An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for June 12, 2020

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

• Chapter one of The Hidden Goddess: The Quest for the Divine Feminine in the Judeo-Christian Tradition – from Asherah to Mary Magdalene by Laurie Martin-Gardner—”The Hidden Goddess. The banished and dismantled goddess. The lost. The forgotten. Who was she? Who praised her name? And what fate befell her?”
• “Rage, Disbelief, Love & Peace. Signs and slogans that have been taken to the streets in resistance, from civil rights movement marches to today’s spontaneous anti-ban protests.”
• America Begins to See More Clearly Now What Its Black Citizens Always Knew
• “Kara Swisher: Tom Cotton’s Whitewashing. A news organization is not a public square any more than Facebook or Twitter is.”
• The Tom Cotton op-ed affair shows why the media must defend America’s values. It cannot remain neutral when those values are under threat from racialized authoritarianism.
• Lost document reveals Columbus as tyrant of the Caribbean
• Tweet—”therapist: and what do we do when we are sad? me: add book to cart”
• Legends Series: Aleister Crowley—”Most contemporary adventure fans may not recognize the name of Aleister Crowley, but the self-styled Wickedest Man in the World was also arguably the best climber for a while. Then this mercurial man gave into his more peculiar leanings and strove to become a cult figure as an occultist and magician. He was also poet, painter and writer. His swashbuckling autobiography is quite the read.” And, you can, of course, read The Confessions of Aleister Crowley at the library.
• “The Real Story Behind ‘Hereditary’. Let’s take a look at the occult history that inspired Ari Aster’s terrifying debut feature.”—”Paimon isn’t a household name in horror cinema, but he has appeared in several books about black magic and spell incantations dating back to the 1600s. The spells in these books have been practised by real-life scholars of the Dark Arts, such as Aleister Crowley, who also translated The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon, which is perhaps the most famous text of the bunch.” Well, sort of. you can find the Goetia, translated, or at least transcribed, by Mathers, with comments and editing by Crowley, at the library. Read Crowley’s introductory essay The Initiated Interpretation of Ceremonial Magic. And, here’s Paimon!
• “Simon Wiesenthal Center slams Ice Cube’s antisemitic tweets. Ice Cube, a rapper, released a series of tweets that allude to powerful cabals that control the world.”—”The original 2012 mural titled Freedom for Humanity was created by Kalen Ockerman, better known as Mear One, and depicts Lord Rothschild and Paul Warburg sitting with other well-known people, such as English occultist Aleister Crowley, as they profit from the misery of other humans. The artist claimed his work stands for oppressed people, but many slammed it for focusing on Jewish figures.” Wait, Crowley what? I mean, racist, sure. But, really this is risible Crowley Corollary, I’m afraid!
• Could this occult writer really be the inspiration for The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper”?—”Another mystery that has surrounded the band’s iconic 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was exactly who the titular character was, or at least, who it was inspired by. According to many, it’s the occultist writer Aleister Crowley.”
• This true crime podcast is actually a cool modern adaptation of Lovecraft—”That “something darker” would be the fact that it’s a loose adaptation of The Curious Case of Charles Dexter Ward by HP Lovecraft. Simpson’s podcast version takes the initial Lovecraftian premise — a person of privilege uncovers some hidden knowledge that inevitably connects back to ancient evil Elder Gods — and spins an updated modern tale that spans the Atlantic Ocean. Simpson cleverly weaves in English folklore and the occultism of Aleister Crowley as the journalist narrators travel back-and-forth between England and Rhode Island.”
• “Mr. Crowley, Do You Like My White House? This quaint little house in Hebron once hosted the Wickedest Man Alive.” You can read about the Star Sponge Vision in New Comment on I, 59 and in Confessions. This is also the house owned by Evangeline Adams, for whom Crowley ghost wrote book on astrology.
• Review by Jack Lennon of Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III
• Free Food, Free Speech and Free of Police: Inside Seattle’s ‘Autonomous Zone’. President Trump challenged Seattle’s mayor to “take back your city” after the police vacated a station house and protesters laid claim to the neighborhood around it.—”In a neighborhood that is the heart of the city’s art and culture — threatened these days as rising tech wealth brings in gentrification — protesters seized the moment. They reversed the barricades to shield the liberated streets and laid claim to several city blocks, now known as the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.”” This is of course a reference to the Temporary Autonomous Zone thoughts by Hakim Bey, Peter Lamborn Wilson, that was also referenced by the Occupy movement a while back. See also the hashtag #CHAZ on Twitter, and elsewhere.
• After 32 ‘egregious and cruel’ seasons, ‘Cops’ was canceled. This podcast explains why—Also, I’ll just leave this link to Hakim Bey’s essay Resolution for the 90’s: Boycott Cop Culture right here.
• “The Black Lives Matter Revolution Can’t Be Co-Opted By Police and Lawmakers. Black Canary is a column sounding the alarm against enduring injustice in America.”
• Nothing will change for the better unless we fight for it
• On Daria and Finding Comfort in Cynical Optimism
• How Hilma af Klint Was Written Out of History
• From New Atlas: New phase of liquid crystal opens door to “new universe of materials”, Scientists induce “suspended animation” state in mice and rats, World-first 3D bionic eye could enable superhuman sight, night vision, Carbon fibers allow bone cement to heal itself, Impressive long-term benefits of MDMA for treating PTSD, study reports, Feeding coral probiotics found to boost their chances of survival, Stem cell-loaded microneedles speed up wound healing
  
