But Isn't He Fighting the Illuminati?

In the dark depths of the Internet long-discredited conspiracy theories about President Donald Trump live on. According to the so-called QAnon conspiracy, also dubbed "The Storm," Trump is engaged in a battle against "Satanic Illuminati pedophiles" who populate the "deep state" - oh, and of course, the entire Democratic Party. QAnon predicted that the Mueller Investigation was a "false flag" that was only pretending to investigate the president, and that when the report was released basically every prominent Democratic Party member (and especially the Clintons) would be named in it and arrested en masse.

Then the report was released. Nothing that "QAnon" predicted happened. It's almost as if the whole thing were entirely made up - which in fact a couple of folks on Reddit actually copped to doing awhile back. And anybody who still believes in any aspect of this nonsense should take note that Trump recently appointed a self-proclaimed "Illuminati" who writes under the pen name "Magus Incognito" to a federal education board. Appointing Illuminati to prominent federal positions is a pretty funny way to fight them, don't you think?

President Donald Trump has appointed an author of self-styled “Illuminati” self-help and financial advice books to a position on a federal education board. The appointment of George Mentz ― who also writes under the pen name “Magus Incognito” ― to the Commission on Presidential Scholars was announced last Wednesday in a White House press release.

The group is tasked with selecting “presidential scholars” from across the country, an honorific reserved for 161 high school seniors who “demonstrate exceptional accomplishments in academics, the arts, career and technical education and an outstanding commitment to public service.”

Federal Election Commission filings show Mentz has given substantial sums to Republican causes and candidates, including more than $10,000 to Trump’s campaign and an associated political action committee.

Probably a Bad Idea

To be fair, I will grant that this promotional campaign is weird enough that it got me to post about it here on Augoeides. So maybe it's not a bad idea for all possible definitions of "bad." However, I do run into people from time to time who do magick even though they expect it not to work, and then are surprised or even shocked when it does. Spells are real and they can have real effects, and dismissing anything magical as an automatic joke can be problematic.

If your brand is called Liquid Death, why not hire a real-life Louisiana witch doctor to put a curse on your entire beverage inventory leading up to Halloween? That’s exactly what the Austrian spring water startup is doing with a campaign titled “Certified Cursed Liquid Death.”

In the campaign video, “practicing witch” Mystic Dylan is seen in a smoky warehouse preparing to cast an evil spell on cases of Liquid Death. “I call on the waters of Liquid Death and curse it with a witch’s breath,” he intones. “Curse this place, invade this product, invade those who would consume.”

Disclaimers at the end of the video warn that “Liquid Death is not responsible for what the demons do to you if you decide to consume it.” The video is running on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

According to company co-founder and CEO Mike Cessario, if you’re going up against the beverage Goliaths of the real world, weirdness helps. “As crazy as the name is, it just also made so much sense for what the product mission is: to kill your thirst and help bring death to plastic bottles,” Cessario tells Marketing Daily.

He believes there’s a “false assumption” the wellness demographic isn’t interested in weird, tongue-in-cheek entertainment.

And that's all fine and good for a laugh - if they're not working with a real magical practitioner casting a real curse. According to the article this is being billed as a real magical operation, and if it really is cursed I don't recommend drinking the stuff. Meanwhile, Cessario sounds like he either doesn't know the difference between a real magical operation and a joke or just doesn't care.

Now hopefully any magician hired to do a stunt like this would just show off for the cameras without actually casting a real curse, so odds are this is basically a big joke. Still, with the way the campaign is structured it's hard to tell - and I'll freely admit that's probably the point.

Osama Bin Laden Seashell

People who encounter pareidolia normally perceive religious images like Jesus or the Virgin Mary in patterns that crop up randomly on pieces of toast, sides of buildings, or really pretty much anywhere. But according to this article from the British tabloid Metro, a seashell collector in East Sussex came across a far more sinister image - the face of former al-Qaida leader and world-renowned terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

Debra Oliver, 60, was on Winchelsea Beach, East Sussex with husband Martin, 62, to celebrate their 42nd wedding anniversary. After discovering the shell on the floor she said that they ‘fell apart laughing’ and have kept it as a little memento. Debra, from Brentford, west London, also pointed out the irony of the situation. She said: ‘funny that – he was buried at sea too.'

She said: 'It’s not that often you find a seashell that looks like anyone at all, so finding Osama bin Laden was amazing. We’d all gone for a walk on the beach, which is covered in millions and millions of shells and pebbles. I was drawn to this curious-looking shell, and went to pick it up. When I looked at it properly up close, I thought it looked like Jesus. I then saw a turban on the top, and realised who was staring up at me in the palm of my hand – Osama bin Laden.’

