Plutonica.net » Saturday Signal

Hypersigils, hypersigils reconsidered, and Grant Morrison ten years ago

Psyche — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:03:48 +0000

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

I’ve been crazy busy the past few weeks with work and trying to finish a few pieces of writing to submit to various publications, but I think I’m back on track now, so we’ll try to resume our regular schedule.

There’s still quite a bit I want to discuss in regards to sex and gender and what it means spiritually and magickally, but for now, let’s take a look at symbols in a more generic sense:

Sor. Ceilede 789, in her blog Beautiful Pyre, re-posts “Golden Fiction“, which originally appeared on Key23.net. In it she examines the concept of hypersigils, noting the differences between these and graphic or mantric sigils, and discusses practical applications.

Technoccult has started posting more in-depth pieces, and in “Hypersigils reconsidered” Klintron, with references to Grant Morrison (of course), discusses this in context of forming alternate identity-narratives and cybernetics.

Grant Morrison at Disinfo.con in 2000 discussing…just about everything: aliens, drugs, Aleister Crowley, drugs, the fifth dimension, drugs, hypersigils, drugs, Robert Anton Wilson, drugs, and magick. Click here for part one of five, follow the links on YouTube’s sidebar for the rest. It’s very entertaining.

One of my favourite essays on sigils remains Marik’s Sigils, Servitors and Godforms, Part I and Part II. It’s a great resource. (Marik also makes excellent jewellery.)

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

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Hypersigils, hypersigils reconsidered, and Grant Morrison ten years ago

Yin, phalluses and Crowley’s sexism

Psyche — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:00:48 +0000

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

The comments section has been busier this week than it’s ever been in the history of this blog, largely due to my post about “Sexism in contemporary occulture“, with some spill over on my follow up with “Gender and the elements“. A third post on this theme was planned for Friday, but due to time constraints it will likely be posted tomorrow instead.

You may notice a theme in these signals.

Did you know that Phil Hine has a new blog? Check it out at enfolding.org, especially the latest post, “Occult gender regimes: the Yin-Yang binary” for a lucid examination of why appeals to history and tradition are often misguided.

Tim Maroney’s excellent 1998 essay “Facts and Phallacies” looks at Aleister Crowley’s use of the word “phallus” and provides deeper insight into the context which it’s used. It’s clearly not a gender-neutral term, and Maroney eloquently dispels this myth once and for all. (Via Phil Hine.)

While we’re on the subject, the Arcane Archive has an excellent resource titled “Aleister Crowley: A Legacy of Sexism” which is a compilation of sexist remarks and other misogynistic material sourced from Crowley’s writing. I’ve no doubt the man was a Master, but there’s just no getting around the fact that he was a misogynist.

While not specifically related to occultism, GeekFeminism.org is a great blog and resource for all things geeky and…feministy? In a recent post, “Quick Hit: The Safety Dance“, Terri discusses her experiences at events with unwelcome contact. Strange men approaching her what follows amounts to sexual harassment. I’ve seen this happen at public gatherings at occultural events as well. Being female does not give anyone an excuse to initiate physical contact. Ever.

This is an important subject that requires ongoing discussion, but it will not become the dominant theme on this blog.

We’re rounding out the week, and if you have further links you’d like to share, or stories that need to be told, I’m always available on the blog, but for more private discussions, there’s always e-mail or IM.

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

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Yin, phalluses and Crowley’s sexism

Political pagans, Shaolin monks and spiritual brain surgery

Psyche — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:14:11 +0000

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

I usually try and avoid the mush that is Valentine’s Day, it’s commercial and crass, but my cold dark heart warms a little when upon learning that science can break hearts. Isn’t that sweet?

But that’s tomorrow. Today is still Saturday, and that means we need signal:

Jason Pitzl-Waters of The Wild Hunt has co-founded a new project, The Pagan Newswire Collective. The first dedicated blog for the Collective is Pagan+Politics, which will feature an additional seven bloggers. Given his history with the Wild Hunt, this new blog may be worth adding to your feed reader.

Occultural Anthropology has posted a series of five videos titled “Myths & Logic Of Shaolin Monks” which is worth a look.

