Apocalypse Countdown

Nope, not 1844. Or any time since then...

Here we go again! Earlier this month, I posted an article about Nora Roth, a Christian computer programmer who converted her own variant of William Miller's scriptural countdown to the end of days into a software program. According to Roth's software, the end of the world would take place by the end of 2016. Which happens tonight, in about four hours.

In the previous article, I once again brought up my issues with Miller's interpretation-heavy reading of the Books of Daniel and Revelation, pointing out that he makes all sorts of logical leaps that might or might not have anything to do with real events. To be clear, I'm not a capital-S skeptic, and have no problem considering paranormal claims. But the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Miller finished his system in 1818, so for nearly two hundred years preachers have kept trying to use it to make predictions.

Obviously, the world is still the world, and has not been remade into the paradise that Revelation claims will follow the apocalypse. In fact, nothing even resembling an apocalypse has taken place on any of the days predicted by those who still support the Miller method. And tonight, when we toast the New Year, one more failure will be added to what is becoming a pretty thick pile. Unless, I suppose, the world really does end before midnight tonight - but suffice it to say that I'm not holding my breath.

Happy New Year, everyone. 2016 has been hard for a lot of folks, and here's hoping that 2017 will be better.

Heresy!

Back in June I posted an article about Paula White, Donald Trump's alleged "spiritual advisor." White is, of course, a "Prosperity Gospel" preacher, since I imagine there's nothing Trump would rather hear besides being told that his wealth means he's favored by God. So it should be no surprise that White will be speaking at Trump's inauguration in January.

But conservative blogger Erick Erickson is outraged at White's planned appearance - not because her ministry is likely just a big money-making scheme, but because she's a heretic. Not because she's a prosperity preacher - apparently, that's okay in Erickson's world - but because he managed to dig up a video of her appearing to suggest that human beings are children of God, just like Jesus.

Most people concerned about White’s appearance are criticizing her sleazy claims that people who give her money will magically receive divine blessings. That’s apparently not what really bothers Erickson, however. Instead, he’s concerned that she is a “trinity denying heretic” who allegedly doesn’t share the view of the divinity of Jesus that Erickson does.

Erickson found an old video somewhere in the bowels of the internet in which White appears to say that all humans are “begotten” of God, just like Jesus Christ. Based on that, Erickson went into high-dudgeon mode over the possibility that Donald Trump, a man literally no one considers to be a devout Christian, might give incorrect spiritual guidance to the American people:

“The President of the United States putting a heretic on stage who claims to believe in Jesus, but does not really believe in Jesus, risks leading others astray,” Erickson wrote on his personal blog. “Trump letting this heretic pray in Jesus’s name should offend every Bible believing Christian.”

Demon-Haunted Drugs

Vehement opposition to drugs among devout Christians has always confused me. If you read the Bible, there is little mention of any sort of drug prohibition. In fact, one of Jesus' early miracles was changing water into wine, and quite frankly the arguments put forth by anti-alcohol Christian groups - "It was really grape juice!" - are about as unconvincing as they come. Likewise, the Eucharist, the single ritual Jesus charged all Christians to perform, involves the consumption of wine.

I realize that wine is not an illegal drug, but the reason I bring it up is that alcohol is a mind-altering substance. And seeing as it makes absolutely no sense that God would care one way or the other about what goes in which column according to the Controlled Substances Act, the logical conclusion is that while taking illegal drugs may be a bad idea, there's really no consistent way to argue that it is sinful from a spiritual perspective.

But this article from Raw Story set me straight. Apparently, the real problem is that illegal drugs are magically enchanted with demons!

Marcos Quinones, a New York State chaplain, tells the Post that he believes drug dealers are casting magical spells on the narcotics they sell to make their users more open to demonic possession.

“Many drug traffickers practice forms of the occult,” he explains. “They incorporate voodoo or black magic that gives them the power to succeed. It makes the product more powerful and creates a stronger addict. In essence, they’re doubling the curse the drugs cause anyway… If demons exist and you take a drug that changes your thinking pattern, that opens itself up to the entities of these Demons.”

The Planetary Work - the Moon

This article is Part Seven in a series. Part One can found here, Part Two can be found here, Part Three can be found here, Part Four can be found here, Part Five can be found here, and Part Six can be found here.

Today I will be moving on to working the Moon, the final planet in sequence according to the Chaldean Order. Liber 777 associates the Moon with "The White Tincture, Clairvoyance, Divination by Dreams." So working with the Moon is useful for developing skills such as scrying, lucid dreaming, and psychic perception. Much of what parapsychologists refer to as "psychic ability" falls under the Moon's sphere of influence, such as mind-reading, remote viewing, and so forth.

Parapsychologists also study abilities like telekinesis and precognition, which are slightly different. The Moon is associated with psychic abilities related to perception and information. Precognition is more properly grouped with Prophecy, which is attributed to Gemini. Telekinesis is more difficult to categorize. You could group it with Fire (Evocation, Pyromancy) on the grounds that there is a connection between kinetic and thermal energy. Or you could group it with Taurus (The Secret of Physical Strength) as physical energy projected into the macrocosmic realm.