In the image above Deborah shows off her find. I have to admit, the shell does a lot look like the face of a man with a beard wearing a turban. It's probably a random coincidence, given the sheer number of shell configurations that exist in the world at any one time. Still, at the very least it's good for a laugh, and after all, you never quite know for sure. Could the famed terrorist leader have some paranormal connection to the shell?

What Passes for Prophecy

This article is about a year old, but I somehow missed it back then. It recently circulated in my social media feed and... wow. Just wow. Kat Kerr is a self-proclaimed evangelical prophet who took it upon herself to tell her followers what Heaven is really like. And... I think I just have to let the article detailing Kerr's claims speak for itself. They're pretty bizarre.

•Heaven has different seasons.
•Heaven has a surf park with 80-foot waves (but don’t worry; you’ll be safe).
•Heaven has horses to ride.
•Each floor of Heaven has a different aroma.
•In Spring, the “trees sing, the flowers will dance with you, even the rocks cry out and worship Him.”
•Heaven has “flowercopters” to carry people into the air.
•Heaven has cows that drive tractors.
•In Heaven, kids take art classes taught by rabbits. Giant rabbits. Giant multi-colored rabbits. Who help the kids paint the eggs with “liquid light” so they can draw Minions on them. And inside the eggs are baby chicks or rabbits. Somehow.
•The kids sit on mushrooms that rise up into the air.
•The Easter traditions were invented in Heaven.
•There’s a city in Heaven made out of Jell-O where you can “eat the mailboxes.” Kids love it.
•Heaven has a roller coaster where you leap through the air and go under the sea.

More than anything else, this sounds like Kerr is smoking something that most evangelical Christians disapprove of. If Kerr is right - well, I'll put it this way. I went to Disney World once as a child and once as a teenager. When I was older, I thought some of the technology at Epcot was cool but the kiddie stuff was mostly boring. If Heaven is a giant Disney World with amusement park rides, teaching rabbits, driving cows, and Jell-O cities, I have to say that I have no desire to go there, in the afterlife or at any other time.

If Hell is the opposite of this - you know, cows that don't drive tractors, rabbits that don't teach art, and buildings that you're not expected to eat - it sounds a lot better to me than the messed-up acid trip Kerr describes. If Hell is eternal torment and Heaven is basically the above, I would suggest that we have to face the possibility that God might very well be more like the Gnostic demiurge than most of us would like to admit. Kerr's Heaven and the traditional notion of Hell pretty much consist of different qualities of awfulness, and as I see it only an evil God would force us to choose one or the other.

Or maybe Kerr's lifelong dream is been to reside at a messed-up amusement park where hallucinogens are widely available. Maybe that really is her own personal Heaven. But if so, I find it hard to take her judgement on anything else very seriously.

Losing the Mandate of Heaven

The last of couple of weeks have been extremely busy for me, and one of the things that surprises me is how quickly the issues surrounding the impending impeachment resolution vote against Donald Trump have been proceeding. This after what felt like a slow-walk of epic proportions over the summer. It's no secret that I'm a political lefty and personally can't stand Trump, so I'll leave the politics to others to debate. What I'm finding remarkable at this point is that some of the president's allies that I never expected to turn on him are, well, starting to turn on him - folks like evangelical heavyweight Pat Robertson.

On Monday, the Christian Broadcasting Network founder and “700 Club” host delivered an uncharacteristically strong rebuke of the White House’s announcement that it will stand by as Turkey prepares to invade northern Syria, leaving the American-allied Kurdish forces vulnerable to attack.

Slamming the decision, Robertson said he is “absolutely appalled that the United States is going to betray” the fighters, who have partnered with the Syrian Democratic Forces in the battle against the self-described Islamic State. Continuing, Robertson invoked the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in Turkey allegedly at the behest of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“The President, who allowed Khashoggi to be cut in pieces without any repercussions whatsoever, is now allowing the Christians and the Kurds to be massacred by the Turks,” Robertson said. “And I believe ― and I want to say this with great solemnity ― the president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.”

As I see it, the whole idea that Trump held "the mandate of heaven" in the first place is pretty silly. What's basically being alluded to here might as well be "the mandate of Pat Robertson." I will say, though, that it feels like something around Trump has shifted, as if the "rare Pepes" and 4chan sigils have finally worn off. Maybe the "binding spells" got through at last. Maybe somebody out there cooked up something a lot nastier and cast it in secret. Or maybe there's nothing paranormal to it at all, and Republicans are just getting the point where a significant number of them have had enough.

Whatever the case, I personally am entirely in favor of Trump's "mandate of heaven," whatever it really is, falling by the wayside. It never made sense to me anyway that up to this point Trump somehow has had more support among evangelical Christians than George W. Bush did - when Bush was basically one of them and Trump is, well, Trump. That means for once in my life, believe it or not, I actually hope Pat Robertson is right.

A Nearby Black Hole?

