Apropos to nothing.

Words from a priest of the Goddess Cloacina.

Barack Obama Captures Coveted Peruvian Shaman Vote

Via Wonkette.

Even at this late date, Mongolian shamans still silent on their presidential choice. DEVELOPING HARD...

THE MODEST OCCULTIST: On Astral Chastity

Dear Mrs. M.- K., As I work on my astral projection, I have found my astral meditative practices only work when I am naked. That wouldn't be a problem, but I live with roommates, one of whom is a man. I am not romantically involved with him, but I sleepwalk. Countless times, my naked physical and astral selves have been rudely reprimanded by him while I entered his bedroom unknowingly. I believe this can cause a shock to my system as my astral and physical selves suddenly conjoin in his presence as he throws a sweatshirt in my direction. Btw, any relation to the Newport Mumfords? -hijinks

Dear Miss Hijinks,

I block my ears against any mention of "the astral plane."

This realm of illusion is -- as you should know -- governed by the Moon, a sphere long known to pull on man's baser instincts. For centuries, that dreadful orb has encouraged numberless rings of ill-dressed people to become even further disrobed.

You are hardly the first mystically-inclined woman to find yourself mired in such entanglements. I myself suffered a similar imbroglio with one of "The Monkees" back in 1974 and had to sleep in a homemade Ames leaf room to hinder further encounters. College is difficult enough as a Classics major without British gentlemen threatening one's astral chastity.

Now, jeune fille, you must do as I did and correct thy wayward path. Dignified living situations are in short supply in this modern world, but a woman of integrity is willing to go the extra mile to find one. Living with an unattached man like a pair of rutting camels absolutely will not do.

You must build up your strength! I myself lived among the Mennonites for a time, attending graduate school by day and mastering my worldly impulses at night. When my mind would inevitably wander to thoughts of unchaperoned sack races under the lewdly winking stars, I found that an enema of fresh lime quickly turned my thoughts back to more godly matters. The bracing country air is also a great aid to intellectual focus; I was able to tear through the complete works of Blavatsky and Gurdjieff in record time.

-R.M.K.

P.S. ACHTUNG: In the grand tradition of the suffragettes, I believe in unvarnished intellectual honesty -- neatly hemmed by propriety.

Frankly said: abstinence education works as poorly on the astral plane as it does on the physical, so you must know that -- despite scatty Internet rumors to the contrary -- a quartz crystal against the cervix is hopeless protection against astral conception. Children born of such shameful unions are, without exception, squeamish and of limited brain. A few in Romania are even known to sport cloven hooves, along with the characteristic insolent glare. My former husband spent several summers attempting to educate them, but they are beyond the reach of civilized discourse.

P.P.S. The Newport Mumfords and I don't speak. It is best left at that.

"The Modest Occultist" is an occasional column by the esteemed Mrs. Roberta Mumford-Kenning. Questions for Mrs. Mumford-Kenning may be left in the comments.

Celebratory Guitar Riff for the Pagan New Year

"Fuck today; it's tomorrow." -Freddie Mercury

Happy Halloween, Sheeple!

Via Posthuman Blues.

This Is The Kind of Thing We Like

"At The Foot of The Garden"

See more art by Madeline Von Foerster here.

O'Reilly vs Tsarion!

O'Reilly is such a dero.

Yes, it's true.

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.” -Jack Kerouac

Jack's Deathiversary This Week

In true beatnik tradition, we do not view birthdays and anniversaries as an exact science, so we're honoring Jacky all week here at The Chronic.

Since we share a hometown with Jack Kerouac as well as a worldview, here's a picture that looks like it may well have been snapped on the mean streets of Lowell (which have remained relatively unchanged in the interim).

THE CHRONIC'S Most Favorite Hollywood Invocation

Wait for it....wait for it...It's worth it.

"You should believe in us but not too much."

"If you look into the sky in the early morning you see them playing tag between the stars." -Muhammad Ali.

LAM On The Run

"UFO behaviour is more akin to magic than to physics as we know it... the modern UFOnauts and the demons of past days are probably identical." -Dr. Pierre Guerin

For those who claim to understand.

Little-known and amazingly true fact: Claiming status as a "Fortean" can keep you out of war as a conscientious objector.

