Not That Kind of Nativity Play

Ah, the holiday season - a time of sad consumerism, cheesy music, and bad school pageants. At first I thought this one might be a fake story, but I dug into it just enough that I see no obvious signs of it being a parody article. Even if it is, it's too funny not to share. A mom in Scotland bought a shepherd costume for her son's nativity play, which came with its own "blow-up sheep." Apparently nobody vetted this product all that carefully, because as it turns out the sheep in question was in fact a sex doll. The picture above really says it all. Imagine that as part of your school's pageant, and try not to laugh.

46-year-old mum of two Helen Cox from Alloa, Scotland, decided to shop online for a fancy dress costume for her son Alfie’s nativity play. Seeing a shepherd costume advertised on Amazon for only £16.99, Helen was even more delighted when she realised the product came with its very own blow-up sheep to complete the look. However, when Alfie returned home from school telling his mum a teacher told him to take the sheep home, Helen was puzzled.

Her confusion only grew when upon blowing up the sheep she found it had red lips, eyelashes and best of all, a huge hole in its bottom. Doing some research, Helen found the same sheep advertised on Amazon as a ‘naughty inflatable sheep doll with backdoor pleasure hole ‘perfect for a gag gift’. Elsewhere it was being sold as a ‘stag night bonkin’ sheep’ because apparently that is a thing people want in their lives.

I really have no idea who the idiot was who thought that pairing a shepherd costume with an inflatable sex doll sheep was a good idea, but frankly I don't care. The result is just too damn funny. A couple of points that make me think story might be real are (1) the costume itself is shoddy and hand-made, probably ordered from a crafting website or something similar, (2) the mom did not actually inflate the sheep before sending it to school with her son, so she might have missed the whole "sex doll" aspect if it were, say, folded up, and finally, (3) a fake news article would probably say that the kid performed in the pageant with the inflatable sheep and nobody knew what it was because they were a bunch of clueless prudes.

At any rate, whoever came up with this costume or the story itself has added a little cheer to my holidays. I hope it adds some to yours, too, however you choose to celebrate.

Evoking Hillary Clinton to Visible Appearance

As a progressive I'm not a huge fan of the Clintons, seeing as their legacy had a lot to do with the Democratic Leadership Council moving the Democratic Party in a more conservative direction in the early 1990's. However, what I don't understand at all is the ridiculous mountain of nonsense that conservatives have been sending their way since then. David Brock flat-out admitted that the "dirt" published by American Spectator during the Clinton administration was made up, but that doesn't seem to stop anybody's crazy uncles from sharing those stories over and over again. "Pizzagate" and "Qanon" still have some traction even though the respective folks who made those up have publicly admitted doing so as well.

But here's a new one that kind of blew my mind. When the CBS television series Strange Angel debuted, a bunch of folks I know in OTO were concerned that the show got so many things wrong that it probably would feed conspiracy theories. It did get people looking into the life of Jack Parsons, which is generally a good thing. But that has the potential to spawn conspiracy theories as well, and given their conspiracy magnet status, it was really only a matter of time before some nutter linked the Clintons into all of it. That nutter's name is Tom Horn, and he happens to be the CEO of Christian television network SkyWatch TV.

Today, SkyWatch TV posted a program in which End Times author and SkyWatch TV CEO Tom Horn suggested that Hillary Clinton is the “Whore of Babylon” who was conceived during a ritual carried out in 1946 by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

Horn claimed that stolen emails posted by Wikileaks revealed that Clinton had filled her 2016 presidential campaign with “occultists” who believe her to be the biblical Whore of Babylon who will usher in the Antichrist.

Citing a ritual that took place in 1946 called “The Babylon Working” in which Hubbard and others allegedly attempted to conceive a goddess through “ritual sex magic,” Horn claimed that Clinton may have been the result of that effort “to bring through, into our reality, the archetype divine feminine, the Whore of Babylon.”

“She’ll grow up, she’ll become an influential worldwide-known feminist who will help give rise to the Antichrist,” Horn said. “They believed that that was Hillary Clinton.”

“It’s been announced now that Hillary Clinton is very likely going to run for president again in 2020,” he continued. “Guess what? In 2020, she will be 72 years old. This is, again, one of the most important occult marker and it is going to again cause the occultists around her to believe that she is the incarnation of that entity.”

