Welcome to another Wednesday Webshare on the first full day of the current period of Mercury Retrograde. This is a video heavy posting, sorry about that.
Remember if you’re ever unsure about which direction Mercury is going and don’t want to bother with an ephemeris and numbers there is the site Is Mercury in Retrograde which provides a handy countdown for when you have to stop blaming Mercury and find another thing to blame for your bad communication skills and travel disruptions.
I haven’t discussed this much here (I’m managed to be surprisingly impersonal) but I’m a practitioner of Traditional Japanese Reiki. If you know what Reiki is…well it’s not really much like that. I’m the crotchety old geezer who complains that what gets called Reiki in the Western world isn’t that close to Reiki anymore. Regardless I was sent an interesting video recently. Judith Pennington studies EEG (Electroencephalographs or brainwaves) specifically in some relation to spiritual practices. She had studied many “Reiki Masters” but then studied someone who practiced Traditional Japanese Reiki (TJR) and found that the brainwaves were different between western Reiki users and TJR practitioners. This doesn’t surprise me considering the differences in how Reiki is accessed in those systems. I enjoyed watching the videos and it is food for thought, but I wish that Pennington stuck more with the actual observations (like what the brainwaves actually are) without her recoding it into her newage psycho-spiritual language. I’m not saying her interpretation is wrong in any way, but I think a stronger case would have been made without discussing “the field” and such and focusing on how interesting the brainwaves are.
And here is her write up based upon the experience.
Oddly enough I have an EEG machine (that isn’t odd…is it?) and I’ve recorded myself performing things like the LBRP, Middle Pillar, the Sphere of Self, as well as various meditations, but it never occurred to me to record my brainwaves while doing Reiki. I’m not sure if I’ll get the chance in the near future, but we’ll see. This wasn’t done in the most controlled manner, but still it is nice to see some slightly scientific research going into it and something to think on.
Out of the East and over to the Near East the Dead Sea Scrolls are up for adoption. For a mere £1,200, or $1888 (Canadian, Yankees can do your own conversion) you can adopt a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Sadly it’s not like adopting a kitten, it’s like adopting an animal at the zoo, your name will get put on a plaque beside your fragment at the museum so people know this is your baby. Personally I’d love to own parts of The Book of Noah, or the Book of Sirach: Angels and Lovecraftian horrors in the Jewish tradition, but $1888 is a lot for a book, especially one I don’t actually get to keep.
In slightly related news, the University of Oxford is stepping into the future of internet teamwork. There is a wealth of untranslated Greek papyri and they’re turning to the internet for help. Over at Ancient Lives you can look at papyri and help label/identify letters on various pages to help make the process of decoding these ancient texts go quicker. Largely they will be early Christian texts (they assume) but frankly those are the fun ones. I mean that’s where I got the actual quote about Archangel bukkake on Eve, I wasn’t making that up. I wish I could have. Angels were freaky. The less I say about that lipstick wearing leather daddy Azazel the better.
I’ve been watching Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, hoping it would be nearly as good as Xena. I’ve been wrong but there was an interesting Crowley reference I just saw. Basic context and spoilers. Outside of our world is Dahak, some big-bad evil that even the gods are afraid of -all of them Greek, Sumerian, Celtic, Norse- he crept into this world and possessed Iolaus and set up a religion of light, love, and debauchery…and well…apparently the evil from beyond our world is Aiwass.
Speaking Crowley, he makes an amusing cameo in the satirical public service video “The Bizarre World of the Bisexual.” Reading the comments I’d like to point out this is satire, if you watch the other videos they all play with a similar humour, if you take it serious it will be offensive (about sexuality, not about Crowley).
The US Army is apparently looking to create technological telepaths . Money for machine telepathy, thank goodness your country doesn’t have some sort of financial issue that this could be better spent on…wait what? Seriously though I think this is fascinating and I wonder how far this research will get, and what non-war applications it might have.
Lastly for a bit of Lovecraftian awesomeness I’ve recently come across the awesome and hilarious site Better Myths in which myths are retold…kinda. Aside from the awesome written versions the webmaster also does videos. This is a three part retelling of The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath
Again, sorry it’s so video heavy, that’s just the way the net worked for me this week.
Wednesday Webshares: Mercury, Crowley, and Scrolls
Oh shit. I’ve been doing bisexuality wrong.
I assume by that you can only mean you have not been basted by Crowley while he recites hymns to Pan. I admit that is one of the trickier parts to being bisexual.
Do you by any chance have EEG readings from performing those rituals that you would be willing to share? I’d love to see them. Getting an EEG machine has been on my list for awhile now because I’d like to do some of that experimentation myself.
Also, what model do you have and is it relatively inexpensive? If so that would be cool, because I haven’t been able to track one down yet that really fits into my magical experimentation budget.
I would be willing to share, but in March my old laptop died and took all those files with her. I’ve yet to have the time and capability to recreate them as I’m under a period of very strict ritual restrictions until October.
I have the Mind Set from Neuro Sky (http://www.neurosky.com/) and despite some software glitches (the program crashes a lot) it does the job. The bluetooth makes is great for ritual cause I don’t have to worry about any cables. When I bought mine it was $249 and it has come down to $199 and they recently came out with a new model for $99 but I’m not sure if it has all the same capabilities.
Herc and Xena are sure campy but I’ve loved them since they’d started. But see, when I saw that episode, I thought, “L. Ron Hubbard!” Since he was a disciple of Crowley… And I feel like he got things intellectually, but forgot about the Love is the Law bit.
You know, that’s actually a really good point. If Iolaus/Dahak is Hubbard would Nebula by Marjorie Cameron? Heh.
Only if she was cool enough to pirate!fight giant spiders.
Hell now it’s not weird; investing in an EEG machine has been on my list for a long while. Of course, I have pesky things like a career to invest in first =/
While I spent more initially, the updated model of my EEG machine is retailing for $100. The price drop and new model of course came out six months after I bought mine… So they aren’t prohibitively priced at least.