It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, May 15, 2020
The Antidote to Wall Street? Cultural and Economic Mobilizations of Afro-Cuban Religions
When revolutionary Cuba's governmental cultural policy apparatus cast Afro-Cuban religions as " folklore, " certain religious forms, especially Santería, gained visibility in scholarly investigations, publications, documentary films, and state-sponsored cultural programming. Since the 1990s these discursive treatments of Santería have been mone-tized by the Cuban tourism industry and state-owned manufacturers and repackaged as merchandise that garners the attention and revenues of Cuban consumers and international visitors. This " ethno-business " produces a paradox: Afro-Cuban popular religions— long admired by the nation's intellectual and artistic avant-garde as subaltern cultural rebuttals of dominant Cuban bourgeois opinion and U.S. economic pressures alike—are now promoted and consumed in a manner that conforms to neoliberal logic. The Cuban state confronts the challenges of late socialism with the methods of late capitalism. To some extent, the commodification of Afro-Cuban religions acts to fortify and extend revolutionary cultural policy. Cuando el aparato de cultura política del gobierno revolucionario cubano calificó las religiones afro-cubanas como " folclore, " ciertas formas religiosas, sobre todo la Santería, adquirieron visibilidad en investigaciones académicas, publicaciones, documentales, y programación cultural estatal. Desde la década de los noventa estos tratos discursivos de la Santería han sido monetizados por la industria turística cubana y los fabricantes esta-tales y empaquetado como mercancía que atrae atención e ingresos de los consumidores cubanos y las visitas internacionales. Este " etno-negocio " provoca una paradoja: las reli-giones populares afro-cubanas —largamente admiradas igualmente por la vanguardia intelectual y artística de la nación como refutaciones culturales subalternas de la opinión burgués cubana dominante como por las presiones económicas estadounidenses— son ahora promocionadas y consumidas conforme a la lógica neoliberal. El estado cubano encara los desafíos del socialismo tardío con los métodos del capitalismo tardío. En cierta medida, la mercantilización de las religiones afro-cubanas actúan para fortalecer y extender la política cultural revolucionar
The "Baphomet" of Eliphas Lévi: Its Meaning and Historical Context
Although the Baphomet drawn by Eliphas Lévi (i.e., Alphonse-Louis Constant, 1810–1875) is one of the most famous esoteric images worldwide, very little is known about its context of emergence. It is well established that it has to be seen as a symbolic representation of Lévi's magnetistic-magical concept of the Astral Light, but the historical background of this meaning remains largely obscure. This article demonstrates that a historical contextualization of the Baphomet leads to an understanding of its meaning that is significantly different from prevalent interpretations. It will firstly be shown that the formation of Lévi's historical narrative can only be comprehended in the light of his radical socialist writings from the 1840s. It will then be discussed which sources he used to elaborate and re-signify this narrative. Secondly, it will be investigated how Lévi developed his magical theory in the 1850s by focusing on the contexts of " spiritualistic magnetism, " Spiritism, and Catholicism. This analysis will show that the Baphomet should be seen as more than a symbolization of Lévi's magical theory. It is the embodiment of a politically connoted tradition of " true religion " which would realize a synthesis of religion, science, and politics.
Occultist Identity Formations Between Theosophy and Socialism in Fin-de-Siècle France
Fin-de-siècle occultism is usually regarded within the context of an “occult revival” that implies the modernization of an older esoteric tradition. However, this notion is rooted in esoteric identificatory discourses at the end of the nineteenth century. At that time, French esotericists polemically distanced themselves from the “Eastern” esotericism of the Theosophical Society by constructing an ésotérisme occidental. The article will show that this separation of “East” and “West” only occurred after the T.S. had decisively stimulated the emergence of “occultist” identities. Consequently, it has to be seen as a “nationalist” reaction to a global phenomenon. Secondly, another major aspect of occultist identity formations will be highlighted: socialism. It will be shown that fin-de-siècle occultists were deeply involved with socialist theories in the July Monarchy vein but ambiguously distanced themselves from contemporary “materialist” socialisms. An analysis of this context will further help to understand the construction of an esoteric tradition.
