In 1978, when Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was released, audiences laughes at vegetables rising up against humanity. Come 2011 with the current E-Coli outbreak, they’re not laughing now.
It is all to do with the recent Rapture. Now the first of the tribulations is occurring – Vegetable Apocalypse!
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It’s that time of year again when Black Metal bands think its really kewl to release new albums – yes it is 6/6 day, or Great Beast Day as I have “antichristened” it. No doubt at around 6pm local time wherever you are, expect to see a lot of tweets on Twitter about Satan and what not.
666 is of course most famous from Revelation 13:18, whence comes its popularity in modern culture, from eschatology to horror novels & films (e.g. The Omen), rock music, etc. Aleister Crowley famously dubbed himself “The Great Beast 666” – partly out of re-action against his religious upbringing, but also to assert the Humanistic nature of Thelemic spirituality, i.e. as far as Crowley was concerned, the number of the Beast was not just the number of a particular man, but of Man generally.
Other writers (e.g. Rudolf Steiner) have identified the Great Beast as a being called “Sorath” – whose name in Hebrew Gematria (Samekh + Vau + Resh + Tau) enumerates to 666. This presents a tiny problem for ceremonial magicians (or at least the ones who claim not to be Satanists). According to Henry Cornelius Agrippa, the Intelligences and Spirits of the various Planets all have names whose gematria is associated with the Magic Square of the planet. The magic square of the Sun is a 6*6 grid containing the numbers 1 to 36. Each row adds up to 111, whilst the total for the whole grid – the 36th triangle number in other words – is 666. The Intelligence of the Sun is “Nakhiel,” the gematria of which is 111, whilst the Spirit is (you’ve guessed it) Sorath – for the gematric reasons stated previously. Hence when magicians perform a Qabalistic ceremony to invoke the forces of the Sun, e.g. to perform an evocation or consecrate a talisman, etc, they will wind up calling on Sorath. Magicians who purport to be of the right-hand path justify this by saying the only do so after first invoking all the divine and angelic Solar beings first, so that nasty old Sorath is not running wild, but is safely under control of the forces of light.
I am not alleging hypocrisy of any kind … too much … but this rationalisation starts to break down when it comes to practising the art of Geomancy. As far as the Golden Dawn is concerned, geomancers are encouraged to invoke a “Geomantic spirit” of the planet which most pertains to the question which they are attempting to answer. These Geomantic spirits are the same as the planetary spirits listed by Agrippa – so when a Geomancer attempts a Solar question, they will again find themselves calling upon Sorath – only this time they are not told to invoke the superior divine and angelic names first.
There are three possible conclusions to be drawn – magicians of the Golden Dawn are really closet devil-worshippers; writers like Rudolf Steiner did not know what they were talking about; or that St John the Divine was a git for mucking up an otherwise nice safe magical system. 😉
Filed under Supernatural
Is there a link between the Man In Black and the "Black Man" of traditional witchcraft sabbats? Of course not, I just made it up to get traffic!
Alas for Wiccans currently residing in California’s correctional system! It appears that a court has ruled that the state is not obliged to employ a Wiccan chaplain to minister to their needs. So says a number of news sources including, e.g. Courthouse News Service.
However, examining the story in detail it appears the truth is more complex – in fact most of the news sources seem to have misreported the judgement, for the sake of coming up with a lurid headline. What appears to have happened is that an enterprising Wiccan (not incarcerated), observing that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not currently employ a Wiccan chaplain, and the fact that there are 598 prisoners designated as “Wiccan” currently languishing in jail, sued the prison service for not employing him as a chaplain on the grounds that it breached the prisoners’ rights.
The court however recognised him for being a chancer, and pointed out that it would be for the prisoners to sue to vindicate their own rights – he did not have standing to do so himself. Hence he was not entitled to sue himself.
This has variously been summarised in the headlines as “California Prisons Don’t Have to Subsidize Wicca” but in fact the court ruling established no such thing. The court only ruled on a technicality – i.e. that one particular person was not entitled to sue – but not the general principle, which remains undecided – until Wiccan prisoners themselves sue the CDCR, which may yet happen.
Incidentally, I note that the Court has adopted a definition of Wicca which diverges from what most witches would recognise, to wit:
“faith groups consisting of Wiccans, Goddess worshipers, Neo-Pagans, Pagans, Norse Pagans (and any other ethnic designation), Earth Religionists, Old Religionists, Druids, Shamans, Asatrus, and those practicing in the Faery, Celtics, Khemetic, Gardnerian, Church of All Worlds, Reclaiming, Dianic, Alexandrian, Iseum of Isis, Reconstructionist, Odinist or Yoruban Traditions, and other similar nature-based faiths.”
In other words, the Court conflates “Wiccan” with “Pagan.” I am guessing that the reality of the situation in California is that those prisoners who have been labelled “Wiccan” are in fact members of different pagan traditions who have been bundled together under an arbitrary (and technically inaccurate) blanket tradition. In that sense it is unfortunate but probably wise for CDCR not to appoint a “Wiccan Chaplain,” as only one such Chaplain would not be able to cater to the spiritual needs of all the different pagan prisoners.
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Lorraine Mbulawa, the teenager accused of attempted murder.
You now have the power to kill someone in the UK and be found Not Guilty of either their murder. This is the apparent verdict of Leeds Crown Court, which has acquitted a teenager of the attempted murder of her own mother.
