The Solar Venus Transit of 2012

In which I vlog about the Sun / Venus transit which is taking place on June 5th / 6th 2012, and present a Graeco Egyptian Invocation of Aphrodite, which I previously featured on my website.

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Hecate: More Cognitive Dissonance

Line-drawing of a recently re-discovered Defixion or curse tablet.

A slow day on Planet Sumner today, which is why I was forced into reading the Daily Mail, where lo and behold, I uncover a story about an ancient “Defixion” or “curse tablet.” There have been defixiones before but this is particularly interesting because it was recently re-discovered after having been lost for a hundred years.

The Defixion in question seems to be a binding spell against an unfortunate chap called Psellus. Intriguingly, a feminine goddess appears to be invoked: the Italian scientist interviewed tentatively suggests that it might be Hecate.

Hecate

Now I can think of one good reason why it might not be so: the female figure depicted on the Defixion has none of the known traditional symbolism. However, the Fluffy-Bunny Brigade have taken to the comments section denying that it is Hecate, because they can’t believe that she would ever curse anybody.

Sigh. It doesn’t take five minutes to come up with the most sympathetic description of Hecate from ancient times, namely Hesiod’s Theogony:

Whom she will she greatly aids and advances: she sits by worshipful kings in judgement, and in the assembly whom she will is distinguished among the people. And when men arm themselves for the battle that destroys men, then the goddess is at hand to give victory and grant glory readily to whom she will.

It ought not to take a genius to realise that if Hecate is gracious enough to grant victory in “the battle that destroys men,” to her faithful followers, it is not beyond her scruples to see their enemies defeated, i.e. destroyed.

So, whether or not the female figure on the Defixion is question is Hecate, would she realistically have been willing to curse someone anyway? In the right circumstances yes she would – because two thousand years before the invention of fluffy-bunnyism and political correctness, that is how ancient people viewed the gods and goddesses.

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Solar Eclipse: Update

A photo of this Sunday / Monday’s eclipse, originally taken by Nasa

Following on from my post about the eclipse that occurred late last night / early this morning, here is a photo of the event originally taken by NASA. Thanks to Keith for sending it.

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Public Challenge to David Griffin

Stop all your verbal attacks against Chic, Tabby, Nick Farrell, Pat Zalewski, the SRIA and all the rest, and use your supposed EU trademarks to stop the neo-nazis in Greece from bringing the “Golden Dawn” name into disrepute.

If you want to be remembered for doing something good for the Golden Dawn community, that is.

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The Curious Case of the Glastonbury Skeletons

A skeleton in the High Street – from “Glastonbury People”

News today that skeletons have been appearing on the streets of Glastonbury! I.e. in the form of graffiti. It is an utter mystery why they got there. Which is as much to say that I just had a quick squizz at Banksy’s website and he’s not admitting responsibility … yet.

Anywow, assuming that it is one of the denizens who either lives in or regularly visits Glastonbury, it occurs to me that there is a good chance that I am already “friends” on Facebook/Twitter/etc with the perpetrator! If so, feel free to drop me a private message fessing up. 🙂

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Where to market your ebook part 2

This is a follow-up to my last post. Just to demonstrate that I am prepared to put my money where my mouth is, I have now translated my About page (see the Alex Sumner link in the navigation bar) – which, coincidentally, is where you can find links to buying my books either in print or as ebooks, plug, plug – into five extra languages, to reflect the linguae francae of the non-Anglophone countries on my top ten list. To wit: German, French, Dutch, Spanish and Italian.

Unfortunately Filipino is not among them, as I fancy my proof-reading skills in Asian languages even less than I do in European ones!

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Where to Market your Ebook

Instead of a post about occultism, for a change I will deal today with “Voodoo Statistics” (i.e. please don’t shout at me too much in regard to my methodology) – in order to answer the question, what are the Top 10 Countries in which market an ebook in the English language?

By my calculations they are (biggest potential market first):

Rank Country % of potential world market for English language ebooks
1. United States 42%
2. United Kingdom 10%
3. Germany 8%
4. Canada 4%
5. France 4%
6. Australia 3%
7. Philippines 3%
8. The Netherlands 3%
9. Italy 2%
10. Spain 2%

“Wait!” I hallucinate that I hear you ask. “Germany above Canada? How can that be so?” Quite simple: there are more people in Germany who speak English as a second language than there are in Canada who speak it as either a first or second language. This indeed is the reason why non-anglophone countries make it onto the list at all.

