Demonic Butt Babies?

One of the few things conservative Christians dislike almost as much as gays is the concept of comprehensive sex education, for reasons that have been completely discredited by actual scientific research. Comprehensive sex education does not make children grow into more promiscuous adults, and the abstinence-only programs said conservatives usually support have been found to be substantially less effective by most objective measures. In my opinion, based on the data a strong case can be made that most opposition to comprehensive sex education simply stems from the belief that sex is icky. Full stop.

On a related topic, one of the more confusing aspects of conservative Christian ideology is its utter hatred of homosexuality. While I understand that it's a violation of Old Testament law and depending upon the reading of the text may have been condemned by the Apostle Paul, there are plenty of things that violate Jewish law and drew Paul's ire that are mostly ignored by modern Christians, even conservative ones. Jesus said nothing about same-sex relationships, and one would think that if the issue was indeed so vitally important the founder of the faith might have at least offered an opinion. Again, one is easily led to conclude that the whole objection is once more rooted in ickiness. Full stop.

Leave it to Joseph Sciambra to set me right.

Not What You Think It Means

According to Welsh Reverend Felix Aubel, witchcraft and satanism are "thriving" in Wales. His choice of words is particularly amusing, because apparently by "thriving" he really means "practically nonexistent."

A church minister claims witchcraft is thriving across his rural parishes. Rev Felix Aubel says he has come across the use of effigies and the “evil eye” during his career in the countryside. He has spoken out after figures in the 2011 census revealed 83 witches and 93 satanists are living in Wales.

Rev Aubel, minister of five Congregational chapels in Carmarthenshire, said there was an “unusual connection” between Christianity and witchcraft in some circles. And he revealed he once had to call out an exorcist when a witch placed a curse on one of his parishioners after making an evil effigy of them.

He said: “This is not a joke and I would warn people not to get involved in the occult. I have been told that a coven of witches still meet locally. There is also a witch living in a nearby village who advertises her services in the local paper.”

Spirituality and Mental Illness

A new British study claiming to show a link between spirituality and mental illness has been circulating on the Internet today. I've inquired into links between mental illness and magical practice in the past, and reached the conclusion that there appears to be no causal link. It wouldn't necessarily surprise me to find that a higher percentage of people with psychological problems might be drawn to magical practice, but in every case I've observed the problems in question predated the practice. At first I thought that this study might contain some useful information to that effect, but as it turns out the study's conclusions are quite tenuous and require further research and analysis to be of much use.

Of the participants, 35% described themselves as "religious", meaning they attended a church, mosque, synagogue or temple. The vast majority of this group (86%) were Christian. A further 19% claimed to have spiritual beliefs or experiences without following a specific religion, while 46% were neither religious nor spiritual. More than nine out of 10 were white British, with an average age of 46.

Of the different groups, spiritual people were 50% more likely to have a generalised anxiety disorder and 72% more likely to suffer from a phobia. They also had a 77% higher chance of being dependent on drugs and were 37% more at risk of neurotic disorder. Spirituality was also associated with a 40% greater likelihood of receiving treatment with psychotropic drugs.

Individuals of religious faith and those with none experienced equal levels of mental problems, the study found. But there were fewer problems with drugs or alcohol among the faithful.

Zodiacal and Elemental Hours

One of the most basic magical techniques is the tuning of one's working space to match the influence or spirit being conjured. As I discuss in Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy, modern magicians often accomplish this by relying on the Greater Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram or similar ceremonial forms, but during the Renaissance a system of hours was used that was believed to follow the natural flow of spiritual currents in the universe. As a modern magician my general practice is to use both, which seems to augment the effectiveness of my rites quite nicely.

The most well-known aspect of this system is that of the planetary days and hours based on the Chaldean Order, which breaks each 24-hour period from sunrise to sunrise into twelve day and twelve night hours. These hours vary in length depending on the season, with night hours longer during the winter and day hours longer during the summer. The system works quite well for planetary magick - the hour was generally considered to be more important than the day, so when timing an operation for a particular day the most auspicious time could be selected. However, it would be convenient to extend this system for work with the signs of the Zodiac and classical elements along authentic Renaissance grounds. From my introductory studies of traditional astrology I believe that I may have worked out just such a method.

Ancient Israelite Temple Discovered

Those who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible often fail to realize how long many of the stories it contains survived as oral tradition before being written down. The text of the Torah is believed to have been compiled following the Babylonian Captivity which ended in 538 BCE, but includes many accounts dated much earlier. These include the stories of David and Solomon, regarding which little hard evidence exists. Many experts have argued that at the very least the power and wealth of Israel during this "Golden Age" was exaggerated, as such a prominent nation should have left behind more traces of its influence.

Now a new archaeological discovery made in Israel may help to settle this debate. The site at Tel Motza, west of Jerusalem, was once home to a temple that dates back to what are believed to be the early years of King David's reign.

According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the finds -- which include 2,750-year-old pottery figurines of men and horses -- provide rare evidence of a ritual cult at the beginning of the period of the monarchy.

“The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judea at the time of the First Temple,” excavation directors Anna Eirikh, Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz told The Times of Israel.

The Jerusalem Post noted the rarity of the find, given that "around the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah, Judaism abolished many ritual sites" so the Temple in Jerusalem could concentrate its symbolic power.

