Real-Life Weirdness

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

What's Captain Kirk?

Bold.Overconfident.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

What's Captain Kirk?

Canon has him only sleeping with two women with any certainty. One in which he had soap opera amnesia, and the other I think he married.
Really, he just dated a bit which was only risque in the 60s.
Do we need to give Taylor Swift lecherousness too?

[Anaraxes]

This one is less of a plot hook, than a scene straight out of a horror or supernatural show.

A Greyhound bus ride into New York City on Friday turned into a horror show for passengers suddenly swarmed by an invasion of cockroaches that forced the driver to pull over and evacuate the vehicle.

Cockroaches began emerging about 15 minutes after the bus departed from Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Friday morning, a Greyhound spokesman said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...92E13V20130315

[D10]

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

Not sure where you mean by "there", but this is a fascination of mine so I'll drop my two cents on it.

Neo-pagan is Wiccan and its offshoots, folks who are practicing a rebuilt version of religions, usually western European, that are basically lost to history. They'll have heavy hermetic influences because most can trace their actual roots back to the fraternal societies of the Victorian era or, at most, the early 19th-century Romantics. Don't tell them that though--most hate the idea that their religion isn't ancient and primitive.

As for Wicker Man, one could certainly argue that the Burning Man festival is an expression of loose neo-pagan ideas.

You get folks like me, Thelemites and our ilk, and we're remarkably close to LaVeyan Satanists. Also offshoots of the same movement but a bit less romantic, more fond of ritual and often with atheist leanings or sympathies.

Either one of the above (like myself) can include the Baron Samedi in our works, but our Baron and the one loved by the Santerians are somewhat different birds. I don't sacrifice animals or throw curses on people, for instance, and while I went through a phase I no longer worry about anyone else throwing curses on me. Atheist leanings.

Pagan, without the neo-, I would use to refer to things like Shinto or the animisms of Africa, Hawaii, the South Pacific, and others places where Christianity/Islam hasn't stomped the native religions out of existence. Polytheist/animist, not squeamish or naive like so many neos.

Pagans in general I find feel no need to proselytize and in fact can be quite private about their religions. The exception, and probably a big exception, is where that religion ties into national or ethnic identity. Then they still have no desire for converts, but they can be a lot more open about their gods.

YMMV. (Philosophy degree, and I specifically came to Japan to learn this stuff, so please forgive me if this is way TMI.)

Im curious, how do you view classic kardecist spiritism?

[tHEhERETIC]

Originally Posted by D10

Im curious, how do you view classic kardecist spiritism?

Sadly, this is the first I've heard of it, so I can't comment on the Kardecist particulars.

Spiritism/spiritualism in general, however...does consciousness persist after death? I think so. Forever? I'm not convinced of that, thus the idea of reincarnating and perfecting--well, it's a lovely thought but it doesn't ring true to me. Life is more fair than kind. Can you contact the spirits of deceased persons? Probably--however, a person in mourning is very susceptible to suggestion, and is strongly motivated to see positive contact, false or true. I'm more Houdini than Blavatsky here, and tend to see most mediums as fakes, albeit often self-deluded but compassionate and well-meaning fakes. I'm not ruling out the possibility of the real thing, but having done Tarot card reading I know the pressure to produce results, regardless of the whims of spirits.

Spirits I consider possible, but far more rare than people like to believe.

[D10]

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

Sadly, this is the first I've heard of it, so I can't comment on the Kardecist particulars.

Spiritism/spiritualism in general, however...does consciousness persist after death? I think so. Forever? I'm not convinced of that, thus the idea of reincarnating and perfecting--well, it's a lovely thought but it doesn't ring true to me. Life is more fair than kind. Can you contact the spirits of deceased persons? Probably--however, a person in mourning is very susceptible to suggestion, and is strongly motivated to see positive contact, false or true. I'm more Houdini than Blavatsky here, and tend to see most mediums as fakes, albeit often self-deluded but compassionate and well-meaning fakes. I'm not ruling out the possibility of the real thing, but having done Tarot card reading I know the pressure to produce results, regardless of the whims of spirits.

Spirits I consider possible, but far more rare than people like to believe.

Funny you mentioning that, in a discussion about mediums with an atheist friend recently I said that it seems like all mediunic process is half-squizofrenic, how can you hear an echo on your mind without hearing yourself as well, you know ? =P

But that said, its what I believe in, and I too believe that the universe is more fair than anything, I just have a different deffinition of what is fair.

For instance, in this belief, it is possible for a soul to die, or to eventually ascend so much you exist in a gestalt like conciousness barely aware of your individuality, either way the central tenet is that you become what you think, and that our contiousness hold the power to shape our destiny.

Surely theres many things considered prim and proper, but overall its an amazing worldview, that views all supernatural phenomenae as yet to be explained natural processes, and claims miracles dont exist, everything is an effect of the natural laws of the universe, we just dont have a good grasp of them yet.

[Flyndaran]

Atheists don't believe in gods, only. Many still believe in other supernatural phenomena like ghosts, goblins, magic, demons, homeopathy, acupuncture, etc.
The universe is neither fair nor unfair. It simply is.

[D10]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Atheists don't believe in gods, only. Many still believe in other supernatural phenomena like ghosts, goblins, magic, demons, homeopathy, acupuncture, etc.
The universe is neither fair nor unfair. It simply is.

That worldview simply doesnt work for me.

I believe theres a method to the madness

[Anaraxes]

Could you please split the discussion of religions into its own thread?

[Anaraxes]

The Sonora Aero Club is an organization that before the American Civil War, 1850-1858, was flying odd dirigibles and balloons with extraordinary lifting power provided by an invention of one of their members, "NB gas". A small amount of this lifting gas could lift almost any weight. Some suggest the gas must thus have had anti-gravitic properties. And some see in the images suggestions of the forms of later UFOs.

We know about this group thanks to the discovery in a junkyard of some books by the artist Charles Dellschau. Among the images of airships are coded pages that tell the story of the Club, and the members flying their Aeros, as the airships were called.

When decoded, the pages also reveal that the Club was an arm of a secret society known only as NYMZA, which had strict rules about revealing its secrets -- one reason that Dellschau coded the text in his diaries and drafts. He relates the story of one Aero Club member, Jacob Mischer, whose craft was known as the Aero Flying Gander, and who desired to make a profit from his invention. Revelation of the secrets of NB gas ran counter to the desires of NYMZA, and Jacob died in a flying accident -- certainly very convenient for the secret society. In fact, other than Dellschau's books discovered in the 1960s, there is very little remaining evidence of the Sonora Aero Club's existence, other than a few gravestones in California. NYMZA was quite thorough in covering their tracks.