Socialism and Secularization in 19th-Century France
It is often assumed that the history of 19th-century France was determined by a struggle between anti-religious progressive reformers and Catholic reactionaries, culminating in laïcité. In this process, the role of socialism as a secular force is usually taken for granted. This article will argue that a more complex approach to socialism can contribute to a better understanding of secularization and the emergence of “modern” forms of religion. Firstly, it will be discussed that pre-1848 social reformers were highly religious, despite their depiction in historical narratives influenced by Marxism. Secondly, it will be shown that socialist ideas continued, after 1848, in new religious movements. This will be demonstrated on the basis of the intellectual development of the socialist Alphonse-Louis Constant who, under his pen-name Eliphas Lévi, is regarded as the founder of occultism. An analysis of his writings will help to illuminate the ambiguous relationship between socialism and secularization.
The Scythe and the Pentagram: Santa Muerte from Folk Catholicism to Occultism
Santa Muerte is establishing a presence among practitioners of contemporary occultism in Europe and North America. The occult milieu is highly different from the Mexican cult of Santa Muerte, having a strong heritage of secrecy and tradition as social capital and being mostly middle-class in orientation. Nonetheless, this Catholic folk saint with a mostly pragmatic, popular, and grassroots cult is becoming increasingly popular among occultists. Based on a survey of three recent books on Santa Muerte geared towards an Anglophone, occult audience, it is therefore the aim of this article to understand how and why the Skeleton Saint is attracting adherents in the occult milieu, by analyzing the underlying causes of this growing trend, as well as the conditions shaping it. It is the overall argument of this article that the beginning reception of Santa Muerte in occultism is a result of perceived needs and demands specific to the occult milieu rather than characteristics inherent in the symbol itself, and that an analysis of the ways in which she is spreading outside of her original sociocultural context must be guided by an understanding of the novel one she is integrated in.
The New Age of Russia Occult and Esoteric Dimensions edited by Birgit Menzel,Michael Hagemeister andBernice Glatzer Rosenthal
Birgit Menze I Prerevolutionary Roots and Early Soviet Manifestations The Occult and Popular Entertainment in Late Imperial Russia Julia Mannherz 29 The History of Esotericism in Soviet Russia in the 1920s–1930s Konstantin Burmistrov 52
The Occultist Aleksandr Barchenko and the Soviet Secret Police(1923–1938) Oleg Shishkin 81
From Synarchy to Shambhala: The Role of Political Occultismand Social Messianism in the Activities of Nicholas Roerich Markus Osterrieder 101
Konstantin Tsiolkovskii and the Occult Roots of Soviet Space Travel Michael Hagemeister 135 II Manifestations in the Soviet Period (1930–1985) Occult and Esoteric Movements in Russia from the 1960s to the 1980s Birgit Menzel 151
Away from the Globe. Occultism, Esotericism and Literature in Russiaduring the 1960s–1980s Leonid Heller 186
Guests from Outer Space. Occult Aspects of Soviet Science Fiction Matthias Schwartz 211
Totalitarian Utopia, the Occult, and Technological Modernity in Russia:The Intellectual Experience of Cosmism Marlène Laruelle 238
III The Occult Revival in Late and Post Soviet Russia(1985 to the Present) Occult and Esoteric Doctrines after the Collapse of Communism Demyan Belyaev 259 Occult Dissident Culture: The Case of Aleksandr Dugin Mark Sedgwick 273
The Rodnoverie Movement: The Search for Pre-Christian Ancestry and the Occult Marlène Laruelle 293 Through an Occult Prism: The Bolshevik Revolution in Three Post-Soviet Novels Marina Aptekman 311 Shamanism in the Russian Intelligentsia (Post-Soviet Space and Time) Natalia Zhukovskaia 328
Competing Legacies, Competing Visions of Russia:The Roerich Movement(s) in Post-Soviet Russia John McCannon 348
On the Way from Border Conflicts: Transpersonal Psychology in Russia Boris Falikov 370 IV Comparative Aspects, Continuity and Change Occultism as a Response to a Spiritual Crisis Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal 390
On Reading Russian Mystical Literature Upside-Down Jeffrey J. Kripal 421 Select Bibliography Michael Hagemeister 432 About the Contributors
What I call ‘archaeological racism’ is the misuse of archaeology for socially and politically motivated ends. At its core is Diffusionism, the belief that a blond-haired, blue-eyed dynastic race migrated around the world in the prehistoric past to civilize the dark skinned peoples. It held that indigenous peoples invented nothing before the coming of the ‘Great White Race’. Diffusionism disenfranchizes indigenous peoples from their past. When a people have no history, they have no past. When they have no past they have no claims to their land, nor the prehistoric remains upon that land.
