The Invisible Web Episode 19 (Season Two Episode 10) – El Solo Cachorro de Espada

The Invisible Web Episode 19 (Season Two Episode 10) El Solo Cachorro de Espada

Combat sports galore. 65 Minutes ~! The RAW Draft, Triplemania, and other fun stuff. And remember to vote for Rupert the AntiChrist for President in the 2008 US Presidential election.

Xanshin @ Green Destiny

Andy @ Osaka Holiday Paradise

Flash CMLL Juicio Final results by Kris Zellner

Better late than never: AAA Triplemania 2008 results

AAA TripleMania Preview and Predictions

New Japan Pro Wrestling Best of Super Jr. Final Results

Lorenzo Fertitta begins full-time with UFC

MMA in NY? Not if NY Mag and Albany got their ways.

RAW 2008 Draft Recap

New Afternoon classes at NY Combat Sambo! Starting July 1st

Starting July 1st, New York Combat Sambo will be offering 2 new afternoon classes. In addition to our current evening and Saturday schedule listed here: www.nycombatsambo.com

We will be offering the following new afternoon classes:

Tuesday, 12:30 – 1:30PM = Submission Grappling (no-gi)

Thursday, 12:30 – 1:30PM = Sambo (gi)

This increases our schedule to 10 classes per week. If you are interested in attending classes at New York Combat Sambo, please contact us at (718- 728-8054) with any questions.

New York Combat Sambo

15 West 39th Street, 4th floor (out of Energy Fitness Gym)

New York, NY

Sincerely,

Stephen Koepfer
President, American Sambo Association
Head Coach, New York Combat Sambo
Head Coach, Team American Sambo
www.ussambo.com
www.nycombatsambo.com
www.samboschools.com
718-728-8054

The Invisible Web Episode 18 (2.09) Our Great Podio Horror

The Invisible Web Episode 18 (02.09): Our Great Podio Horror

On this episode of the Invisible Web I celebrate Midsummer’s Day with the odd synchronicities of the holiday. I also review two movies an episode of a legendary BBC Science fiction television series. BAD WOLF~!

The Voluspa featuring Fenrir, from the Poetic Edda.

Fenrir @ Godchecker

Happy St. John’s Day, from Cryptomundo

Happy Solstice/ Midsummer’s Day et all

Doctor Who @ Sci Fi Dot Com

New York Asian Film Festival going to July 3 at IFC (and from July 3 – 6 at the Japan Society)

Pre-order DIY Totemism by Lupa!

Meta-Magick: The Book of Atem – NOW AVAILABLE!

Believe it or not another episode will be released this weekend focusing on Pro Wrestling and some MMA.

Olympic Cities Punishes Poor (Oh You Didn’t Know? I bet you thought we were talking just Beijing)

Straight Dot Com reported:

A University of Toronto sociologist claimed in an academic paper that poor people suffer greater housing shortages and lose their civil liberties in cities that host the Olympics. Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, author of two books on the impact of the Olympics, told the Georgia Straight that she will present her paper, “The Olympic (Affordable) Housing Legacy and Social Responsibility”, at a conference in October.

Her paper notes that the vast majority of bid cities in the past two decades””including Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Amsterdam, Sydney, Beijing, Toronto, Athens, Turin, New York, and Vancouver””all shared a common problem: a housing and homelessness crisis. Many of them, including Vancouver, listed housing as part of their Olympic-legacy promises.

Read more.

Teacher Mutilates Eighth Grade Students by Burning Crosses Into Them

Courthouse News Service reports:

COLUMBUS, OHIO (CN) – An eighth-grade science teacher culminated a religious crusade in his classroom by burning a cross into a student’s flesh, and the school principal responded to parents’ complaints by writing the teacher a letter, but promised not to put it in the teacher’s personnel file unless he did it again, the parents claim in Federal Court.
On behalf of their son, the John Does parents sued eighth-grade teacher John Freshwater, the Mount Vernon City School District, its Superintendent Stephen Short, and Mount Vernon Middle School Principal William White.
The John Does claim Freshwater has unconstitutionally taught his religious beliefs in his science classes for more than a decade. They claim that in 2003 Freshwater sought, and was denied permission, to teach “intelligent design,” but does it anyway. They claim his classroom is festooned with Biblical posters, that he tells his students that “although he is forced to teach from the textbooks, the teachings are wrong or not proven according to the Bible.”