Horn went on to say that Jack Parsons, one of the main participants in the “Babylon Working” ritual, reported that he had a vision in 1947—the year that Clinton was born—in which the spirit of this goddess visited him, telling him that she was now on earth to fulfill her destiny to “grow up and help the Antichrist come to power” and that her name was Hilarion.

Via Solis Sagittarius Elixir Rite - Year Two

Today's Magick Monday post is a full script for the Sagittarius Elixir Rite that we will be performing tomorrow, Tuesday December 4th, at Leaping Laughter Oasis, our local Twin Cities body of Ordo Templi Orientis. Going forward, we will be continuing to perform one of these per month, once for each of the twelve signs, in a ritual series called Via Solis (the way or path of the Sun). I will be posting the full scripts here on the preceding Mondays so people can take a look at them if they want to attend. Also, if you are in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota) and would like to attend, let me or someone at the lodge know. This is a public ritual and all are welcome.

0. The Temple

The ritual space is set up with an altar table in the center. The bell chime, banishing dagger, and invoking wand are placed on the altar. In the center of the altar is placed a cup of wine for creating the elixir, within the Table of Art corresponding to Sagittarius. The sign Sagittarius is attributed to the power of “Transmutations." It is also the only sign attributed to a vision, the "Vision of Universal Peacock." This vision is a significant step in alchemical processes. Transmutation is a general power with many applications, since in a sense all magical operations represent attempts to transmute or transform some aspect of yourself, the external world, or both. So any intent along those lines would be in harmony with the power of the sign. This ritual may be performed with one, two, or three officers, who may alternate taking the Officiant role and divide up the reading from Liber 963. The Via Solis Elixir Rites were written by Michele Montserrat in 2010 for the Comselh Ananael magical working group.

I. Opening

All stand surrounding the altar. Officiant inhales fully, placing the banishing dagger at his or her lips. The air is then expelled as the dagger is swept backwards.

Officiant: Bahlasti! Ompehda!

Officiant then performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. All rotate accordingly.

Officiant: We take refuge in Nuit, the blue-lidded daughter of sunset, the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky, as we issue the call to the awakened nature of all beings, for every man and every woman is a star.

All: MAKAShANaH

Officiant: We take refuge in Hadit, the secret flame that burns in every heart of man and in the core of every star, as we issue the call to our own awakened natures, arousing the coiled serpent about to spring.

All: ABRAHADABRA

Officiant: We take refuge in Heru-Ra-Ha, who wields the wand of double power, the wand of the force of Coph Nia, but whose left hand is empty for he has crushed an universe and naught remains, as we unite our awakened natures with those of all beings everywhere and everywhen, dissolving all obstacles and healing all suffering.

All: AUMGN

Officiant: For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

All: All is pure and present are and has always been so, for existence is pure joy; all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass and done; but there is that which remains. To this realization we commit ourselves – pure and total presence. So mote it be.

Bell chime.

Celene Dion's Satanic Clothing Line

Canadian singer Celene Dion has been accused of Satanism. Not because she worships the devil or practices witchcraft or supports religious freedom or anything like that, but because she has recently released a line of unisex clothing. Oh, the horror! Apparently, all you need to do to become a card-carrying Satanist is to sit on the sofa in sweat pants. Maybe that's why fundamentalists are up in arms about Satanists being everywhere, because let's face it - sweats are very popular.

“I’m convinced that the way this gender thing has spread is demonic,” said Msgr. John Esseff, a priest and exorcist in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. “It’s false. I don’t even know how many genders there’s supposed to be now, but there are only two that God made.” The article also accuses Dion of hiding occult iconography in the clothing itself (“one pair of sweatpants has a number 3 on one knee and a 6 on the other. Three 6’s?”), suggesting that the range is not only “disturbing” but also “hideously ugly”.

“Who would pay $77 for a baby blanket with skulls or $161 for a jacket that looks like a trash bag?” asks the article’s author Patti Armstrong, a statement that suggests she is seemingly unfamiliar with the work of Demna Gvasalia. While Dion is yet to comment on the whole fiasco, she has previously said that the line was intended to enable “younger people to grow on values of equality with the freedom to strengthen their own power of personality based on mutual respect.” Which sounds a lot more reasonable than an evil spirit attempting to manipulate children through a range of casual, unisex leggings but there you go.

