An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for February 27, 2020

Here’s some things I’ve found that you may be interested in checking out:

• “Vatican Abp organizing Global Education Pact touts pope’s ‘new humanism’ where God ‘withdraws’. Vatican archbishop Vincenzo Zani said Pope Francis’s ‘new humanism’ centers on a God who ‘creates but then withdraws.’”
• The only life we have—”The great Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa, wrote, ‘We, all who live, have/A life that is lived/And another life that is thought/And the only life we have/It’s the one that is divided/In right or wrong.'”
• Pearl-clutching tabloid promotion of a new book She’s a Rainbow: The Extraordinary Life of Anita Pallenberg: The Black Queen by Simon Wells has begun: Anita Pallenberg’s love life wasn’t half as crazy as her obsession with black magic—”‘We are hoping to see this magician who practises both white and black magic,’ Richards told a jostling group of press photographers that day in December 1968. ‘He has a very long and difficult name which we cannot pronounce – we just call him Banana for short.’” See also.
• Robert Mitchell, Patron of the library, and author of Cabal Fang, is running a series of daily reflections for Lent via text and email for anybody who is interested, already started on 2/26 Ash Wednesday but continuing through Easter 4/12. Sign up here.
• Tarot inspires oboe trio presenting ‘Dreams and Visions’ at South Bend’s LangLab—”‘It had a lot of supernatural overtones,’ Ingle says. ‘I’d been looking for a way to connect my passions for the oboe and the tarot. I wanted something that could end up being a signature piece for me to play.’ Ingle and Rusche got together to make random drawings of tarot cards, but they gave themselves ample permission to rearrange the results until a pattern emerged that could help shape a narrative arc to the musical developments. The first and last cards have special significance.”
• Ron Colone: Maybe we’re all just different—”I suppose the easiest difference we can point to regarding reference frames involves the sources from which we get our information. Whether it’s competing TV or radio news shows, newspapers, magazines, online websites, or some friend or relative who’s all-too-eager to spout their views and theories, we are receiving and perpetuating vastly different stories based on different agendas. No surprise there, but how do we ever arrive at objectivity? Maybe we don’t, maybe this is where our intellectual, philosophical, social and spiritual evolution has led us, to Einstein’s — or is it Aleister Crowley’s — relativistic universe where there is no objective reality, no unbiased truth and no impartial measure of right and wrong. If so, then maybe the truth is really just like going out to lunch, where you order whatever suits your tastes.”
• “Patrick Freyne in Parliament Square: Brexiteers make hay at final fling. London revellers call for sovereignty and ‘controlled’ migration as they celebrate.”—”Sixty-four-year old leaver Jeremy Ruygrok is explaining himself to a slightly exasperated remain-voter called Anthony. Ruygrok is a half-Dutch Taoist whose father was a follower of the mystic Aleister Crowley. He has lived all over the world but his business was ripped off, he says, and now he’s homeless in London. He’s been energised by Brexit, he says, ‘but Britain has been lost to cultural Marxists’. Anthony can’t believe what he’s hearing: ‘But you’ve literally just won!’ ‘I’ve been black pilled,’ says Ruygrok before explaining ‘the pills’. To be blue pilled, he explains, is to be ignorant of the world’s deep conspiracies. To be red pilled is to see them. To be black pilled is to see them but still believe all is lost. He thinks a civil war is on the horizon. ‘I don’t really have hope for the future.’ He laughs. ‘But let them have their day.'”
• Long Tail Keywords and SEO—”For example, if you work at a bookstore you’re going to hear more requests for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling than one would for The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley. Both books have their fans. But Harry Potter is analogous to a head term keyword phrase and The Book of Thoth is analogous to a long tail keyword phrase. Long tail is about the relative rarity of its occurrence as a search phrase in Google. It’s not about how many words are in the keyword phrase.”
• 4 Secret Societies That Operated In The Shadows Of London—The School of Night, The Calves’ Head Club, The Gormogons, The Golden Dawn.