Read more.

Grand Jury Report on the Sexual Abuse of Minors by Clergy

Honorable Lynn Abraham, District Attorney, wrote in her introduction to the Grand Jury Report for Investigation Grand Jury Act, 42 PaCSA 4541 et seq.:

This report contains the findings of the Grand Jury: how dozens of priests sexually abused hundreds of children…

The official report.

More here.

Pre-order DIY Totemism by Lupa!

I know there are folks who have been waiting for this for a while…

I’m quite pleased to announce that my next book, DIY Totemism: Your Personal Guide to Animal Totems, is available for preorder! It’s due out in August 2008–not exactly sure what part of August, though we’ll shoot for sooner rather than later.

( So what’s this book all about, Lupa? )

We’re running a bit of a special, too–if you preorder a copy of DIY Totemism and a copy of Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic, you’ll get FREE priority shipping in the U.S. or FREE air mail shipping internationally! You will have to wait until DIY comes out to get Fang and Fur, since we’ll be shipping them together. However, this way those of you who don’t yet have a copy of Fang and Fur can read that earlier work as well as this one–or give it as a gift, if you already have your own copy.

So if you’re wondering what neopagan animal totemism can be beyond the dictionaries, DIY Totemism: Your Personal Guide to Animal Totems has a lot of good answers, based on my decade and change of experience. Feel free to pass this information on to anyone you think may be interested!

Meta-Magick: The Book of Atem – NOW AVAILABLE!

Yes… At long last… The trade paperback edition of Meta-Magick: The Book of
Atem is now available!

Amazon.com is listing it as IN STOCK at a discount price of $10.17 plus shipping:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578634245?ie=UTF8&tag=hawkridgprod-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1578634245

And we’ve got signed copies at the regular retail price here:

http://www.hawkridgeproductions.com/goods/atem.html

Meta-Magick: The Book of Atem
by Philip H. Farber

Foreword by Douglas Rushkoff

NOW IN STOCK.

“Meta-Magick is a brilliant and patently original book of magical
instruction that future generations will revere as an ‘ancient classic.’” – Lon
Milo DuQuette, author of My Life with the Spirits and Enochian Vision Magick

“Philip H. Farber in his new book has once again shown where Magick
meets the brain.” – Richard Bandler, co-founder of NLP

“The intent of Farber’s ongoing literary sigil is to move his readers
beyond the practice of individual magicks into the shared space of collective,
consensual hallucination…. Farber quickly branches out in new directions -
casting a visionary world picture as if it were a guide book, a description and
instruction manual to a realm that is quite literally created in the process of
its depiction and subsequent imagination.” – Douglas Rushkoff, author of
Coercion and Media Virus

“Years ago, Aleister Crowley published books he considered to be
talismans. In Meta-Magick: The Book of Atem, Philip H. Farber has produced a
book that each reader turns into an evoked entity. It is a unique linking of
ancient techniques of magick combined with modern science and advanced
Neuro-Linguistic Programming and even includes concepts that would be at home in
Gibson’s Neuromancer. Atem uses the ancient concept of evocation while eschewing
needless excesses that have evolved around the techniques over centuries.
Instead of relying on objectively questionable external entities, the book
reveals how to bring forth and direct specific inner qualities. The result
combines personal power with practical simplicity in the first book on the
subject that moves evocation into the 21st century.” – Donald Michael Kraig,
author of Modern Magick

“Phil Farber has a genius for transformative edu-tainment. His writing
captures the warmth and liveliness of his workshops because multisensory
experiential processes are part of every page. In decades of magickal
experimentation and hypnotherapy practice I have never seen such a concise
digest of contemporary techniques for invoking desirable qualities and banishing
negative ones from the attentional field. It is arguably the ONLY Magick or NLP
book you will ever need… Whether you are healing, exploring or aspiring this
is a journey to the frontiers of consciousness, the cutting edge of human
potential. ” – Iona Miller, co-author of The Modern Alchemist.

