Have you ever noticed the seemingly huge divide between what people refer to as “primitive” and “advanced” religious and magical traditions? Most of the ones we call primitive today belong to people who aren’t white, first of all. Secondly, these traditions seem to be concerned with very practical matters: praying or casting spells that help […]

From New Scientist:
The new study by US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as “emotion-induced blindness”. […]
“We observed that people failed to detect visual images […]

I just happened across something rather creepy. It seems that this is an English translation of a prayer said at orphanages in Third Reich Germany:
Führer, my Führer, given to me by God, protect me and sustain my life for a long time
you have rescued Germany out of its deepest misery, to you I owe my […]

Yesterday I got the following highly relevant but disappointingly scant fortune cookie:
It matters not what road we take but rather what we become on the journey.
That’s all well and good, but it would be a lot easier if I just knew what road to take. I wonder if there is a word for “divination by […]

Jeremy Puma of Fantastic Planet today released a short book (73 page) of essays on contemporary gnosticism. The book is called Running Towards the Bomb: Essays on Gnosticism and the End of Civilization and is available through Lulu.com. I highly recommend checking it out, and you can also go through and read the essays collected […]

SF Gate columnist Mark Morford sometimes has some good stuff (along with a measure of whininess). This week, he’s got a decent piece about modern do-it-yourself spirituality, entitled What’s On Your iGod? Allow me to cut to the chase and ruin the ending of the article for you:
Religion is supposed to be so goddamn empowering […]