Other factors used to determine ranking include % of people with Internet access and relative poverty / richness. India for example has 125,000,000 English speakers, but because over half the population live below the Poverty line (defined by the UN as earning less than $2 / day) and only 7.5% have access to the internet, the potential market for ebooks must logically be a mere fraction of this number.

Of the countries of the rest of the world, most of the member states of the European Union ranked highly. The highest ranked country in Asia was Turkey at number 14. The highest ranked country in Africa was Nigeria at number 22, whilst Brazil was the highest ranked country in South America at number 23.

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Alex Sumner is back on YouTube

YouTube have seen the error of their ways and restored my channel! This means that my Lucid Dreaming video tutorials and animated Enochian keys are now back online, as well as my vlogs and the Ask A Wizard series. Although I am not giving up my Vimeo channel – just in case…

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Solar Eclipse: May 2012

Solar eclipse

Solar eclipse

A rare astronomic event is taking place on 20th May 2012, starting at 21:10 GMT and ending some four hours later the next morning: a full (annular) Solar Eclipse, visible from parts of South-East Asia and the United States. Astrologically speaking, this means that for this brief period, the Sun, Moon, and Lunar Node will all be in perfect conjunction.

This reminds me of a theory I heard that this is the real meaning of the Osiris – Set – Horus myth. Osiris (the Sun) is killed by Set (the Moon passing in front of it) who is in turn avenged by Horus (note how the Sun emerging from behind the Moon looks like a giant Solar Hawk – the “jewel” of the ring being the Hawk’s body, with its wings stretching out to either side). See the picture to the left.

That was the good news: the bad news comes from a conversation I was having recently with an astrologer friend of mine. He pointed out that the last time such an event occurred, the countries from which the full eclipse was visible all suffered chaos and disaster within a few years of it taking place! Referring to the one which occurred on 11th August 1999, he pointed out that the course of the eclipse crossed most of Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan, and what do you know, now we have the Eurozone crisis, the Afghan conflict and the second Gulf War.

To be quite frank, this reminds me of the story of the Buddha, who told the grieving widow: “I will raise your son from the dead if you bring me some Earth from a house where no-one has ever died.” However: let’s suspend our disbelief for a moment and look at what is occurring this May. The eclipse promises to start in China, go up via Japan (just missing South Korea), arc across the Pacific Ocean and hit the western seaboard of America, ending in Texas. Intriguingly, for the most part it will be following the course of the tectonic faultlines that circumscribe the Pacific.

Now, I’m not saying that China, Japan, and the United States are going to be destroyed in a conflagration of Earthquakes and tidal waves… BUT: the Egyptological myth quoted above may in fact point the way to how – magically speaking – these countries can escape or mitigate the Setian-destruction, i.e. to invoke Horus. Either that, or drop a reasonable contribution into the Alex Sumner Appreciation Fund and I can put you in touch with estate agents should you want to buy a holiday home in Europe. 🙂

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Witchcraft: Punishing the Innocent Along With The Guilty Part 2

You can tell it’s been a slow-news day for me when I lower myself to reading something in The Independent, but here here goes.

Not long ago I reported on the successful conviction of Magalie Bamu and Eric Bikubi for the murder of Kristy Bamu. It now appears that in light of this, police are to be given specialist training to help child victims of “witchcraft.”

Well, I can confirm that I will not be the course-tutor for them, but if I were, here is the first piece of training I would give them: you can start by stop calling it “Witchcraft!”.

This is really just irrational “Fear of the Other.” Here is something they do not understand – a belief system from outside what a Middle Englander would call spirituality – so, being impoverished in terms of their vocabulary, the only name they can call it is “witchcraft.” Whereas we occultists know that witches are in fact quite nice people who do not practice any of the behaviours complained about.

Now, I’m no fan of political correctness, but I have to say that the Independent is being remarkably crass in its attempt to turn misunderstanding of a foreign culture into a salacious news story. Worse though: by labelling a violent and illegal activity or set of activities with the term “Witchcraft” they are managing to invent a whole new prejudice: WICCAPHOBIA.

Please, British newspapers! For once in your life try to educate and inform, instead of using every desperate measure to boost your circulation!

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