Eating a vulture won’t clear a bad case of syphilis nor will a drink made of rotting snakes treat leprosy, but these and other bogus medical treatments spread precisely because they don’t work. That’s the counterintuitive finding of a mathematical model of medical quackery.
Ineffective treatments don’t cure an illness, so sufferers demonstrate them to more people than those who recovery quickly after taking real medicines.
“The assumption is that when people pick up treatments to try, they’re basically observing other people,” says Mark Tanaka, a mathematical biologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who led the study. “People don’t necessarily know that what somebody is trying is going to work.” [...]
Under a wide range of conditions, quack treatments garnered more converts than proven hypothetical medicines that offer quicker recovery, Tanaka found. “The very fact that they don’t work mean that people that use them stay sick longer” and demonstrate a treatment to more people, he says.
So, those were the agendas that we were following then. We thought it would be a great idea if comics could be recognized as the wonderful medium that we secretly knew them to be. And when I say “we,” I’m talking about the 50 actual people who turned up at those early conventions, which was pretty much the sum total of everybody in this country who’d ever heard of American comics. But back then our agenda was this progressive notion that, wouldn’t it be terrific if people were to get involved with comics who could make them more adult, more grown up, to show the kind of themes they were capable of handling? So this was the agenda that, 20 years later, I was still following toward the end of my first DC run. [...]
When I was working upon the ABC books, I wanted to show different ways that mainstream comics could viably have gone, that they didn’t have to follow Watchmen and the other 1980s books down this relentlessly dark route. It was never my intention to start a trend for darkness. I’m not a particularly dark individual. I have my moments, it’s true, but I do have a sense of humor. With the ABC books I was trying to do comics that would have perhaps appealed to an intelligent 13-year-old, such as I’d been, and would still satisfy the contemporary readership of 40-year-old men who probably should know better. But I wanted to sort of do comics that would be accessible to a much wider range of people, and would still be intelligent even if they were primarily children’s adventure stories, such as the Tom Strong books.
Since it will no longer be a focus here (though I’m sure it will crop up from time to time), here are some blogs and forums dedicated to or with significant emphasis on, the occult:
In this first episode of a three part series, Nick Pell of Black Sun Gazette and Grind House Land infamy turns the tables on Joseph Matheny and interviews him on his own show. They talk about 4p2, The Process Church of the Final Judegment, the John Titor Project is touched upon as well as the sad state of the LHP mileu today. Part 2 to follow in 2 weeks and part 3, 2 weeks later.
A new study from Northwestern University offers precise electrophysiological evidence that such decisions may sometimes not be guesswork after all.
The research utilizes the latest brain-reading technology to point to the surprising accuracy of memories that can’t be consciously accessed.
During a special recognition test, guesses turned out to be as accurate or more accurate than when study participants thought they consciously remembered.
“We may actually know more than we think we know in everyday situations, too,” said Ken Paller, professor of psychology at Northwestern. “Unconscious memory may come into play, for example, in recognizing the face of a perpetrator of a crime or the correct answer on a test. Or the choice from a horde of consumer products may be driven by memories that are quite alive on an unconscious level.”
The study links lucky guesses to valid memories and suggests that people need to be more receptive to multiple types of knowledge, Paller said.
Llewellyn has just published its first, to the best of my knowledge, book on chaos magic: Hands on Chaos Magic by Key 23 contributor Andrieh Vitimus. He took some time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for me.
One of the various projects of the Esalen Institute was the Physics Consciousness Research Group, founded to study time travel, ESP, consciousness after death, and other fringe subjects. Various people have made the claim that Physics Consciousness Research Group was the inspiration for the movie Ghostbusters. Jack Sarfatti, one of the founders of the Physics Consciousness Research Group, is a physicist and archetypal “mad scientist” - in fact, he claims to be the inspiration for both from Back to the Future and Egon Spangler from Ghostbusters.