"It is only the wind making the stars sway..." -13th century UFO observer, Japan.

"We are aware of the transcendence of what we are about to tell you..."

The Chronic has recently acquired an artistic fascination with UFO photography. We call this one "Attack of the Showerheads."

HOW TO GET YOUR START IN MAGIC: Lesson One

In order to cast your first magical spell, you'll need to find a place very much like the one shown in this picture.

Preferably exactly like it. (If you're cutting corners this early on, it's a bad sign for later and you'll probably end up chipping the furniture.)

Soon you'll be ready for Lesson Two!

Barney Frank: Today's Vote "One Of The Truly Great Coincidences In History Of Numerology"

Finally Congress is accepting the importance of this ancient art. I guess it takes the Dow crashing 777 points in one day to make them sit up and pay attention.

One steep drop for Wall Street, one shuffling step forward for synchromysticism.

A person who consorted with the devil supposedly had a mark somewhere on his flesh as a souvenir of the experience. A modern UFO contactee develops these "devil's marks," sometimes in the form of a wart or boil, sometimes a rash or blotch that looks like a birthmark...Nothing in the paranormal world is as it seems.

-John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies

A Romantic Hero Over Whom The Symbolically-Minded May Swoon

The late James Shelby Downard's primal way of looking at things, which is the way I think ancient man perceived the world, encompasses a vision that detects every link and every symbol, beginning with the significance of names, then places and then the obsessive actions which stem from the confluence of the two and which have come to be known as ritual. Publisher Adam Parfrey, who first brought Shelby's work to a mass audience, states:

"In Downard's writings, the products of his subconscious bubble to the surface and catalyze painstaking research. The collision of the poetic against the logical works especially well in the field of conspiracy; it remains the freshest approach to a field of inquiry..."

I remember sitting in Shelby's airstream trailer in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1977, along with the great Fortean philosopher William N. Grimstad and Charles Saunders, a brilliant recluse who was a close friend of Jack Kerouac toward the end of the Beat writer's life (a fact missed by every one of Kerouac's numerous biographers; so much for biographers).

Shelby's conversation that day ranged from the occult significance of the Theremin musical instrument to the sorcerous implications of elevators, the relationship he had with an evanescent rabbit named Petey; the sinister connotations of the circus and the mystical topography of the American Southwest, which Mr. Downard knew the way you and I know our backyard.

As he fried our hamburgers, he regaled us in his prospector's drawl with the hidden wonders of a tapestry of coincidences which he wove from the seeming mundane details of everyday living, into a magic carpet of incomparable strangeness and peerless utility.

Parfrey spoke for many of Shelby's friends and associates when he stated:

"Downard has influenced me to look with interest upon the details and the fantastic convergences of life..."

-from the introduction to James Shelby Downard's essay King Kill 33

Evil Scientist Tries To Replace Venus Cloacina With Machine

It will never work.

The Chronic's Official Response to the U.S. Banking Crisis

Bezoar.

Click here to see.

It is wonderfully smooth and spherical, like a world unto itself.

Via Mapping The Marvelous.

NEW COLUMN: The Modest Occultist

This fall, The Galloway Chronicles is proud to present The Modest Occultist, a new semi-weekly column by Roberta Mumford-Kenning.

Once Dr. Sherwood Kenning's most promising graduate student, Mrs. Mumford-Kenning has distinguished herself in the occult field quite independently of her illustrious ex-husband. She is perhaps best known for My House in Sumeria, an autobiographical account of her time in "Babylon, between the wars," focusing largely on an affair with a swarthy man believed by many to be Zecharia Sitchin. While well-received in Germany, Mrs. Mumford-Kenning's recent work on the effects of Kabbalah water on the Persian phoenix has yet to find American publication.

Written from her recently purchased bungalow in Providence, Rhode Island, Mrs. Mumford-Kenning's new column will focus exclusively on matters of morality, taste, dignity, and propriety -- her four most cherished ideals that she believes are too often overlooked in modern occultism.

Questions for our newest columnist may be left in the comments section.

Dear Mrs. Mumford-Kenning,

I have recently taken up practical alchemy but, as with most of my previous hobbies, my boyfriend refuses to even pretend to be interested. Even the (I know, slight) possibility of unfathomable riches doesn't turn his head from professional wrestling and Attack of the Show.

