In The News: In Sickness and In Wellness
A round-up of recent religion news. Continue Reading →
Tag: occult
In the News: Pulse, Pulpits, and Podiums
A round-up of recent religion news. Continue Reading → Continue Reading →
In the News: Paris, Witches, the CNN Apocalypse, and more!
A round-up of recent religion and media stories in the news. Continue Reading →
Review: Season of the Witch
Don Jolly reviews Peter Bebergal‘s new book, Season of the Witch. Continue Reading →
A Conversation with Shannon Taggart: Photographer of Séances, Spirits and Ectoplasm
Don Jolly profiles spirit photographer Shannon Taggart. Continue Reading →
Chapel Perilous: Notes From The New York Occult Revival
Don Jolly reports on New Yorkers attempting to revive and study the occult. Continue Reading →
In The News: A Muslim girl superhero, Navajo Mormons, Uighurs, Pat Robertson, and more!
A round-up of recent religion & media news. Continue Reading →
RAW Believer
Peter Bebergal on Robert Anton Wilson, from a post at BoingBoing:
So it is with great respect and admiration that I celebrate the life of Robert Anton Wilson during this memorial week by remembering that he was the great believing skeptic, someone for whom the collection and curating of all that is weird was his life’s work, who reminded us always to question everything, while recognizing that we should never stop exploring. I sure wish RAW was alive today, especially at a time when there is something like a real Occult Revival going on, from the psychedelic explorers who see 2012 as a great trans formative event, to the huge increase in the membership of organization like the O.T.O. and Freemasonry, and by extension a whole load of conspiracy theories. RAW warned against any idea, group, or person that claims knowledge of the “Real” Universe, echoing Umberto Eco who wrote in Foucault’s Pendulum we should be mindful of turning metaphysics in mechanics.
Good Islam=Clergy, Bad Islam=Crystals
Amy Levin: A controversial religious tradition in Iran you wouldn’t expect to hear about is brewing in the news: occultism–or at least some relative version of it. The narrative arguably begins in medias res, when one of Ayatollah Ali Khameni’s aides accused allies of president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of engaging in “occult practices.” The aide specifically targeted Ahmedinajad’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, who was blamed for “‘bewitching’ the president with magic spells, of having too much influence over him and of leading a “current of deviation” aimed at destroying the Islamic regime.”
As an effort to divert attention away from the accusations, the president launched an attack on occult practices and “nonconformist ideologies.” Continue Reading →
Photography and the Occult
03 October 2005 “There’s a lot of people,” she said, “dead people, who don’t want to go where they’re supposed to go, you know?” By Kate Hawley Theodor Prinz, “Ghost” Continue Reading →