An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for August 23, 2020

Here’s a variety of notable things I’ve recently found that you may also be interested in checking out:

• Thus Spake Magnus Dictus: The Collected Writings of Jake Stratton-Kent (1988-1994)—”Thus Spake Magnus Dictus is the writings of Jake Stratton-Kent first published in The Eqiunox: British Journal of Thelema issues 1-8, spanning the years 1988-1994 and faithfully reproduced in a facsimile edition.”
• International premiere of The Witch of Kings Cross, Sept 2020 at L’Étrange Festival.—”Sydney, années 50. Rosaleen Norton s’est spécialisée dans la peinture occultiste, pleine de sabbats infernaux exhalant une sexualité débordante. Dans une Australie conservatrice, la sorcière de Kings Cross n’allait pas tarder à être accusée d’obscénité, de s’adonner à des rituels sataniques et autres orgies… Au fil des mots de Rosaleen Norton et d’interviews, Sonia Bible explore le destin stupéfiant de cette peintre qui se disait sorcière depuis sa naissance – en observant médusé son physique surnaturel, comment ne pas la croire ? –, de cette figure de libération féminine bien trop en avance sur son époque. The Witch of Kings Cross nous immerge dans ses toiles insensées, associant documents d’archives et chorégraphies infernales autour d’une Rosaleen fictive. Ayant toujours réfuté le terme de satanisme, avec une conception païenne et panthéiste de la sorcellerie inspirée des travaux d’Aleister Crowley, elle opère dans la vie comme dans l’œuvre l’éloge d’une magie sexuelle affranchie de toutes règles morales ou religieuses. The Witch of Kings Cross offre le fascinant portrait d’une insoumise et le témoignage d’un art des extrêmes qui efface les frontières du bien et du mal, du fantastique et du réel.”
• On the Necessity of Self-Initiation—”Well, I’m here to tell you that not only is self-initiation possible, but you cannot be a witch without it. […] you cannot truly count yourself a witch until the moment when you look yourself in the face and say: I am a witch. That is your deepest, truest initiation.”
• Ouch. I mean, I try! “Worrisome Developments“—”For example, what happens to textual criticism’s focus on establishing the most reliable possible text in an environment in which texts circulate in electronic form and are downloaded from out-of-date or uncritical editions? In some respects, the use of electronic databases marks a return to conditions in the early days of printing, when editions of classical texts were usually reproductions of late manuscripts of no special merit.”
• The Egyptian Tarot
• “Hildebrand’s aesthetics of the universal. On the philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand.”
• “Buzz Buzz Buzz.” About When Animals Speak: Toward an Interspecies Democracy by Eva Meijer; Animal Languages by Eva Meijer, translated by Laura Watkinson; Animal Internet: Nature and the Digital Revolution by Alexander Pschera, translated by Elisabeth Lauffer, foreword by Martin Wikelski; and Nightingales in Berlin: Searching for the Perfect Sound by David Rothenberg
• “Uncertain times. The pandemic is an unprecedented opportunity – seeing human society as a complex system opens a better future for us all.”
• Did … they find ancient evil? Or was it MURDER?! “Peer inside a mummified cat from ancient Egypt, courtesy of high-res 3D X-rays. Micro CT imaging enabled researchers to conduct a virtual postmortem on the remains.”
• A 14,000-year-old puppy, whose perfectly preserved body was found in Russia, munched on a woolly rhino for its last meal
• NASA Is Tracking a Vast, Growing Anomaly in Earth’s Magnetic Field
• Mars-ha! Mars-ha! Mars-ha! “Ancient lake sites suggest lots of precipitation on Mars. How much water did it take to fill a lake bed on Mars?”
• “Rogue planets could outnumber the stars.” Also “Volunteers spot almost 100 cold brown dwarfs near our sun.”
• “QAnon looms behind nationwide rallies and viral #SavetheChildren hashtags.” Also “Big Tech’s QAnon problem is just beginning.” Also “The Republican Embrace of QAnon Goes Far Beyond Trump.”
• “I Lost My Wife to a Cult. Christian fundamentalists turned Nathan’s wife into a haunted stranger. Now he’s fighting to protect others from a similar fate.”
• “Cicada: Solving the Web’s Deepest Mystery. How one teenage whiz kid found himself in a world of international intrigue.”
• Technomagic divination tool! “DiceKeys creates a master password for life with one roll. A new kit leaves your cryptographic destiny up to 25 cubes in a plastic box.”
• “The realism of magic. Human beings have always needed something to leaven the effects of science and religion.”
• “The story of a new name. Why the ‘Reclaim Her Name’ project, republishing female authors without their pen names, misunderstands pseudonymity and anonymity.”
• My Cephalopod Year
• “Has Self-Awareness Gone Too Far in Fiction? Increasingly, characters seem to be rewarded for the moral work of feeling bad.”
• Lovecraft Country: Every Sci-Fi Reference in the Opening Explained
• Heavy Metal Psyche: Biggest Main Belt Asteroid Might Be Planet Remnant
• Scientists determine ‘Oumuamua isn’t made from molecular hydrogen ice after all
• Entire cities could fit inside the moon’s monstrous lava tubes
• NASA Launched Laser Beams at the Moon – For the First Time, They Received a Signal Back
• High-speed camera captures a fluid behaving like a solid
• Rare “boomerang” earthquake detected under the Atlantic Ocean for the first time
• The earth was once home to ‘terror crocodiles’ nearly the size of city buses
• Texas cave sediment upends meteorite explanation for global cooling
• Mesmerising Animation Reveals Our Entire Solar System Doesn’t Exactly Orbit The Sun
• See the ‘space butterfly’ astronomers captured from thousands of light years away
• Love little domain-specific details like this, like the iron rings of the Canadian engineers! “How a brand of chalk achieved cult status among mathematicians.”
• “Cops Raided and Shut Down the Only Magic Mushroom ‘Church’ in the U.S. Oakland police marched into the Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants, seized its stash, and called in firefighters to bust open the safes, according to photos and videos posted to Instagram.”
• The Sky This Week: Planets galore in the late summer skies
• “Quantum paradox points to shaky foundations of reality.” Also “Paradox puts objectivity on shaky footing.”
• Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio R. Damasio.—”Since Descartes famously proclaimed, ‘I think, therefore I am,’ science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995.”
• “Autism-Cholesterol Link. New research reveals a subtype of autism associated with lipid abnormalities.”
  