Recently when he loaded the dishwasher, he put my alembic in backwards. The inside of it is now encrusted with Spaghetti-Os sauce (his kid's) that I'm having the worst time getting out. Suffice it to say that Kitchen-Aid does not make a tool that can get inside the neck of this thing and no alchemical practice (that I know of) will loosen it either.

I'm having a hard time believing that this was not passive-aggressive behavior on his part and symbolic of so much else that is wrong with our relationship. I hate to think that I've wasted the last eight years of my life, but I can't get it out of my mind that the last time I left, he didn't even notice until my credit card bills came in the mail.

-Sincerely Frustrated

Dear S.F.,

Alchemy is a filthy habit, never to be practiced in any decent home. One need only observe the suggestive shape of the alchemical retort to know the bestial origins of this unholy activity.

No doubt, spiritual fulfillment (or piles of gold) is a worthy goal. Under my direction, my ex-husband once tried draping his alchemical equipment in fabric, as more curvaceous furniture legs were once wisely and modestly shrouded in Victorian times. But this resulted only in a horrific burning smell and the destruction of several yards of my family's tartan wool.

Lesson learned: Something rotten at the core is rotten through and through. The venereal imagery at the heart of so much alchemical lore only pollutes the mind. The yoni and lingam are best kept well apart, and dusted regularly lest they attract unwholesome influences.

As to the dishwasher event being "symbolic of so much else that is wrong with [your] relationship," I suggest that you mentally refrain from plunging into anything "symbolic." As we all know, symbolism by its very definition has many hidden layers of meaning and I for one don't care to know what they are.

I will add that dishes are best washed by hand. Some duties should never be trusted to machinery.

-RMK

"The drilling will begin in five minutes."

A short study in human evil.

Idiotic Man Cursed By Jim Morrison's Ghost

"Does no one - really - get out of here alive?"

Typical of the mundane community's tendency to over-dramatize. Our editorial staff has been cursed by the ghost of Stevie Nicks for several years but we don't make such a big deal out of it.

Submitted by M. Silva, our agent-on-remote, just back from the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Talks on Dion Fortune

New (to us) insight on Dion Fortune, courtesy of Gareth Knight.

Probably The Best Part of Richard Dawkins' Day.

We think he'd have made an excellent vicar.

Gen Galloway Spotted Frolicking On Beach With Older Gentleman

Yet there was only one set of footprints...

Editor-in-chief Gen Galloway's vacation ends on September 1. Regular posting will resume at that time.

Occult Significance Unknown

But posted anyway for its sheer goodness.

Spotted, as most of the best things are, at Posthuman Blues.

EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK: Sherwood Kenning's Long-Awaited New Work

Dr. Sherwood Kenning's first new published work in over 35 years. Proposed publication 2009. An exclusive Chronic sneak peek at the front cover...

Good Feng Shui / Bad Feng Shui? No. 2

Details are everything.

While this home has been successfully "trepanned," as recommended in Chapter 12, the busted gutters render moot the vital benefits of the operation. If this home is ever to achieve "higher consciousness," it is crucial that the drainage system remain in good working order.

From the upcoming Feng Shui for Occultists, by Gen Galloway.

MacGregor Mathers briefly reincarnates to perform musical number.

You can see Moina in the background at one point, too.

Many misunderstand our devotion.

This is not a brothel..., originally uploaded by Tom Coates.

Venus Cloacina is NOT like those other Venuses you may have heard about.

A few nice spirit-summoning stories.

Goetic painting from The Mutated Skeleton Cave

You can read them all over at Goetic Magic. I liked My First Time in particular, but they're all interesting.

Via Strategic Sorcery.

Rudimentary Plans For A New Altar To Venus Cloacina

Go us!

Good Feng Shui/Bad Feng Shui?

From the upcoming book Feng Shui for Occultists, by Gen Galloway.

Our New Incense Burner

Just a note: The Chronic is now devoted exclusively to the Venus Cloacina.

We now return to solemn contemplation in our inner sanctum.

Portrait of occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger.

Dr. KENNETH ANGER I, originally uploaded by Mark Berry - Photographer & Graphic Designer.

Standing Headline: Satanists Fail.

Now unable even to shock/titillate.

