Meditation can mean a variety of things, from Buddhist meditation to contemplation to ambiguous “deep thought”, and scientists are taking another look at what’s involved from a physical and psychological perspective.

Dr Richard Davidson in Madison, Wisconsin has been carrying out studies for several years with Buddhist monks.

In one study he observed the brains of a group of office workers before and after they undertook a course of meditation combined with stress reduction techniques.

At the end of the course the participants’ brains seemed to have altered in the way they functioned.

–BBC News, “Scientists probe meditation secrets“

Various studies have been completed over the years, some with dubious claims, others which seem to have more substance.

Dr Sara Lazar in Boston, Massachusetts analyzed the brains of people who have been meditating for years. The BBC reports:

She compared the brains of these experienced practitioners with people who had never meditated and found that there were differences in the thickness of certain areas of the brain’s cortex, including areas involved in the processing of emotion.

She is continuing research, but she believes that meditation had caused the brain to change physical shape.

What this means has yet to be determined, but that meditation altering the way one functions is a known effect of practice, and the possibility that meditation can affect the physical brain is not likely to surprise long-term practitioners.

It will be interesting to see what conclusions are drawn from this research.

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I have a confession to make: I have a huge crush on the whole steampunk subculture.

The aesthetic of steampunk harkens back to an era where steam power was still widely used, and often adopts a pseudo-Victorian look. Inspiration is taken from H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and fantastical technological inventions, sometimes set in an alternate-history.

I don’t see much awareness of it in Toronto (or perhaps it’s here, but I’m just not seeing it?); my first encounters with it were from flyers posted online for club events in other cities, and, of course, the gorgeous steampunk laptop (pictured above) created by Datamancer.net: a fully functional laptop made of wood, copper, and brass which starts with a clock winding key.

Indeed, Datamancer.net has created a variety of modded compute-related items, including keyboards in a variety of styles (even an Enochian steampunk keyboard! – pictured left), an Opti-Transcripticon (flatbed scanner), and various miscellaneous items.

Datamancer.net does custom work, using authentic pieces to mod current technology where possible, but due to the labour-intensive nature of his creations, they are quite pricey. Still, fun to look at.

For more on what can be done, also check out SteampunkWorkshop.com, the SteampunkHome blog and SteampunkMagazine.com. Love it.

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Over the past two days I’ve been making changes to Plutonica.net.

I’ve updated Plutonica.net‘s look and feel a bit, with a new background, a less dense header image, and fixed the page and entry formatting problems some IE users were experiencing. (If anyone’s still experiencing problems, please let me know.)

To combat spam and linkbaiting I’ve changed the commenting policy. Now all comments must be approved prior to appearing on the website.

The About page has also been revamped, with new text and a picture of yours truly, and my instant messaging user IDs have been added to the Contact page.

On the back end, Plutonica.net has upgraded to WordPress 2.5. Now when you log in to the back end it will take you directly to your profile, where you can add your website, instant messaging IDs and even enter a brief bio.

I think I’ve worked out all the bugs from a front end perspective, but if anyone experiences any problems, please let me know.  Thanks!

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I’ve only recently started reading Baudelaire; I finished Twenty Prose Poems yesterday. Despite taking French from kindergarten through to OAC, it’s hardly surprising that the few trips I’ve taken to Quebec to exercise the tongue have not been sufficient to maintain bilingualism: I found the French quite challenging.

It’s strange, after so many years absent from the language, to see how easy it was to pick up again in some respects, but also quite different and difficult. I’m no longer sure if this is due to the differences between québécois and Parisian French, or because they were written before Canada was even a country and the language is antiquated, or, far more likely, c’est parce que mon français est terrible.

Fortunately, the City Lights edition I have was translated into English by Michael Hamburger, and, after struggling through the French, immediately following I was better able to appreciate the grace of Hamburger’s translation, and better understand the text.

Multitude, solitude: terms that, to the active and fruitful poet, are synonymous and interchangeable. A Man who cannot people his solitude is no less incapable of being alone in a busy crowd.

from “Crowds” (“Les foules“)

Continue reading »

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Aleister Crowley and the 20th Century Synthesis of Magick: Strange distant gods that are not dead today, by Dave Evans
Hidden Publishing, 9780955523724, 108 pp., incl. appendices

Aleister Crowley and the 20th Century Synthesis of Magick is based on Evans’ master’s thesis from Exeter University and represents the second, revised edition (the first being an e-book published in 2001).

Evans writes that “Crowley is a particularly attractive person to study, as, apart from the Elizabethan magician John Dee, no leading occultist has left such comprehensive personal diaries and writings. It is this intimate and minutely detailed material that facilitates deep engagement with the subject.” This certainly seems to be the case.

With the glut of Crowley-related material available, that he continues to be read and studied more than sixty years after his death is a testament to his continuing influence on contemporary occultism. “Crowley’s appeal continues because study of him is an eclectic and unfinished process, and practice of his techniques appears to confer psychological and/or spiritual benefits. In some way, even if it is purely “psychological” magick works to effect a change in the individual’s consciousness.”

In the present book Evans explores Continue reading »

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