Janelle Weaver wrote a piece for Nature.com titled “Brain surgery boosts spirituality“. A quote: “Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace”. The cynic in me isn’t surprised. (Via Technoccult.)

Ok, so it’s kind of thin this week. I’ve been kind of busy with the book club, which is really a lot of fun. I had to draw a picture of the website freehand and my attempt is spectacularly awful.

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

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Political pagans, Shaolin monks and spiritual brain surgery

Vodou, cartomancy, demons and the Illuminati conspiracy

Psyche — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:00:59 +0000

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!

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Vodou, cartomancy, demons and the Illuminati conspiracy

Djinn, Crowley books, calendars and sex with ghosts

Psyche — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:43:20 +0000

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

Our Esoteric Book Club officially starts on Monday, but the conversation’s already started, and people have to begun introduce themselves, come join us!

If you missed our earlier announcement, the first pick is Quantum Psychology, by Robert Anton Wilson.

Great stuff.

Now, on with our usual linkage:

The wonderful blog Gyllene Gryningen has a great post titled “Genie or Genius?” which delves into the history and mythology of the djinn, also discussing possible elemental correspondences. Very nifty.

Someone’s started a fan page on Facebook for people interested in Buying Crowley Books. They’ve even got a Twitter account (@crowleybooks) now. Via these methods they share info about good places to buy Crowley’s works as so much of it has gone out of print. As of this writing the Facebook page has nearly 700 fans.

John Griogair Bell points out deficiencies in the Thelemic calendar and recommends some improvements in “Heliocentricity“.

Noise?

In Letters from Hardscrabble Creek, Chas Clifton wrote a bit about a website he came across which focused on “Having Sex With Ghosts“. Gina “Gnothz” Lanier (what’s a “gnothz”?) is a self-described paranormal investigator who wants to hear about your intimidate relations with the dead. They’re not even funny. One woman complains about obscene phone calls from the dead. It’s just sad. For the voyeuristic with no sense of web design, here’s Real Sex with Ghosts. Oh dear.

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

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Djinn, Crowley books, calendars and sex with ghosts

Colin Wilson, indigenous Pagans, William Burroughs, Golden Dawn, and Starfire

Psyche — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:24:37 +0000

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

In the realm of the planetary spheres my vote this week must go to Mars for the most gorgeous landscape. Check out these Martian dunes on BoingBoing. Absolutely stunning.

Rob, in Another Nickel in the Machine, writes about the early career of occult writer Colin Wilson in “Hampstead Heath and the Rise and Fall of the author Colin Wilson“. It’s a wonderfully photo-rich piece. (Who knew Wilson was such a looker in his youth?)

Chas Clifton, in his blog Letters from Hardscrabble Creek, wrote an interesting post recently considering whether or not contemporary Pagans could be considered indigenous. His answer is no, and his reasons make sense. The comments section breaks it down further, asking some interesting questions.

Nicole Pasulka interviewed Peter Ross for TheMorningNews.org. Ross took a series of photographs of “William Burroughs’s Stuff“, “a selection of weird, touching, and often unexpected possessions found in Burroughs’s windowless New York City apartment, preserved since his death in 1997.” It’s an odd collection.

In Magic of the Ordinary, Peregrin has written an excellent post titled “Golden Dawn Blogs and Tradition” that covers more than it implies. Peregrin’s summary of the commentary surrounding one’s Holy Guardian Angel, for example, is spot on. Check it out.

LAShTAL.com has the latest catalogue from Starfire, Kenneth Grant’s publishing house. Check it out for titles which have recently been issued, and what’s coming later in 2010. Several reprints, but some new material too, including a compilation of two grimoires by Austin Osman Spare.

I’m trying out delicious.com, a social bookmarking tool. It looks a little more complicated than the last time I logged in – they seem to have added a ton of new features in the past year.

This is to replace the 902834029834 some odd tabs I currently leave open in Firefox for compiling these Saturday Signal posts, but this little laptop, she cannae take it anymore. So, I’m experimenting once again with delicious. (There’s even a Firefox add-on for it.)