Since Evil firmly took the world in its grasp back in about 1963, citizen Satan-worshippers have become as obsolete as flying buttresses.

Smack! Down! Dion Fortune Style.

SOA* 2008 winner Annie Besant with her proposed
World Teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti, and handbag.

We were just on our way up to Chesed ourselves when we came across this passage in The Mystical Qabalah:

19. It is to the Sphere of Chesed that the exalted consciousness of the adept rises in his occult meditations; it is here that he receives the inspirations which he works out on the planes of form. It is here that he meets the Masters as spiritual influences contacted telepathically, without any intermingling of personality. This is the true, and the highest, mode of contact with the Masters, contact with them as mind to mind in their own sphere of exalted consciousness. When the Masters are seen clairvoyantly as robed beings, the colours of whose robes indicate their ray, they are being perceived reflected into the sphere of Yesod, which is the kingdom of phantasms and hallucinations. We are treading on precarious ground when we have to meet the Masters here. It is here that the anthropomorphic form is given to the spiritual inspiration which so misleads those psychics who cannot rise to Chesed. It is thus that the announcement of a spiritual impulse flowing out upon the world gets interpreted as the coming of a World Teacher.

Oh yes. She did.

"Team Annie" and "Team Dion" shirts are currently being printed.

"Who Is Looking Through Your Eyes?"

Click here to read.

Via Practically Spiritual.

A Passage That Perfectly Describes Us

"Binah," from Qabalah Art Gallery

The initiate of the Greater Mysteries is known by his serenity and impersonal attitude in all the relations of life. He knows how to be still and let the powers he has set in motion carry out the work. He knows how to await the ripening of souls and not force a premature development by personal pressure. The initiate never goes about doing good; he never trespasses uninvited upon the spiritual privacy of another. He acts by what he is, not by what he does. He works on himself, makes something of himself, and then the forces that radiate from him without effort on his part bless and illuminate. If he is calm, he calms his environment. If he has wisdom, those who are in his company unconsciously take on his attitude and he has no need to proffer unsolicited advice. Because he knows the reality of eternity, he is content to let time do its work. He is characterized by two things, the power to be still and wait, and the power to stand absolutely alone. Until we know how to be still, mentally as well as physically, we cannot handle power; and until we know how to stand absolutely alone in perfect equilibrium and contentment, we cannot accomplish the works are done in polarity. Finally, the initiate is prepared to work without seeing result, playing his part on the Great Plan that unfolds through the ages of planetary time.

-Dion Fortune, from Dion Fortune and Tarot

More "magical letters."

This guy deals with two from the English alphabet.

Lovecraft's Point Of Inspiration

Qoph, Hebrew letter meaning "back of the head"

Daath, the mysterious, invisible Sephirah, which is never marked upon the Tree, is
associated in the Western svstem with the nape of the neck, the point where the spine meets the skull, the spot at which the development of the brain from the notochord took place in our primeval ancestors.

Daath is usually held to represent the consciousness of another dimension, or the consciousness of another level or plane; it essentially represents the idea of change of key.

-Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah

LOLCrowley

Like the atom bomb, someone was going to make one eventually.

Via Gleamings From The Dawn.

Sexiest Occultist Alive* 2008: OFFICIAL WINNERS

Thank you all for your participation. As judges, this was our most challenging year. When you bring something from the astral plane to the physical, believe us when we tell you that there will be birth pangs. You probably wouldn't believe us if we told you that "you're all winners," so instead we'll quote Uncle Al and say that "Every man and every woman is a star."

But this year there were two nominees who shone particularly brightly. They are:

2008 winner, Zorigtbaatar Banzar (men's competition)

Occult Accomplishments: Mongolian Shaman.
What Put Him Over The Top: Devil-may-care sense of personal style.

2008 winner, Annie Besant (women's competition)

Occult Accomplishments: Former President of the Theosophical Society.
What Put Her Over The Top: Fearless early adopter of bondage-inspired fashions.

Sticky Wicket: We know that some will criticize us for giving the top award to Zorigtbaatar, saying that we're just bowing to the latest trend of "everything Mongolian shamanism, all the time" (as anyone shopping for back-to-school clothing has no doubt noticed).