The year I was born, in 1981, the US Government decided magick was real. Well, the “US Government” is of course an abstraction—specifically, Congressional Research Service was commissioned to do a report on psychic phenomena and offered the following conclusion:
“Recent experiments in remote viewing and other studies in parapsychology suggest that there exists an ‘interconnectiveness’ of the human mind with other minds and with matter. This interconnectiveness would appear to be functional in nature and amplified by intent and emotion.”
That sounds like a pretty accurate description of magick to me. Score one for the weirdos, right?
Of course, I don’t expect you to believe that. Ignore any claims that wouldn’t get made outside a college-level physics textbook. There is no need to believe in non-human or “extra-dimensional” intelligence, no need to believe in telekinesis, no need to believe in any of the claims made by the magick community. They are merely designing rituals to alter their perception and experiencing self-generated hallucinations.
The illusion of moving images is a puzzle that humans have cracked to great success, and by flashing sequential photographs at 24 frames per second or more, we get to watch movies—windows back in time. Humans have even learned to “fake” three-dimensional objects with holographic technology.
While you wait for the much delayed next episode of Technoccult TV, featuring Elijah Brubaker, you can read this Wizard interview with him:
I think a lot of the problems that Reich faced throughout his life are still very real threats to anyone with so-called “crazy” ideas and I hope examining those problems through the lens of the past will shed some light on the social ills of modern life.
My less grandiose and presumptuous answer is; Reich’s life combines some of my favorite topics and themes. Human sexuality, fringe science, Nazis, political oppression, there’s even some stuff about weather-control and aliens later on. A lot of that stuff is just plain fun to draw and riff on.
‘Project Bluebird: Fucking with Reality’, is a quarterly-release periodical commencing production in 2009. Project Bluebird concentrates primarily on the topics of Reality Hacking, Bio-Psionics, Neo-tantra and Modern Mysticism. Each issue of Project Bluebird features a full-color cover, with internal black and white artwork and text.
Submissions of Writing and Art are now being accepted for the first issue of Project Bluebird. Please submit all content using the Submissions Form. For more information about Project Bluebird, please contact us. Writing should be articles, narrative, poetic, or blends thereof. Other content may be accepted depending on the quality and type of submission.
Editorial Staff: Kara Rae Garland, Lillian Grace, Samm Hain, and Edward E. Wilson.
ATX0cculture is dedicated to providing a digital meat-mirror for Austin-Based practitioners of all forms of magick, reality bending, artistic evocation and similar subtle arts. We also meet up on the 3rd Wen. of each month at Spiderhouse, approx. 9 PM.
Clay tablets existed in ancient Mesopotamia. Specie, that is coinage, did not. This is an invention of the ancient peoples of Asia Minor and the Greek Islands. Here we see money gaining a more explicit religious and magickal quality. Gold was plentiful in this area, and is also a malleable metal easy to imprint with both words and images. When temple sacrifices of the local bull cults became so popular that not everyone could get a piece of bull, an ingenius method was reached to give every pilgrim a symbol of involvement in the ritual- the temple token. Rather than a piece of bull, pilgrims were given a small piece of gold with a bull impressed on one face. The two sided coin comes later with an image on one side and a caption on the other. Money becomes qualitatively more magickal with this step, uniting the image and the word into a talismatic object which has a value unrelated to its real value as commodity. It is no longer simply a magickal document recording debt and / or wealth. It is a magickal object whose value comes from belief. As Peter points out: All money is fiat money. Gold has no inherent value. It’s shiny, and makes cool jewelry and all that, but it is not what the anarcho-capitalist types will have you believe, a universal medium of exchange. Sure, it holds value over millenia (particlarly with regard to silver), but there is not reason to use gold more than say, diamonds or uranium or coal or any other commodity in limited supply. Quoth Mr. Wilson: “Money is proof that magick works, it is perhaps the only proof.”
A new site for occultnik fucktard mutant astral warriors.
The site is two-fold. Imageboard forums that are all out nonsense [for the most part], and a blogroll with carefully selected RSS feeds plugged into it.
