You've probably already subscribed to our RSS feed, followed us on Twitter, and joined our Facebook page. (You're so Web 2.0!)
But have you checked out our new Esoteric Book Club? First pick is Robert Anton Wilson's Quantum Psychology. Participate here!

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

The first week of the Esoteric Book Club has had mixed results. We’ve started the first and second exercises, but participation hasn’t been as high as was suggested by the book club’s launch.

There’s still lots of time to join in. All forums will remain open indefinitely, and when a topic is replied to it shoots to the top, so we’ll see it and respond. So, if you’ve been thinking about it, but haven’t dived in yet for whatever reason, please do join us!

• Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Terry Rey and Leslie Desmangles let us know “It’s Vodou, not ‘voodoo’” in the Chicago Tribune. (Via The Wild Hunt.)

• In Mary K. Greer’s Tarot Blog she discusses the “Oldest Cartomancy Meanings in English“- and apparently they predate Etteilla! It details meanings for a “regular” playing deck of Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds and Spades.

• Frater Barrabbas asks “Whence Cometh the Demons?” in his blog Talking About Ritual Magick. Judeo-Christian mythology have their guess, so do the ancient Greeks.

• Mike Jay’s essay about “The Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy” is worth a read on Reality Sandwich.

Found something nifty? Please share it in the comments, or if you use delicious, tag it “plutonica” and we’ll take a look. Thanks!

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

Holy cow. December was quite a month for holy days. (Though none, in fact, observed cows – as far as I know…?)

Hanukkah, Agnostica, Saturnalia, Winter Solstice, Yule, Natalis Invicti, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, Day of Ashura – and apparently December 12th, 2009 was also the 53rd anniversary of patenting the first hovercraft. (Who knew?)

It kept me busy. So did work on the (not so) Secret Project ™ announced on the Facebook group. Beta version to be released Monday.

Now, on to the linkage:

• In Papers Falling from an Attic Window, Dan Harms asks (and answers) a rather interesting question: “Why did the fairies shrink?” Apparently we can blame Paracelsus and Shakespeare.

• However, fairies can’t fly, so says Graeme Paton in the Telegraph, who also advises that angels can’t fly either. Paton writes: “A leading biologist has compared the physiology of flighted species with the representations of spiritual and mythical creatures in art – and found the angels and fairies that sit atop of Christmas trees did not get there under their own steam.” I know, deep down, you’re just as disappointed as I am.

• The folks at Students of Tarot have created eleven Flash jigsaw puzzles out of images from the 1918 Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck. Each puzzle piece is double sided, with an image from a major arcana card on each side.  I’ve done a couple of them. It’s pretty nifty.

• Winston Rowntree, who writes and illustrates Subnormality, a wonderfully weird comic hosted by a fake company called Virus Comix, reminds us why it’s ok to be weird as there’s no other way to be. Spotted on Mutate!.

Speaking of weird, after my festive Cthulhu-themed gift idea post I thought I’d also mention a search engine I found: Cthuugle, which bills itself as “the complete HP Lovecraft Search Engine”. Indeed.

That’s it for this week, folks. I still have half an hour to post this where it can still be considered Saturn Day, so I’d better make it quick!

Evolver.net is hosting a teleseminar titled Divination: How to Read the Future Now.

It will feature talks by Rachel Pollack, author of one of the most comprehensive books on tarot divination, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom; VerDarLuz, an astrologer; Stephen Karcher, who’s authored several books on I Ching, including Total I Ching: Myths for Change; and John Michael Greer, a Druid and author of many books on diverse esoteric subjects, including The Art and Practice of Geomancy.

Erik Davis (TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information) will be hosting the seminar.

Two free entries have been offered to Plutonica.net readers, so:

The first two people who e-mail me here at Plutonica.net will get this series for free.

Update: Only one spot left!

Continue reading »

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

Questions this week, both esoteric and secular – well, sort of.

Does Dr John Dee’s image need “rescuing”? Who knew film critic Roger Ebert cared anything for the I Ching, tarot, and “certified flywheel” Aleister Crowley? Is anyone really sympathetic toward “Jedis”?

Why is Creation – a film about the life of Charles Darwin – deemed “too controversial” for American audiences? How is this possible in 2009? Why would this ever seem doubtful?

• Jordan’s Stratford’s “How to Read Gnostic Texts” outlines the fundamentals for a comprehensive understanding of any period writing, especially of an esoteric nature. Take the time to read source texts. It’s essential.

• According to JFrater on Listverse.com, a recording of Aleister Crowley’s voice ranks fourth in a list of Top Ten Eerie Recordings, falling behind truly eerie recordings of the December 26th earthquake (#3), a missing cosmonaut (#2) and a 911 call on 9/11 (#1). All recordings are available for download.

• Mark Stevenson writes “2012 isn’t the end of the world, Mayans insist”  Can we believe them? Yes. I’m as much a fan of apocalypse mythos as the next gal, but seriously darlings, isn’t 2012 a bit much?

• Science shoots lasers at yoga masters and is somewhat surprised by the results in an article linked to by Mind Hacks‘ Vaughan in “Strung out on lasers“.Which is just kinda awesome.

That’s it for this week, kids.

Thelema NOW! is a new podcast put out by the OTO’s US Grand Lodge. It was launched a few weeks ago, and is, as far as I’m aware, the first Thelemic podcast since John Crow’s Thelema Coast to Coast closed shop in 2007.

In the first episode the host, Frater Puck, interviews Richard Kaczynski, whose latest book is The Weiser Concise Guide to Aleister Crowley.They also discuss other recent projects, including an upcoming an edited and annotated edition of Aleister Crowley’s Sword of Song, a fifty page article on the Thoth Tarot which will be included in an upcoming anthology titled Tarot and Culture, an expanded edition of Perdurabo which will include another 50-100 pages of material based on new research since the book was first published, among others. Continue reading »