An interesting description of a piece of supernatural technology, still in the prototype phase.

The Stone of Changes

I was astonished to discover the power of this prototype. I am used to the “I Ching” book and the coin system, but no matter what I do the coins will always fall on the ground and the book will always give me an answer, whether I’m ready or not – it is a simple procedure. On the other hand, the prototype was checking my bio-feedback and every once in a while I just couldn’t get an answer, I was not ready – perhaps too excited or agitated. Getting an answer becomes a challenge: a task one should focus all his mental energy on and as a result my understanding of the question/answer became much more powerful and meaningful due to this new procedure.

. . .

‘Stone of changes’ is a modern way of using I Ching, The Book of Changes. It is a device to be used within a personal environment. From the outside it looks like a simple rounded river stone. Inside the stone is a hidden biofeedback device with audio capabilities. A person should ask himself a question while holding the stone in his hand. While the person is becoming more relaxed and free of thoughts an answer based on the original ‘Book of Changes’ is played in a soft human voice.

Link

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(Image by Genzoman)

This is an interesting find – It’s an article by chaos magician and occult historian Phil Hine on the subject of incubi and succubi (complete with instructions on how to summon them).

“In Japan there are phantom lovers known as fox maidens, and the man who can get his hands on a fox maiden is considered lucky. He felt sure that there were fox boys as well. Such creatures could assume the form of either sex.”

According to Burroughs, peoples attitudes towards these beings may change, but such visitations are probably more frequent than most people suppose. He classes them as a type of familiar (they certainly are!) and notes that, like animal or elemental familiars, they are dependent on a relationship with a human host for their own development. Similar ideas can be found in the Kaula school of Tantrika, where there are rites for contacting such beings.

. . .

The Liminal Gnosis can be enhanced by the use of a mirror. The use of reflective surfaces for interacting with entities has a long and venerable history, ranging from shamanic practices among the Moari, Pawnee and Nkomis of Africa, to the explorations of Dr. John Dee. Demon-Lovers may be summoned into a mirror, where they may be cross-examined. A cautionary note here is that Dr. Dee made the claim that from time to time, one of the spirits he contacted – a young girl called Midimi – would emerge from his scrying crystal and cavort about his study

Link

Enjoy.

(Image by Genzoman)

Supernatural | 2 Comments »

(Mothman painting by Frank Frazetta)

Is there a connection between Mothman and Pazuzu?

This is an article by the always interesting Farah Yurdozu on the similarities between modern sightings of Mothman and the deities of ancient Turkey.

Pazuzu or Mothman?

Link

It’s a very cool science fiction vision for fans and believers of the ancient astronaut theory.

As for aliens in our more recent past. . .

I was very surprised by this next article, in which Farah discusses the Mary Poppins novels, and the intent by their author to write them as metaphors for the alien abduction experience.

Mary Poppins, Alien Abductions, and Gurdijeff

Link

(Pamela Lyndon Travers, author and creator of Mary Poppins)

History, Literature, Supernatural, UFO | 2 Comments »

The world of Second Life is one that is constantly being created by those who live inside it, where everything from the buildings and robots, to the texture of an avatar’s skin, to the way an avatar moves, is something designed by another player.

It is a world which has no story, yet at the same time it is a thousand stories all at once.

And there are dance clubs everywhere.

I love the bizarre cultures that have developed here. Furries and faeries, sex maniacs and sci-fi fans, Lindens and hackers. . .

It’s a different game for everyone who plays it.

Second Life is such an expansive and constantly changing world, so filled with sci-fi madness, that it has grown its own branch of journalism just to document what happens inside. Below are some of the more interesting pieces of Second Life writing I’ve come across since beginning the game.

New World Notes

A Crisis of Faith

Abstract Avatars

Evolving Nemo – Artifical Intelligence and Cyber-Fish

Made in Japan

Ants and A.I.

Second Life an Al Qaeda

Wandering Sentient A.I. Bot Hal

How Many Species of Artificial Life are there in Second Life

His Current Brain is Scaled Down for Testing Purposes

April – The Bot Who Learns as You Speak to Her

Fairy Bots

A Rustic Place Called Mocha

What Artificial Cat Prowls Second Life So Elusively?

A Map of Second Life and a Map of San Francisco

The U.S. Army’s Virtual Island for Amputee Veterans in Second Life

An Unvarnished Tour of Religion in Second Life

Botgirl – The Avatar Who Woke Up in Second Life

The Soul of Second Life

How Intelligent Have Second Life A.I.s Become?