We got IRC going on, and more plans for random bells and whistles down the line.
The blog can be viewed by itself at neopostnow.net, and it still needs some work. [Feeds are not set up at the moment.]
I wanted to release the site on the Solstice, so screw perfection, here it is. Enjoy.
Chaosneverdied.com
Better site explanation forthcoming.
More forums were planned, but I didn’t want to get too carried away this early in the game.
If you’re in NYC, don’t miss this. This is an exceedingly rare opportunity.
The Libertarian Book Club/Anarchist Forum presents…
Tuesday, December 16, at 7:00pm
PETER LAMBORN WILSON’s CHAOS DAY of 2008
THE MAGIC OF MONEY AND THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM
“The History of Money since Sumeria to its Apotheosis as Pure Imagination in the 21st Century”
Peter Lamborn Wilson on finance as a form of gnosticism, a long historical view of the current crisis, and the prospects for resistance and revolution in the 21st century.
The event will take place at The Living Theatre, 21 Clinton Street, Manhattan (just south of Houston St) (212-792-8050). Coming from uptown, take the F or V train to “2nd Avenue” (exit front of train on 1st Ave, walk east along Houston and turn right on Clinton) or coming from downtown, take the F, V, M or Z train to “Delancey - Essex” and walk east on Delancey three blocks and turn left on Clinton for 2 and a half blocks.
Everybody is welcome and invited to come and to have their say.
There is no set fee for the presentation, but a contribution to aid the LBC is suggested.
If you have questions, contact the Libertarian Book Club/Anarchist Forum, 212-475-7180 or e-mail: roberterler (at) erols.com
Peter Lamborn Wilson is an American political writer, essayist, and poet, known for first proposing the concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ), based on a historical review of pirate utopias. He sometimes writes under the name Hakim Bey.
Turns out Sleazey’s new project, Threshold HouseBoys Choir, just played in Boston.
Just walking along the street, I am constantly struck dumb by the beauty of a piece of rust on an old gate, or the purity of the sound of a blind beggar singing for his supper, or the chord made by three competing air-conditioners. I think that most people filter out those kind of things from their perception of life, by necessity — to avoid going mad from the overload. In doing so, they miss a whole mind-blowing, extraordinary world of joy.
All I have always tried to do is share my joy, that joy, with other people. Unfortunately, to see these things and not go mad myself, I have had to filter out different things, such as where I put my glasses, or what day it is, or whether I have spilled noodle-sauce on my trousers. ,-)
Obviously the Mellotron used tapes to reproduce the sound of real instruments, and backings, and the Fairlight was invented (it seems to me) to do the same thing, only digitally and with more tools for composition and manipulation. But I was using one of the first Apple IIs ever made on stage with TG, before the first Fairlight even left Australia, to reproduce all kinds of sounds and “music concret” – I never understood why these wonderful toys should only be used to put a string-player out of a job.
“Look what I can do with the sound of a Polaroid camera, or some teenagers first gasping ejaculation, or the sobbing confessions of a young murderer or mercenary, or the regular thump and hiss of a life-support machine!” I thought. How much more power and meaning do those sounds have, than a not very clear reproduction of a French horn playing a B flat? For me, it’s a no-brainer.
