An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for August 26, 2020

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

• “Wapshott Press Book Club! Because… never surrender! Never give up!” “Sign-up closes at midnight on Friday, August 28, 2020.”
• It may already be too late, as I think most are sold out, and they appear to have gotten hammered past their hosting bandwidth quota, but: “MWM Benefit T-Shirt Pre-Order. Crew neck t-shirt with all proceeds benefiting the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, England.”—”Our museum founder Raymond Buckland was very fond of Cecil Williamson, the founder of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, England. We were recently made aware that they may not open this year due to Covid-19 concerns, we felt we had to do something to help alleviate the financial burden. We spoke with a dear friend of our museum, artist Johnny Decker Miller, and we sprang into action. We are offering a US EXCLUSIVE T-SHIRT featuring a front design provided by Simon Costin, the director of the MWM, and the back design created by Johnny Decker Miller. Only to be printed via pre-order (called back order by our system), this t-shirt will be extremely limited. We are donating labor and handling costs, so all proceeds beyond shirt manufacturing and postage will be donated to help in continuing the operation and mission of Europe’s most important witchcraft and occult collection. The pre-order window will begin on the New Moon in Leo (August 18) and end on the Full Corn Moon, September 2nd. There will be no other orders taken after, as these shirts are all made to order.”
• “Lovecraft Country’s Order of the Ancient Dawn Is Inspired By Real Secret Societies. Here’s what you should know about the creepy cultists.”—”The Order of the Ancient Dawn is taken straight from Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country novel, which is the basis for the TV series. Its name could be a reference to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was a secret society founded in 19th century London. Founded by Freemasons, the organization used elements of masonic traditions—which also clearly influenced Lovecraft Country’s Adamites. The Golden Dawn pursued magic, tarot, and astrology, and counted famed occultist Aleister Crowley and poet William Butler Yeats among its members.”
• “Disney’s new Alice sequel reimagines Wonderland for a horror movie. Author Liz Braswell speaks about the longevity of Alice as a heroine.” With an excerpt from Unbirthday: A Twisted Tale due Sept.
• “2020’s Existentialist Turn. While existentialist thinking has much wisdom to offer about anxiety, contingency, and death, we must also think concretely about politics and institutions.”
• “An Alternative Common Sense: Notes on Carlo Michelstaedter’s Philosophy.” About The Wreckage of Philosophy: Carlo Michelstaedter and the Limits of Bourgeois Thought by Mimmo Cangiano and Persuasion and Rhetoric by Carlo Michelstaedter
• “The word-hoard: Robert Macfarlane on rewilding our language of landscape. For decades the leading nature writer has been collecting unusual words for landscapes and natural phenomena – from aquabob to zawn. It’s a lexicon we need to cherish in an age when a junior dictionary finds room for ‘broadband’ but has no place for ‘bluebell’.” About Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane—”From Robert Macfarlane, the acclaimed author of The Old Ways and Underland—a celebration of the language of landscape and the power of words to shape our sense of place.”
• Gnostic Countercultures: Terror and Intrigue edited by April DeConick and Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta. Also. “In Gnostic Countercultures, fourteen scholars investigate countercultural aspects associated with the gnostic which is broadly conceived with reference to the claim to have special knowledge of the divine, which either transcends or transgresses conventional religious knowledge. The papers explore the concept of the gnostic in Western culture from the ancient world to the modern New Age. Contributors trace the emergence, persistence, and disappearance of gnostic religious currents that are perceived to be countercultural, inverted, transgressive and/or subversive in their relationship to conventional religions and their claims to knowledge. The essays represent a selection of the papers delivered at the international congress Gnostic Countercultures: Terror and Intrigue convened at Rice University, March 26-28, 2015. The essays were originally published in Gnosis 1.1-2 (2016) and are available for the first time under separate cover.”
• Frog and Toad Tentatively Go Outside After Months in Self-Quarantine
• Beat poets deciphered Rosetta Stone, confirmed. “Discovery of scholar’s notes shine light on race to decipher Rosetta Stone. Exclusive: Thomas Young used cut-up method to treat translation of Egyptian relic as mathematical problem, papers show.”
• “The Everyday Inspiration for Anna Karenina. Did distractions, disruptions, and gossip shape Tolstoy’s novel as much as long-simmering ideas about morality and desire?” About Creating Anna Karenina: Tolstoy and the Birth of Literature’s Most Enigmatic Heroine by Robert Blaisdell