This consolidation of power may prove an absolute boon to researchers hoping to unearth details regarding Israelite religious practices that went on centuries before the Captivity. One of the problems with excavations in places such as Jerusalem is that the city is quite small and within it most sites have been built up and torn down multiple times over the course of the last three millennia. In comparison, the Tel Motza site was abandoned and as a result is better preserved. It will be interesting to see if the data that can be gleaned from it matches the Biblical accounts, or if it reflects something entirely different.

God's Gender

When it comes to religion, people are willing to fight over the most ridiculous things. Today's story is from last Friday, just before the holidays. German Family Minister Kristina Schroeder has been criticized by members of her own political party over comments made in a magazine interview, stating that she thought it was "fine" to use the neuter "das" as the article for God. Like most European languages but unlike English, German associates genders with nouns. Based on those genders, the word "the" can be rendered three different ways - masculine (der), feminine (die), or neuter (das). Gott, the German word for God, is traditionally treated as masculine, much as "He" is the traditional pronoun for God in English.

Family Minister Kristina Schroeder made the comments when asked in an interview with German weekly Die Zeit how she explained to her young daughter the use of the masculine form for God. "The article is not important," she responded, adding that it was fine to use "das" instead of the traditional "der" when referring to God.

The remarks were immediately denounced by members of Schroeder's own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). "This intellectualised nonsense leaves me speechless," Christine Haderthauer, Bavarian social minister, told top-selling daily Bild. Stefan Mueller, a CSU lawmaker, said he was "bewildered" by Schroeder's "inappropriate" comments.

Here's what I find bizarre about this whole dispute - the idea that a monotheistic God would have a fixed gender at all. Human sexes have to do with sexual reproduction, which is more effective than asexual reproduction at maintaining diversity across a gene pool. God as a spiritual being should have no genes and therefore no reason to engage in sexual reproduction. Furthermore, as monotheists believe in a single deity, even if one were to grant God the characteristic of gender, there would be no other deities with whom to reproduce. In fact, as I see it the entire point of a monotheism is a concept of divinity that should in theory encompass and transcend all genders, so if Schroeder wants to use "das" as her article for God I don't see anything wrong with it. She was simply stating her own preference in the interview, not insisting that everyone else follow suit.

Crisis-Free Maya Apocalypse Spreads Across the Globe

I've been wanting to use a variation on that headline ever since Yahoo News used it in the context of a "crisis-free millennium" all the way back in the year 2000. In a way, this post is pretty much just my excuse to do so, as it is now 12-21-2012 on the other side of the world and everything still exists. No galactic alignment or asteroid impact has wiped out life on Earth. There haven't even been any Mayan sky gods descending in vast battle cruisers intent on wiping out our species - you know, because the ancient Mayans had access to battle cruisers. What are you, clueless? That's how they built all those pyramids, with alien assistance!

Seriously, though, here we sit as yet another over-hyped but failed apocalypse unfolds. Seeing as nobody in his or her right mind wants the world to end, what are we to make of this? I know what I believe - doomers are stupid. Poor critical thinking skills combined with extreme ignorance is about all that can account for the hoopla these ridiculous "prophecies" keep generating. I use the scare quotes there because the "Maya Apocalypse" is not a prophecy at all; the Mayans never made it. Like many non-Western cultures, the concept of time in the Mayan religion is circular, cycles within cycles. There are no "end times" like those mentioned in Christianity, metaphorical or otherwise.

Tonight my magical working group celebrates the 2012 Winter Solstice, and here's wishing you all a happy one. Tomorrow we'll wake up and the world will still be around. How do I know? Because I understand statistics. You would think that more people would take a cue from the indisputable fact that every single doomsday prophecy has always fallen flat and realize that this means apocalyptic claims simply make no sense without some pretty extraordinary evidence. But too many of them still don't.

Meet the Thunderbird

One of the less well-known North American cryptids is the thunderbird, described as a bird larger than any currently known species strong enough to lift and possibly carry off a small child. Stories about thunderbirds attempting to lift children are generally regarded as tall tales, since as far as anyone knows none of these reported attempts have ever been successful and it's hard to imagine a known species of bird could be such a powerful flyer. Birds are built light, which is why they can fly in the first place.

Skeptics generally brush off reports of attempted abductions and note that it is easy to mistake the size of a flying bird in the air. They suggest that thunderbird sightings are simply sightings of large known raptor species that for whatever reason, possibly optical illusions, appear to be larger than their actual size. North America is home to a number of such large species such as several varieties of eagles and condors. In this case, it appears that the skeptics are right.

This video shows an actual "thunderbird attack" captured in Montreal that conforms to most reports, in which a large bird successfully lifts but is unable to carry off a child. Furthermore, the responsible bird can clearly be identified - it's a golden eagle, a common large North American raptor. While it seems remarkable that a bird weighing perhaps ten pounds could possibly be strong enough to lift a child, here it is. Golden eagles grow larger than the bird shown here as well, with potential wingspans of more than seven and a half feet.

The ability to lift prey heavier than their own body weight is a huge evolutionary advantage for eagles. Their normal hunting tactics consist of surveying prey from the air and then swooping down to grab it with their powerful talons. While a human child is larger than the bird's usual prey, clearly they're not above making an occasional attempt if the opportunity presents itself. So this is a classic case of a cryptid legend springing from the actions of a real animal - and a well-recognized one at that.

UPDATE: So it turns out that video is a fake, created by an animation studio in Montreal that has now taken credit for it. Still, I remain convinced that eagles are the best explanation for the stories behind thunderbird attacks, and that the event fabricated in the video is plausible as rendered. A child would be too heavy for an eagle to carry for much of a distance, but it's not impossible that one might decide to try.