Today on The GSpot, Wes Unruh discusses R6XX - aka R6volutionary Xchange with artist Nemo Boko. Wes and Nemo veer out across a wide expanse of topics, from the evolutionary tools that Nemo has stocked his online store with to his captivating live performances of ambidextrous painting, while along the way discussing the myriad influences that inform his work. Stay tuned after the interview for an assemblage of the piece “You Are God, Guard Your Mind” by elements of M^2.D
While I still consider myself an anarchist, over the years I’ve somewhat narrowed (or perhaps broadened) it to Reborn-Yet-Again,Taoist Dirt-Pagan, bioregionalista anarchy. I think I’ve also come to understand that freedom resides in being equal to your needs, self-determinism requires self-reliance, and that the “self” is the worst idea of Western Civilization (or at least doesn’t excite my imagination as much as the pantheist notion of an extended, constellated identity, as suggested by genetics, ecology, and a kiss. (Besides, for a pantheist, the Messiah comes every day.)) Clever critters that we humans are, we’ve invented weapons of mass destruction to protect ourselves against mass destruction, and I don’t want anyone to have the power to unleash such powers; thus, I favor radical decentralization of power, with bioregions replacing nation-states. I’m the first and loudest to praise the vision expressed in our constitution, but I think America has become too large and complex to be governed by less than a thousand people, with one of them-the president-having inordinate power. I’d rather see the United States evolve into the United Bioregions, but united only on the basis of mutual aid and dispute resolution. I have this recurring fantasy that America realizes it’s the dominant power on earth and does something that would take boldness, imagination, and soul-announce it is unilaterally disarming its weapons of mass destruction, even its weapons of medium destruction, and limiting weapons to those for personal defense (handguns, long guns, and bazookas-just because I always wanted one).
Alejandro Jodorowsky talks about his fascination with the Tarot and how he helped recreate what the Tarot of Marseilles looked like 1400 years ago. He also goes into what the different Tarot cards mean. This video is an extra from the 2007 restored DVD of The Holy Mountain (1973 film).
By summary of way, this article intends to reframe your understanding of literacy before condensing the bulk of the content presented across the body of the document down to four simple steps for deeper exploration. First off, you’ll note the pretentious title. Before we get started, let me ask you to click this link. Don’t worry, it’ll open in an entirely new window, and you won’t lose your place here. I asked you to click the link to distract you from the pretentious title, but that title is likely what lead you to read at least the first three sentences in this paragraph. What does this mean?
An alternative but not necessarily parallel universe is forming in Southeast Portland this weekend.
They call “Esozone: the other tomorrow” a festival, but don’t expect corn dogs and Ferris wheels. Fringe thinkers, visionary artists and occult musicians from around the world will gather at Watershed, a rambling, ramshackle building near Sellwood for a weekend of … well … the inexplicable.
Noah Mickens, who will take part in the festivities, defines it this way: “Esozone is an exhibition of scientists, philosophers, magicians and performance artists, gathered together by a subculture of young radicals who don’t recognize the distinction between the four.”
Of course, you still may be a little fuzzy about exactly what goes on. You’re not alone.
he Battle for Art is the struggle against complacency, stagnancy, and laziness. It is the battle against false pretense and weakness in art. Despite all my swaggering hyperbole, this has nothing to do with bonehead machismo and it doesn’t necessarily refer to “hard” or “extreme” imagery. Beautiful and subtle art can be very powerful and more subversive than many self-proclaimed “brutal” artists. I also want to be clear that I don’t necessarily have a problem with commercial art. In fact, many of my own influences from childhood came directly from commercial “trash culture” debris. Everything from Count Chocula cereal boxes and KISS trading cards to album covers and Wacky Packages. Commercial book cover illustrators like James Bama and Frank Frazetta also made a big impact on me as a very young kid. I also really love all the old EC horror comic artists from the 50’s. Those EC covers were some of the most amazing mass produced stuff of the mid-20th century. The economical linework and stark composition just seemed to say so much. And those guys were cranking out stuff at a pace I could never imagine. They had a real solid work ethic and considered themselves blue-collar entertainers and not some precious “artistes”. I identify with that spirit very much. Those EC guys also had a sense of comradery that somehow embodies an important aspect of the best underground art. They posed for each other’s drawings, inked each other’s pencils, helped each other get jobs and generally promoted the development of each other’s individual styles and specialties. Today so many artists seem shallow and self-serving and competitive. And the lines between underground and mainstream commercial art have blurred more than ever. I guess it’s difficult these days to articulate precisely what makes great underground art and what makes wimp art. But you know it when you see it!