Lieberman Must Go!

Joe Lieberman is a war hawk, plain and simple. He staunchly supports George Bush’s War in Iraq and John McCain’s plan to stay in Iraq for 100 years. But Lieberman’s new alliance with the Republican Party runs even deeper. He has endorsed and stumped for McCain, wants to be the star of the Republican National Convention, and has even served on a 527 group that smeared Barack Obama with a nasty attack ad.

And yet Lieberman still holds a top rank within the Senate Democratic Caucus as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The Senate Democratic Steering Committee needs to know just how much of a conflict of interest this is. That’s why we created Lieberman Must Go.

Watch the video: http://bravenewfilms.org/watch/24684101/43061?utm_source=rgemail

Here’s what you can do: Sign our petition today and tell the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to strip Lieberman of his leadership role in Congress. Then, e-mail this video to everyone you know and spread it on sites like Digg and elsewhere.

Recently in Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall suggested that the best way to limit Lieberman is by encouraging the Steering Committee to render him powerless in 2009. Lieberman must go, and you can make that happen by donating to Brave New Films today.

Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Team

Why Did the Chicken Cross My Mind? An Update on Food Totems

For Rending the Veil, LUPA wrote:

A couple of months ago I wrote about food totems – animal totems of those species whose relationship to humans is primarily based on how edible they are. One of my recent efforts has been to work with less common totems as a way of breaking free of the Big, Impressive North American Birds and Mammals (BINABM). There’s nothing wrong with, say, Wolf or Eagle, but other animals like Banana Slug or Sea Urchin tend to be largely ignored.

I’ve managed to breach the initial communication barriers with several of the totems. I’ll admit I haven’t worked with them as often as I’d like, though a lot of that has been because the past several months have been pretty rough in other areas of my life, taking up a lot of the time and effort that I’d put into magic. Despite this, we have managed to have a few good conversations.

Chicken, for example, asked me the other night what was the first thing that I thought of when the word “chicken” was mentioned. I realized, rather guiltily, that the first image to pop into my mind was that of a decapitated, footless, defeathered dead bird fresh out of the oven. However, I moved beyond that thought and began visualizing chickens scratching in a barn yard, observing them as they went about their business. I admired the colorful plumage of the birds in my mind – and remembered that while they might not be as flashy the peacock or parrot, they still come in some lovely colors.

Read more.

If you enjoyed this article, please check out LUPA’s newest book, DIY Totemism: Your Personal Guide to Animal Totems, which is ready for pre-order.

Happy Solstice/ Midsummer’s Day, et all.

Heres an article about how Baltic cultures celebrate this day courtesy of Top News:

“Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians around the world are set to celebrate midsummer festivals Monday night with rites drawing deeply on pagan traditions of the Baltic people. “Marking the two longest days of the year, the celebration is called Jani in Latvia, Jaanipaev in Estonia, and Saint Jonas festival in Lithuania.

Christianity adopted the sun-worship holiday as the one dedicated to John the Baptist, but centuries later, pagan traditions still remain an integral part of the celebration. On June 23, Latvians crowned with wreaths of oak leaves flock to the countryside. Regarded as a holy tree in pagan times, the oak still features widely in Latvian folk songs. As the evening draws in, Latvians and Estonians light bonfires and sing folk songs or jump through the flames, seen as a way to guarantee prosperity. The white sandy beaches of the Gulf of Riga light up with bonfires as Latvians and Estonians flee cities to nature.”

Read more.