It also makes for smart sales. If you don't need separate versions of your clothes for men and women you can save a lot on production costs. Then, when you sell it at the same prices as comparable gender-typed clothes you make more money. As if you really need separate versions of sweatpants for men and women - the whole point of them is that they're loose and comfortable, so they don't need to be fitted.

Books for the Holidays!

Cross-posted from my author web site.

With the holiday season upon us, it's good to keep in mind that the gift of books never goes out of style. Of course, I'm talking about my books. My first novel was published in 2009 and since then I've put out additional fiction and non-fiction titles. Naturally, if I do say so myself, they make great gifts.

The Mastering Enochian Magick Series

Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy

Volume I of the Mastering Enochian Magick Series is still the only book I know of dedicated to exploring the Heptarchia Mystica, an early portion of John Dee and Edward Kelley's work that precedes the better-known Great Table and Aires or Aethyrs. The Heptarchial system works with sixteen spirits total, a King and Prince for each day of the week plus a King and Prince who rule over the entire system. This book makes a great introduction to Enochian magick that can get the reader started right away without a lot of the complexity normally associated with the Enochian system, and produce impressive practical results.

Click here to find out more and order your copy today!

Mastering the Great Table

Volume II of the Mastering Enochian Magick Series is my own exposition of the attributions of the Great Table or Watchtowers. It is more controversial than Volume I because the attributions I use are based on my interpretation of the Dee diaries and they don't line up with the attributions used by the Golden Dawn, the Aurum Solis, or Aleister Crowley. Even other "Dee Purists" don't necessarily agree with my reading of the original texts, so this book is not going to be a re-hash of other Watchtower systems that you will find elsewhere. It is, however, rooted in decades of practical work and experience, and the rituals and structures contained therein have been proved highly effective.

Click here to find out more and order your copy today!

Mastering the Thirty Aires - Coming Soon!

Volume III of the Mastering Enochian Magick Series is my exposition of the Aires or Aethyrs based on my work with the Dee diaries rather than the modern attributions derived from the various Golden Dawn-based systems. Mastering the Thirty Aires has been submitted to my publisher but is not available at this time. Watch this space for an announcement once it is ready to order!

Enochian Master Classes

This is not a book but it makes a great gift anyway. I recently participated in a set of Enochian Master Classes along with Jason Augustus Newcomb and Aaron Leitch. These classes are a great opportunity to hear me lecture on my system of Enochian magick and at the same time hear the perspectives of two other longtime practitioners. You can sign up for the course here, and the coupon code STENW-ENOCH7-50 will give you 50% off the registration price.

Click here to sign up today!

More Evidence Against "The Simulation"

I never have found the simulation hypothesis - that is, the contention that we all are living in some sort of artificial reality simulated by computer systems - particularly compelling. As I've pointed out in previous posts, Nick Bostrom's 2003 philosophical argument that we might be suffers from the same logical error as Gambler's Fallacy, which is a proposition that can easily be disproved with a few coin flips. Nonetheless, there are otherwise smart people out there who take it seriously, and that makes me question their smarts. Now yet another test has shown that the simulation idea is unlikely. Specifically, physicists have found that quantum interactions cannot be modeled by classical computers.

Scientists have discovered that it’s impossible to model the physics of our universe on even the biggest computer. What that means is that we’re probably not living in a computer simulation .

Theoretical physicists Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhin from the University of Oxford and the Hebrew University in Israel applied Monte Carlo simulations (computations used to generate probabilities) to quantum objects moving through various dimensions and found that classical systems cannot create the mathematics necessary to describe quantum systems. They showed this by proving that classical physics can’t erase the sign problem, a particular quirk of quantum Monte Carlo simulations of gravitational anomalies (like warped spacetime, except in this case the researchers used an analogue from condensed matter physics).

Therefore, according to Ringel and Kovrizhin, classical computers most certainly aren’t controlling our universe.

Now I know what you're thinking - what about quantum computers? The issue there is that quantum computers model quantum interactions as quantum interactions. So you could model the world using a quantum computer and get all the quantum interactions, but only if said computer was the size of the world and contained as many particles and so forth. In that scenario, the world would be its own simulation and basically we would just call it "reality." We perhaps could be left with a Douglas Adams scenario of the world being the computer and all of us being part of it, but that's as far as it goes.

