“But I don’t want to cross the road!”

There’s something about this photograph which speaks to the folly at the heart of paganism.

It might be the full-arm Gummi gloves and the bondage harnesses. Chair... or sling?

Tits.

I’ve read some nice rants on the subject of Unverified Personal Gnosis lately so I thought I would have a bit of a gnash and a foam myself.

UPG is intended to be a move away from what is seen to be woo-woo. The idea is to shear what would at one time have been called prophecy and revelation away from personal status. What actually happens is that the corpus of heathenry, for example, becomes nothing more than a scrapbook of factoids rather than any coherent and directional doctrine. There aren’t any prophets in heathenry, no small cohort of people who are picked on by gods, just bloggers. Heathens have become god-twitchers, and they get together for a jar and jaw about their latest piece of god-spotting. UPG is portrayed as a technical, evidence-based process but it’s really only a distillation of the Gnower’s knowledge and imagination. What fits is what matters. Methods are more important than message, and methods boil down to a bic and an A4 tablet.

It’s the infection of animism, in which everything is regarded as people and all people are regarded as equal. If everyone is equal then nobody’s message is special or has any legitimate imperative. Which brings me nicely to those who do not regard themselves as equal, and the identification of those who aren’t. If I were asked whose example and guidance it is best to avoid then I would say anyone with a title such as seidkona or druid, or anyone who uses adjectives in self-reference. Such people are hopelessly romantic. It’s all about them and any message they utter serves their ego and their agenda. Who aren’t equal? Who has a valuable message? Those with questions. No claim of magical skill or a seer’s eye from these but a real stuff to give about the life they lead which they love.

There are some people who have always regarded UPG as the aspirational religionist's equivalent of “My cat told me it prefers Whiskas”, that is, when it’s not “Look at me everybody! I‘m a seidkona and a PhD! Wheee!”. They’re really cynical types, though, as a rule, and don’t get invited to Christenings. Anyway, next time some one tells you that they’re spotted the Greater-Bearded Trickster, or the Bad-Tempered Ginger Hammer, step back for a moment and consider the possibility that you may be listening to the song of a Big-Headed Tit.

It’s not modern myth…

It’s fanfic. Derivative, turgid fanfic at that. What next; The Manga Mabinogion?

Do War Gods do Crosswords? (Christmas Colouring-In Competition!)

I haven’t a clue about that, but here's another one; what need does a 21st Century A.D. social network have for a war god?

Looks like Christopher Biggins in Panto. Scarey. Anyway, post your solutions in the comments section and the first n winners will receive a sarcastic quip. Attach a coloured-in copy of Brython's war god and you'll receive two. Those coloured only red will be disqualified for their lack of creative flair. Have fun!

Mothers’ Night at the BBC.

Is that Starhawk Month out of the way for another year, then? Yes? Excellent. You can ditch the stubble now, girls.

Cranial Liposuction.

From the aptly titled “Brain Drain” :

“When the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids, they were built on exact 3,4, 5 triangles, to exact mathematical specifications which if we tried to copy with today's technology it would be an almost impossible task.

The likes of astrology that appear to connect with certain sites elsewhere as well, Newgrange comes to mind, and the sheer competence to build both Avebury and Stonehenge with the transportation of stones sometimes over hundreds of miles.

Astrology and mathematics are closely linked, but there appears to be some point in history where the world wide evidence of it being used to any degree, just seems to stop dead.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbreligion/F2213239?thread=7082315

To be fair to the BBC bods they jump all over the poster, but then proceed to sagely head around other oddballs, such as:

“it's clear that reading and writing and mathematics and engineering were going full bore long before the Fertile Crescent, and the alleged beginnings of modern cutlure”

“any similarity between New World pyrmaid construction and Egyptian is not surprising, whether it was because of a common knowledge base before these peoples separated, or because of genetic similarity which expressed itself similarly on both sides of the pond. Either that or some intrepid sailors crossed the Atlantic in reed boats. My money is on the former.”

“The Tattoos on Ozti weren't accupuncture as we understand it. They were more like markers that showed the "spirits/ancestors" the location of pain/injury in order from them to work on those locations.”

While all about them others continued playing keepy-up with their own heads Dancing Crow regained theirs after a brief flirtation with the “parallel evolution” of acupuncture (it's placebo, in case anyone thought it was magic) and referenced the very sensible Snowball school:

“I would suggest that we needed to reach critical mass before the wider human culture expanded as it did”

It’s deeply non-sensational compared with neo-Atlantean accounts of human cultural evolution, and thereby deeply unsatisfying to many - the special effects are nowhere near as good as 10,000 B.C., for example - but until some dirt-digger finds the tomb of King Conan of Aquilonia it’s where the smart money is investing. In the meantime I’m not keeping Howard on my history shelf. I will watch continue to repeats of the Stargate franchise. Amanda and Claudia would miss me.

Meanwhile, back at the Bird-Brains Trust…

“The other major attitude I will call the Animist perspective. In this the body and the spirit are felt to be one, they are both forms of energy and there is no division between the two, they are both intrinsic to the person and indivisible.”

http://www.pebble.uk.net/organdonation.html