Simple Evocations by Philip H. Farber

Phil Farber wrote:

Basic Positive Resource Entity

1) Banishing – Imagine a circle around you, where you sit. Take a deep breath. As you inhale, let your awareness fill the circle. As you exhale, let your awareness contract to as small a point as you can, in the center of your chest. After 5 or 6 cycles of this, take a really, really, really deep breath, filling the circle with your awareness, then exhale forcefully and fully, letting (or imagining) your breath sweep through your personal circle, chasing out anything contrary to your purpose.

2) Evocation – Identify something in your life that makes you feel very good in some way. It can be a feeling of confidence, intelligence, satisfaction, arousal, intoxication, approval, or whatever you might describe as a good feeling. Pay very careful attention to HOW it makes you feel, the structure of the feeling. Where does the feeling start? What kind of feeling is it? Where does it go as it develops? Does it continue to move? Is it static? Follow it through to its peak. Then decide “If this feeling had a color, what would it be?” Imagine the color (or colors) in your body in exactly the areas where the feeling is. Then imagine that you are taking the colored shape out of your body and flip it around to face you. Place it on the floor outside your circle and breathe deeply, feeding it breath and energy on each exhalation.

Keep breathing and feeding it energy until it transforms. Once it has transformed, imagine you are communicating with it. Ask it what it wants to be called. Ask it what it can teach you that it has never before revealed. Ask it how you can feel really good more often. Find out whatever you can from it. Thank it for everything.

You can also ask this entity if it has anything that it would like to do, away from your physical body, off in the external parts of consciousness. If it says that it does, then you can get an agreement of time from the entity… five minutes, an hour, a day, five years, or whatever is appropriate to the task, and the promise from the entity to return to your physical presence at that time. Note down the time of the entity’s return so that you can take notice when it occurs.

3) Closing – Absorb the entity and anything else you may have created in your aura during this operation.

4) Repeat Banishing.

Read more.

If you like what you have read so far, consider purchasing Meta-Magick: The Book of Atem, published by Weiser Red Wheel.

Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth by Michael Parenti

This is one of the big issues I will touch on in the future and I hope to get Michael Parenti on the podcast at a future time to talk about Tibet and sinophobia.

Michael Parenti wrote:

As with any religion, squabbles between or within Buddhist sects are often fueled by the material corruption and personal deficiencies of the leadership. For example, in Nagano, Japan, at Zenkoji, the prestigious complex of temples that has hosted Buddhist sects for more than 1,400 years, “a nasty battle” arose between Komatsu the chief priest and the Tacchu, a group of temples nominally under the chief priest’s sway. The Tacchu monks accused Komatsu of selling writings and drawings under the temple’s name for his own gain. They also were appalled by the frequency with which he was seen in the company of women. Komatsu in turn sought to isolate and punish monks who were critical of his leadership. The conflict lasted some five years and made it into the courts.

But what of Tibetan Buddhism? Is it not an exception to this sort of strife? And what of the society it helped to create? Many Buddhists maintain that, before the Chinese crackdown in 1959, old Tibet was a spiritually oriented kingdom free from the egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices that beset modern industrialized society. Western news media, travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the Tibetan theocracy as a veritable Shangri-La. The Dalai Lama himself stated that “the pervasive influence of Buddhism” in Tibet, “amid the wide open spaces of an unspoiled environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We enjoyed freedom and contentment.”

A reading of Tibet’s history suggests a somewhat different picture. “Religious conflict was commonplace in old Tibet,” writes one western Buddhist practitioner. “History belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation.” In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet.

Read more.

And if you like it you can find this essay and similar ones in the Disinformation published book, Everything You Know About God is Wrong. Even though I disagree with Richard Dawkins’ views of the unseen world, some of the articles in the book, particularly this one, Neil Gaiman’s, and Nasrin Alavi’s about blogging by young progressive Muslims in Iran were very enjoyable.

Bodies in WTC 7: Emergency Official Jennings Interview Demolishes Official Version (and BBC’s anti 9-11 truth stance)

Thanks to pupaganda on Disinfo.

Preface: Although I usually do not agree with Alex Jones, (or Lyndon Larouche, Webster Tarpley, or David Icke), especially his homophobia, bigotry against Neo Pagans and Left Hand Pathers, and Christian Conservative worldview, I find this story on his website to be compelling.