• How to Move Your Books in the Middle of a Pandemic

• Plague Poems – The Eleventh and Twelfth Weeks
• “Something in the Air. Conspiracy theorists say 5G causes novel coronavirus, so now they’re harassing and attacking UK telecoms engineers.”
• How England’s Oldest Road Was Nearly Lost Forever
• Is a Four-Day Work Week the Secret to Saving the Planet?. Perpetual economic growth is driving climate change and making us miserable. The degrowth movement offers a way out.”
  
• “The Lost Rebellious Spirit of Keynes. The economist’s ideas are often reduced to stimulus spending. His life and work were much more radical than that.”—”The distillation today of Keynes’s legacy into a Hail Mary of stimulus spending on airlines or highways or McDonald’s franchises (“small business”) might mark in its own way a quiet tragedy—one of misapprehension and missed chances.”

• After-Meditation—”Wordsworth wasn’t the only backslider among those who had been radicals during the French Revolution era 25 years earlier.” “Even so, there was something about Wordsworth’s political turn that stuck in the craw.” About Radical Wordsworth: The Poet who Changed the World by Jonathan Bate and William Wordsworth: A Life by Stephen Gill.
• “The End of Minimalism. Keeping a cluttered house has long been considered a little tacky, a little weak. But now it’s looking very wise.”
• “13,300-year-old Chinese bird figurine found in a rubbish heap. The little songbird figurine was carved in a piece of burned bone.”
  
• “The ‘Useless’ Perspective That Transformed Mathematics. Representation theory was initially dismissed. Today, it’s central to much of mathematics.”

• An Exhibition Across Los Angeles Takes on New Meanings in Times of Protest
• In Celebration of Bookstores Reopening
• Free video event: St. Thomas Aquinas’ Timeless Insights for Thriving in Challenging Times: Discover How Aquinas’ Teachings Helped Julian of Norwich Survive the Black Plague, June 17
• 8000 Years of Board Game History in 43 Minutes
• Ancient Roman Board Game Found in Norwegian Burial Mound
• Is the Periodic Table Upside Down?
• “The Ontology of Pop Physics. A slew of popularizing science books delve into the basic mismatch between being and human being.”
• “A Monument to the Mother Tongue. Englishman Samuel Johnson’s work helped define the English language for readers on both sides of the Atlantic.”—”Last year, without much fanfare, Yale University Press completed one of the longest-running literary projects in American publishing, bringing out the last of a 23-volume edition of the works of Samuel Johnson, the eighteenth-century Englishman renowned for his essays, poetry, and lexicography.”
• A World of Stories: The Selkie Story – Horniman Museum and Gardens—”Join storyteller Paul Rubenstein for an enchanting tale about the Selkie, magical beings who can change from seals to humans.” Horniman also being, of course, one of the women of the Golden Dawn.
• On the very idea of ‘Western’ philosophy
  
• Tweet—”cuneiform keyboard”

• Tweet—”You will be able to watch the solstice livestreamed from Stonehenge thanks to English Heritage” The Revolution (of the Earth around the Sun) Will Be Televised.
  
• One more for Plague Bing—Oh, wait. Right on! Pakistan locust plague: Locals collect insects for chicken feed – BBC News

• Dynamic Entropy

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