Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

Hey! Good news! We may have an extra year!

That’s right, the civilization as we know it won’t end until 2013. Breath that sigh of relief.

NASA predicts that the sun will wake up “from a deep slumber” which will create massive solar storms which will disrupt communication devices and electronics causing major problems around the world.

This could seriously impact my vacation plans on Titan.

• Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve has created Circle Cemetery, which is “America’s first National Pagan natural burial ground and contemporary Green cemetery to be platted and recorded in Wisconsin”, reports Jason Pitzl-Waters on The Wild Hunt. This is something we talked a bit about at the Toronto Pagan Conference a few years ago. I’m glad to see a dedicated space for Pagan burials.
  

• In a recent feature on Reality Sandwich Patrick Harpur reprints “Soul an Daimon“, an excerpt from his book A Complete Guide to the Soul. Angles, personal daemons, ka, muse – a variety of whats and whyfores regarding the soul and its function. Neat stuff.

• Nick Spencer at Guardian.co.uk writes that Richard Dawkins would like to set up an atheist free-thinking school. Somewhat ironically, Spencer seems to have his doubts about the viability of such an institution.

• Jason Miller, in his blog Strategic Sorcery, describes “How to make a Psionic Wand from a Toy Sonic Screwdriver“. Cool. Doctor Who fans take note.

On a more personal note, thanks for your patience these past few weeks. Things have been hectic as I recently resigned from my job and there were a lot of things to wrap up before my departure. But as of today I am officially a free agent, and a more regular posting schedule will resume.

I’ll keep you up to day on my progress when I have news that relates to occultural subjects. At the moment one of my projects is a book on tarot which has been in progress for a few years. It’ll be nice to finally be able to devote full time hours to finishing this up.

As always, if you come across anything nifty, please share it in the comments, or if you use delicious tag it “plutonica” and we’ll take a look. Thanks!

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Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

I’m writing this a few days before I leave for Paris, so I’m going to assume that I’m happily sitting in a cafe somewhere sipping  cafe sans lait, eating a croissant and conversing with the locals in perfect Ontarian franglais.

C’est magnifique, I’m sure.

Next vacation spot: Titan? Right now its surface has the texture of creme brulee, but give it time.

I’ve prepared this Signal especially for your clicking pleasure. Just you. Enjoy.

• Ryan Hurd offers an excerpt from his eBook on Reality Sandwich with “Sleep Paralysis Visions: Demons, Succubi, and the Archetypal Mind“. I suffer from this more often than I like, and it’s always frightening as hell when it occurs. Hurd discusses a variety of commonly experienced apparitions and the theories surrounding them.

• Duncan writes “God Does Not Exist: Some Thoughts on Anselm’s Ontological Proof ” on Open Enlightenment. Weird (a)theistic mindplays to “prove” non-existence. Kind of. (Atheism’s so much more straightforward.)

• Klint Findley‘s been hard at work at Technoccult creating groovy dossiers on leading contemporary occultural figures. So far he’s done Hakim Bey, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, William S Burroughs, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Timothy Leary, Dennis and Terrence McKenna, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Robert Anton Wilson. There may be more by now, but I haven’t found a page yet where they’re all collected to link to. It’s a neat resource.

As always, if you come across anything nifty, please share it in the comments, or if you use delicious tag it “plutonica” and we’ll take a look. Thanks!

Be a Happy Panda.

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(click photo to enlarge)

@joeldey posted a TwitPic of the Flying Spaghetti Monster holiday treats he made.

They look incredible.

No news yet on the recipe, but they look awesomely delicious.

Update: Recipe found on EvilMadScientist.com (love the site’s name). Thanks Brent Friedman!

Spotted on BoingBoing.

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Back in August I posted about My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, a new musical I’d heard about that debuted at the Toronto Fringe Festival earlier in the summer.

It had just been announced that Mirvish was going to host a production of it at the Panasonic Theatre in November, and that I simply must see it based on the name alone.

November came, and indeed I did go to see it. And I’m surprised to say it was genuinely awesome and I loved it.

MMLJWW is narrated by David Hein, the co-author along with his wife Irene Carl Sankoff, and is based on the true story of how Hein’s moms got together.

Hein’s mother Claire (played by Lisa Horner) was an atheist who came out to her son is as a lesbian after falling in love with Jane (Rosemary Doyle), a Wiccan. Claire later comes out a second time to her son, this time as a Jew. It’s funny and it’s clever, but it’s also sensitive and genuinely touching. Continue reading »

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Two stories here. The first features an angry atheist who knowingly targets a group of theists and annoys them. The second features a group of animal-loving atheists willing to look after Christian pets post- rapture. (Seriously.)

Angry atheist

We’ll start with John Safran. He’s an Australian filmmaker fed up with Mormons knocking on his door who  decided to do something about it: he flew to Utah to knock on doors in Salt Lake City and see how they liked it.

Apparently he made a thing of it, in an eight part “documentary” for Australian television in 2004 called “John Safran vs God“.

I spotted this five minute clip from episode five on Scott Michael Stenwick’s blog, Augoeides.

Titled “Door-to-Door Atheists Bother Mormons“, the first three minutes feature Safran, dressed in a black suit and seated in a red chair in front of a roaring fire, frothing and ranting about the indecency of Mormons knocking at his door early in the morning when he’d rather be resting, or really, doing anything other than being preached at.

Then we get into the good stuff, when Continue reading »

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