Legislation against selling, making, hiring or importing samurai swords in England and Wales has come into force.
Those breaking the law face six months in jail and a ?5,000 fine. Carrying a sword in public is already illegal.
Exemptions will cover swords which are used for re-enactments or antique weapons kept on display by collectors.
CategoryUncategorized
Jason Louv writes:
$ it would take to provide basic education for everybody in the world: $6 billion
Water and sanitation for all: $9 billion
Reproductive health for all women: $12 billion
Basic health and nutrition for all: $13 billion
Total (Education, water, sanitation, reproductive health, food and health for all): $40 billion
Amount that the United States spends on the “New Age” marketplace alone: $44 billion
Update: Did some quick fact checking and it appears the above numbers are from 1998 and pertain only to developing countries, not the whole world. See the comments for more info.
“I am deep in the Amazon rainforest, anxiously losing my mind as the world begins to disintegrate. Around me, all sense of distance is wrapping itself up like spatial origami, slowly shrinking until an entire dimension has disappeared. A moment ago, I was surrounded by 200 people dressed in white and singing like angels, but now they occupy the same space as me… if that makes any sense.
Wherever I look, that is where I am. I can see everything from every angle, all at the same time. In fact, I feel I am everywhere. Outside, in the forest, the thrum of frogs and cicadas drowns out the sound of shrieking monkeys. Below me, the floor is shimmering, vanishing in waves like a spent mirage. Behind, I feel a cold vibration on my neck and sense a growling malevolence. I turn and see a red door, bulging at the hinges. Overcome with dread, I push hard to keep it closed, and all the while I feel a horrible nausea.
When will this end, I am thinking. And, with sweat running down my forehead, how can I survive it? Welcome to the Church of Santo Daime, one of the fastest growing religions in the world. Its mixture of Christianity, South American shamanism and African animism is proving irresistible to thousands of new believers across the globe. But it is its central sacrament, ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogenic brew made from rainforest plants – a brew that I have just drunk – that makes the Church so appealing to some yet so controversial to others.”
(via the Times Online)
“For years, Russian scientists harvested the brains of exceptionally smart people, trying to locate the source of their intelligence. After V.I. Lenin died in 1924, for example, the Russians invited the great German neuroanatomist Oskar Vogt to try to locate the ‘source of genius’ in the leader of the Russian revolution. Vogt cut Lenin’s brain into more than 1,100 slices, but he found nothing exceptional except unusually large pyramidal cells.
The last brain that the Russians studied in this way was that of Andrei Sakharov, the nuclear physicist and human rights activist who died in 1989. From the dozens of brains they studied, the researchers made many observations about brain size, the density of neurons and the number of convolutions of the cortex, but their findings revealed next to nothing about human intelligence.
Today, scientists around the world continue to search for the physiological basis of human intelligence, but they also focus on genetic variation, which appears to determine about half of a brain’s cognitive ability on average, as measured by standard IQ tests. And by using modern scanning techniques, they are gaining much more detailed insights into the structure and function of the brain than the Russians could achieve through dissection.”
(via The Dana Foundation)
Having spent most of my developing years taking care of sick family members, I feel very strongly about people having a choice in their death. There is nothing more humbling than watching those you love, once vital, productive members of society, deteriorate before your eyes. Those with a terminal illness, who have tried everything and have lost any possibility of maintaining their quality of life, ought to have a right to end their suffering. If we can have compassion for suffering animals and put them out of their misery, why can’t a human being who has lived their life through choice, have that option available to them?
“A French woman, Chantal Sebire with a disfiguring and painful terminal illness recently failed in her appeal for medical assistance to help her to die. Before her death Chantal Sebire was quoted as saying ‘We wouldn’t let an animal go through what I have had to endure’. Euthanasia for animals is commonplace, and is widely accepted as a morally acceptable response to animals whose suffering is unable to be relieved. But, with the exception of a few places such as the Netherlands, Belgium and the US state of Oregon, euthanasia for humans is legally prohibited.
But is it speciesist to make a distinction between animal and human euthanasia? In the case of terminally ill humans who request medical assistance in dying we may have more reasons to permit euthanasia than in the case of animals. If the arguments against euthanasia are so forceful that it should not be permitted even in tragic cases like that of Chantal Sebire should animal euthanasia be prohibited?”
(via Practical Ethics)
“This is a transcript of a small discussion with botanist-poet Dale Pendell, a long-time practitioner of Zen Buddhism and the occult, a student of the legendary intellectual Norman O. Brown, and-as they say-a graduate of Dr. Hofmann. It took place at the World Psychedelic Forum in Basel, Switzerland, on 23rd March 2008 (read my review). A small group of people who’d just attended Dale’s talk on Zen and psychedelics gathered round a table in the busy foyer, and Dale created a focused bubble of attentiveness with his measured, colourful discourse.
[Question about who taught DP about the occult in Los Angeles.]
Dale Pendell: His name’s not really important. He kind of hid his traces, because he insisted on being without credentials. Anytime I would look for credentials, like, ‘Where did you get your Zen training, Carl?’ ‘Why do you ask? Is that gonna make you believe something I say?’ So he would never tell me. But he had a personal teacher. What he taught was the importance of a personal teacher. His personal teacher was a woman named Mary. And that’s as far back as I know the transmission. But I get a sense of high knowledge being passed on that way: through personal relationships, with some occult structure overt.
I don’t know, he was able to walk in and out of Zen temples like he belonged there. He was an artist, and sat with Suzuki, Roshi in San Francisco, and they palled around like old friends. When Trungpa came to town, they palled around like old friends-he was his driver for a while. Every place he went, he liberated people; he gave people permission. He constantly violated expected behaviour, and laughed a lot. I still consider him my true teacher. I would like to be able to give people permission the way he did.
So, I can’t speak for any occult tradition. I just know there are transmissions of higher knowledge.”
(via Dreamflesh)
This weekend only there will be a special “early bird” ticket price of $40 for the whole weekend. Tickets will go on sale at 6:00 am on Friday April 12th 11th and will remain $40 dollars until the stroke of Midnight on Sunday the 13th. After the 13th, the presale price will be $50.
(update: dates corrected)
ESOZONE: the other tomorrow
October 10-12
Watershed Building
5040 SE Milwaukie Ave
Portland, OR
Confirmed speakers:
Dennis McKenna, ethnopharmacologist and co-author of Invisible Landscape and Psilocybin – Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide
Antero Alli, author of Angel Tech, director of the performance art group Paratheatrical Research, and director of films such as The Invisible Forest
Paul Laffoley, acclaimed visionary artist
Rex Church, surrealist/occult artist and Magister Templi of the Church of Satan
Lupa, author of A Field Guide to Otherkin and Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone, and co-author Kink Magic
Taylor Ellwood, author of Multimedia Magic, Inner Alchemy, and co-author of Kink Magic
Alex Ansery, host of the television show Outside the Box
Thirtyseven, MC also known as Humpasaur Jones, member of the hip hop outfits Wombaticus Rex and the Algorhythms and editor of Brainsturbator
Trevor Blake, editor of OVO Magazine
Bianca Lee, aka Nysidra, editor of biancalee.com
Bill Whitcomb, author of Magician’s Reflection and the Magician’s Companion
Edward Wilson, co-author of the Art of Memetics
More TBA!
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