The White Tincture is mostly beyond the scope of this article, but according to alchemical lore, the White Tincture and Red Tincture are manufactured separately, and then combined to create the Philosopher's Stone. In an esoteric sense, the symbolism is that of lunar consciousness (White Tincture) merging with solar consciousness (Red Tincture) to produce transpersonal realization (Adeptship). This process is also analogous to the mystic marriage between the human magician and the Holy Guardian Angel, the accomplishment of which is the mark of an Adept in the Thelemic tradition.

Scrying is probably the most common ability related to the Moon that magicians are looking to improve. Accurate scrying seems to be more talent-driven than many other magical skills, and seems to be correspondingly harder to cultivate. While I can personally do it after many years of work, I still find it difficult and get better, more accurate results with astral techniques such as "traveling in the spirit vision." Still, if scrying is an ability that you are looking to improve, the Moon is the right aspect to work with.

To review, in Qabalah the planets correspond to the double letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The letters are so named because they correspond to two specific sounds each, and this is reflected in the dual nature of the planets. On the Tree of Life, each planet corresponds to both a sephira or a path. Many magicians refer to the sephiroth as "spheres," and you may catch me doing that sometimes as well. It is, however, not a direct translation. The word actually means "emanations" - as in, emanations of divinity. But they are drawn as circles on most diagrams of the Tree of Life, and in addition, "sephira" and "sphere" sound very similar in English.

Poor Oppressed Christian Propaganda

Who's the real Scrooge here, anyway?

I suppose, with everything that's gone on this year, it was too much to hope for a holiday season without any stupid nonsense from the Poor Oppressed Christian crowd. The latest is what turned out to be a highly distorted story pushed by Breitbart and picked up by Fox News. According to the initial version of the story, a Jewish family "shut down" an elementary school production of A Christmas Carol. In fact, all the family did was ask that their child be excused from participating in the play, and the school later shut down the production for unrelated reasons.

Centerville Elementary School has put on a production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for years, but educators have grown concerned that the play requires 20 hours of classroom time to produce. Changing state educational standards no longer allow for that luxury, Principal Tom Kramer noted in a post explaining why the school had cancelled the play. Educators also called off the production because they wished “to be respectful of the many cultural and religious backgrounds represented by the students.” (A Christmas Carol is unmistakably Christian.)

By coincidence, a Jewish family had requested that their child be excused from performing in the play back in September. They did not complain or ask that the play be cancelled, and the school insists that their request had nothing to do with the decision to cancel the production. But as Breitbart and Fox News’ Todd Starnes reported the story, “unnamed parents” complained about the line “God bless us, every one” and essentially forced the school to scrap the play.

These untrue claims fit neatly into both outlets’ “War on Christmas” narrative—and, as intended, sparked outrage among readers. “It would be nice if we had the addresses of those concerned citizens and, I bet, this info is known to people living in the area,” one commenter wrote in response to the Breitbart story. Several commenters posted the address of the school, and a self-professed white nationalist urged others to “take action.”

What I find pretty remarkable about this whole thing is that even if the original story were true as reported, in what world would something like this rise to the level of national news? I suppose, answering my own question, it would be the world of the Poor Oppressed Christians, who totally jumped the shark last holiday season with their outrage over Starbuck's holiday cups for not including ancient, traditional symbols of their religion like snowmen and reindeer (Wait. What?).

These same folks always want to be able to request that their kids opt out of school activities like nonsectarian yoga (that is, stretching) and nonsectarian mindfulness meditation (even though meditation has a long history of practice by contemplative Christians). And I think that's fine, even though I disagree with their reasons. But look what they do when a Jewish family tries the same thing. National outrage! Religious freedom has to be for everybody, folks. There can't be any exceptions.

"Blood Miracle" Fails

AS 2016 comes to an end, the general consensus appears to be that it was a pretty bad year. Not only was this the year of one of the weirdest presidential elections in American history, it also was the year of a seemingly unusual number of unexpected deaths. Some of this is probably standard cognitive bias at work - people have a tendency to fixate on the recent past and idealize or forget things from longer ago. But this last Friday, something ominous took place at an Italian cathedral.

In Naples, Italy, a vial of dried blood kept in a cathedral crypt is said to spontaneously liquefy three times a year. Dec. 16, the anniversary of the 1631 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, is one of the liquefaction days. So far, so good! But last week, on the appointed day, the blood remained stubbornly dry. “We must not think of disasters and calamities,” the local abbot said in response, which is exactly the kind of thing that makes one think about disasters and calamities.

The blood supposedly belongs to Saint Januarius, also known as San Gennaro, who was martyred around the turn of the fourth century, according to lore. As the Italian newspaper La Stampa reports, previous occasions of the miracle’s failure coincided with the beginning of World War II and a local cholera outbreak.

It gets worse. Baba Vanga, a blind clairvoyant from Bulgaria who died in 1996, apparently predicted the recent failure. Believers say Baba Vanga also predicted that Barack Obama would be the last American president, which suggests something alarming will take place before inauguration day. “The Nostradamus of the Balkans” also supposedly predicted the 2004 tsunami, the rise of ISIS, and 9/11: “Horror, horror! The American brethren will fall after being attacked by the steel birds.” (It’s not clear why she didn’t just call them “airplanes.” Do not question Baba Vanga.)