Unfortunately though, the teenager in question was convicted of section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act (“malicious wounding”), which means that if death had occurred she would still have been guilty of manslaughter. NB: life imprisonment is the maximum sentence for manslaughter, though unlike murder it is not mandatory. As it was, she was given a suspended sentence.
The teenager and her family came from Zimbabwe where belief in the the occult is widespread. Interestingly in order to convict her of malicious wounding, the Jury implicitly accepted evidence that she was not insane at the time of the offence. In sentencing, the Judge said.
“[She] believes she was doing what the spirits told her to do which reduced her culpability significantly.
“Since she knew what she was doing she should have fought against what she was told to do.”
Now this is an innovation in the law which appears to have crept in since I was at University! You will probably have heard of the old adage: “Ignorance of the law is no defence.” So what we have got here is the following situation:
What, therefore, is the correct verdict? If one assumes that the accused did actually want to cause her mother’s death – albeit at the behest of these spirits – it should be Guilty of Attempted Murder. What the jury seems to have done is assume that belief in disincarnate spirits, which does not amount to insanity, is somehow a mitigating factor – that it makes the accused Reckless as opposed to Intentionally violent.
This would be like me being acquitted of Theft because Valefar put me up to it. Actually this could be a good wheeze, the more I think about it. Theft is a crime of strict Intent. There is no such thing as Reckless Theft, so if a jury found that I did not have sufficient mens rea for the full offence, there would be no lesser offence for me of which to be convicted. Hence I would walk completely free! Sorted. 😉
Filed under Comment, Supernatural
The Rapture. You're Doing It Wrong.
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever.
1 Thessalonians 4:17
Meet me Jesus, meet me,
Meet me in the middle of the air,
If my wings should fail me Lord
Please meet me with another pair.Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying
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Following on from my post about the coming Apocalypse, I thought I would share my thoughts on the Initiated view of the so-called Rapture. The popular notion is that on a certain day, the Lord will call His Own to Himself, which will result in them ascending physically into the sky. This will entail great joy for the Virtuous; great lamentation for the not-quite-so-Virtuous; great consternation for those of the Virtuous who were stuck indoors on the day it happens; and widespread looting and partying for everyone else.
Let’s ignore for one moment the fact that the idea of the Rapture is (a) preposterous and (b) inconsistent with other eschatological passages in the New Testament in both the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. The whole idea about the Rapture is based on the passage from 1 Thessalonians quoted above: the operative word in the verse is “air.” In Greek this would have been Aera i.e. the air of the atmosphere or sky, as opposed to Pneuma or breath. In Hebrew however, this is Shamayim.
Shamayim, spelled with final (top) and medial versions of Mem.
Correctly spelled, this enumerates in Gematria to 1090 – which reduces by Theosophic Reduction (aka Aiq Beker) to 10, the number of Malkuth. Furthermore, the technically-incorrect spelling using the medial Mem instead of the final, which enumerates to 430 – the same as Nephesh.
This casts the situation in a far different light altogether. “Nephesh” is the vital or animal-soul of a person: the word is used in the Old Testament as a synonym for a “living being.” It may also be thought of as bearing the same relation to the Ruach as the Sub-conscious mind does to the Conscious mind. In the Qabalah the Nephesh is associated with Malkuth.
Thus by analysing it Qabalistically, it starts to look pretty much that far from meeting the Lord somewhere above the troposphere, He will manifest down here in the midst of our life in Malkuth within our very own being. After all, Jesus did say (He was quoting Psalm 37 when he did so) that it would be the Meek who inherit the Earth, not the unvirtuous.
NB: This interpretation may sound far-fetched but it is far more reasonable than some of the explanations put about by those who believe in a literal Rapture.
Filed under Books, Licence To Depart, Opus Secunda, The Magus
Front cover artwork © 2011 by the author.
You are now able to read my brand new novel, Licence To Depart
“Licence To Depart” is the final instalment of “The Magus Trilogy,” which was begun by The Magus
Nichola Peterson, ex-policewoman is at the lowest point of her fortunes: her career in ruins, forcibly separated from the man she loves, and powerless to stop a criminal mastermind from wreaking havoc. Then the mysterious Magus appears, offering her one last chance of redemption. Suddenly – a shot rings out…
Note that it is not necessary to have a Kindle device to read Kindle e-books! Follow this link for more details.
* OK, ok, I lied when I said my next novel would not contain any sex. If you hadn’t guessed by now, it was an April Fool’s Joke. 🙂
Filed under Books, Licence To Depart, Opus Secunda, The Magus
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Facebook Facial Recognition & Marketing
Yes I do really look like this in real-life! 😉
Facebook is apparently introducing a new Facial Recognition feature which is going to suggest tags for your photos, based on their similarity to other photos already on the site. Now whilst a lot of civil liberties campaigners have immediately like a trout to the fly jumped and shouted “invasion of privacy” etc etc etc I am feeling faintly amused by the fact that if it actually works, everyone who uploads a picture of Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet is going to have “Alex Sumner” suggested as a tag for it.
This has given me an ace marketing idea! What you need to do is to hire someone who has a passing resemblance to a famous celebrity, and get them to be the “face” of your campaign. Then find all the photos you can of this celebrity and tag them with your “mascot.” Sooner or later, the Facial Recognition feature will kick in and everytime someone uploads a new photo of the celebrity, they will get a tag suggestion for the mascot instead! Then they will be like “WTF? Why is this guy getting tagged in the photo?”
Obviously this is a completely Black-Hat strategy, and hence I strongly advise anyone from actually implementing this. 😉
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