Kurt Nimmo wrote for Infowars:

It is obvious watching the BBC’s trailer of its “The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – The Third Tower,” set to air on Sunday, 6 July, that “Auntie Beeb” will attempt to make it appear Building 7 at the WTC complex came down as a result of fire (see trailer below). In other words, it appears the BBC will push — and defend — the government explanation hastily cooked up after attention was focused on the mysterious collapse by researchers, a collapse diligently ignored by the 9/11 Commission in its final report, or that is to say its final whitewash.

Read more.

Barry Jenning’s account.

BBC’s trailer here.

New York Asian Film Festival going to July 3 at IFC (and from July 3 – 6 at the Japan Society)

Subway Cinema News wrote:

Running June 20 – July 6 at the IFC Center and Japan Society, the NYAFF has grown. Last year we showed 29 films. This year? 43 movies (plus two short film programs) and a fistful of special guests we’ll announce later this week. We got fat! If you think New York City should remain the kind of place where every summer you can check out the latest and greatest pop masterpieces from Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, China and Korea then we need your support! Come on down and buy a ticket. We don’t have any fancy corporate sponsors. We’re not going to try to make you sign up for an American Express card. All we’ve got are you – our audience – who keep coming back and voting with your wallets that this is the kind of film festival the city needs. You are the pop movie army and you are invincible…

The full schedule is here including links to buy tickets:

http://www.subwaycinema.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50&Itemid=81

Our trailer is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjUR2fiJ7Kk

And there are discounts and special passes to all of our matinee shows. Check out our website for details:

http://subwaycinema.com/

Welcome back to the only film festival in New York City that loves you and wants to give you prizes. The New York Asian Film Festival (June 20 - July 6). It's a long, hot summer. Let us help you survive it.

Read more.

And more.

As transgenders push for respect, a rift grows with traditional gay leadership

Michael Lavers wrote for the Village Voice:

Angel’s performance at the Black Party was a direct challenge to the men who have pretty much run the gay-rights movement for decades. The transgendered—which encompasses anyone whose gender identity and expression doesn’t fit into traditional masculine or feminine roles—may have helped instigate the 1969 police riots at the Stonewall Inn. But since then, the movement has endured an ongoing struggle to find its place at the table, even as it continues to become more institutionalized and more an accepted part of mainstream America.

Transpeople present a threat to the conformity of today’s gay leaders. The faces of contemporary gay activism are the well-scrubbed visages of Ellen DeGeneres and gal pal (and soon wife) Portia de Rossi; Rosie O’Donnell and Kelli Carpenter; and such folks as Nathan Lane, Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, and TV judge David Young. The Human Rights Campaign and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation—two of the largest and most powerful national gay-rights groups in the country—put forward these trained spokespeople to mouth carefully crafted messages and talking points that effectively market their brand of lesbian and gay identity to a largely straight audience.
Read more.

Read more.

Splinter OTO Groups Can No Longer Call Themselves “OTO” and Thoth Tarot Trademark Upheld

The Wild Hunt Blog reported:

The Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), an esoteric fraternal order which is perhaps best known for its associations with former leader and primary ritualist/liturgist Aleister Crowley, has recently achieved two major legal victories. The more important of the two regards trademark control over the terms “OTO” and “O.T.O.” in the UK.

“I am happy to report that OTO has prevailed against Starfire Publishing Ltd.’s opposition to our trademarks for “OTO” and “O.T.O.” in the United Kingdom. In her decision of June 8, Anna Carbone, the Appointed Person hearing OTO’s appeal, found in favor of OTO, overturning a previous decision in favor of Starfire. OTO’s registrations of the marks “OTO” and “O.T.O.” are now proceeding normally in the UK, joining our previous registrations of “Ordo Templi Orientis” and the OTO Lamen. Under UK law, there can be no further appeal of a decision by an Appointed Person, in either the Trademark Registry or High Court.”

Read more.