Archaeological Racism: Hans Hörbiger, Arthur Posnansky, Edmund Kiss and the Ahnenerbe Expedition to Tiwanaku, Bolivia
Pseudo-Archaeology as Archaeological Racism 1 The history of science has been written as a Progressivist account in which science establishes the truth, debunking theories mired in outmoded thinking, not blinkered by social prejudice and a priori assumptions. This is far from the truth, as shown too well by Peter J. Riggs' Whys & Ways of Science (1992), Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch's The Golem (1993), and Lewis Pyenson and Susan Sheets-Pyenson in Servants of Nature (1999). Theories are often accepted by reason of the force of personalities and international politics rather than by logic and evidence alone. Pseudo-archaeology is a set of ideas put forward as scientific, while often lacking logic and proof, the scientific stringent analysis of data and the integrity that comes from empirical testing and observation before they accept new ideas or paradigms. Mainstream historians and scientists call these pseudo-scientific views of dissent 'crackpot', a term derived from old Viking kraka meaning 'crow' and medieval English potte, meaning a 'hollow'. This sarcasm conjures up an image of dissenters huddled together like crows, uttering senseless squawks. Stephen Williams calls this genre 'fantastic archaeology', rather than the more pejorative term 'pseudo-archaeology', because 'pseudo' expresses the dominance of a patronizing academia that insists on it own interpretation of the past. Martin Gardener in Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science (1957) found that many pseudo-scientists and crank historians worked in isolation, and claim that they are forced to do so because of the prejudice of mainstream science. 2 Pseudo-scientists are not interested in empirical methods, but allow the facts to speak for themselves. The writer of crank histories has usually read voluminous material in a discipline in which they are not trained, giving masses of detail, assuming that quantity of facts by itself establishes proof, while ignoring the logic of their arguments. Aaron Elkins writes that there is an 'amazing capacity of even the most learned experts to turn into gullible chumps if they want to believe something.' 3 Bergan Evan writes in his The Natural History of Nonsense that: Fallacy is always the product of certain processes in popular thinking: of arguing from negatives and analogies, of making false generalizations, or worshipping coincidence, of taking rhetoric for fact
Cats with no symptoms spread virus to other cats in lab test
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE May 13, 2020 In this Friday, May 8, 2020 file photo, the owner of a cat cafe checks the temperature of one of her cats in Bangkok, Thailand. According to a study published on Wednesday, May 13, 2020, cats can spread the new coronavirus to each other without any of them ever having any symptoms. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Cats can spread the new coronavirus to other cats without any of them ever having symptoms, a lab experiment suggests.
Scientists who led the work, reported on Wednesday, say it shows the need for more research into whether the virus can spread from people to cats to people again.
Health experts have downplayed that possibility. The American Veterinary Medical Association said in a new statement that just because an animal can be deliberately infected in a lab “does not mean that it will easily be infected with that same virus under natural conditions.”
Anyone concerned about that risk should use “common sense hygiene,” said virus expert Peter Halfmann. Don’t kiss your pets and keep surfaces clean to cut the chances of picking up any virus an animal might shed, he said.
He and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine led the lab experiment and published results Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Federal grants paid for the work.
Researchers took coronavirus from a human patient and infected three cats with it. Each cat then was housed with another cat that was free of infection. Within five days, coronavirus was found in all three of the newly exposed animals.
None of the six cats ever showed any symptoms.
“There was no sneezing, no coughing, they never had a high body temperature or lost any weight,” Halfmann said. “If a pet owner looked at them ... they wouldn’t have noticed anything.”
Last month, two domestic cats in different parts of New York state tested positive for the coronavirus after mild respiratory illnesses. They were thought to have picked it up from people in their homes or neighborhoods.
Some tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo also have tested positive for the virus, as have a small number of other animals around the world.
Those cases and the new lab experiment show “there is a public health need to recognize and further investigate the potential chain of human-cat-human transmission,” the authors wrote.
Guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that based on the limited information available so far, the risk of pets spreading coronavirus to people “is considered to be low.”
The veterinary medicine group says “there is no evidence to suggest that animals, including pets, that may be incidentally infected by humans are playing a role in the spread of COVID-19.” It stressed that person-to-person transmission was driving the global pandemic.
However, the group noted that many diseases spread between pets and people, so hygiene is always important: Wash your hands before and after touching pets, and keep your pet and its food and water bowls clean.
