Cabinet of Wonders has a round-up of recent killings of people accused of being witches or magicians, as well as instances of witches or magicians killing other people (including the NYTimes’s coverage of killings of albinos in Tanzania):
TagSuperstition
Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts.
Many people in Tanzania – and across Africa, for that matter – believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition that impairs normal skin pigmentation and strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here. Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich.
To their credit, the Tanzanian government is doing what it can to protect albinos:
Police officers are drawing up lists of albinos in every corner of the country to better look after them. Officers are escorting albino children to school. Tanzania’s president even sponsored an albino woman for a seat in Parliament to show that ‘we are with them in this,’ said Salvator Rweyemamu, a Tanzanian government spokesman.
… but the situation still looks pretty grim.
(via Ectoplasmosis)
Tantric masturbation – how to do it and why. Plus advocacy for group tantric masturbation. Not at all safe for work.
(via Chaoflux)
“Fans of terrible movies shouldn’t miss Chemical Wedding, which contains so many wooden performances it should really have been thinned before release by the forestry commission. Director Julian Doyle shoots the whole thing as though it is a Hammer horror film, and most of the actresses have the Hammer hallmark of being extraordinarily unfit for acting. Most of the cast underact. The one, big – and I do mean big – exception is Simon Callow, who appears to have been taking acting lessons from Brian Blessed and, possibly as a result, gone stark staring bonkers.
Callow is at his exuberant worst as a stuttering Cambridge academic who – because of some incomprehensible scientific experiment that goes wrong – is taken over by the spirit of Aleister Crowley.”
(via The Daily Mail)
(Related: “Aleister Crowley movie, The Chemical Wedding, trailer”)
Originally from High Times
What we were doing was not science – it was magic. We thought we were doing science but we didn’t know anything about science at the time. We set up what we called an experiment, but what we should have really called a ritual. Honestly it was a ritual but we had the idea that if we took a large dose of mushrooms, along with ayahuasca and heard this sound, that we could generate this standing wave form and that we could actually transfer that into the body of a mushroom in a stable way so that it would be outside the body and it would be sustained by it’s own superconducting circuitry, and you would be able to see it and be it at the same time. It would be, in a sense, an artifact from beyond that you generate out of your own head. It would be a super, transbiological artifact, translinguistic matter that would be meaning itself fixed into a biological matrix.
RAK> And do you think it succeeded, the experiment?
DENNIS> (hesitates)… No… (laughs) No, not exactly… What we were trying to do, essentially, if I can harken back to the basis of this in myth and history, I mean the closest analogy to it is the Philosopher’s Stone. We were trying to recreate the Philosopher’s Stone, which in some ways is the ultimate artifact. That thing that exists and is both mind and matter and responds to thought and is you and can do anything you can imagine, literally, anything you can imagine.
Dennis McKenna will be keynoting Esozone: the Other Tomorrow in Portland, OR this October.
“New, controversial footage, from within the Church of Satan, has been released. It has been more than forty years since in-depth footage of the Church was shot, and a new Satanic ritual has been documented and publicly presented for the first time. It’s revealed and confirmed that public servants and various celebrities are, or have been, members of the Satanic Church, including Sammy Davis, Jr. and Jayne Mansfield. In interviews leading up to the un-cut ritual, one Satanist says, if there is a God who feels Satanists should roast in hell, “He can go _ himself,” and that all people are not created equal. Another said Christianity is “like a rabies.”
The footage was captured by independent filmmaker Joshua P. Warren. He was granted unprecedented access to the Church, traveling internationally to live with Satanists and document the most intimate aspects of their philosophy. He has now released it in his new documentary, Inside the Church of Satan.”
(via Alternative Approaches)
A substitute teacher in Pasco County has lost his job after being accused of wizardry.
Teacher Jim Piculas does a magic trick where a toothpick disappears and then reappears.
Piculas recently did the 30-second trick in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes.
Piculas said he then got a call from the supervisor of teachers, saying he’d been accused of wizardry.
“I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue, you can’t take any more assignments you need to come in right away,'” he said.
Piculas said he did not know of any other accusations that would have led to the action.
The teacher said he is concerned that the incident may prevent him from getting future jobs.
OK, it seems there’s a lot missing from this story. Anyone have any more details?
(Thanks Bill!)
Update: in the comments Val points to another news story in which the school administration gives their side of the story:
Tampa Bay’s 10 talked to the assistant superintendent with the Pasco County School District who said it wasn’t just the wizardry and that Picular had other performance issues, including “not following lesson plans” and allowing students to play on unapproved computers.
Update 2: School administrator denies everything
Update 3: More details
Jennifer Stevenson is the author of ‘Trash Sex Magic’, and most recently wrote a trilogy of sexy, funny, romantic fantasy, the first of which was recently released called ‘The Brass Bed’ (Ballantine Books). She’s been writing for 25 years and lives in the Chicago area with her husband of 30 years and her two cats.
The Brass Bed begins with the heroine, Jewel Heiss, a tough fraud cop investigating a fake sex therapist, Clay, who has been using an antique brass bed to lure his customers. Trapped inside the bed is Lord Randall (Randy), who in 1811 was cursed and turned into an incubus by his magician-mistress for being lousy in bed. The curse was this: satisfy one hundred women or be trapped in the bed forever. Lucky Jewel was number one hundred, and Randy becomes her personal sex slave. The choice: Clay or Randy? This is where the fun really begins.
I don’t usually read much fiction, but found myself flying through all three books (‘The Velvet Chair’ is the second [coming out in late May], and ‘The Bearskin Rug’ is the third). There’s plenty of humor, sex and magic to keep anyone reading into the wee hours. The ending in the last book (‘The Bearskin Rug’) was a bit of a surprise. If you like funny romantic fantasy, you’ll love this series.
I sat down with Jennifer to discuss her new book, and to get some of her views on magic, and sex demons.
See also:
Trash Sex Magic review by Wes Unruh
[display_podcast]
(via OVO)
See also: Snake Vs. Baby
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