Another point: we received far more nominations for Suri Cruise than we are comfortable with. Yes, we know that her eyeballs exude a strange power and that she has already won at least one mainstream best-dressed competition for realz, but she has a few hundred more moons to go before we can even think about you guys thinking about her in that way. This offends our most basic Yankee sensibilities about good hygiene and upright living.


SOA* 2008 JUDGES:
Dr. John Dee - Ascended Master, mostly.
Dr. Sherwood Kenning - Occultist, Qabalist, world-traveler, world-renowned Pan flautist. Foremost collector of erotic daguerreotypes in the Western world. Has returned from dead six times.
M. Silva - Agent-on-remote.
Gen Galloway - Part-time curator of The Kenning Collection. Editor-in-chief of The Galloway Chronicles.
Whaley - Deep sea animal ally.

SEXIEST OCCULTIST ALIVE* 2008: Congratulations To Our Runners-Up.

2008 Runner-Up, Cleve Backster.

Occult Accomplishments: Featured in The Secret Life of Plants. Founder, Backster School of Lie Detection.

What Put Him Over The Top: Perennial crowd favorite. We get five dozen votes for this guy every year. Truly "The People's Choice."

2008 Runner-up, Kara Rae Garland
aka Soror Ceilede

Occult Accomplishments: The first second-generation chaote we've ever heard of. Also writes.

What Put Her Over The Top: Apparent well-adjustedness.

STAY TUNED.
OFFICIAL WINNERS TO BE
ANNOUNCED LATER TODAY.

SOA* 2008 JUDGES:
Dr. John Dee - Ascended Master, mostly.
Dr. Sherwood Kenning - Occultist, Qabalist, world-traveler, world-renowned Pan flautist. Foremost collector of erotic daguerreotypes in the Western world. Has returned from dead six times.
M. Silva - Agent-on-remote.
Gen Galloway - Part-time curator of The Kenning Collection. Editor-in-chief of The Galloway Chronicles.
Whaley - Deep sea animal ally.

This Time It's Doping: Another Sordid Scandal Rips Through GALLOWAY Offices On Eve of Contest Decision

2005's winner, Michael Tsarion

Echoing the never-proven allegations that swirled around Michael Tsarion in 2005, our sources tell us that Dionysian invokestress Amy Winehouse is ineligible for our contest.

2008 nominee Amy Winehouse

(Sad face.)

"2008 Sexiest Occultist Alive" Judge Caught In Embarrassing Scandal

Contribution to science notwithstanding, the fact that these pictures of one of our most esteemed SOA 2008 judges are being released now is, to say the least, a bit suspicious.

We have always known that The Powers That Be would try to bring this blog down. With a light that shines as brightly and fearlessly as The Chronic's, one must expect the forces of darkness to be attracted. Note to the Illuminati or whatever y'all are going by these days: we were expecting nothing less.

Judging goes on, our good name untarnished.

2008 Sexiest Occultist Alive: Submit Your Nominations By July 25

2006's winner, Charles Fort

The victors will be officially announced on Monday.

We will be selecting one winner from each gender, which could potentially leave us with up to five different winners! Whew!

Each winner will receive a nifty badge for their blog signifying them as 2008's Sexiest Occultist Alive* OR a coupon towards a discounted oil change OR (if dead) a special libation at the gravesite of their choice.

Note to late-coming entrants: Remember the well-worn Internet maxim, "Pics or it didn't happen." Since Dr. Dee's shewstone is still being held hostage by the grabby British Museum, The Galloway Chronicles will need to see photos or we will be unable to clearly tell how occultalicious you might be.

Please keep it clean; some of us have strict vows of celibacy to maintain.

*or dead

More Scenes From A Life With Crowley

The girl was thin to emaciation; her eyes sunken in her head and surrounded by black circles; her lips carmined with so vicious a lipstick that she looked as if she had been kissing the wet paint on a pillar-box. Her clothing consisted of an exceedingly figure-revealing djibbah of dingy green. She looked like a sickly and unclean nymph who had had altogether too much attention from Pan.

-from Dion Fortune's fictionalized description of a mistress of Aleister Crowley in The Winged Bull.

It is unclear whether Fortune's description is meant to evoke Leah Hirsig, the best-known of Crowley's Scarlet Women, or if it is a composite.