One of the great things about it is that you can tag your bookmarks and share them with other people. So, for example, if you tag a site “plutonica” I will be notified. Why is that so nifty? Because it makes it really easy to share cool sites.

If you use delicious, and you want to highlight something cool that you think should be included in Saturday Signal, tag it “plutonica” and I’ll add it. It’s an experiment. Let’s see how it works.

For those who are interested in stalking my path across the web, or, you know, simply getting the first crack at what may find its way into the Saturday Signal, my account there is, of course, plutopsyche.

Copyright © 2007-2010 the author and Plutonica.net.
For the original source of the content please see Plutonica.net. Also check out our Esoteric Book Club.

Colin Wilson, indigenous Pagans, William Burroughs, Golden Dawn, and Starfire

Fairies, angels, tarot, and you’re all weird

Psyche — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:27:02 +0000

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!

Fairies, angels, tarot, and you’re all weird

Design, cyber zombies and sacred cash cows

Psyche — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:55:20 +0000

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

Busy times, and it’s been a while since I last posted a Saturday Signal. Indeed, the last one was on Hallowe’en, that overcommercialized wreck of an otherwise excellent holy day.

The Onion is outraged, and takes pains to reminds us that “frightenin’ away demons is the reason for the season.” Which is pretty awesome.

It recently came to my attention that Earth’s Moon may be from Mercury. It’s a wild idea, and not universally accepted, but possible. Hey, at least Pluto’s still a planet, right? Right.

Artist and magickian Danny Chaoflux wrote an interesting though unstructured piece titled “Style Sheet Witchcraft” discussing Aleister Crowley, chaos magick, Anton LaVey, memetics and art with some great design tips.

How does this 1997 essay from Hakim Bey posted on Hermetic.com compare? Titled “Seduction of the Cyber Zombies“, Bey argues that “we are suffering from a crisis of overproduction of the image” which we cannot escape from, “media as ’satanic mills’.” And…the message?

An Italian inventor has created a holy water dispenser to help combat the spread of swine flu, so reports the Telegraph.co.uk. Apparently this thing’s a sacred cash cow. The designer is quoted as saying: “After all the news that some churches, like Milan’s cathedral, were suspending the use of holy water fonts as a measure against swine flu, demands for my invention shot to the stars. I have received orders from all over the world.” Well, why not? Though holy hand sanitizer would likely prove more useful in the long term. Any religious market for that?

Until next week, mes amis.

Design, cyber zombies and sacred cash cows

Myths, samhainophobia and possession

Psyche — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:05:51 +0000

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

Happy Samhain, kids!

Vampires are hot, hot, hot. Except in Twilight, where they’re just creepy and bizarre. Stephen Marshe suggests this is because young straight women want to have sex with gay men, whereas Charlie Higson thinks vampires are for girls and zombies are for boys. Even ABE is getting into it with a timeline of vamp lit – things even I haven’t read.

If you find all of this worrying, you can always pick up a nineteenth century vampire killing kit. I know I’d feel safer with one. My kitchen’s always running out of garlic.

The latest issue of the online occult magazine Rending the Veil has come out, and Patrick Dunn has contributed an essay titled “Ritual and Myth” which looks at the role of myth in our lives and what that might mean.

Joseph Merlin Nichter wrote about “Samhainophobia vs Samhainsensationalism” in his blog WitchDoctorJoe’s RattleBone. He discusses popular reactions to Hallowe’en, his his own family’s traditions. There’s also a picture of a stone monk in a pointy hat lookin’ fab.

In a lengthly article in Reality Sandwich Paul Levy asks “Are We Possessed?” and responds with excessive quotations from Carl Jung. The answer to the question seems to be “Probably”.

Also, Douglas Rushkoff intends to interview Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007) on Monday. Could be interesting.

That’s it for this week, mes amis. Wear your costumes proud and practice safe hex.

Myths, samhainophobia and possession

Gnostic texts, an eerie Beast, 2012 and lasers

Psyche — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:00:26 +0000

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.

Gnostic texts, an eerie Beast, 2012 and lasers