Flashback: Raymond Wiley on the Invisible Web Podcast (Parts One and Two)

(C) A&E Television Networks via HISTORY

For HobbitFriend: Meece Has Two Mommies (and She Gets to Play Longer)

This story is for a friend who is like a mommy to two lab-bred white fancy mice she has as her roommates.  Maybe your two meece need a baby girl meece to raise so they can be more active and they all live longer 😛  Below an interesting study conducted in Japan determined that meece are best raised with two mommies (who they are cloned from) instead of a mom and a dad they get their DNA from.  Think If These Walls Could Talk 2 with Sharon Stone and Ellen DeGeneres.  Anyways, they make an adorable family.

(C) Lauren Davis @ i09

Updated (11/20/2009) with More Pictoral Content – The Invizible Web Season 4 Episode 2 (25) : Love-Hate and Xtul for All~!

Picture I took at the Anthology Film Archives.

On this episode of the Invizible Web, I interviewed Timothy Wyllie, formerly Father Micah of the Process Church of the Final Judgment.  We talk about the history of the sect and its de-facto leader Mary Ann de Grimston, as well as his new book that tells its story,Love Sex Fear Death:  The Inside story of the Process Church of the Final Judgement.  Also find out if dark dank robes were sexy, what Timothy do if he was the Messiah, and whatever a Xtul is.

The Invizible Web Season 4 Episode 2 (25): Love-Hate and Xtul for All~!

Happy Birthday King~!!

Religious Right compares Santeros to NAZIs. Wait, what?

The Lingering Damage of the Satanic Panic Scare by Jason Pitzl-Waters

Jason Pitzl-Waters wrote on the Wild Hunt Blog,

We’d like to think that the age of dangerous life-destroying rumors concerning “Satanic” and “occult” practitioners is long over, but a quick look at the Austin Chronicle’s recent examination of the “Satanic Panic” scare of the 1980’s and 90’s (aka “Satanic Ritual Abuse”) shows how some people are still suffering from the after-effects of this madness.

On Hip Hop and Homophobia, “If You Are Homophobic, Then You Are Probably Gay?”

Editor: Below is a compelling yet whimsical article by Johann Hari for the Huffington Post.

“…Listen to any album and a list of homophobic howls will hit you: Eminem squeaking “Hate fags? The answer’s yes!”, or Masse saying “I be wastin’ em. That’s what you faggots get!” The music’s mood was summarised in a 1992 Ice Cube hit: “True niggaz ain’t gay.”

This boom-boom-boom of homo-cidal hate has a crushing effect on gay kids. It sends out the message: you are so repulsive you should be killed. It’s one of several reasons why gay teenagers are still — after all the amazing progress we have made — six times more likely to commit suicide than their straight siblings.

Why do they do it? Why do hip-hop artists — often the victims of bigotry themselves — incite this hatred? For ten years, Terrence Dean was at the heart of the hip-hop scene as a producer at MTV and Warner Brothers. His life is as ghetto as any of the big name artists. His mother was a heroin-addicted, AIDS-infected prostitute whose ‘clients’ held Terrence hostage at gunpoint. His drunken grandmother raised him in the slums of Detroit, and he eventually ended up in prison. When he was released, he headed for Hollywood – and he was amazed to stumble into a gay underworld stocked with some of the biggest names in hip-hop”

Read more.

Green Eggs and Bob?

Editor’s Note: Yesterday, two years ago, on January 11, 2007 at 4;50 AM PST, Robert Anton Wilson left this life.  I wrote some words to remember him by, last year.  Interestingly, Jason Pitzl-Waters, a premiere blogger of the Pagan community reviewed Green Egg Omlet, An Anthology of Art and Articles from the Legendary Pagan Journal, which contained artciles Rev. Bob wrote for the celebrated peridodical.  From reading the review, and gleaming inside the TOC, I think I might get a copy from Borders.  It would look nice next to my copy of Drawing Down the Moon in my bookcase.  What were the first forty years of the modern Pagan movement like? Here is an an excerpt of Pitzl-Waters’ review of this collection from a bygone era.

The print medium is changing irrevocably. Any clear-eyed assessment concerning the state of magazines and newspapers would see a widespread and unforgiving culling taking place. So many magazines are going under that a regularly updated blog has been created to keep track of the carnage, while digital-age pundits predict that the surviving niche publications will soon have to make hard choices about their future. While I’m no futurist, I’ve seen some of these changes coming for some time now, the struggling economy only hastening a transition already underway. It is part of the reason that the bulk of my writing is focused on this blog, rather than in the more “traditional” outlets for a writer/journalist (though I do admit to a certain romantic attachment to being in print, and I currently write for Pagan publications like PanGaia and Thorn).

Given these shake-ups in the world of print, I think it is entirely timely that I recently received a review copy of “Green Egg Omelette: An Anthology of Art and Articles From the Legendary Pagan Journal”. This book, a compliation of excerpts from one of the most influential Pagan magazines ever printed, shows just how vital and necessary the format once was. While books published for Pagans usually stuck to the “101-isms” of Wicca and other Pagan faiths, it was in the magazines that this loose network of Witches, Pagans, magicians, free-thinkers, and philosophers started to communicate, hash out ideas, argue, and push the boundaries of what they knew. It was a place where Pagan filk could rub shoulders with treatises on magic(k) by Robert Anton Wilson, and initial attempts at describing a Pagan theology could have a place next to explorations of polyamory. It is little wonder that even today Green Egg is remembered fondly by almost all who came across it in their journey.