Galloway Chronicles Now Accepting Nominations for 2008 Sexiest Occultist Alive*

2007's winner Manly P. Hall

This annual contest, normally held exclusively on the astral plane, has been moved to the blogosphere per orders of Dr. Dee, who is trying to make room on his back lawn for events of what he calls "greater occult significance."

This is probably the most important beauty contest since the judgement of Paris, so think carefully about who you nominate. We don't want just a million nominations for Michael Tsarion and nothing else, okay? That would make it very boring.


* or dead

MacGregor Mathers as a comic book character.

macgregor mathers, originally uploaded by flameape.

Long overdue. And brilliantly drawn.

Edited to add: Our agent-on-remote informs us that genealogical research is ongoing into whether MacGregor (progenitor of our spiritual heritage) is related to Marshall (minor poet).

"I'm scared that I ate a person's body."

"People placed orders with me. Then I went to get them," Moussavou said in the broadcast interview. He said they would break into cemeteries in the middle of the night to steal the skulls.

The skulls were then ground down into a powder that healers use in various drinks and amulets believed to give the wearer strength or power, he said. Moussavou added that he sold many skulls for use in a common initiation rite, known as Bwiti, in which young men and women drink a potion that is expected to bring on visions.

In Gabon, the knowledge that human bones are used in the potion was nearly as shocking to many as the news of the graverobbing operation.

"I was initiated by Bwiti. I'm scared that I ate a person's body," said Jeanne Mba, a middle-aged housewife in Libreville.

Read more here.

Via Boing Boing.

Scenes From A Life With Crowley

June 29 AM K

...12:30 PM My opinion is that one does not really get a shot at one's complexes until one has managed to eliminate the influences of convention.

1:25 PM 6 dr G + rum + wine at lunch.

2:40 PM (after lunch) Quite uncomfortable—but 666 wants his books from the P.O., so after telling him a few thoughts (re later) I went. Returned—raining like hell—Tea. Ideas connected with convention and complex. To get at people's "conventions" trouble I suggest two main lines:

1 for the simple—ask the question "What troubles you most in life."

2 for the more complex animal—Force him with a list of all the crimes? possible and ask him to mention the one that he thinks worst "wicked" or "disgusting" or some such term....

Dec 27
G 2:20 AM Msbtd—Union with Chaos—my whole idea seems to deplete my body absolutely so that I may lose my thoughts—But I am all wrong. I am starved, but I shall start to love tomorrow. There will be no more masturbation—Perhaps there will be insanity or death, but there'll be something, if I have to create it myself.

From the magickal diary of Leah Hirsig, mistress of Aleister Crowley.

"Pictorial representations of the Work...show a king and queen lying down together in a bath. They are dissolved and 'married', presumably by the fire which is applied to the sealed vessel.


They blacken and putrefy. This part of the process is known as the nigredo...The heat drives off all the vapours. The black mess should begin to show white flecks, like a night sky full of stars,



and then slowly turn white -- the process known as the albedo. The whole mass becomes volatile, then recrystallises as 'the white stone.'


...Yet this is not the end of the process...The significant point here is that the [alchemical] process ends with the sun symbol..."

From Mysteries by Colin Wilson, who may be trying to tell us something.

We Are Laid Up Here At The Chronic.

Photo by Snailbooty.

Blogging can be physically dangerous in only two ways: gaslighting by undercover agents of the federal government, or repetitive stress injury. We have one of these.

Posting continues.

Dirty Loki Poem

'The Reality of Dreams' by Timothy Cumming

Click here to read the wonderful Loki poem, which we believe captures his spirit nicely.

Via our agent-on-remote, M. Silva.

VAMPIRES: They're Not Just For Romanian Peasants Anymore

Normally The Galloway Chronicles does not traffic in such lowbrow occult fare as "vampires" or "cryptozoology," preferring to keep our privileged knowledge of these phenomena to ourselves. But, in a rare move, we are asking for our readers' help in identifying the grotesque creature who appears briefly and mysteriously at the end of this obscure video.

Even at the level of unquestionable adept-itude our editors have achieved, some aspects of the occult do continue to puzzle us here at The Galloway Chronicles. For instance: why does this video feel like it's running at 33rpm? We are out of ether here at the Chronicles offices, so we're sure it's not us. Qui sabe?