Halfmann, whose two cats sleep near him, said the worry may be greater for animal shelters, where one infected animal could pass the virus to many others.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
ORISHA OBATALA DEFEATER OF PLAGUES, EPIDEMICS AND PANDEMICS
Obatalá (Obbatalá) is called the creator of earth and the sculptor of mankind because he was given this job by his father Olodumare, the supreme God in the Lucumí pantheon. According to a patakí (sacred story), Olodumare sent Obalatá to earth at the beginning of time, when there was nothing there but water. Olodumare gave his son a little bit of dirt and a chicken, and he told him to create the earth with it. Obatalá put the dirt in a pile in the middle of the sea and put the chicken on top of it. Soon, the chicken started scratching the dirt, spreading it around, and that's how the earth took shape. Once the continents had been formed, Olofi, another manifestation of the supreme God, told Obatalá to form human beings. Obatalá obeyed, adding the final touch by putting heads on the bodies of the humans he created. That's why Obatalá is said to be the owner of all heads.
Another patakí says that Obatalá saved humans from destruction. On one occasion, the Orichas were having a party and they forgot to invite Yemayá. She was so angry that she whipped up the oceans and flooded the world. Humans were terrified and didn't know what to do, so they ran to Obatalá and asked him to intervene. He ordered Yemayá to retreat, and she did out of respect to him. Obatalá, as the creator of earth, can be the only one to end it.
Obatalá is the owner of all things that are white, as well as the human head and all of its thoughts and dreams. He also owns silver and white metals, and the ceiba tree. Obatalá likes cotton, cocoa butter, cascarilla (powder made of egg shells), marble eggs, and snails. As tribute, he likes merengues, white rice, white custard, rice pudding, black eyed peas, fruits with a grainy texture like pomegranates, pears and custard apples, roasted ñamé (sweet potato) and malanga (taro root). Obatalá's food can never be salted. He's an Oricha who came directly to earth from heaven as the son of God, specifically Olodumare and Olofi. He was sent to earth to do good and govern as the king of the planet. Obatalá is calm, wise, understanding, and he loves peace and harmony. He demands proper behavior from his children and, out of respect, they obey him. No one can swear or blaspheme in front of Obatalá, and no one should appear naked in his presence. He hates alcohol and prohibits his children from drinking it. He always dresses in white, and his eleke (beaded necklace) is also white. He lives in a white porcelain sopera (soup tureen) kept on the altar of the home. Obatalá protects against blindness, paralysis and dementia.
Obatalá
Obatalá Takes Many Forms
Obatalá can be male or female
Orichas have different caminos or paths, meaning that the same Oricha can be manifested through different avatars.
Obatalá can be either male or female, depending on his camino.
For example, Obatalá Ocha Griñán, Obatalá Obu Moró, and Obatalá Ayáguna are male;
Obatalá Obanlá, Obatalá Ochanlá, and Obatalá Alaguema are female.
In all, Obatalá has 24 caminos.
Some Santeros will know Obatalá as mother and others will know him as father.
The sons and daughters of Obatalá are strong willed but they're peaceful, calm and trustworthy people.
They're a bit reserved, and don't complain much.
Because Obatalá is the owner of human heads, his children are usually very intelligent and fond of studying.
Obatalá likes order and cleanliness.
He likes to have a calm environment.
He's patient with his children and very loving toward them, but he must be respected and obeyed.
Some lineages say his day of the week is Thursday, and others say Sunday.
In nature, tall majestic mountains are his symbol.
Because Obatalá is considered the creator of human beings, everyone can ask him to intervene and help in times of need. Obatalá will intercede when other Orichas are turning a deaf ear.
Obbatala is the Orisha of highest level, because he was the first to descend to the earth materializing Olofi, therefore he gave life to others.The etymology of his name is "king of all saints".His main mandate is the good for all and he mediates among the Orishas since his word is law and he is respected as such.He represents all that is true, wise and fair.
He is the God of the houses.In addition, he controls head and educates based on our thinking. He is seen as a veteran in the snow-covered mountains.
Generally, his sons are albinos as well as the disabled people.
The half-light attracts him, that is why his altar should be far from light.
His syncretic symbol is the Virgen de la Merced.His color is white and the celebration date is on September 24.
His sons must be respectful because Obbatala does not accept lack of respect or insults.
Among the parts of the body that influences the most are : the flee flowing, the head and bones.The plants used are Alacrancillo, Almond, Cotton, Campana, Peregun andCanutillo.
The animals to sacrifice are the white hen, Guinea fowl, pigeon and goat. His devotes are not allowed to drink alcohol and eat crabs and navy bean.
The prayer to Obbatala is
"Gemu Obatala Obatala Birivigua Aligua Ligua Lano Yakuto Kabo Kabo Ke Dedere laboru Dedere la boshishe Doba lori meridilogun".
