MonthJune 2007

Peter de Abano: Heptameron, or Magical Elements

This concise handbook of ritual magic appeared as an appendix of Agrippa’s Opera, following Agrippa’s Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy. The edition I used for the Latin text is Lyon 1600 (?). An English translation by Robert Turner was published in 1655, and appeared in a collection of esoteric texts along with Agrippa’s Fourth Book. Its attribution to the famous physician Peter de Abano (1250-1316) may be spurious, as his accepted works ‘betray no acquaintance with the occult sciences.’ Note however that Agrippa refers to de Abano in his Third Book as being his source for the Theban alphabet of Honorius of Thebes. The Heptameron (“seven days”) details rites for conjuring angels for the seven days of the week. It is heavily based on texts of the Solomon cycle, and in fact appears in the Hebrew Key of Solomon (Mafteah Shelomoh) fol 35a ff under the title the Book of Light (though without the Christian elements). It was also apparently one of the chief sources for the Lemegeton.

Full Text: Esoteric Archives.

Myspace – the next Prodigy?

Abe says, in reference to this:

It’s funny to read the tech types on this stuff cause they just don’t get culture. Sure the Facebook app platform is light years ahead of what MySpace is doing, but it doesn’t exactly help you promote your band or your photo studio or your art does it? I’m actually more optimistic about MySpace’s long term relevance now than I’ve ever been. That doesn’t mean what Facebook is doing isn’t cool and potentially important, it’s just a big fork in the paths these companies are taking.

I can’t help but think though that what Abe sees as Myspace’s strength – promoting your band or photo studio or whatever – is actually its weakness. Myspace is basically a big spam machine. Although I still spend more time on Myspace, as that’s where most of my friends are, I’ve been spending less and less time on it and so has everyone else I know. My Facebook network, meanwhile, is continuing to grow. The thing is, Facebook is designed to actually facilitate communication between users. Myspace is designed to get people to accept spam.

If Myspace continues to wall its gates, it becomes even less useful. Doing even the most basic tasks in Myspace – from sending messages to uploading pictures – is painfully slow and unreliable. A flood of bulletins from bands and businesses and never ceasing friend requests from cam girls have no real value to me. Putting a funny You Tube video or Photobucket pic on a friend’s comments is one of the fun things about Myspace, and if I can’t do that, then what’s the point?

Waco 2.0

And while there are some potential similarities between the Ruby Ridge and Waco fiascos, there are a few interesting differences and developments, mainly focusing on the internet as a tool for mobilization and action. These tools have no ideology, what works for the netroots, the grassroots and the astroturfers also works for armed fringe Christians. Using blogs, message boards, internet radio, mass emails and such, the rallying cry for supporters to converge at the bunker house are getting louder and louder and I’m hard pressed to find a shortwave patriot station at the moment that isn’t calling for people to go to New Hampshire and support and protect the Browns. I don’t think this type of grassroots protests accompanied at siege at Waco, although I may be wrong, it’s been awhile. Also while the Ruby Ridge and Waco confrontations appear to mainly provoked by overzealous government agents, this incident seems to be a curious reversal, as it is the feds have claimed that there will be no raid and have ‘no wish to have a violent encounter with either one of them,’ although the military equipment and soldiers amassing seems to make that claim suspect. Generally it has been the Brown supporters who have been most vocal for a confrontation.

Full Story: Alterati.

Androphilia author Jack Malebranche interviewed by Nick Pell

Full Video at Key 64.

Buy Androphilia here.

Check out Jack’s site.

G-Spot: Jason Lubyk reads from Mac Had A Secondhand Furniture Store

In this episode:

Jason Lubyk takes this audio UFO into hyperspace with a reading from his work Mac Had A Secondhand Furniture Store. Keyboards and other noises by Jason as well.

In addition James Curcio provides a special remix of this podcast, which can be found by clicking ‘Gspot 7 (Remix).’

G-Spot Episode 7.

Officers try to arrest 77-year-old; intended target was next door

Another “isolated incident”:

Law-enforcement officers raided the wrong house and forced a 77-year-old La Plata County woman on oxygen to the ground last week in search of methamphetamine.

The raid occurred about 11 a.m. June 8, as Virginia Herrick was settling in to watch “The Price is Right.” She heard a rustling outside her mobile home in Durango West I and looked out to see several men with gas masks and bulletproof vests, she said.

Herrick went to the back door to have a look.

“I thought there was a gas leak or something,” she said.

But before reaching the door, La Plata County Sheriff’s deputies shouted “search warrant, search warrant” and barged in with guns drawn, she said. They ordered Herrick to the ground and began searching the home.

“They didn’t give me a chance to ask for a search warrant or see a search warrant or anything,” she said in a phone interview Thursday. “I’m not about to argue with those big old guys, especially when they’ve got guns and those big old sledgehammers.”

Full Story: Durango Herald.

(via Hit and Run).

Charlie Stross on why space colonisation is impractical

get my war on

(above from Get Your War On).

Historically, crossing oceans and setting up farmsteads on new lands conveniently stripped of indigenous inhabitants by disease has been a cost-effective proposition. But the scale factor involved in space travel is strongly counter-intuitive.

[…]

We’ve sent space probes to Jupiter; they take two and a half years to get there if we send them on a straight Hohmann transfer orbit, but we can get there a bit faster using some fancy orbital mechanics. Neptune is still a stretch – only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has made it out there so far. Its journey time was 12 years, and it wasn’t stopping. (It’s now on its way out into interstellar space, having passed the heliopause some years ago.)

[…]

Space elevators, if we build them, will invalidate a lot of what I just said. Some analyses of the energy costs of space elevators suggest that a marginal cost of $350/kilogram to geosynchronous orbit should be achievable without waving any magic wands (other than the enormous practical materials and structural engineering problems of building the thing in the first place). So we probably can look forward to zero-gee vacations in orbit, at a price. And space elevators are attractive because they’re a scalable technology; you can use one to haul into space the material to build more. So, long term, space elevators may give us not-unreasonably priced access to space, including jaunts to the lunar surface for a price equivalent to less than $100,000 in today’s money. At which point, settlement would begin to look economically feasible, except …

We’re human beings.

[…]

Colonize the Gobi desert, colonise the North Atlantic in winter – then get back to me about the rest of the solar system!

Very good article, lots more detail besides what I’ve excerpted here.

Full Story: Charlie’s Diary.

Podcast round-up

The Viking Youth Power Hour: It Ain’t Easy Being Green.

RU Sirius Show: Legalize It!

NeoFiles Show: Kevin Poulsen’s Threat Level is A OK.

Space tourism program to launch in 2012

The European aerospace giant EADS is going into the space tourism business.

Its Astrium division says it will build a space plane capable of carrying fare-paying passengers on a sub-orbital ride more than 100km above the planet.

[…]

Tickets are expected to cost up to 200,000 euros (?135,000), with flights likely to begin in 2012.

Full Story: BBC.

(Thanks Chaoflux).

LAST DAY to buy esoZone tickets before the price bump!

esoZone tickets go up tomorrow! Buy yours today!

© 2024 Technoccult

Theme by Anders NorénUp ↑