Kindly submitted to us by M. Silva, our agent-on-remote.

The Nietzsche Family Circus

"Your pride can't hurt me. I have no beliefs!"

Randomized for your edification.

"The origin of the species."

Wow.

At a recent astrobiology meeting I sheepishly approached veteran SETI astronomer Frank Drake about the WOW signal. I half expected him to say: “Oh that silly thing!”

Instead, Drake shared the same belief that it was a real interstellar message. (Dr. Ehman has cautiously addressed the same conclusion as a "definite maybe" after ruling out all Earth radio interference explanations.)

Drake speculates that the signal may have been crammed with a packet of information at too high a rate for the Big Ear telescope to resolve.

But why so brief? Drake suggests that an alien civilization may be pinging stars with information packets, a sort of galactic spam. Once the packet is decoded it yields information for tuning to another channel to receive a longer and more detailed message.

So, toward the end of the 20th century humankind may have received the first fleeting evidence of intelligent life off the Earth.

Link to the original article.

Via Posthuman Blues.

We're Pretty Sure This Has Happened To Us A Few Times, As Well.

Mathers was deceived into passing over the secrets of the Golden Dawn to an American fraudulent medium and con artist known as Mrs. Horos, who also went under the names Mrs. Dutton, Mrs. Johnson, and Marie Louise of the Commune. Her magical motto was Swami Vive Ananda, so she was known among Golden Dawn members as Soror (Sister) S.V.A.

Mrs. Horus learned a smattering of Golden Dawn lore from members living in New York, and was able to use it to persuade the credulous Mathers that she possessed the Order rank of 8=3, Magister Templi, which was one grade higher than Mathers' own rank. The 7=3 rank of Mathers was the highest level that could be attained in the Second Order, so Mrs. Horos was claiming to belong to the Third Order of the Golden Dawn, the Argentum Astrum (Silver Star). At that time, the Third Order had no existence on the earthly plane (Crowley would later use the name for one of his own organizations). Indeed, Mrs. Horos claimed to be none other than Fraulein Anna Sprengel, the German adept who was the supposed establishing authority of the Golden Dawn in England, and the link with the mystical Secret Chiefs, spiritual beings who provided the Golden Dawn with its occult teachings and its legitimacy as a Rosicrucian order. Mathers felt obliged to pass over secret Second Order documents, which Mrs. Horos and her two associates promptly stole.

This woman, described by those who had met her as being about sixty years of age, extremely fat, with a gracious and attractive manner, was aided by her husband (whether legal or common law is not clear), who went under the name Theo Horos -- the "H." mentioned by Crowley -- and another man calling himself Dr. Rose Adams. Mrs. Horos and her husband were eventually arrested. As an explanation for her corpulent body, Mrs. Horos claimed that she had absorbed the spirit of Madame Blavatsky, the leader of the Theosophical Movement, at the death of Blavatsky. Such was Mathers' willingness to embrace the miraculous that he did not dispute this assertion. Hence Crowley's expression of disgust with the childlike credulity of his former teacher and leader.

From Donald Tyson's notes on the Goetia.

FOUND: Aerobic Homage To The Great Goddess Aphrodite

Advice Both Sanguine and Saturnine, From The Wobbly Writing Desk of Magician John Dee

Our Master, as he looked on vacation recently at Martha's Vineyard

The Galloway Chronicles is proud to announce that it is the only 'genuinely contacted' blog in the occult blogosphere at present.

While the name of our hidden Master has previously been a secret we guarded closely against our paisley vestments, we have decided -- in honor of the upcoming American Fourth of July holiday -- to reveal his identity.

Mr. Dee has been kind enough to take questions from either of the readers of The Galloway Chronicles, and will continue to do so until he finds the practice tiresome, and vanishes.

Questions for Mr. Dee may be placed in the comments section, as appropriate, or mailed discreetly to ask john dee at gmail dot com (no spaces).

Diversión con el Google

I love Google's AI, mostly because it reveals so much, so quickly, about the human condition. I tried to google the name of a book some people have been discussing on a forum. I got as far as "initiation into" and received two guesses:

initiation into hermetics
initiation into a gang

I wonder who googles the latter. I'm sure they'd think I'm weird, too.

Updated to add: this handy link. Warning: a PDF will come at you if you click it.