Jim Bakker's Phony Virus Treatments

Televangelist Jim Bakker never met a survivalist product he didn't like. So naturally he's treating the COVID-19 virus as a great opportunity to make a quick buck. The FDA has warned Bakker to quit promoting various alternative remedies as treatments for the virus. There is no evidence that any of these products work against the virus, and the FDA is concerned that people may use them in place of seeking medical treatment.

“The FDA considers the sale and promotion of fraudulent COVID-19 products to be a threat to the public health. We have an aggressive surveillance program that routinely monitors online sources for health fraud products, especially during a significant public health issue such as this one,” FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn said in announcing the enforcement actions.

The products include teas, essential oils, tinctures and colloidal silver, which have been cited as not safe or effective for treating any disease, the agency said in a statement with the Federal Trade Commission. The FDA said it was particularly worried that the products may cause people to delay or stop appropriate treatment, “leading to serious and life-threatening harm.”

Maybe Bakker always was a total huckster, but in his old age he's gotten a lot more blatant about it. Remember the potato soup? That look on his face as he tastes it just screams "delicious," doesn't it? There's also not a lot of explanation of how a tub of fully hydrated potato soup is expected to survive the apocalypse. Similarly, his bogus health treatments have a lot in common with faith healing.

Even if I were Christian I would have a hard time putting my faith in Jim Bakker, but apparently that's not true for everyone. Somebody must be watching his show.

UPDATE: I totally missed this when I posted the article, but a reader pointed it out. The FDA Commissioner's name is Stephen Hahn. This isn't the first time somebody named Hahn has gotten Bakker into trouble...

The Cult of Power

I don't personally have a problem with Christianity in general, or with people who follow Christianity as a spiritual path. As a Thelemite, I believe that everyone's spiritual path is entirely their own business. It does me no good to disparage someone else's spirituality just because it doesn't work for me. Now if you read Augoeides, you might be a little puzzled by that statement. I do post a lot of articles making fun of a certain group of people who I call "Poor Oppressed Christians." This group is generally made up of evangelicals and fundamentalists - but I should stress that not all evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians belong to it.

Salon has an article up today about a new book that articulates exactly what I find objectionable about these particular Christians. They don't worship God or Christ as much as they worship political power. The "Oppressed" thing is basically a narcissistic ruse, in that the whole point is to gain special rights and privileges that they can use against those they see as enemies - atheists and agnostics, the LGBT community, and even other Christians they consider heretics. The bottom line is that if they were willing to leave the rest of us alone and quit trying to write their beliefs into laws that everyone has to follow, I would leave them alone.

Author Katherine Stewart has the answer: Because the true god these folks worship is power. In her book, "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism," Stewart details how she traveled around the country, getting to know the various Christian conservative figures that are whipping support for Trump and his agenda. She deems the "Christian nationalists" and demonstrates how their supposedly Christian values always come second to their endless quest for power. Stewart spoke with Salon about her new book. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

RIP Mike Hughes

Back in 2018, I covered the exploits of homebrew rocketeer and flat-earth enthusiast Mike Hughes. Hughes was a daredevil who went by the moniker "Mad Mike Hughes," and despite my article covering a well-publicized launch failure, he did have some success flying homemade steam-powered rockets. And yes, that's as dangerous as it sounds. This last week Hughes was killed in - no surprise - a rocket crash.

Daredevil "Mad" Mike Hughes died Saturday, February 22 after his homemade rocket crashed into the ground outside of Barstow, California. Hughes launched himself inside the steam-powered rocket in hopes that he might sail high enough into the atmosphere to prove that the Earth is flat. He was 64.

Seconds after launch, a parachute can be seen fluttering away from the speeding rocket, which quickly turned back toward Earth. “When the rocket was nosediving and he didn't release the three other parachutes he had in the rocket, lots of people screamed out and started wailing,” Chapman told BuzzFeed News. “Everyone was stunned when he crashed and didn't know what to do.”

Hughes aimed to reach the Kármán Line, where Earth's atmosphere and outer space meet, 62 miles above the ground. From there, Hughes claimed he'd be able to tell whether the Earth is a flat disk (as he suspected) or a sphere. The steam-driven rocket included three heaters that would produce enough steam to thrust the stuntman at least 5,000 feet into the air. He hoped to reach top speeds of up to 425 miles per hour.