I never have understood what makes the simulation argument compelling. The Matrix was fun as a movie, but it was a Gnostic allegory rather than a world you would want to live in. Likewise, if we really did live in a perfectly simulated universe, what would be the point of knowing? Everything would work exactly the same, and it would confer no advantage upon us. So what's the appeal? That still mystifies me, and I'm going to assume that the world I live in is the world I live in until somebody provides me with compelling evidence otherwise.

This Noah's Ark Floats

Forget that piker Ken Ham and his "Ark Encounter" attraction. Anybody with enough money and free time can build a giant replica of the famous ark from the Bible. But whereas Ham built his in the middle of a field with no thoughts of any kind given to seaworthiness, Dutch businessman Johan Huibers built an ark replica that actually works - you know, as a ship. The vessel is currently parked in Holland and Huibers now has plans to sail it to Israel - a homecoming, as it were, for the recreated ark.

Devout Christian businessman Johan Huibers built the huge vessel, which has already sailed on Holland’s Maas River. He built the boat over five years ago to the exact specifications listed in the Bible – making it 390ft-long, 75ft-high and containing 12,000 trees worth of wood.

And now, he is ready to take it to Jesus Christ’s birthplace after announcing plans to set sail to Israel. He said: “My preferred destination for the ark is Israel. This is a copy of God’s ship. It only makes sense to take it to God’s land.”

Maybe that right there is the reason that Ark Encounter isn't attracting the attendance that Ham originally hoped for. I mean, it's a Noah's Ark and it doesn't float. He could have at least built it in a big pond or something, but I suppose given the many schemes that went into raising the money a functional boat was out. That means Ham is left with a Noah's Ark that just doesn't work - and really, that's kind of boring. At least the Creation Museum is supposed to have Jesus riding a dinosaur.

It remains to be seen how eventful the voyage to Israel would be. Huibers' ark collided with a Norwegian Coast Guard vessel back in 2016 in an Oslo harbor, and while neither ship appeared to sustain much damage it also is true that Noah didn't have to worry much about precision navigation. A ship shaped like the Ark is just plain unwieldy, which means that it will probably take some work to get it from the North Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and finally to the Middle East.

Still, with Huibers' Ark such a voyage is actually possible. With Ham's, not so much.

Thinking as Navigation

Science Daily has an article up today discussing the idea that human cognition may be closely related to spatial navigation. I've talked a bit over the years how I think that conflating thought and language is a big mistake, in part because my mind clearly (to me, anyway) does much of its internal processing using spatial rather than linguistic means and it always has seemed obvious to me that this is just how thinking works - though of course this is a classic "generalization from self" and there are apparently a significant number of people out there who do think mostly in words and probably find my self-description as mystifying as I find theirs. The article discusses how spatial thinking seems to work and some of the implications of this new model.

In their proposal, [Christian] Doeller and his team combine individual threads of evidence to form a theory of human thinking. The theory begins with the Nobel Prize-winning discoveries of place and grid cells in rodents' brains, which were subsequently shown to exist in humans. Both cell types show patterns of activity representing the animal's position in space, for example, while it forages for food. Each position in space is represented by a unique pattern of activity. Together, the activity of place and grid cells allows the formation of a mental map of the surroundings, which is stored and reactivated during later visits.

The very regular activation pattern of grid cells can also be observed in humans -- but importantly, not only during navigation through geographical spaces. Grids cells are also active when learning new concepts, as shown by a study from 2016. In that study, volunteers learned to associate pictures of birds, which only varied in the length of their necks and legs, with different symbols, such as a tree or a bell. A bird with a long neck and short legs was associated with the tree whereas a bird with a short neck and long legs belonged to the bell. Thus, a specific combination of bodily features came to be represented by a symbol.

In a subsequent memory test, performed in a brain scanner, volunteers indicated whether various birds were associated with one of the symbols. Interestingly, the entorhinal cortex was activated, in much the same way as it is during navigation, providing a coordinate system for our thoughts. "By connecting all these previous discoveries, we came to the assumption that the brain stores a mental map, regardless of whether we are thinking about a real space or the space between dimensions of our thoughts. Our train of thought can be considered a path though the spaces of our thoughts, along different mental dimensions," Jacob Bellmund, the first author of the publication, explains.