Tag Archives: Germany

Alex is into Polyglottory

There was a time when I thought that I knew or possessed all there was to know about the occult, and I thought, “Is that it?”

I was wrong.

The fact is that although one may be tempted to assume that Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn between them dispose of the majority of the occult teachings of the present day, there is a vast amount of material out there of equal if not greater quality, which seldom gets talked about. The truth of the matter is that Crowley and the GD only account for the majority of the occult in the English language. If, however, you want to venture outside the influence of the Anglophone sphere, there is a trove waiting to be discovered.

In this respect, the most important foreign languages for an English-speaking occultist are not Hebrew, Coptic and Enochian, but French, German and Italian. There is a large corpus of marvellous occult material in these languages, but because it has never been translated into English, most people in English-speaking countries have never heard of it. It is of course possible that there is yet more in other languages.

I currently am busy translating a load of French rituals into English. To save time I am attempting to use an automatic translation program – but then proof-read the results thoroughly to get the correct nuances and iron out the inevitable errors that these things throw up. One trivial example: the French word Gardien means “Guardian” but also “goalkeeper.” I am therefore having to deal with a French ritual for attaining Knowledge and Conversation of one’s Holy Goalkeeper Angel 🙂

Holy Goalkeeper Angel???

Holy Goalkeeper Angel???

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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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Live! At The Witch Trials

 

Connie Booth as the witch from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Burn her anyway!

I read today in the Daily Telegraph of how authorities in Germany are reviewing the 400 year old case of a woman burned for witchcraft. What gets me though is that instead of just giving her a posthumous pardon, they are actually “resuming her trial.” 😮

Why??? As I said in a comment to another post, if modern standards of justice were applied to all those of accused of witchcraft in the past, they would all be acquitted, or their cases would never have come to trial in the first place, because (a) their acts would not nowadays be classed as crimes; (b) their confessions were obtained by torture (and hence would be inadmissable as evidence); and (c) it is doubtful that the allegations would be treated with anything other than scepticism anyway. I suppose that because of (stereo)typical German efficiency they have to go through the rigmarole of re-trying the woman in order to exonerate her.

However, before Wiccans start rejoicing, one should note that the present case is taking place not because of the efforts of a pagan activist but those of an evangelical pastor and religious education teacher. Therefore his agenda is not to prove that as a pagan she was not guilty, but as a Christian she was not guilty. The argument being that – like almost all of the 25,000 people accused of Witchcraft between 1500 and 1782 – they were almost all not Pagans, but Christians who had been wrongly accused.

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Attack of the Killer Cucumbers

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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World Cup Astrology – Yet Another Post Mortem

The German soccer team resorted to superstitious practices to beat England in the World Cup – they consulted PhD students who identified a number of fundamental mistakes that the team was repeatedly making. Pah! What an amateur approach! They should have used Astrology like I did! Far more reliable and a lot less effort. Never mind about Stevie G wandering in-field instead of staying on the wing, and all that malarchy. The fact that Fabio Capello’s native Sun squared both the transiting Saturn and Jupiter (+Uranus) told me straight away that he was not going to come out of the World Cup covered in glory.

Not that I’m saying that I would have helped Joachim Low instead of those PhD Students – I do have some sense of patriotism.

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Star-Cross’d Alex

I was planning on making a public appearance on Sunday afternoon and sell a few copies of my new book Opus Secunda. I had been looking forward to it for some time! Instead: what happens? England are playing Germany that afternoon! 😦

It is all to do with the Saturn-Jupiter opposition at the moment – this if you recall was the reason England was playing in such a mediocre fashion – because their transits made squares to Fabio Capello’s birth-chart. If England had played better and had actually won the group, they would be playing on Saturday instead of Sunday – and I would have my Sunday afternoon free! Grr!

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