About a week ago Salon put up an article suggesting the possibility that the hypothetical "planet nine" might be a small black hole. Small is relative here - planet nine is estimated to be between 5 and 15 times the mass of Earth based on gravitational anomalies measured by astronomers. But the size is also such that scientists believe said black hole would not be large enough to have formed from the usual process of stellar collapse. It must instead be a "primordial black hole" formed during the early days of our universe, an object that so far is only theoretical.

Now, a new scientific paper explores a very different theory: what if Planet 9 were not a planet at all, but rather a primordial black hole — a hypothetical type of small black hole that formed soon after the Big Bang, in the early Universe, as a result of density fluctuations. Such a novel idea might explain why powerful telescopes have never detected so much as a flicker from the theoretical distant, massive planet. Likewise, black holes do not emit visible light at all; rather, they absorb all photons that pass their event horizon, while occasionally emitting energy in the form of (theorized but never directly observed) Hawking Radiation.

In the paper, astronomers Jakub Scholtz of Durham University and James Unwin of University of Illinois at Chicago theorize that the elusive Planet 9 could be an old, very small black hole. "Capture of a free-floating planet is a leading explanation for the origin of Planet Nine, and we show that the probability of capturing a PBH [Primordial Black Hole] instead is comparable," the astronomers write in the paper. The two scientists reached this hypothesis in a novel way, by observing that two different phenomena could be related: first, the observation of peculiar orbits of trans-Neptunian objects (meaning bodies orbiting our sun beyond Neptune), which might be explained by the presence of a distant planet with 5 to 15 times Earth's mass; and second, the number of "microlensing events," meaning telescope images that had been distorted by gravitational lensing of the kind caused by black holes or other massive, compact objects.

"There is a growing body of observational anomalies connected to the orbits of trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs)," the paper states. "These observations have been taken as evidence of a new ninth planet in our solar system, called Planet 9, with mass of [about] 5 − 15 [Earth masses] and orbiting around the Sun at a distance of 300−1000" times the Earth to Sun distance. Second, there is set of gravitational anomalies recently observed by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE)," they continue. "The lensing objects are located towards the galactic bulge, roughly 8 [kiloparsecs] away. These events correspond to lensing by objects of mass [of about] 0.5 [Earth masses] to 20 [Earth masses] and could be interpreted as an unexpected population of free floating planets or Primordial Black Holes."

Via Solis Libra Elixir Rite - Year Three

Today's Magick Monday post is a full script for the Libra Elixir Rite that we will be performing tomorrow, Tuesday October 1st, at Leaping Laughter Lodge, our local Twin Cities body of Ordo Templi Orientis. Going forward we will be continuing to perform one of these per month 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 Libra. The sign Libra is attributed to "Works of Justice and Equilibrium." So those sorts of intents are most appropriate, and as this is a general and highly adaptable power, it can be used for many different purposes, from obtaining justice in the external world to balancing your internal magical energies and/or spiritual perceptions. 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.

A Real Ghost?

The image above comes from a pretty impressive video that was made during a Facebook ghost hunt in Hull, UK. The image isn't nearly as good as the live video version, which you can watch at the link there. To my eye it shows a three-dimensional shadowy figure that doesn't look like it could be a trick of the light. So is it a real ghost?

Ghost hunters Lee Steer and Lindsay Sheeran held a live paranormal investigation on F acebook - and were stunned by the "spirit" they say they uncovered. The pair streamed it to their followers on their Ghosts of Britain group during a visit to Hull's derelict Lord lane building.

They got more than they bargained for and claim their specialist equipment recorded a spooky figure roaming the abandoned halls. Lee and Lindsay told the Hull Daily Mail that they had never been so scared by what they and other witnesses saw. "We live streamed our investigation to thousands and loads of people were commenting that they could see a shadow stood in the hallway in one of the rooms in the Lord Line building," Lee, 34, said.

"I was on the top floor of the building and felt like my legs were jellified. We do these kinds of investigations a lot but this one made me feel really uneasy. I felt scared, like I was sinking and it was a type of fear that's hard to explain - it just wasn't right."

As part of their visit, they asked the "spirits" to change the temperature by 5c. Upon their command, they say the room went very hot - then cold by 10c. "That's not something that we could have physically done," he added.

Looking at this like a skeptic, I would say this either has to be the real thing or a hoax. There isn't much room for ambiguity or misidentification. It wouldn't be that difficult to have someone stand there with a dark sheet over them and then step away from the camera in such a way that it looks like they disappeared. But if that isn't what happened, we could be looking at a real paranormal apparition or manifestation.

What the video most reminds me of is the figure captured on video by Ghost Hunters at Eastern State Penitentiary during the show's first season, but much closer to the camera. The Ghost Hunters apparition looked like a similar shadowy figure, but it comes into view further away and immediately runs off into the darkness. That one looked like it could only be a hoax or a real apparition too.

So is this a ghost? Maybe. It certainly is one of the best videos I've seen in awhile.