok?

Back in November I posted about Ragnarok, the supposed "Viking apocalypse," which is scheduled for today. That's right, February 22, 2014. So are you ready for the end of the world - again? Or, more to the point, are you ready to laugh off yet another failed prediction as February 23rd comes without a hitch? This time around it sounds like the Norse apocalypse is not being treated so much as a calamity but as an excuse to sell tickets to a "Viking Festival," which is a big improvement over Harold Camping and his lot back in 2011.

The sound of an ancient horn heard reverberating across the rooftops of York this evening is a portent of doom and the beginning of a countdown to the Norse apocalypse, according to experts in Norse mythology from the JORVIK Viking Centre. The horn belonged to the Norse god, Heimdallr, who was said to blow the mythical Gjallerhorn to warn that Ragnarok – the Viking apocalypse – will take place in 100 days. Experts are predicting the end of the world will take place on 22 February 2014, coinciding with the grand finale of the 30th JORVIK Viking Festival in the city of York.

“Ragnarok is the ultimate landmark in Viking mythology, when the gods fall and die, so this really is an event that should not be underestimated,” comments Danielle Daglan director of the JORVIK Viking Festival. “In the last couple of years, we’ve had predictions of the Mayan apocalypse, which passed without incident, and numerous other dates where the end of the world has been pencilled in by seers, fortune tellers and visionaries, but the sound of the horn is possibly the best indicator yet that the Viking version of the end of the world really will happen on 22 February next year.”

So at least the folks attending the festival will have a good time. Much like the end-of-the-world party I threw back when Camping swore up and down the world was going to end in May 2011, it sounds like these festival organizers have the right idea. When somebody predicts that the world is going to end, the history pretty much proves that they're wrong. But an excuse to have some fun is always welcome.

Now lest you think I'm making fun of Norse beliefs, I'm not - I'm half Scandinavian myself (Norwegian/Swedish) so I expect some of my ancestors were Vikings, and on top of that I've done a fair amount of magical work with the Norse gods. It's the doomsday crowd that I like to mock, especially those who for some inexplicable reason seem to be looking forward to the end of the world.

Positive Thinking is Just Like Magick

The success of books like The Secret and films like What the Bleep Do We Know? has popularized a revival of the New Thought movement that first emerged in the early nineteenth century. It emphasizes that positive thinking and visualization are responsible for bringing good things into your life, and that by cultivating such an attitude you will be more successful. There's a grain of truth to that idea, in that defeatism is unlikely to produce any sort of positive outcome, but at the same time critics of positive thinking have wondered for a long time whether reflexive positivity might have a downside as well.

Recently social psychologists have put positive thinking to the test, and have found that the critics do in fact have a point - one that I would argue applies to magick as well. One of the big cornerstones of the "blogosphere school" of magick is that magical operations and rituals are no substitute for mundane action. In order to achieve the best possible result, the point is that you take every possible mundane action in pursuit of your goal and then use magick to increase your odds of success further. Using magick in place of mundane actions likely has a fair amount to do with the reason that so many occultists wind up broke. You can use a spell to get a better job, but you still need to network, send out resumes, and so forth. Even a well-done spell is unlikely to drop a new job right in your lap by itself.

As the journalist Oliver Burkeman noted in “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking,” “Ceaseless optimism about the future only makes for a greater shock when things go wrong; by fighting to maintain only positive beliefs about the future, the positive thinker ends up being less prepared, and more acutely distressed, when things eventually happen that he can’t persuade himself to believe are good.”