• Counterpoint: “Lynching and Liberalism. The ‘Harper’s’ ‘Letter on Justice and Open Debate’ extends a long American history of the defense of rational thought and free expression against the ideological coercions of the left.”

• “What Does Boredom Do to Us—and for Us? Humans have been getting bored for centuries, if not millennia. Now there’s a whole field to study the sensation, at a time when it may be more rampant than ever.”
• Scientists slow and steer light with resonant nanoantennas
• Ancient stone ‘breadcrumbs’ reveal early human migration out of Africa
• Scientists find an unprecedented specimen in a megapredator stomach
• “Archaeologists find rare artifacts under floorboards of English manor house.” Also “Thousands of Rare Artifacts Discovered Beneath Tudor Manor’s Attic Floorboards.”
• First ever observation of ‘time crystals’ interacting
• Exploding stars may have caused mass extinction on Earth, study shows
• Planet Nine?! So, ☉ 8 9?! “The Sun May Have Started Its Life with a Binary Companion”
• Surprising secrets of writers’ first book drafts
• “The Golden Era That Wasn’t. The liberal order of the 1990s has collapsed, and the pandemic is revealing the need to speed away from this time—not long for its return.”
• “Tear Gaslighting: Is There a Link Between Protesting and Messed Up Periods? Law enforcement has used chemical crowd control agents across the U.S. this summer. Protestors and some experts suspect tear gas exposure is causing abrupt and painful changes to menstrual cycles.”
• “Time to ditch ‘toxic positivity,’ experts say: ‘It’s okay not to be okay’. Excessive forced happiness exacerbates negative emotions and prevents people with genuine problems from working through them.”
• “Can A Book Club Fight Racism? White people are turning to anti-racist reading groups to make sense of this moment — and, they hope, to make change.”
• “The Future is Androgynous. On Shulamith Firestone’s visionary nonbinary politics.” About The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution by Shulamith Firestone.
• Magic: A History: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present by Chris Gosden, due November 2020—”An Oxford professor of archaeology explores the unique history of magic―the oldest and most neglected strand of human behavior and its resurgence today.”
• Autobiography: A Documentation of my Life by Adam McLean, new release.—”Adam McLean is best known for his work researching and publishing original alchemical books and manuscripts. He was especially known for his explorations of symbolism and the many coloured emblems he produced. He built one of the best collections of tarot cards in the world, over 2,600 items. Later he turned to investigate surrealism and was so taken with painting that he opened his own art gallery in Kilbirnie. This book is, in essence, a documentation his his life.”
• “Dick Pics, Dark Rooms. An art form, from masc to fascist.”
• Empathy’s Many Meanings
• “How a designer used AI and Photoshop to bring ancient Roman emperors back to life.” Also “Creating Photorealistic Portraits Of Roman Emperors Using Their Sculptures.”
• Honey. For a cough? Who knew?! “Effectiveness of honey for symptomatic relief in upper respiratory tract infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis.”
• “The Inside Story of The $8 Million Heist From The Carnegie Library. Precious maps, books and artworks vanished from the Pittsburgh archive over the course of 25 years.”
• Because, of course. Who could have possibly seen that coming? “Stealthy Thieves Stole $9,400 From Japan’s Ninja Museum. It took only three minutes for the thieves to carry out their mission.”
• What could possibly go wrong?! “Florida mosquitoes: 750 million genetically modified insects to be released.”
• Okay, everyone who voted Giant Meteor, I’m looking at you. “Oh, great: NASA says an asteroid is headed our way right before Election Day.” Also “An asteroid is on possible collision course with Earth this November: Should we be worried?” Also “Asteroid flyby: How Earth’s gravity changed record-breaking space rock’s path forever.” Also “A car-sized asteroid made the closest Earth flyby a space rock has ever survived.”
• Starting Your Own Cult
• Gregorian dies irae everywhere! “Why this creepy melody is in so many movies.”

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