Philip Rosedale Attempting to Create Sentient Artificial Intelligence that Thinks and Dreams in Second Life

Final Fantasy VII

Warren Ellis – Second Life Sketches

A Rain of Cubes

The Girl with Error-Message Eyes

Helicopters Hang in the Air

Digital Shorelines

Penthouse to Pavement

A Night on the Grid

The Art of War

Please Stop Doing That to the Cat

Let’s Put the Future Behind Us

The Lay of the Land

The Island of Lost Souls

Drive My Car

The Alphaville Herald

Private Eyes for Hire in Second Life

Alliance Navy Base Becomes Furry Death Camp

Is the Founder of The Second Life Liberation Army Part of A Corporate Spy Firm?

Interview with BallerMoMo

Estonia Annexed by Soviet Woodbury

Casino Owner Unimpressed with Crackdown

Ginko Financial’s End-Game

Has One Song Returned to Re-Start the Second Jessie War?

A History of The Second Jessie War

Others

Yoko Ono and Virtual Peace

Virtualism – A Movement for A New World

A Search for Second Life Culture or Omphaloskepsis

Ramadan in Second Life

The Disneyland Sim

Burning Life

A Tour of the Virtual Reproductive System

The Top Four Pandoras from Avatar in Second Life

To The Moon

Parapsychology Research Center to Open in Second Life

A fair amount of books, both fiction and non-fiction, have been published on Second Life. Here is a list of some of the best.

Alter Ego: Avatars and their Creators

Una Tragicomica Second Life – Cellule staminali dell’anima (Italian Edition)

ANIMA: a novel about Second Life

Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human

Second Life: The Official Guide

Virtual Worlds, Real Libraries: Librarians and Educators in Second Life and Other Multi-User Virtual Environments

I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life

Creating Your World: The Official Guide to Advanced Content Creation for Second Life

Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting

The Making of Second Life: Notes from the New World

The Second Life Herald: The Virtual Tabloid that Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse

There is lot of excellent machinima being produced in Second Life as well.

For those just starting out in this world, I recommend gothic Transylvania, the steampunk cities of Caledon and New Babbage, the mysterious oracle beneath the temple in Svarga, or Insilico, the coolest cyberpunk city in Second Life since the fall of Nexus Prime.

The Electric Children island is coming soon. . .

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Okay, this is cool. It’s a show called Radio8Ball, a mystical show which answers people’s questions by analyzing randomly selected songs as Tarot cards.

The show is hosted by Andras Jones from A Nightmare on Elm Street IV.* I first discovered the show in an article about Andras and fountain synchronicities written by Jake Kotze at The Blob. Jake Kotze’s synchromystic videos are now a regular part of the Radio8Ball series, and the latest show actually featured actress Rae Dawn Chong responding to a video Kotze made about her.

Rae Dawn then goes on to ask her own question of the Pop Oracle.

Rae Dawn Chong pt. 1

Rae Dawn Chong pt. 2

Radio8ball was once a radio show and podcast, but now is performed as a live stage show in Seattle. Upcoming celebrity guests include Jeffrey Combs, who played Weyoun on Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Seth Green, and John C. Reilly in a Dewey Cox themed show.

There was even an episode of the podcast featuring Bobby Hill from King of the Hill, who asks the Pop Oracle if ABC would pick up his canceled series.

I thought this Andy Dick episode was fascinating as well.

All the songs are independent and performed live by their musicians, making it a very cool place to find new bands. A lot of great bands have gone through there. Andras himself has done some songs on there too.

There is an internet application on the Radio8ball site that lets you commune with the Pop Oracle on your own. I asked, “How does the world peacefully free itself from corrupt rulers?” and it brought up a song called “Flashback BBQ.” The Tarot card associated with it was the ten of swords. The song’s relevance to the question I asked was surprisingly impressive, and a complete analysis of the answer might actually require a post of its own.

Briefly however, it would seem to imply that all our world leaders need to take hallucinogens.

*And speaking of Nightmare on Elm Street IV. . . What!? Are you kidding me!? The Fat Boys vs Freddy!?!? That is amazing! How can they even waste our time with a remake when they’ve already got something as classic as this out there? Check it out!

A little more of Rae Dawn Chong:

(Rae Dawn Chong in Quest for Fire)

Music, Supernatural | No Comments »

(Image by Dangerkoma)

This is a preview of the upcoming documentary, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, based on the book of the same name by Dr. Rick Strassman.

Click here to watch.

(Found via Douglass Rushkoff)

DMT is produced in humans and most vertebrates by the pineal gland, located deep withing the brain. It releases it when we dream.

Some see the pineal gland as a physical aspect of our spiritual third eye. In fact, the parietal eye, an evolutionary ancestor of the pineal gland present in certain animals, actually has a retina, lens, and cornea.