As I pointed out in my previous article, 5000 feet is not that much if you are trying to get into space. It's about 1/62nd of the 62 miles that you need to cover. Steam is a poor fuel for a rocket, which is why NASA doesn't use it. His last flight of 1900 feet was not even as high as the top floor of the Burj Khalifa, which clocks in at over 2700 feet.

So how Hughes planned to get high enough to see whether the Earth was flat is a real mystery. Some have speculated that the whole flat-earth thing was a ruse to get flat-earthers to fund him building and flying around in rockets - which admittedly is pretty darn cool until one of them crashes.

What I will say for Hughes is that nobody can argue that he didn't die doing what he loved. Rest in peace, "Mad Mike."

Via Solis Pisces Elixir Rite - Year Three

Today's Magick Monday post is a full script for the Pisces Elixir Rite that we will be performing tomorrow, Tuesday February 25th, 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, 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 Pisces. The sign Pisces is attributed to the powers of "Bewitchment" and "Casting Illusions." So this is the power that you would call upon to cast classic magical operations such as "glamours" and the like. Spells that act directly on your own mind or those of others would also qualify. And, since magical powers are descriptive, not prescriptive, this can be scaled up to include all sorts of contemporary issues in our society. 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.

Modeling Magick and Remote Viewing

Any time you want to do parapsychology research, skeptics do their best to make you jump through all sorts of hoops. To be clear, real skepticism is important to any scientific endeavor. However, capital-S Skeptics take that a whole lot further. Thanks to their influence, most psychic research that sees the light of day is focused on "proving" whether psychic abilities exist at all, over and over again. Government agencies like the CIA don't bother with that sort of thing. When they find something that works, they exploit it for all it's worth.

The CIA ran a "remote viewing" program up until it was shut down in 1995. Basically, they trained people to function as psychic spies and developed a protocol that helped many people develop what is essentially a form of clairvoyance. They called this method Coordinate Remote Viewing or CRV. And they compiled plenty of evidence that it worked, as revealed in declassified documents from the program. The big question is how, which so far has not been worked out. This is also the big question surrounding magick and paranormal abilities.

According to a CIA document declassified on 08/07/2000 titled “Coordinate Remote Viewing (CRV) Technology 1981–1983,” submitted to the organization August 4 of 1983, coordinate remote viewing “utilized through the methodologies that have been developed…works with remarkable precision,” but the individuals who submitted it admitted that they were “unable to explain in conventional terms why it is that the co-ordinate serves as a stimulus in the manner it does.” Nevertheless, they were convinced that David Bohm’s model of quantum mechanics provided a potentially plausible explanatory hypothesis for the mechanisms that make it possible.

David Bohm was a controversial yet brilliant luminary in physics who argued that the entirety of the cosmos is populated with quantum black holes that lead from the “explicate order” of spacetime to a realm that transcends space and time which he referred to as the “implicate order.” These black holes were termed “holospheres,” and hypothesized as the mechanism which connects the implicate order to the explicate order. From the perspective of the remote viewer, it is possible that the signal line we acquire is mediated by these holospheres, which connects us with an implicate order that is conceptually more or less identical to the Eastern concept of “Akasha” or the “Akashic records,” as articulated in the work of writers such as Swami Vivekananda. The explicate order in which we ordinarily live and move and have our being is “unfolded” from this implicate order and houses the world of ordinary objects and consciousness, which includes what remote viewers known as the liminal, subliminal and subconscious orders.

Satanists Did It!

As you can probably guess, I happen to think that the last thing we need in politics is more Christians. Or, more to the point, more Poor Oppressed Christians who believe that passing laws based on their religious beliefs is a good and noble goal. A group made up of Christian lawmakers (who obviously disagree with me) recently put up a Twitter poll asking if America would be better off if more Christians served in elected office. It did not turn out as expected, which maybe means that there's hope for our country yet.

After more than 16,000 replies, the answer was an overwhelming “no,” which received 95.8% of the vote. In response, the group accused “atheists and Satanists” of “religious persecution” for voting in the poll. Congress is overwhelmingly Christian, far out of proportion with the people they represent. According to a Pew survey last year, the Senate and House are nearly 90% Christian, compared with 65% of America as a whole.

First off, why should atheists and Satanists not get a vote? They're citizens of this country too. How is expressing an opionion "persecution?" And finally, why can't these folks accept that even a lot of mainstream Christians are sick of their nonsense? I'm willing to bet that a lot of Christians who don't consider themselves oppressed by the mere existence of dissenting opinions voted "No" in that poll.