So to apply a little critical thinking here, it's hard to determine how accurate these prophecies are when presented with only snippets and interpretations. I will grant that if the "steel bird" prediction was specific enough to name New York City or September 2001 it might be an impressive hit. However, I'll bet that it didn't, and not only that, I suspect that the phrase "steel bird" was used precisely so it could just as easily apply to planes, missiles, or pretty much anything else that flies - making the prediction more likely to "come true."

As far as the blood miracle itself goes, it's hard to say what might be going on. Scientists have argued that the "miracle" is a natural phenomenon, and even if we consider it paranormal anyway, the start of World War II and a local cholera epidemic are nowhere near the same scale of event. In fact, if you look closely enough at just about any day you can find something bad that happened somewhere in the world. So the liquefaction could depend on some natural factor and have nothing to do with any calamities.

Seeing if anything unusual happens between now and Donald Trump's inauguration will make for a good test. As is generally the case with these predictions, they usually fall apart the moment that they are subjected to strict scrutiny. But I suppose we'll be able to say for sure in a month.

No White Horse After All

Sorry, Mittens. No White Horse for you!

As I mentioned in my previous article about the White Horse Prophecy, the Electoral College overturning the election of Donald Trump was always an incredibly long shot. So-called faithless electors are rare, and for the Electoral College to reject Trump, 37 individuals specifically selected for party loyalty would have had to defect. In addition, 29 states have laws requiring electors to vote for the state's popular winner.

As I expected, this did not happen - the total number of faithless electors turned out to be ten. In two of those cases, Democratic electors cast votes for Bernie Sanders, and in another a Democratic elector cast a vote for John Kasich, but because they were from states requiring them to vote for the state's winner, their votes were ruled improper and changed to votes for Hillary Clinton. So seven electoral votes for candidates other than Trump and Clinton were allowed to stand, making Trump's win official.

Of the faithless votes that were allowed to stand, two Texas Republican electors defected from Trump, one voting for Ron Paul and the other for Kasich. Four Washington Democratic electors defected from Clinton, three voting for former Secretary of State Colin Powell and one voting for Native American elder and activist Faith Spotted Eagle, who now has the distinction of being the first Native American to ever receive an electoral vote in the history of the United States. In addition, Sanders picked up one vote from a Democratic elector from Hawaii.

The two Democratic electors who attempted to cast votes for Sanders hailed from Maine and my home state of Minnesota, and the one who attempted to cast a vote for Kasich was from Colorado. So even though the official count of faithless electors was seven, it really should be counted as ten, since historically state "pledge laws" have not applied. Minnesota changed its laws after 2004 when an elector cast a presidential vote for John Edwards, the Democratic candidate for Vice President. I'm not sure when similar laws passed in Maine or Colorado.

The Planetary Work - Mercury

This article is Part Six in a series. Part One can found here, Part Two can be found here, Part Three can be found here, Part Four can be found here, and Part Five can be found here.

Today I will be moving on to working with Mercury, the next planet in sequence according to the Chaldean Order. Liber 777 associates Mercury with "Miracles of Healing, Gift of Tongues, Knowledge of Sciences," which means that this is the planet to work with for healing and learning of whatever sort, including both sciences and languages. Thus, this article may be thought of as an updated version of this one. Note that, as with the others, back in 2008 I was still working with the sephira godname rather than that attributed to the path.

Healing is considered one of the most important forms of magick in the Rosicrucian tradition. In the Fama Fraternitatis, the first obligation of those belonging to the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross was "That none of them should profess any other thing than to cure the sick, and that gratis." At the same time, healing is one of the most difficult areas in which to assess magical success. It is well-known to medical researchers that the mind has some natural ability to heal the body on its own, a phenomenon called the placebo effect.

In order to determine whether or not a medicine or treatment is truly effective in and of itself, the treatment must be evaluated according to double-blind experimental techniques. This is necessary because it allows researchers to distinguish between the healing effects arising from belief in the treatment, and the healing effects arising from the treatment itself. In that way, I have maintained for years that healing is perhaps the worst possible field to focus on if you want to try and demonstrate the effectiveness of practical magick in a rigorous fashion.

People are generally less interested in spells for obtaining knowledge or language proficiency, but both are quite applicable to magical studies. Magick is called a Science and Art because it includes elements of both, and especially on the science side, Mercury operations can help you gain a greater understanding of magick itself. Likewise, understanding languages can be extremely useful when conducting any sort of antiquarian research involving original magical texts.

To review, in Qabalah the planets correspond to the double letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The letters are so named because they correspond to two specific sounds each, and this is reflected in the dual nature of the planets. On the Tree of Life, each planet corresponds to both a sephira or a path. Many magicians refer to the sephiroth as "spheres," and you may catch me doing that sometimes as well. It is, however, not a direct translation. The word actually means "emanations" - as in, emanations of divinity. But they are drawn as circles on most diagrams of the Tree of Life, and in addition, "sephira" and "sphere" sound very similar in English.