From wikipedia:

Pinealocytes in many non-mammalian vertebrates have a strong resemblance to the photoreceptor cells of the eye. Some evolutionary biologists believe that the vertebrate pineal cells share a common evolutionary ancestor with retinal cells.

In some vertebrates exposure to light can set off a chain reaction of enzymatic events within the pineal gland which regulate circadian rhythms. Some early vertebrate fossil skulls have a pineal foramen (opening). This correlates with the physiology of the modern “living fossils”, the lamprey and the tuatara, and some other vertebrates which have a parietal organ or “third eye” which, in some of them, is photosensitive. The third eye represents evolution’s earlier approach to photoreception. The structures of the third eye in the tuatara are homologous to the cornea, lens and retina, though the latter resembles that of an octopus rather than a vertebrate retina. The asymmetrical whole consists of the “eye” to the left and the pineal sac to the right. “In animals that have lost the parietal eye, including mammals, the pineal sac is retained and condensed into the form of the pineal gland.”

René Descartes described the pineal gland as the “seat of the soul.”

In Discordianism, the pineal gland is a sacred organ used for communion with the goddess Eris.

See also:

I’m Seeing Giraffes

Terrence McKenna Audio Online

Science, Supernatural | 1 Comment »

One of the coolest stops Hillary and I made on our recent trip to Texas was at the Austin Museum of the Weird. The museum is on 6th Street and it’s open until 11 PM, so it’s easy to stroll in during a night out on the town.

It’s a tripped out collection. The museum itself is pretty small, but the eclectic display they’ve packed into it is very impressive.

Classic movie monster props combine with an arcane mix of occult artifacts and sideshow curiosities. Featuring the Fiji Mermaid, a two-headed sheep, and a fish with a human face.

There is a fairy fossil displayed on a wall. . .

A voodoo guardian stands in one corner. . .

And for all those fans of The Invisibles out there, there is even a Hand of Glory.

Supernatural, Travel | 3 Comments »

“God Helmet” Inventor, Dr. Michael Persinger Discovers Telepathy Link in Lab Experiments

In the 1980’s Persinger made headlines with his “God Helmet”, a device that stimulates temporal lobes with a weak magnetic field in order to produce religious states.

Now, Persinger has discovered the same type of brain stimulation can create metal states conducive to human telepathy. “What we have found is that if you place two different people at a distance and put a circular magnetic field around both, and you make sure they are connected to the same computer so they get the same stimulation, then if you flash a light in one person’s eye the person in the other room receiving just the magnetic field will show changes in their brain as if they saw the flash of light. We think that’s tremendous because it may be the first macro demonstration of a quantum connection, or so-called quantum entanglement. If true, then there’s another way of potential communication that may have physical applications, for example, in space travel.”

(Found via Prefessor Hex)

The God Helmet on Wikipedia

The leading researcher in this area is Michael Persinger. Persinger uses a modified snowmobile helmet (the “Koren Helmet”) that contains solenoids placed over the temporal lobes, or a device nicknamed the Octopus that uses solenoids, both of which output “weak but complex” magnetic fields. The Octopus uses solenoids around the whole brain, in a circle just above subject’s ears, eyes and the bony ridge at the back of the skull, a region that includes the temporal lobes. Persinger reports that at least 80 percent of his participants (working with the Koren Helmet) experience a presence beside them in the room, which ranges from a simple ‘sensed presence’ to God. About one percent experienced God, while many more had less evocative, but still significant experiences of ‘another being’.

You can purchase your own god helmet here from Shakti Technology.

It’s called the Shiva Neural Stimulation System.

Science, Supernatural | 1 Comment »

And as our species continues to evolve. . .

Pakistan Recognizes Third Gender

Late on Wednesday, the Supreme Court in Pakistan ordered that the government officially recognize a separate gender for Pakistan’s hijra community, which includes transgendered people, transvestites, and eunuchs. The court told the federal government to begin allowing people to identify as hijras when registering for a national identity card.

Such cards are necessary for everything from voting to more informal situations; patrons must present the card at cybercafes before surfing the Internet, for example. Not having an identity card, or having one with incorrect information, leaves a person vulnerable and easily excluded from society.

Way to go, Pakistan. Even MySpace and Facebook don’t recognize the third gender yet.

A similar decision was recently made in India as well.

The transexual movement for equal rights in South Asia is fascinating and ancient, distinct in many ways from their Western counterparts.

The right to an ID card for a third sexed individual is a recent development there, but in India there are several hijras (or aravanis, as some prefer to be called, after the god Aravan) already who have succeeded in being elected as political officials.

One very interesting development that I did not expect. . .

Are governments in India and Pakistan using the aravanis to recover bank loans?