One in four Americans now considers themselves atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” a position publicly held by just one member of the current Congress, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who lists her religion as “none.” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) describes himself as a humanist, while a handful of others haven’t acknowledged a faith or lack thereof.

The National Association of Christian Lawmakers was started last year by Arkansas State Sen. Jason Rapert (R), who warned about the rise of witches in a recruitment email. It’s not clear how many members the group has, but its board of advisers includes a number of current and former elected officials, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Always Pay Me First

I have to say, as much as I try not to make fun of other folks' religious beliefs, I never get tired of mocking Paula White. Donald Trump's "spiritual advisor" is a Prosperity Gospel preacher who is considered extreme even by other Prosperity Gospel preachers. Although I don't necessarily have a problem with Christianity, I have no problem whatsoever pointing out the obvious - Prosperity Gospel is basically a scam. The idea that God will reward you for sending these preachers money with a lot more money is more like a pyramid scheme than a system of spirituality, and just like a pyramid scheme, the person getting rich is the one at the top. Here's yet another example of White's ridiculousness.

Prosperity gospel minister Paula White is apparently encouraging her followers to live in the dark if necessary to keep the lights on at her church. According to a report by Mother Jones, White, who serves as Trump’s “spiritual adviser,” told followers at her Supernatural Ministry School in Miami that they could earn God’s appreciation by sending her church as much money as possible — even if that meant they weren’t able to pay their electric bills.

White specifically told her followers that if they pay their Florida Power and Light (FPL) electric bill every month in lieu of giving it to her church, then they are treating the electric company better than they are God. “Instead of writing that check to the house of God as I’m instructed to, then what I’m saying spiritually is, ‘FPL, I have now established a spiritual law that put you first,” White told her congregants. “So FPL, save my family, FPL, deliver my drug-addicted son, FPL, kill this cancer that doctors say is in my body.”

The funny thing is, this is absolutely not what people who pay their electric bill before donating to Paula White's church are doing. They are treating their electric company better than they are treating Paula White. Obviously, this heresy cannot stand. More seriously, though, this attitude is the same reason that faith healing is dangerous.

If someone is severely ill and receiving proper medical care, there's nothing wrong with praying for their recovery. When my friends are in the hospital I do healing spells for them too. But if I were to tell them that seeking medical care shows a "lack of faith" that will prevent whatever deity I follow from healing them, I'm committing magical malpractice. Magical and/or spiritual healing should complement conventional medical care, not replace it. The deal is that as with anything else, you take all the non-magical actions you can to make your recovery as likely as possible. Then you use a spell to close the probability gap and "seal the deal."

In the Paula White example, having electricity means that you can heat and cool your home, and do what you need to do to get ready for work where you earn money. Those things are important. You have to make money to be able to donate money. But Prosperity Gospel preachers invert that whole relationship solely to enrich themselves at the expense of their less fortunate followers - who are remain less fortunate than they otherwise might be because they are donating all their money hoping for a payoff that probably will never come.

The Power of Luck

Why practice magick at all? Some of us, like me, have been fascinated by it from a young age. For most people, though, it remains a niche interest that they just find weird - if they even understand what it is.

The truth is that there's a really compelling reason to practice that has to do with the power and influence of luck in our society and for that matter the rest of the world. Vox has an article up that talks about just how pervasive luck really is, and how much it has to do with how our lives really turn out.

These recent controversies reminded me of the fuss around a book that came out a few years ago: Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, by economist Robert Frank. (Vox’s Sean Illing interviewed Frank in 2016.)

It argued that luck plays a large role in every human success and failure, which ought to be a rather banal and uncontroversial point, but the reaction of many commentators was gobsmacked outrage. On Fox Business, Stuart Varney sputtered at Frank: “Do you know how insulting that was, when I read that?”

It’s not difficult to see why many people take offense when reminded of their luck, especially those who have received the most. Allowing for luck can dent our self-conception. It can diminish our sense of control. It opens up all kinds of uncomfortable questions about obligations to other, less fortunate people.

Nonetheless, this is a battle that cannot be bypassed. There can be no ceasefire. Individually, coming to terms with luck is the secular equivalent of religious awakening, the first step in building any coherent universalist moral perspective. Socially, acknowledging the role of luck lays a moral foundation for humane economic, housing, and carceral policy.

Building a more compassionate society means reminding ourselves of luck, and of the gratitude and obligations it entails, against inevitable resistance.

Read the whole article - it's quite good, and makes a point that a lot of people, particularly those who happen to be conventionally successful, don't like to admit.