Friday, June 13, 2008

In case You've ever wondered...

... or might need it, the 1999 revised Catholic church's Rite of Exorcism

I've always thought the whole heaven/hell god/devil thing was hokey at best, but I do think 'demonic' possession or encounters occurs. My take on it though is some people wallow in so much negativity and hatred that they anchor aspects of their personality or psyche here after they die, and that's what us live folk are encountering when things like this pops up.

Having spent a pretty decent amount of time at Bachlor's Grove cemetary I have had some experience with what may very well have been 'If you've convinced yourself, that's great' but sure as hell felt like something strange and possibly malevolent. Because of this I have had a pretty voracious interest in this type of thing for sometime. However, having spent the last 48 hrs. relaxing at my in-laws house in beautiful, lush Defiance, Ohio I've just caught my yearly share of cable tv and what I noticed was that shows about 'hauntings' and exorcisms must currently be all the rage. This may very well have to do with the fact that horror in general has been popularized as the 80's generation that grew up sneaking to watch 'Howling', 'Halloween' and 'Friday the 13th' have become the foundation of the consumer force. Icons like Ozzy Ozbourne do not freak them out, and the things their kids are exposed to do not have to be so squeaky clean. Thus, Mick Harris can jump from the popular HBO series Masters of Horror to NBC with a prime time series, horror movies gain a massive standing as viable box office lures for all ages and things like the stale and cheesy 'Ghost Hunters' and the just plain awful 'A Haunting' litter the daily line-ups of up and coming cable stations. This kind of pop culture exposure steals legitimacy left and right from investigation or conversation of the probably hundreds of possibly legitimate claims of paranormal happening throughout the country and the world. Ten years ago if you punched words or phrases like 'ghost hunters' or 'Haunted places' into a search engine you received links to some pretty voluminous articles. Now its all links to products and shows.

Looks like the spectacle will get us - even after we're dead.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

It's been a while but I'm back...

... shit, burning the fucking candle at both ends lately with all these blogs. It's cool though - more writing is a good thing. Didn't want to neglect my original too long though, so I'll start with some interesting things that have been occupying the interior of my melon of late...

It's funny. I go through these boughts where I pay next to no attention to the study of anything scientific or occult, then something triggers my interest again and I'm off - and once that happens there is no room for anything else. I'm still struggling through the last bit of Mervyn Peake's Gromenghast trilogy, 'Titus Alone' and I bought that new H.P. Lovecraft tome I mentioned on CHUD, and I started Stephen King's 'On Writing' for inspiration through my writer's block, but now all that is on hold as I've fallen 'Down the Rabbit Hole' again. What sparked it off this time is stress. Work for a major chain book retailer has been enough to make me a crotchety old bastard, and I've been manifesting some pretty freaky headaches, so I finally decided I needed to do something about it or develop a tumor. Breathing was the first thing to come to mind and on that path lay the inclintion to break out my old ass British Edition of Aleister Crowley's 'Magick in Theory and Practice' in search of the specifics on performing what is known as 'The Greater and Lesser Rituals of the Pentagram'. These are invoking/banishing rituals that consist largely of moving energy around through the body and into/out of the lungs, perfect for energizing and cleansing the residues stress leaves clinging in all kinds of areas in the body.

Once I open that book, the trigger is activated and I'm rifling through book after book, shunting down avenues of forgotten knowledge and looking for ways to take a little bit more charge of my short and tempetuous time on this beautiful old mudball of ours. The first place I usually land is the book that, after Grant Morrison's 'Invisibles', is Terence and Dennis McKenna's 'Invisible Landscape'. This is a book I have never been able to finish, as usually I only make it so far before I am forced to seek out accompanying texts on Quantum Physics and the like in order to be able to go back and understand what it was the McKennas were writing about.*

The funny thing is as I start reading and thinking about this stuff synchronicities and other strange things begin to arise in the rest of my life. For one I almost always start dreaming heavy again. Normally I do not remember my dreams, but once into this stuff again they become ludicriously dense and symbolic. This then goes hand in hand with daytime bouts of my special deja vu, where I begin to have episodes where I'm sure whatever it is I'm doing I've already experienced. Kind of like bending the time antenna backwards from the future.

Then there's things like how the same day I began reading the Crawley I discovered a friend of mine at work who I've known for almost two years now is well versed in the study of aspects such as the Masons and Templars, Rennes-le-Chateau** and the like. Never come up before and then out of the blue we have a hour-long conversation about everything from the Templars to Quantum Mechanics. This of course only served to fuel my own fire and its been escalating ever since.

Now this time I am going to try to stick with Invisible Landscape for the entire book. I'm hoping this in and of itself will act as a catalyst to drive up the frequency on novelty and synchronicity to points that will help me reach certain goals I have recently been lazy and angst-ridden about following.

We'll see.
...........

*This is where we get into what I call 'Wiki-vertigo' - When you're on wikipedia reading about one thing and before you know it you've followed so many of the links interlaced throughout the original article you no longer remember where you began.

**I'll definitely have to post a more in-depth on Rennes, but in the meantime you can go here:

http://www.toolband.com/index_frames.html

for a pretty good introduction (and yes, that is the band Tool's website - another reason why they're just so damn cool)