Read more.

Right Where You Are Sitting Now! EPISODE 21 – 2008: Obama, Anonymous and the State of Neo Paganism with DisInfo.com’s Raymond Wiley and Austin Gandy

(C) 2008 Right Where You Are Sitting Now!

Ken wrote:

This week we mark the end of our holiday break by discussing some of our ‘favorite bits’ of 2008. Topics covered in this show include Anonymous, The end of Neo-Paganism as we know it?, Patriots and the Georgia Guidestones and of course Obama (or in this case OBAWWWWMA).

Joining me for this episodes banter is Sir Raymond Wiley and Lord Austin Gandy from ye olde Out There Radio and the all new Disinformation The Podcast.

Download now.

YuleTide: The Twelve Deities of Solstice #9 – BERTHA (PERCHTA)

(C) Wikimedia Commons

” There were beautiful Perchten with colorful clothes and glittering ornaments, and the Schiachperchten – bold forms, ghostly apparitions with masks of wood or bark, enveloped in furs, moss, lichen…demons represented by the inhabitants. ” (Michael Moynihan and Kadmon, Lords of Chaos New Edition, “Oskoriei,” 382)

YuleTide One Shot: Of SANTA and ODIN (KNIGHT RUPERT and BELSNICKEL too)

With 86% of Americans having a belief in Santa Klaus until age 8 (AP-AOL, 2006), Jolly Saint Nick is perhaps one of the most recognizable figures in the USA. The story goes that from the North Pole, Santa emerges from his House each year to dispense gifts to children who are obedient to their parents each year. His house according to North American lore is located in the North Pole, where he lives with his wife “Mrs. Klaus.” In workshop hidden from the world, meek elves in his employ make toys and other presents to the believing, which are delivered to Jolly Old Sat Nick some time before Christmas. When Christmas Eve arrives, Santa and his team of eight reindeer fly across the world. Santa enters home through chimneys and eats cookies left by children.

As written in the past few days, this tradition is not universal; i.e. reindeer do not live in the North Pole, factually, so many European traditions locate the Reindeer of Santa in Lapland, Finland. Originally, the figure celebrated for bringing holiday cheer for the British whom would colonize the US, was traditionally Father Christmas, whose origin was the 17th Century when The Protestant ban on Christmas feasts was lifted. He was a man draped regally as if he was royalty. The modern interpretation of Santa Klaus, a large jolly man full of spirit was only popularized in the mid 19th Century, but was iconized by the drawings of former Playboy illustrator Haddon “Sunny” Sundblom as ads for the Coca Cola Company in the 1930s. This was after Father Christmas and the legendary Bishop of Lycia, Turkey, Saint Nicholas of Myra were syncretized. Nicholas was a holy man reputed to have resurrected three children butchered and paid for the dowry of three women, thus preventing them from entering a life of slavery.

Knight Rupert, or Knecht Ruprecht, as he was named originally in German folklore, protects Santa Klaus with staves. He also uses his rod to discipline “misbehaving children.” Contrasting with Santa, Rupert wars dark colored clothes and has generally uncouth hair and facial hair. Due to his strong resemblance to Odin, he is believed to be a modernization of the Highfather so much to the extent that the NAZIs attempted to replace Santa with Rupert believing him to be a corrupted form of the ancient deity. In some traditions, Rupert and Santa have been merged (something like the fusions in Dragon Ball Z and the combining in Transformers I guess) into one entity: Ru Klaus (Eng: Rough Nicholas), who is both the giver of gifts and the dispenser of punishment. Knight Rupert is also linked with Saint Rupert in Switzerland.

YuleTide: Santa Klaus and His Companions #6 – La BEFANA (and STRENUA?)

There is a story about a woman.  On one night each year she goes searching for her lost child. Sounds like La Llarona? It isn’t. It is the tradition gift giver of rural Italian winter holiday celebrations: La Befana. La Befana is described as a frightening crone whom “is as kind as she is ugly.” She wears a scarf and has a large mole on her nose. On Epiphany, January 6th, in Urbania (of Central Italy) and other towns in Southern Italy, she flies into homes on her broom stick (through keyholes where there are no chimneys) giving “good” children a “bag of goodies,” which include but is not limited to candy. She also gives children coal (and perhaps a bop with her broom). In return, families leave her a stocking filled with fruit (oranges, again?) and a glass of vino.

The name La Befana first appeared in a poem in 1594.  Legends of La Befana place the woman to the Biblical Era. In one tale, the three magi who were searching for the soon-to-be born Jesus receive shelter and food from her when she cannot provide directions to Bethlehem, or her accompaniment on the journey due to the need of sweeping. She realizes her mistake too late, and thus wanders the world searching for Jesus to this day. In another variation she continually searches for Jesus due to sadness in losing her own child. Yet in another version, she is a widowed Princess who retreats to the wilderness and becomes a witch. In this telling, Jesus searches and finds her and offers her the role of “the Mother of All Children,” which she accepts.