Transvestites Say it’s Payback Time

The transgender community in Sindh is thrilled by the recent advice given by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to the government to use the services of transvestites for the recovery of outstanding bank loans from defaulters.

. . .

“If we are asked to recover loans, we will constitute special teams and right after getting the list we would rush to the houses of these defaulters with drums and other musical instruments and would sing and dance to ask them for the money,” said Shabnam, who usually stands on the main roundabout of Regal Chock.

One can’t help but wonder if the legendary mystical powers of the hijras are another reason why their governments want them for this job.

Whatever we say…for good or for bad, will come true. Just as we bless with such intensity so also we curse with such power that if we curse any person the food in their house will get spoiled. I know this is so because I have done it myself.

Link

To this day, many Indians believe eunuchs have occult powers so they pay for their dancing and singing.

According to the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, which dates from around the third century BC, the god king Ram blessed eunuchs. When Ram was banished, he urged all male and female followers to go home.

Being neither, the eunuchs waited 14 years for his return from exile. Ram blessed the eunuchs for their devotion.

Link

Do you know why we hijras travel free on the trains from Poona northward? There is no rule to ask us for the train fare. Not even the central Government can ask us. What happened was that there was a hijra who had just got operated on, she had become nirvan. The people, after the operation, put her on a train. It was just the seventh day after the operation. The people traveling in the train were making fun of her and bullying her. The ticket collector and the others made her get down from the train. On top of this the ticket collector kicked her.

“Mata,” she prayed, “if you’re true, and it is true that you’ve given me back my life, and if my procession is to be done after 30 days, if you want to same my life, this train must not start from here. Then only will I realize you are the truth.”

Then the signal was given and the train had to start, but it could not start. There was a big crowd around the hijra and the people asked her what had happened. She said, “I’m an old hijra and I’ve just got the operation done under the name of the Mata. If you want the train to start, put me back on the train.” Then they made her sit in the train, but still the train would not start. Then she realized that she had prayed wrong, so she put a cloth on her head and prayed to Mata: “I want this train to start. Then only I can reach my place and also the other passengers can go with difficulty.”

Then the train immediately started. From this time on there was no rule to ask a ticket from the hijras on any train. We can even dance in the train, beg in the train, nobody will say anything. From Poona onward, the whole of North India we can travel.

Link

Reality-warping transvestites and transexuals hired by South Asian governments to recover defaulted loans? The future is amazing.

(Image by That Gypsy Boy)

Revolution, Supernatural | 1 Comment »

These are a pair of articles from Damn Data about an occasionally recurring phenomenon in some of the stranger UFO cases over the years, that of aliens communicating through cold, metallic voices.

Cold Mechanical Voices

Says Sarfatti, “In 1952 and 1953, when I was about 12 or 13 years old, I received a phone call…in which a mechanical sounding voice at the other end said it was a computer on board a flying saucer. They wanted to teach me something and would I be willing? This was my free choice. Would I be willing to be taught—to communicate with them? I remember a shiver going up my spine, because I said, ‘Hey, man, this is real.’ Of course, I was a kid…but I said, yes.”

. . .

According to Palmer, shortly after the success of “I Remember Lemuria,” he went to visit Shaver and his wife Dorothy in Pennsylvania, “a novel experience and an eerie one.” On his first evening there, Palmer heard Shaver’s tero for himself: a chorus of five voices, sometimes speaking at once, describing awful tortures in a cave four miles below. Palmer searched the room for recording devices and microphones without result, and soon “returned to Chicago determined the run the Shaver Mystery out of [sic] its final conclusion.”

The “Palmer” referred to in the paragraph above is Raymond Palmer, the four foot tall sci-fi publisher for whom The Atom, Ray Palmer, was named. He was a significant figure in the early UFO scene, putting out magazines on the subject from the 1930s into the 1950s.

Broadcasts from the Stars

Whether or not Paredes is really in contact with “beings from Jupiter” is debatable, but the fact that they endeavor to make contact through his radio signal – it is unclear if Prof. Cid meant a “ham radio” frequency or something else – is very interesting. In the late 1970s, Puerto Rican UFO researcher Orlando Rimax played a recording of an alleged alien transmission on his Otros Mundos broadcast, which aired every Sunday morning in the city of San Juan. The recording could have been a hoax, naturally, but the heavily distorted voice of a being calling itself “Omicron” was definitely disturbing. It had a quality often associated with recorded sounds involving hauntings and paranormal goings-on, even though the entity professed an interplanetary origin, and they always do.

It’s an interesting piece of the ever expanding puzzle.

. . . A puzzle that’s made out of mercury.

Supernatural, UFO | No Comments »