• “How Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time. Dan Katz, licensed psychologist and psychotherapist, explains why Thomas Erikson’s success with his book Surrounded by Idiots is one of the biggest pseudoscience scandals in recent history. This version was translated in to English and edited by David Sumpter, professor of mathematics at Uppsala University.”—”Personality isn’t a thing, like a Gremlin, it is simply a pattern of repeatable behaviour. Using this definition, the Gremlin argument becomes circular: if someone claims that their personality made them do something, we can simply counter, “Well, yes, that is the definition of personality. All you are telling me is that you behaved in the way you did because you behaved the way you did.” The invocation of a personality Gremlin is one example of careless thinking.”
• “Newsweek and the Rise of the Zombie Magazine. How a decaying legacy magazine is being used to launder right-wing ideas and conspiracy theories.”
• Stay Close to People Who Feel Like Sunlight
• Earth Appears to Be Travelling Through The Debris of Ancient Supernovae
• The Earth’s core is younger than previously believed, according to new research
• Earth Lost a ‘Staggering’ 28 Trillion Tonnes of Ice in Just 23 Years
• Astonishingly old Antarctic space rock could explain mystery of life’s weird asymmetry
• Cells showing up somewhere unexpected isn’t only about cancer, but a survival mechanism? Wow. “Pigs Grow New Liver in Lymph Nodes, Study Shows.”
• Long term survival and local control outcomes from single dose targeted intraoperative radiotherapy during lumpectomy (TARGIT-IORT) for early breast cancer: TARGIT-A randomised clinical trial—”For patients with early breast cancer who met our trial selection criteria, risk adapted immediate single dose TARGIT-IORT during lumpectomy was an effective alternative to EBRT, with comparable long term efficacy for cancer control and lower non-breast cancer mortality. TARGIT-IORT should be discussed with eligible patients when breast conserving surgery is planned.”
• Fossil leaves prove elevated CO2 triggered greening 23M years ago—”The links between rising carbon dioxide levels, global warming and greening trends have been confirmed by fossilized leaves from a 23 million-year-old forest.”
• “How I Reclaimed My Life after 10 Years in a Cult. The road back to my Self was paved with sex, love, guns, and motorcycles.”
• It’s out now! Not the movie. The game: “Fantasy film The Green Knight has its own tabletop RPG, and it’s not bad. Beware, though, that spoilers may lurk around every corner.”
• “Here’s How Being Polyamorous Prepared Me For Parenting. I’ve had lots of different kinds of relationships with lots of different people and all of those experiences taught me how to be the best mother I can be.”
• Incantation Bowls and Embodied Knowledge
• Pastor Believes Joe Biden Is Hiding Satanic Imagery, Gets Roasted by Twitter
• “Rock and Roll Is the Devil: 15 Artists Who Have Been Falsely Accused as Being “Satanic”. We take a look at some of the bands who had been branded as Satanists for one reason or another.” Also “Top 10 Iconic Musicians Who Are (and Were) Into the Occult. Some rock stars are serious about their symbols.”
• Laam caau—”Think of the classic David versus Goliath narrative flipped on its head: instead of the underdog—in this case Hong Kong—defeating the giant with an unconventional strategy, laam caau envisions the little guy gripping on to the fearsome opponent as they wrestle to the death, with the two of them eventually tumbling off a cliff and crashing down in mutual destruction. One might describe it as an “if we burn, you burn with us” philosophy.”
• A pattern language of creative activism: Beautiful Rising; Interestingly, makes me think I should think about Hermetic Library Fundamentals a little bit like a pattern language too.
• “Ezra Klein: ‘The RNC Shows the Republican Party Is Now Trump’s Personality Cult’.” Also “The Republican Party Is a Cult, RNC Day One: Kimberly Guilfoyle’s Speech.” Also “57 Percent of Republicans Think Number of U.S. Deaths From Coronavirus Has Been Acceptable“—”This isn’t cultish — it’s a cult. Either a majority of Republicans are sociopaths or they’re so ignorant they have no idea how much worse the U.S. has handled COVID-19 than other industrialized nations.”
• “The Prophecies of Q. American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase.”
• Small but growing Russian support for QAnon conspiracies seen online
• “Nano-diamond self-charging batteries could disrupt energy as we know it.” Also “Interview: The NDB team on its revolutionary nano-diamond batteries.”
• Re-engineered enzyme could help reverse damage from spinal cord injury and stroke
• Heart attack damage reduced by shielded stem cells
• “It’s 2020, so of course two tropical storms are coming to the Gulf of Mexico. It turns out this is quite rare.”
• How UFO culture took over America
• Breatharians vindicated! “Microbes living on air a global phenomenon”
• You say that like it’s a good thing. “Sorry to inform you an asteroid will not be taking out Earth right before Election Day. It’s super tiny and has low odds of hitting us.”
• Okay, Loki, where is Iðunn now? “A 194-year-old apple tree, the matriarch of the Northwest apple industry, has died.”
• This one goes out to Juiblex! “The fascinating world of drains”
• Arlecchino glad to zanni me? Or, is that an innamorati in your Pantalone? “Harlequin’s environment”

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