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

With all the news I post about space, how ’bout our home planet?  No, not Pluto this time: Earth. Apparently it’s missing two billion years. Kind of. Well, we are anyway, in that we have no idea what happened for that span of time. Theories abound.

Also, the solar system is about two million years older than we thought.

Science is cool.

• In her blog Know Thyself, T. Thorn Coyle reminds us that commitment and consistency are important in any practice, whether mundane or spiritual, in “Let’s Get Engaged“. You really do earn points just for showing up.

• Charlie Jane Anders asks, “Could self-aware cities be the first forms of artificial intelligence?” on io9. To which we respond, “the first” might be a stretch (servitors, anyone? or egregores, gods, etc?), but that cities can and do become sentient certainly seems reasonable. Let’s just keep an eye out for Skynet, ok?

• US Games, purveyors of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck (amongst others), now blogs! Fool Stop Tarot Blog is run by Janet, their social media person, who also maintains their Twitter account and Facebook page. Everyone’s so Web 2.0.

• Sannion (H. Jeremiah Lewis) writes in The House of Vines, “Speaking about the unspeakable“, that the old mysteries are dead, and that’s ok. We can’t reconstruct the past as it was, and that’s fine. Learning what was is great, but it’s not where we are now. Live life. Great stuff.

I had tons more links to share, but time intervened, so next week’s Signal will likely be double-sized. You’re welcome.

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.

i09 is a fun blog – their tagline is “We come from the future”, which seems to mean they’ll cover anything science, sci-fi, and other geek stuff of that ilk.

A recent post titled “Jupiter became king of the planets by devouring a ‘Super Earth’” caught my eye because, well, it’s a great title, and it seems the planets’ names were more appropriate than the ancients may have realized:

New discoveries suggest Jupiter and Saturn learned a lesson from their mythological namesakes, “eating” any planet that opposed them.

For more on this check their source, NewScientist.

More cool news? Check out “Neptune will soon complete its first orbit around the sun since its discovery in 1846“. And by “soon” they mean yesterday. They come from the future, but Pluto’s far, it takes time for news to reach us. Forget it. Happy (Earth) birthday, Neptune!

With that, here’s your occultural linkage for this week.

• Jack Faust has a new blog, still called Dionysian Atavism but now located on its own shiny domain at eldritchinfluence.net. He writes well and with a depth and breadth that’s unusual in occultural blogging. See “The Tradition of Secrecy” for a recent gem.

• Christina‘s piece on Enfolding.org titled “Letter to a Young Gay Man on Celebrating Beltane” is excellent. She writes, “Maybe you, like me, have no call to create an internal heterosexual nuclear family with wedding bells, bride and groom” and then sets the record straight: “Beltane is and was the joy of desire of the body fulfilled in sex.” Hear, hear.

• Ryan Hurd writes about “Lucid Dreaming as Shamanic Consciousness” for Reality Sandwich. Using films such as Avatar and Inception as a launching point, he discusses our desire to become “Conquistadors of Consciousness”, and what that looks like in different cultures, on drugs, and what it all means.

• Johnny Rapture suggests a re-purposing of public space in “Public Statues, Pagan Shrines“, on his blog The Great Tininess offering specific suggestions with some great pictures. Sounds like an excellent idea.

• Mark Vernon, on the Guardian.co.uk, discusses the new etchings on display at Tate Britain in “William Blake’s picture of God“. A fascinating portrait of Blake’s thoughts on gods and religion.

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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Over on The Great Tinines, Johnny Rapture asks “Who’s Pagan?“, inviting readers to post their definitions and lists of groups who qualify. I offered my definition, and in the course of discussion cartwheel asserted that:

No distinction between “magic” on the one hand and “religion” on the other has ever been made successfully.

This sounds like a challenge! The gauntlet has been thrown.

Back in 2008 we looked at various definitions of magick, but I still believe Crowley’s remains the most elegant:

Magick is the Art and Science of causing change in conformity with Will.

This simple statement was further clarified by an extract from Magick Without Tears:

Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one’s conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.

This firmly places the onus of on the magus hirself. Whatever model one is using: spiritual, energetic, psychological, cybernetic or meta – it is the responsibility of the magickian to effect change.

Religion, on the other hand, relies on a relationship between the individual and some form of external supernatural power (think Wicca, Sentianism, kaballah).

It’s true, magick can be practiced within a spiritual framework, often in tandem with religion, but it is by no means necessary and conflation of the two is in no way desirable.

cartwheel raised an interesting question. This distinction works for me, what are your thoughts on this?

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Kali Kaula by Jan Fries is slated to be released by Avalonia Books in Summer 2010.

Details of the book aren’t up yet on the publisher’s website, but the book’s fan page – which already has almost 300 fans – offers this synopsis:

Unique in style and content, this book is more than a manual of tantric magick, it is a guide to the exploration of the inner soul. It contains the most lucid discussions of how to achieve liberation in the company of numerous Indian goddesses and gods, each of whom brings their own lessons and gifts to the dedicated seeker. It is also an eloquent introduction to the mysteries of the great goddess Kali, providing numerous views of her manifold nature, and showing the immense but hidden role played throughout history by women in the development and dissemination of tantric practices and beliefs.

Jan Fries explores the spectrum of techniques from mudra to mantra, pranayama to puja, from kundalini arousal to purification to sexual rites, and makes them both accessible and relevant, translating them out of the Twilight Language of old texts and setting them in the context of both personal transformation and the historical evolution of traditions. The web of connections between Tantra and Chinese Alchemy and Taoism are explored as the author weaves together many of the previously disparate strands of philosophies and practices.

Jan Fries’ excellent Visual Magick was among the first books I bought about magick, and it opened up many new avenues to my novice self. I’m very much looking forward to reading his latest when it comes out.

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Dr Brendan Cathbad Myers, professional philosopher, lecturer, author, podcaster and all ’round swell guy, is offering a course on Nietzsche and Paganism through Cherry Hill Seminary.

From the course description:

Perhaps the most misunderstood, difficult, and notorious philosopher of the modern age is Friedrich Nietzsche, creator of such powerful ideas as the Will to Power. Accused of promoting a kind of paganism, even within his own lifetime, he certainly mounted the most powerful critique of all religious thinking ever written in the Western philosophical tradition. In this course we will examine three of his most important books very closely, and we will learn why his work remains important for the study of ethics, religion, and culture and also why it remains dangerous.

It’s a 12 week Masters’ level course taught online, and as per Brendan’s note, “although it is a graduate level course, it may be audited by anyone (with [his] approval)”. It’s only $375, and it is bound to be excellent.

Unfortunately, I’ll be in Paris when it begins, and won’t be able to take it, but please do check it out and consider signing up. Continue reading »

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