• “These 20 Quotes Will Inspire You to Seize Great Opportunities in 2020. A new year has arrived. It’s time to move on from the past and create your own future.”—”‘May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall!’ – Aleister Crowley” (A quote from a character talking in Moonchild, often attributed as if said directly by AC.)
• Ethan Schwandt creates a Mind Map of Donald Robertsons’ book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius: How to Think Like a Roman Emperor – Donald Robertson (Mind Map Book Summary)
• The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow, due in October. “There’s no such thing as witches… There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But, in 1893, when the three Eastwood sisters—James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna—join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to purse the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women’s movement into a witch’s movement…and set the world ablaze.”
• Tweet by Cambridge UL Special Collections. “Today’s unexpected discovery in a 1529 volume of Augustine. For future reference, we have acid free paper to mark your place. Please don’t use baked goods.”
• War Magic: The Wizarding World of Tibetan Sorcery—”See these artworks and learn more in the exhibition Faith and Empire: Art and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism at the Rubin Museum, on view February 1–July 15, 2019.”
• Netherlands Returns Stolen 18th Century Ceremonial Crown to Ethiopia
• Will Britain lose the Elgin marbles?
• “How a Good Scam Can Bypass Our Defences. Cons exploit our cognitive biases. I learned the hard way that some of us are more vulnerable than others.”
• “In the Era of Fake News, Teaching Media Literacy is a Must. The problem is big and getting bigger. Parents and teachers can help young people develop media literacy skills.”
• “Is this Nefertiti’s tomb? Radar clues reignite debate over hidden chambers. A new survey hints at a previously unknown space beyond Tutankhamun’s burial chamber.”
• How Leamington Spa is Changing — and Challenging — its Game Development Legacy—The city where Aleister Crowley was born has become a UK Silicon Valley, or “Silicon Spa”.
• “When Zora Neale Hurston Studied Zombies in Haiti. Zora Neale Hurston’s 1930s study of Haitian voodoo culture showed her a new category between life and death.”—About the book Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica.
• Photo: Ancient pyramid casing stones repurposed along the 1,000 year old street.
• “Amazon to donate to drug charity linked to Scientology. Exclusive: experts have queried methods of Narconon, which has given talks in UK schools.”
• Carmilla | Season Two (FULL SEASON) | KindaTV
• ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY COLLECTION LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY, appears to now be available! “Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of world cinema’s most fabled iconoclasts. […] Influential, controversial and endlessly fascinating, Jodorowsky’s surreal masterpieces are presented here in stunning new 4K restorations, accompanied with a wealth of illuminating extras, and new writing.”
• ESOGEN Symposium – Esotericism, Gender, and Sexuality. “An international, interdisciplinary graduate student symposium on esotericism, gender, and sexuality at the University of Amsterdam.” 16 apr. 09:00 – 18:00 CEST. Amsterdam University Library, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, Netherlands. “This interdisciplinary, one-day symposium – open to all, and geared especially towards MA and PhD students from all disciplines – approaches the nexus of Western esotericism, gender, and sexuality. From antiquity until the present, individuals have deployed esoteric ideas to explicate, challenge, or overhaul traditional binaries of sex and gender; as such, the history of Western esotericism overlaps with that of feminism, eugenics, sexology, free love, celibacy, gay and lesbian liberation, polyamory, gender non-conformity, and other such currents. The symposium will feature a keynote lecture by Christine Ferguson, Professor in English Literature at the University of Stirling, titled: ‘Rape, Reincarnation, and Cosmic Justice in the Woman’s Occult Romance’.”
• “SACRED INTENT, 320 pages of mind-altering conversations and close to 50 photographs of Genesis P-Orridge that I’ve taken over the decades. It’s here and now.”
• 9-1-1: Lone Star, s01e06, “Friends Like These“—Around the 28:00 mark, a female muslim character talks about Stoics, Jedi, and “memento mori”!

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